IT HAS taken two murders to shake our complacency about the insidious influence of violence, from which we had begun to believe ourselves insulated or immune.
By "we" I mean the majority in the Republic who seemed to take it for granted that, though the news might speak of ruin elsewhere, it would never touch their lives.
Of course there were regular complaints about the availability of drugs, directed as a rule at small time dealers and people who had taken to crime to pay for their personal supplies.
There was, too, the odd muttered complaint about the attention being paid by government or media to the opinions of Gerry Adams and Sinn Fein while punishment beatings in the North and suspicious activity in the Republic went unnoticed.
Now the murders of Detective Garda Jerry McCabe and journalist Veronica Guerin have confronted a bewildered society with organised violence on a scale that commands international attention.
Events which many had associated with the edgy streets of Belfast or the dingier corners of southern cities must feature in every portrait of the State which this weekend assumes the Presidency of the European Union.
Both Garda McCabe and Ms Guerin had served the public well and they were killed, not in the shadows or at the dead of night, but in full public view.
They were shot in broad daylight, one in leafy Adare, the other at one of the busiest crossroads in the country.
It was as though the murderers wanted to underline their indifference to a community which was bound to take the killing of a policeman or a journalist almost as a personal loss.
PREDICTABLY, the feelings of shock which followed these murders, the sense that the community as a whole had come under attack, were laced with anger at politicians who turned out to be as vulnerable and confused as everyone else.
Many had grown accustomed to the monotonous recital of punishment beatings, almost as if they were traffic accidents. Murders were easily dismissed if they could be attributed to gangland feuds
Now the killings were no longer Up There or beyond the pale which separates those who deal in drugs or death from the rest of Irish society. The challenge was here and now. If there was to be an answer, the responsibility was ours.
Our indifference had contributed to the descent. Our ambivalence appeared to encourage - or at least to tolerate - the Provisional IRA's preparations for action elsewhere.
Ambivalence, too, made less of murder because the victim happened to be a poor derelict already ruined by drugs or a minor member of a gang engaged in some obscure struggle.
Neither the political nor the social problems of modern Ireland had crept up on us. Governments and gardai had ample evidence of the conditions which gave rise to them, timely notice of the consequences if they were ignored.
Deputy Commissioner Patrick J. Moran set out a list in an interview with Jim Dunne this week. It included the threat of terrorism, organised crime and illegal drug dealing.
It also included long term unemployment and accompanying disaffection, increasing tension and social conflict, and the growth of "disadvantaged enclaves in the cities and larger urban areas".
Clearly, traditional methods would not be sufficient to keep the peace and maintain public order. The ease for radical change, in public policy and policing, was obvious.
The changes in public policy would be expensive. They would cut across departmental boundaries and established practices. They would call for social investment and careful planning.
They would not suit those who favour low taxes, minimal state intervention and quick fixes. To succeed they would have to be maintained over more than one government's term.
And, yes, there would have to be more prison space, more investment in training and rehabilitation and an end to the so called revolving door system.
Even before last night's announcement of a referendum on bail and the decision on, the right to silence, some changes in policing and the administration of justice had, been made or were planned.
Governments of all shades were responsible, as they had been responsible for the delay in getting down to work on the reforms. Indeed, one of the few heartening features of politics this week was the evidence of all party agreement.
No one denies that release on bail should be less readily available or that the newly established right to confiscate the proceeds of crime should be exercised whenever the opportunity arises.
Everyone seems to agree, that more judges are needed and that modernisation of the courts is essential, and there is general approval of the Garda Bureau of Fraud Investigation, which was established in April 1995.
But many politicians - most emphatically the spokesmen for the Opposition - are convinced this is not enough. They want action and they want it now.
THE temptation to reach, in the heat of the moment, for measures which have not been thoroughly debated and publicly endorsed should be resisted - even at the cost of some chat show criticism.
In the Republic, states of emergency have been too readily declared and too long enforced. A cynic might suspect they offered a way out of some political tight corner and were maintained to avoid awkward debates on issues from which there were no political gains.
And measures that are hastily introduced run the risk of being appealed to the Supreme Court, whose long and complex hearings may leave those who wanted instant action more frustrated than before.
John Bruton and his colleagues are urged to take instant action against the masters of organised crime. There are some who clearly feel that, on Northern policy, and specifically on the question of relations with Sinn Fein, they should do nothing at all.
John Bruton and his colleagues are urged to take instant action against the masters of organised crime. There are some who clearly feel that, on Northern policy, and specifically on the question of relations with Sinn Fein, they should do nothing at all.
At least the implication of the criticism directed at the Government by Gerry Adams, Tim Pat Coogan, Robert Ballagh and others of late is that by raising questions about Sinn Fein's intentions, the Taoiseach and his ministers have abandoned the peace process.
This is almost as extraordinary as having Mr Adams lecture Mr Bruton on his constitutional obligations and the need to defend the rights of those who have taken the trouble to vote.
Mr Adams himself had just delivered such a lecture when Jerry McCabe was shot, on the day after the terms for the multi party discussions had been announced.
Mr Adams couldn't under stand why Mr Bruton chose to believe the gardai instead of sharing his acceptance of the IRA denial. He refused to condemn the murder. So did his colleague Pat Doherty in a memorable appearance on Questions and Answers.
A week later, the IRA's admission that its members were indeed involved was drowned out by news of the IRA's bomb in Manchester, now cited by President Clinton as one of the reasons for international action against terrorism.
The Manchester bomb was not condemned by Mr Adams, who was returning to an old theme the scapegoating of Sinn Fein when, a few days' later, the gardai discovered that mortars were being made and primed in Co Laois.
Asking about Sinn Fein's intentions is the least that might be expected of Mr Bruton. The suggestion that it is he - and not the IRA - who has endangered the peace process is about as sensible as Mr Coogan's crude advice to Northern nationalists about outbreeding the unionists.