The Taoiseach and Tanaiste have published their annual progress report on the implementation of their programme for Government and have insisted that the Fianna Fail/Progressive Democrat coalition will run for a full five-year term until 2002.
The review of progress at the end of three years in government acknowledges the difficulties ahead in relation to the control of inflation and the growing demands for pay rises to compensate for rising prices.
However, it maintains that inflation will begin to fall again at the end of this year and insists that the terms of the Programme for Prosperity and Fairness be adhered to.
By 2002, according to Mr Ahern and Ms Harney, there will be "three milestones" of the Government's term. They state:
"We laid the foundations of a lasting peace in Northern Ireland.
"We laid the foundations for lasting economic success.
"We laid the foundations for the honest and open conduct of politics in the 21st century."
In relation to Northern Ireland, they point to the fact that the ceasefires remain in place after three years, that all the institutions of the Belfast Agreement are functioning and the process of weapons decommissioning has begun. While important issues remained, the momentum gathered would ensure that these would be dealt with.
On the economic front, they point to the National Development Plan, the Programme for Prosperity and Fairness and Agenda 2000 as "significant milestones of which the Government is justly proud". These documents were "the blueprint of our vision for the future . . . [and] their implementation is a major challenge for every sector in our society".
Economic growth was not an end in itself, they said, but "the beginning of a historic opportunity in Ireland to reach out to people and places who previously had known little more than unemployment, emigration and social exclusion".
The Government would concentrate on creating more jobs, providing accessible training, affordable childcare and available public transport.
They said that the National Development Plan would improve quality of life through providing "the physical infra structure that will allow us go about our business more efficiently". The National Plan plan would also allow for unprecedented investment in social infrastructure such as health, education, housing and childcare.
The two leaders acknowledge that public confidence in the conduct of politics has been "severely shaken" by the revelations coming out of the tribunals. However, they say that they have initiated "the most thorough and most far-reaching inquiries into public affairs and institutions not only in the history of this State, but in the recent history of most democratic countries".
The review states that the Government is on track to meet its commitment to reducing the standard rate of income tax to 20 per cent and the upper rate to 42 per cent over the next two Budgets - "and to 40 per cent if economic conditions allow".
Fine Gael yesterday rejected the Government's claims of achievement and said that the continuance of Fianna Fail in office was "inconsistent with the objective of achieving honest and open conduct of politics in the 21st century".
The party claimed out that the Government was responsible for the State having the highest inflation rate in the euro zone.
The Labour leader, Mr Ruairi Quinn, described the Government's progress report as "strong on self-congratulation but short on any serious analysis of where we are as a society". He added: "Probably no Government in the history of the State has done so much to undermine public confidence in the political process."
The text of the Government report is available on the website of The Irish Times at www.ireland.com