It is not news that the country is in trouble and it now hardly makes news as, day on day, further details of the depth and causes of our troubles emerge.

It appears to me that we are locked on viewing our difficulties only through the prism of our economic and financial woes, whether national or personal.

Is our central problem not as much political as fiscal and economic?

Our brand of democracy is not, it seems to me, fit for purpose to address this major national crisis.

Judging by the events and developments of the past fortnight – and by extrapolation the last decade – we appear to have reached a state of political stasis.

We have a taoiseach from the largest party who has squandered the trust of the people.
Precisely when firm, clear-headed leadership is vitally required his public utterances, whatever his circumstances, are of mind-numbing paucity.
Despite a number of his colleagues having, declared, ambitions to replace him, not one of them will mount a challenge but instead, after each and every debacle, sidle back, one by one, to his side.
(Remember, here, the taoiseach's behaviour as the revelations about the previous taoiseach emerged.)

We have a leader of the opposition who has failed, again and again, to land a fatal blow on this wretched administration and who clings, but tenuously, to his position within his party as well as having failed, abjectly, to convince the electorate that, as taoiseach, he could better lead the country out of its difficulties.

As of today the Labour party and its leader, lead in an opinion poll.
But there is no rationale for believing that Labour would be better able, than Fianna Fail or Fine Gael, to lead a stable, sustainable administration.

The outcome of an election in the present circumstances would almost certainly herald a period of government instability similar to 1981/82 and if we fell into such a situation now, we would surely be further doomed.

So is it time, perhaps, to consider national government?

The last time we were in such trouble there was briefly, in the Talaght strategy of 1987, a de facto (mini) national government (on economic issues) that afforded the Fianna Fail administration the space to take the necessary action to put in place the vital, unpopular, groundwork for recovery.

In our current deteriorating circumstances, already substantially and significantly worse than those that prevailed then, there is no sign of any such statesmanship emerging from anywhere within (or without) the political arena.

However, in our head of state we have a president, approaching the end of her term, whom the people like and trust.

I suggest that if she were to demand of the leaders of the three / four 'parties of government' that they form, for a fixed term, a 'government of national recovery' she would not only echo the mood of the nation (as expressed by the current political impasse) but would also, in those (abused) words of the Bard – 'do the state some service'.

And were such a circumstance to come about, might it provide a hiatus in the politics of short-term self interest (of all the political parties) that has led us to where we are today, during which we could consider 'a new order' even a 'New Republic'?.

I guess I'm just a dreamer..........................