President Mary McAleese has warned the nation that we needed to brush up on our "coping skills".

As part of her contribution to the economic recovery, she explained, she had started walking around Aras an Uachtarain and turning off lights in order to save money.

"It's nip and tuck everywhere," she declared, "you can't be in a position of public leadership and be immune from what's going on."

Unfortunately, that's exactly what the President stands accused of today.

The flooding crisis has shown that while Mary Mac is a dab hand at making touchy feely speeches to uncritically adoring audiences, she is reluctant to do anything that would actually involve getting her feet wet.

At a time when the head of state could actually make a real difference to her people's morale, she has so far utterly failed to rise to the challenge.

Brian Cowen has taken some undeserved flak for his own recent tour of the areas under water.

While the Taoiseach may not be particularly good at showing empathy, at least showing his face on the ground gives him some claim to be in touch with people's suffering.

McAleese's entire contribution, on the other hand, has consisted of phoning the Cork city manager and letting him know that her thoughts were with those whose homes and livelihoods have been washed away. Frankly, it should be obvious that those people need more than thoughts right now.

A full-scale presidential visit might not have sopped the rain falling, but it would have lifted people's spirits an awful lot more than knocking a couple of euro off the Aras's ESB bill.

Just as the British royal family's finest hour came during the Blitz in London, the mark of an Irish president is how they choose to respond in moments of true national emergency.

It's not as if McAleese has had anything more pressing to do recently.

Her schedule for November has included attending a lavish housewarming party thrown by JP McManus at his new €100m, 40,000 sq ft mansion in Limerick.

She also announced that this year she'll be sending electronic Christmas cards rather than actual ones, not exactly a move likely to strike a chord with the struggling masses who have just lost their social welfare Christmas bonus.

President Obama, whose duties might be described as slightly more onerous than his Irish counterpart, makes €269,000 a year.

After recently making a big song and dance about taking a 10pc pay cut, President McAleese's salary is €292,957.

It's about time she put on her wellies and started earning it.

- Andrew Lynch