Coughlan and Treasury Secretary timothy Geithner, pictured here in Washington last month, will have lots more to discuss in the month ahead.

And there were indications from Dublin that the Irish government was prepared to battle what is clearly more bad news for the country's embattled economy by calling for help from sympathetic members of Congress.

"The economy has been dealt a serious blow with the U.S. government signaling it is to target €2.5 billion of Irish tax revenues in broad economic reforms," the Cork-published Irish Examiner reported.

At the White House, President Obama read a statement while accompanied by U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Internal Revenue Service Commissioner Douglas Shulman where he underlined the need to close loopholes on international tax havens.

In advance of the president's statement, the White House circulated background information naming Ireland, along with Bermuda and the Netherlands, as a country to be scrutinized for unfair tax benefits that drain the U.S. government's coffers.

"Nearly one-third of all foreign profits reported by U.S. corporations in 2003 came from just three small, low-tax countries: Bermuda, the Netherlands, and Ireland," noted the White House statement.

The White House said it would like to see 800 new IRS employees hired to assess how much the U.S. government is losing to tax havens through loopholes that allow companies to legally avoid paying billions in taxes, and to follow the trail of individuals who hide their money in foreign bank accounts without reporting interest earned for tax purposes.

"The way to strengthen the economy and ensure U.S. companies invest in jobs and continue research and development would be for Congress to enact these proposals," insisted Obama.

"The way to make sure that happens is not to reward our companies for moving jobs off our shores or transferring profits to overseas tax havens.

"Closing this single loophole will save taxpayers tens of billions of dollars, money that can be spent on reinvesting in America -- and it will restore fairness to our tax code by helping ensure that all our citizens and all our companies are paying what they should," he added.

Acting U.S. ambassador to Ireland, Robert Faucher, explained on RTE this week that all of the proposals would need to be approved by Congress and that could take some time.

In plain language, he said that as the law currently stands, U.S. companies can deduct the cost of doing business abroad on their taxes, but they get to defer declaring their profits till those profits are repatriated to the United States.

"The companies that are working here (in Ireland) and making money here will continue to pay their Irish taxes as they are now and instead of deferring paying their taxes to the United States until they repatriate the money, they will be asked to be pay those taxes on an annual basis otherwise they will not be able to deduct the expenses," said Faucher.

Tanaiste Mary Coughlan said she personally raised the Irish government's concerns over this issue when she met with Secretary Geithner last month.

Coughlan boldly predicted in an interview on RTE that despite what President Obama announced at the White House, she did not think the president's proposals would survive congressional action.

"These measures can be, and in my view be changed by the time they come out the other end because the Ways and Means Committee is the most powerful committee on the Hill and they will re-evaluate this," said Coughlan.

There is some time to mull over the issue. The president can, with an executive order put more IRS agents to work on the matter, but, according to staff and lobbyists watching the issue, congressional action would probably not be finalized till 2011.