JOHN Bruton should enjoy his third New Year in office in the knowledge, acquired from the latest opinion polls, that it will, most likely, be his last. As he faces into his first general election as leader of a government in three to nine months' time, he should also take timeout for a badly needed reflection on the challenges of the year ahead.
Mr Bruton became Taoiseach by default two years and two weeks ago and, somewhat surprisingly in those circumstances, he is showing little appreciation of how difficult it will be for him to be re elected next year. It needn't necessarily have been that way when the government changed in midstream in 1994, and the first three party coalition on a left wing base was formed.
Instead of taking the initiative on matters of substantial difference with Fianna Fail, however, the Government has proved beyond doubt in the last year that it is indistinguishable in important respects from its predecessor.
ON many of the key issues during the past year, Mr Bruton, Mr Spring and Mr De Rossa were forced to engage in the politics of reaction.
The process started with the breakdown of the IRA ceasefire with the Canary Wharf bombing on February 9th. Within a week of the ending of the ceasefire, on February 15th, the first draft of the joint Anglo Irish communique was exchanged between the British and Irish governments. It achieved what had, effectively, eluded the two governments for all of 1995: a date for all party talks June 10th.
Since then, it was no fault of the Taoiseach's that John Major would not set a date for Sinn Fein's entry into inclusive talks - in the event of a renewed IRA ceasefire and an adherence to the Mitchell principles and the talk's ground rules. Yet after a shaky start and inconsistent stances in his stewardship of the peace process, it is arguable whether either Mr Albert Reynolds or Mr Bertie Ahern could over ride the dominance of the parliamentary arithmetic in Westminster at this point.
However, it was not only the breakdown of the ceasefire that brought rear guard action from the Government. It was forced by the political and public reaction to the murder of Veronica Guerin on June 25th to bring forward a hastily processed crime package.
The Dail was recalled for a day at the end of July to debate the new legislation. The public outrage at the gangland assassination of the journalist also lead the Coalition leaders to reach agreement - which had eluded them for a full year - to hold the bail referendum.
While Mr Bruton's Government was seen to be reacting to major public events earlier in the year, it completely lost control of its agenda with four damaging misjudgements by Fine Gael ministers in the autumn Dail session.
Mr Michael Noonan, who would have been regarded by colleagues as the safest pair of hands at the Cabinet table, was forced to do a U turn over the hepatitis C scandal and had to withdraw remarks and apologise in the Dail to the victims.
Mr Ivan Yates committed the next political gaffe and had to explain to the Dail that he was not at Dublin Airport, as he had inferred in an RTE interview, when he agreed to a Russian ban on beef from three counties.
Mrs Nora Owen was embroiled in the next political crisis - over the delisting of Judge Dominic Lynch - which forced the Government to place a motion of confidence in its members for the first time.
This damaging litany of disasters for Fine Gael ministers paled into insignificance, however, by comparison with circumstances which lead to the forced resignation of Mr Michael Lowry. The Government, as a whole, was damaged by this affair and the consequent payments to politicians controversy.
It also misjudged, at the initial stage, the political imperative to conduct a thorough investigation into the new allegation that a senior Fianna Fail figure received £1.1 million from Ben Dunne. That particular controversy will continue well into next year.
AT the year's end, the high points of Mr Bruton's term as Taoiseach are the passage of the divorce referendum, the negotiations to try to restore he peace process and the conclusion a successful Irish EU Presidency.
Mr set down three criteria for himself when, by fortuitous chance, he entered the Taoiseach's office at the end of 1994.
. Obsessed with a paranoia about his personal failure to form a government after the 1992 election, he pledged that, unlike his Fianna Fail predecessors, he would run a cohesive coalition. He has honoured that pledge. He should reflect over Christmas, however, that he has honoured it to the point where Mr Spring is now seen as the de facto leader of the Government.
. Mr Bruton was the first Taoiseach to insist that his partners would set out spending limits, in advance, for their three budgets. The limits have been broken in each year. He would do well also to reflect on the Fine Gael voter in the forthcoming budget. His party is stuck at 1992 levels in the opinion polls, showing little prospect so far of attracting the floating voter.
Mr Bruton also promised, on his first day in office, to conduct Government business openly as if "behind a pane of glass". His manifest failures to do so are well documented by now.
If his time in office is limited, as the polls suggest, he would do well to remember that the Government controls the Dail. He should reflect back over the years on the other side of the House where the opposition parties do not have the tools to scrutinise the operations of government. As the former champion of Dail reform, he still has time to relax the doctrine of absolute Cabinet confidentiality and put the Compellability of Witnesses Bill in place.
And if this Christmas and New Year will be the last that John Bruton will enjoy as Taoiseach, he should remember, more than most, how the fallen became mighty two years ago.
Nothing is certain in politics for the year ahead.
