The Cabinet sits down this morning to complete what ought to be the most exciting Budget in the history of the State. Never before have Irish Ministers controlled such a treasure. Among commentators the talk was of spending sprees and bonanzas when the Estimates were published on Thursday.
Yet the Ministers are uneasy. The air is thick with headlines reporting or threatening unrest - in schools, airlines, mines, hospitals and the Civil Service; on roads and railways; among those in scores of voluntary organisations trying to compensate for the State's inadequacy.
The visitor from abroad, beloved of journalists attempting to make sense of the world around them, could be forgiven for assuming that this was the worst of times, not, as they'd been told by the foreign media, the very best. (Come to think of it, the taxi drivers on whom foreign correspondents rely heavily for local colour are now more likely to blame the Government than to praise it, which may put a dent in the reputation the official PR agencies are doing their best to promote.)
Even if the Government's conversion to more caring ways were genuine - if everyone believed that Bertie Ahern, Charlie McCreevy and Mary Harney had suddenly turned social democratic - there would be trouble for the Fianna Fail/Progressive Democrat coalition on at least two fronts.
The first is that, thanks largely but not entirely to their efforts, politics is still a dirty word. The second is that they start with such a backlog of neglect (not all of it theirs) and such a record of lop-sided policies (all their own work) that even the biggest spending increases are merely attempts to catch up.
Politics is, in some quarters, a dirty word, and not only in this State. One of the most telling complaints made by George W. Bush's campaign headquarters last week was that Al Gore and the Democrats were, of all things, politicising the US elections.
It wasn't that the Republicans thought it possible to conduct elections, for the presidency and vice-presidency of the United States and for scores of state offices across the land, in some non-political way, it simply meant that "politicising" had come to be accepted as a term of abuse.
The FF/PD coalition claimed to set out with the intention of raising standards in public life, by which it meant to break the connection between politics and the abuse of power or what George Colley described as low standards in high places.
It didn't succeed. It didn't even look as if it was serious when Mr Ahern insisted on appointing Ray Burke to the Cabinet. And, in the light of events still being explored at Dublin Castle, it doesn't look as if it'll succeed before the general election, to which all its efforts are now directed.
The second problem the coalition faces has to do with its own policies and with those of its predecessors - governments of various shades that presided over this lopsided society for generations, never imagining that prosperity might be their biggest challenge.
As long as governments lacked the resources to implement their policies, they could talk any nonsense they wished; the only policies they could put into practice could be excused on the grounds that, had the money been right . . . If the money were there, citizens could judge the schemes for themselves.
But this is now the case. The thought occurred to me among the economists and sociologists gathered this week to celebrate 40 years of the Economic and Social Research Institute. They've just published a book called Bust to Boom, pointedly subtitled "the Irish experience of growth and inequality."
In it they describe that experience in their usual detached style - the ESRI's independence is one of its most valuable assets - and coolly raise a set of questions that are relevant now and will be relevant for years to come.
And, although the institute's independence is rigorously maintained, it's a fact of life that these questions, set by economists, sociologists, statisticians and so on, invariably fall to be answered by politicians.
Which, in turn, means that one of the most damaging effects of turning politics into a dirty word is the way in which it distorts the reality that this is how societies organise their affairs; any attempt to separate economics and social issues from politics is inimical to the interests of the community.
What the ESRI has to say, in summary, is that while unprecedented growth in employment has been achieved, and over the next 15 years there's a prospect that Ireland may achieve one of the highest standards of living in the European Union, there have been other, more complex effects.
There was, for instance, a substantial widening in earnings inequality; our household income distribution is among the more unequal in the EU, although that distribution has been stable during the 1980s and 1990s, unlike the pattern in the US and UK.
In a paper on cumulative disadvantages and polarisation, Brian Nolan, Christopher Whelan and Richard Layte make significant points about the location of poverty - the dangers attached to identifying "black spots," for instance.
They also acknowledge in a passage that echoes the warnings of John Lonergan, the governor of Mountjoy prison, that an accumulation of disadvantages - in education, background and skills - may mean certain groups are doomed to poverty.
"Achievement of real equality of opportunity," says the summary which accompanies the book, "will require a substantial upgrading of social services. The scale of economic growth may make it possible for Ireland to achieve this while reducing taxes.
"However, Irish society and the institutions of social partnership are now confronted with fundamental questions about the distribution of the fruits of growth, as well as the appropriate balance between market and social wages. How these issues are tackled will be crucial to the sustainability of the distinctive Irish model."
dwalsh@irish-times.ie