Roosevelt once said that the United States had nothing to fear but fear itself. After its successful two day ardfheis, Fine Gael's fear - if any such can be sensed through the euphoria of office - must be complacency. As the largest element in a coalition which took office at a time of almost unprecedented economic success it can, politics being politics, claim some of the credit for low interest rates and low inflation and the growth in employment. But there are a number of other issues crime is certainly the most urgent - where the problems are currently more intractable than those of the economy, yet debate was muted. And over everything else looms the precariousness of the situation in the North.
This question, at least, was adequately addressed. The Taoiseach, in his keynote speech, well composed and well presented, put the danger inherent in the ending of the IRA ceasefire into a stark perspective when he declared that his first concern was "the security of everybody living in this State. . . My priority is the independence of this State's democratic institutions. No secret organisation will ever write our agenda." As he is hardly indulging in hyperbole, Mr Bruton seemed to be speaking from specific and disturbing knowledge of what the consequences are likely to be if the ceasefire is not reinstated.
He is undoubtedly correct in his analysis of the failure of Sinn Fein and the IRA to understand the mechanisms of securing peace. To listen to Mr Adams and Mr McGuinness speak about the "Sinn Fein process", which they repeatedly emphasise is still their plan of action, is to recognise a frame of mind that has no room for different opinions, even if these form the majority. "Deep down", as Mr Bruton declared, "the psychology of conciliation did not replace the psychology of confrontation" when the ceasefire was announced in 1994.
At this point, less than three months before the fixed date for the opening of all party talks on June 10th, the process by which the necessary psychological change will be effected is impossible to foresee. Mr Bruton's appeal to common sense on Saturday evening set out the objective of talks - "a political system to which both communities can give equal loyalty" and the rationality of persuasion as opposed to threats. There are probably members of Sinn Fein to whom these arguments have meaning, but whether they have influence is a different question. The whole nature of politics in this island, for the next generation at least, depends on the answer.
In the short term Fine Gael can take some satisfaction from its rating in the opinion polls, and Mr Bruton's personal standing, but the full cost of coalition in electoral terms has not been taken into the reckoning and is not easy to assess. Some of the party's most characteristic policies have been compromised in order to hold a disparate government together and, before the general election, a way must be found to assert distinctiveness without creating tensions with the coalition partners. The formula may be elusive.
After years of the doldrums, the mood of euphoria and happiness that predominated at the ardfheis was understandable - all the more so because it was the first such gathering since the unexpected propulsion to power and probably the last before the next election. Apart from the North, there were a few attempts to discuss serious matters seriously, but, as with neutrality and WEU membership, the tendency was to avoid any issue that might rock the boat. Ardfheiseanna are not the place to educate the electorate.