The Celtic Tiger is a divisive creature, splitting not just generations but also society into those who are equipped to cope with the change and those who cannot.

"How is the human brain going to adapt to this revolution?" asks Dr Pat McKeon, psychiatrist at St Patrick's Hospital, Dublin and director of AWARE, a supportive organisation for sufferers from depression, which affects one in three people. "Does it have to drug itself with alcohol and dangerous drugs and the mental equivalent of Viagra in order to cope with life?

"The economy and the way we look at life has matured and blossomed and brought rewards, but it also means others are going to find it hard to keep up with that pace and the question is: can society adapt to this change, and what is required at an emotional and mental level?"

Is quality of life becoming a consumer item available only to the well-off, the well-educated, the healthy and the cluedin? "The most important thing we can embrace is in seeing that everyone has something to contribute in society, and that is the antithesis of what's happening in most growing economies, including our own," Dr McKeon believes. "A process of social polarisation has been taking place," says Chris Whelan of the ESRI and co-author, with Naimh Hardiman, of the chapter, "Changing Values", to be published in the forthcoming book, Ireland and the Politics of Change (Addison Wesley Longman). "For those at work, job opportunities - and the rewards associated with them - have been upgraded. Others have found themselves excluded from the labour market because they lack the skills required by the newly created positions," they write.

"The fundamental challenge of the next number of years, and that by which you would judge the quality of this society and the morality of this society, will be our capacity to think in terms of inclusion and integration," they conclude.

We have become so desensitised to the realities of exclusion that we prefer tax cuts to the compassionate development of necessary services. In a recent open letter to the Taoiseach, the Irish Wheelchair Association asked: "For years we have listened to debates about the right to life of the unborn. When, if ever, will our Government accept our right to a basic quality of life, a life with some hope and purpose instead of the daily grind which so many of us face?" "Can the Celtic Tiger care?" asks Dr McKeon. "I do believe that he and she can, but I think the first thing we've got to recognise is that we've gone through a major shift in attitude and values.

"We need to look beyond the short-term financial gain to take a long-term view of health, social welfare and ecology and we are a long, long way away from doing that. At one level, we are mastering the information technology; at another, there's very little awareness of the destructive impact of it."

He believes Irish communities are under threat from the glamorising of violence through media imagery, which is contributing to the rise in violent behaviour and suicide among young people. Such behaviour is often fuelled by drugs and alcohol - but fundamentally, exclusion and rejection are to blame. The long-term, multi-generational impact of unemployment has yet to be appreciated, according to Mike Callan of the National Organisation for the Unemployed. As James O'Gorman (50), a voluntary community worker in Nenagh, Co Tipperary, who has been unemployed since his haulage and oil distribution business failed in 1986, explains: "I see a pattern in Irish society of not giving everyone an opportunity for a proper education. The major mistake we are making in terms of potential social unrest is in rejecting those who are less able and come from a disadvantaged background.

"Men in my generation were passive and instead of rocking the boat we kept low, but the offspring of my generation are different: if they are similarly rejected by the education system, they are going to react negatively. Youngsters now are under all kinds of influences and they see what their peers at higher income strata are getting - they see they're in the pubs, they have cars, they can entertain. Those who feel left out resent it, and that resentment is bound to be channelled into aggression and misbehaviour."

O'Gorman is secretary of the parents' council at his local Gael Scoil, a member of Nenagh Community Network (part of the area development management initiative), a soccer coach of five to 17-year-olds and organiser of a summer camp for children with special needs.

"Instead of rejecting these young people, we should encourage them. We should work in a fashion to encourage their good points and in so doing, develop a sense of enthusiasm and self-esteem in the young person through work in the community. Community is the backbone of our society, and if you don't get it right at the local level, you can forget about it nationally," he says.

Irish society has yet to commit itself to a coherent value system both for individual behaviour and public policy, says Dr McKeon. "If you think of Ireland as a child who was born in the 1920s, then it spent the first part its life merely getting food into its mouth and had limited expectations of life. In the 1960s, as the nation began maturing, the leadership which emerged encouraged people to look beyond basic needs to question religion. In the 1990s, we're aping other people's beliefs.

"It's not a question of turning back the clock. It's a question of being able to value the worth of people and to make commitments. People have become less enduring in their attitudes to relationships, personal commitments and business partnerships; they're less convinced of what their word means in politics. "There's a rapidity of change both in terms of information and in terms of behaviour. These waves of change are ripping through society. Can we be a part of the wave of change while also harnessing it in a way to limit the trauma and maximise the benefit?" he asks.

That is the question which our politicians and our corporate policy-makers have failed to address.

For information on the "Are We For- getting Something?" conference, contact: RRD Ltd., South Boundary, Shannon, Co. Clare; tel 061-361144; fax 061- 361954; e-mail rrd@tinet.ie.