The beginning of a new year or decade is often hailed extravagantly as marking the end of an era and the beginning of another. In the case of Irish politics, talk of a historic new beginning may actually turn out to be true. It is more than possible that future historians will look back on the turn of the millennium as the time when Ireland made a major leap into a new period of political life.
In journalists' terms, almost every Irish political story of this period falls into three categories: the endgame of the Northern conflict; the economic transformation of the State; and the reform of how politics itself is conducted. There has been no political story of consequence in recent times - possibly excepting that of abortion - which does not fit into one of these general classifications.
Each of these three areas of political life is experiencing massive upheaval. Until recently it seemed there were three constants in Irish politics: that politicians would forever be reacting to paramilitary violence in the North against the background of a political vacuum; that they would forever be managing an economy involving high unemployment, business stagnation and a crisis in the national finances; and that there was a level of political corruption that would always exist and never be exposed.
Now the questions for the immediate future are how to manage the transformation to real politics in the North, how to manage previously unimaginable prosperity, and how to restore confidence in the political process to enable it to do these things properly.
Taking the last point first, the evidence of political corruption has been set out daily at the McCracken, Moriarty and Flood tribunals over the past three years. The detail of how a significant part of political and public business was conducted since the 1960s in particular has been exposed. A picture of enormous sums of money washing in and out of offshore accounts held for the benefit of senior politicians has emerged.
Of course most of the detail we have heard relates to one man - Charles J. Haughey - but several of those who were close to him also have gifts of money to them to explain. Those around him have yet to explain how and why they stood by as their leader was bankrolled to a massive extent by big business. The Taoiseach himself has given evidence of signing blank cheques drawn on the Fianna Fail party leaders' account which ultimately went to fund Mr Haughey's extraordinarily extravagant lifestyle. What is being exposed is not just the deeds of one man but an entire political culture that existed within Fianna Fail - and therefore within Government - for a considerable period of time.
On the fringes of the Haughey story have come other sleazy episodes. Fine Gael and Labour have each offered business people privileged access to Ministers from their parties in exchange for secret political donations. While the Opposition resent the "they're all the same" attitude to politicians prevalent among voters, they will appear the same unless they go out of their way to prove they are different.
Respect for politicians has never been so low. Almost any piece of information about politicians - that they get mileage expenses equivalent to those elsewhere, or get allowances to run their constituency offices - can and has been portrayed as a great scandal. In the past couple of years one senior politician felt obliged to give his parliamentary party great detail about the tax status of his childminder, lest this be written up somewhere as a major political story.
Mainly, they have only themselves to blame. Politicians make decisions that give huge financial benefit to individuals, and they must therefore accept and embrace very strict policing of this process. The damage to their credibility caused by the revelations of recent years may have a positive effect. If the outcome of the tribunals is that even tighter ethical guidelines are adopted and secret funding of political parties is outlawed, then they will have done great long term good to the political process.
While there is an opportunity to transform the political process, the political agenda has already been transformed. The idea that the State is economically successful is already no longer a source of wonder. It is no longer enough politically for a government - as this one and its predecessor regularly did - to reel off economic statistics as if to suggest that these figures prove that it is doing a wonderful job.
There are signs that the public is beginning to question the unrelenting political drive for economic growth. It is common now for individuals and families to live more than an hour from work, in houses considerably inferior than those they aspired to a decade ago, leaving children to a childminder early in the morning and collecting them after dark so as both parents can work hard enough to pay the mortgage. The "you've never had it so good" political message rings hollow with many people faced with this reality.
A clear sign was the recent furore over Charlie McCreevy's plan to give tax advantages to dual income couples but withhold them from one-income families. Anger was widespread throughout the State despite the fact that a minority of top rate tax-paying couples - 103,000 as opposed to 130,000 two-income earners - are now one-income households and would have been actually disadvantaged by the measure.
The level of anger expressed by constituents to politicians of all parties in both urban and rural constituencies may indicate a more general underlying unhappiness about the personal price being paid by many for economic success. How much national wealth is to be turned into public wealth to improve the quality of life - trains, roads, housing and services - as opposed to private wealth is a key political choice to be made in the next five years or so.
This is one of the issues which exposes as a myth the idea that ideology is dead in politics and that "they're all the same". The issues at the heart of the row over the Budget are as central to the left/right ideological divide as they come.
Should parents at home be given a tax incentive to enter the workforce, or should the State decide that there is some "quality of life" argument to encourage them to remain at home rearing children? Should tax cuts reward the low paid more than higher earners who may work long hours and days to make what may be a more economically valuable contribution to society? Should non-participants in the economy - many social welfare recipients for example - share fully in the economic prosperity by receiving substantial rises in payments?
That other pre-Christmas controversy - over immigration policy - is also deeply ideological, and is to become a central political issue. Should we see immigration strictly as a temporary convenience to provide a pool of cheap labour, or now that we are rich have we an obligation to take in some of the world's poor and give them the prospect of a new life?
In contrast, in relation to the other key issue - Northern Ireland - ideological differences between the parties in the State have taken second place to the common desire to see the new political structures work. Should the institutions get over the weapons decommissioning hurdle in February, the conduct of politics on this island will be truly transformed. There will be the first cross-community administration in Northern Ireland it its history and the first all-island institutions since partition in 1922.
Such an achievement would give the lie to the notion that politics changes nothing.
Mark Brennock can be contacted at mbrennock@irish-times.ie