A year ago, the North was the only shadow on an otherwise encouraging political scene. Would peace become entrenched, or would the governments, party leaders and paramilitary organisations get caught in the noose that was already beginning to tighten around them? Canary Wharf and Drumcree have been added to the sad litany of endemic crisis, and the events of the last few weeks have done nothing to strengthen hope that 1997 will see common sense coming into its own. The old slogans of division and prejudice have drowned out the new ones of dialogue, agendas and going the extra mile.
When the history of the political process comes to be written, it will be a matter of shame that the horse - as seems now depressingly likely - fell at the first fence. The debate during 1996 was about decommissioning, not about the substantial issues that will have to be dealt with when the parties eventually; get their feet under the negotiating table. Decommissioning, in turn, has been less about the physical removal of aggressive hardware from the equation - after all, if talks break down, it is not improbable that arms handed in can be replaced relatively quickly than about trust. The Government has been right to see the issue in pragmatic terms rather than as the major psychological watershed that it has been in British and unionist eyes.
At the opening of 1997, only restraint all round will avert the looming return to violence. Even now, it is possible that the drift can be stopped either by the governments breaking the political deadlock or by the IRA and the loyalist organisations agreeing to call off their wild men. Any optimistic prognosis depends on how far one considers either course likely.
It has not been a good year in this State either. The Coalition government that came to power in the wake of the extraordinary events of two years ago, is now limping to an ignominious end, its high hopes of introducing a new sense of integrity and openness into politics shattered by incompetence and shady dealing. Even when it did the right thing, as with the handsome increase of funds for political parties and TDs rushed through the Dail just before it closed for Christmas, a scent of devilishness hung over it. If the increase was intended to strengthen democracy by reducing dependence on contributions from large private donors, the contrast between the joyous alacrity with which it was passed and the foot dragging on other, equally important measures such as the diluted Ethics Bill and the still pending legislation on Cabinet confidentiality belied the claim. A government that is afraid of public debate is by definition a bad government.
In any case, the revelations in the Lowry case, coming at the end of an abysmal year for the reputations of several other Government Ministers, must prompt serious heart searchings about the nature of the democracy which has evolved in this State. Many who heard Mr Lowry's speech in the Dail were struck, as he detailed his business and tax affairs over a number of years, by his apparent inability to understand the moral dimension of his activities. As they filed out silently afterwards, it was clear that his fellow TDs had already grasped the implications for the trade of politics. The first task in the New Year is that they do not forget the lesson, and the second is that they introduce sanctions to prevent anything like it from happening again.