Question: What have a Disney-style theme park, a Sydney-style opera house and statues of Blessed Margaret Ball and Blessed Francis Taylor got in common?

Answer: They have all been suggested as the perfect projects for our end-of-century celebrations.

Those active in commerce and the arts were buzzing with ideas on how best to celebrate the millennium when questioned by The Irish Times. Meanwhile, as 1998 begins, it appears that the Government is guilty of apathy when it comes to turning a more crucial corner in the calendar.

According to a Government spokesman, "nothing definite" has been decided with regard to this significant global event. "The Taoiseach has been seeking the views of the Cabinet and key figures in various Departments are liaising with each other, but any concrete decisions on the matter have yet to be made", he said.

This lack of movement on the millennium contrasts sharply with the situation in Britain, where this week an official millennium logo was announced. The flagship government project is the erection of a £750 million Millennium Dome. In addition, £2 billion of British lottery money is to be allocated to a wide variety of projects.

Since 1994 a specially-established Millennium Commission has been sorting through the thousands of ideas put forward by the British public and assessing whether any of these is worthy of precious lottery funds.

In Northern Ireland alone 19 projects costing a total of £81 million have been awarded lottery money. For example, the Odyssey Project in Belfast will see the creation of a Science Centre, a 3D movie theatre and an indoor arena.

On a smaller scale, the Strangford Stone Project involves the erection of a 10-metre granite megalith made from stone from the Mourne Mountains.

Elsewhere in the world plans for projects ranging from a global bicycle race to a Time Ball in Times Square, New York, are already firmly in place.

The Government may still be dithering over how it can best celebrate the beginning of the next thousand years, but others have come up with an eclectic selection of millennium musings.

"A monument to the imagination" is what Noel Carroll, chief executive of Dublin Chamber of Commerce, feels would be appropriate.

Imitation was not the way forward, he insisted. However, when pressed, Mr Carroll borrowed from Walt Disney, envisaging a kind of time-travel theme park.

Inspiration should be taken from Newgrange, Celtic mythology and all the technology around today, he suggested. Cathal Brugha Barracks was one location which might be suitable for such a development.

The year 2000 could be marked with demolition as well as construction, suggests Frank McDonald, Irish Times Environment Correspondent.

For a start, he said, we could lose the Loop Line bridge near Tara Street in Dublin. "Not only does it cruelly deface the Custom House, it also effectively conceals the fact that Dublin is located on a bay", he said. "Given that we already have a plan to spend nearly £200 million on a port tunnel, why don't we consider getting rid of the Loop Line altogether by sinking it out of sight?"

Architect Frank Hughes of the Dublin Flagship Initiative suggested a Millennium Book which every household would take delivery of on New Year's Eve, 1999. Printed "in the spirit of a 1950s nuclear DIY bomb-shelter manual", it would be a book of ideas and innovations for 21st-century Ireland put together "by all the best minds in all walks of life and ages in the country."

Despite the absence of any Government-initiated national projects, there is some movement on other levels.

The Dublin city manager, Mr John Fitzgerald, explains the thinking behind Mile Atha Cliath Teo, a company set up specifically to look into ways of marking the millennium. "We were conscious of the fact that, by comparison to other countries, there was a vacuum in terms of millennium activity", he said.

The focus of the company will be on long-lasting monuments to the millennium, the principal one being the revamping of O'Connell Street. The final plan will be announced in February by the Lord Mayor, Mr John Stafford.

As chairman of the St Patrick's Day Festival and director of the Gate Theatre, Michael Colgan has definite celebratory ideas. "With St Patrick's Day being in March, we will be one of the first countries to have a national millennium celebration in 1999", he said. The Millennium/St Patrick's Day Festival is expected to take place over a longer period and will incorporate more varied strands of Irish society.

The millennium dream of Garry Hynes, artistic director of the Druid Theatre in Galway, is actually going to come true. Druid is organising a Synge Fest for 1999 with an international co-producer and will be staging all of J.M. Synge's plays in repertoire for the first time.

"However, If I had limitless funds, then along with the Synge Fest I would like to commission a slew of new plays from all the Irish writers I admire and then tour them through every high road and byroad of the country", said Ms Hynes, who is currently attending the Sydney Festival, where Druid is staging The Leenane Trilogy.

A long list of grands projets for the millennium was suggested by Laura Magahy, managing director of Temple Bar Properties. These included a Sydney-style opera house and a theatrical lighting scheme for Dublin and other cities.

But the real reason for our celebrations should not be lost in a blaze of light, according to the Catholic Archbishop of Dublin, Dr Desmond Connell. "What we are celebrating is the second millennium since the birth of Christ", he said. "It is vital that it does not become a purely secular celebration, a sort of inflated New Year."

Among other suggestions the Archbishop said he would "very much like to see" the erection of a sculpture of Blessed Margaret Ball and Blessed Francis Taylor. "They were both Mayoress and Mayor of Dublin and they are important witnesses to religious commitment and conviction", he said.