A review of the transport arrangements to and from our inhabited islands is to be published within weeks.
Islanders are concerned at what the review may throw up. But Mr Eamon O Cuiv, Minister of State at the Department of Arts, Heritage, Gaeltacht and the Islands, who spoke to "Southern Report" at the weekend, seems to be indicating there is no need for concern: he and his officials wish only to improve the lot of islanders, and their accessibility to their homes.
Mr O Cuiv is a blunt talker. He says he wants to copperfasten at least a minimum, guaranteed service to the islands, both in winter and summer, and that he has gone a long way already towards achieving this.
The likelihood is that contract arrangements will be drawn up with private ferry operators, some of whom are already working successfully, especially on the islands off the west coast, and that built into these contracts will be the special service needs of the islanders.
So can the Celtic Tiger swim or not? In summer, those who know most about the tiger like to sail in their yachts or take the ferry over to islands like Cape Clear. For those not in the know, it's off the south-west coast and next door to Sherkin Island.
Cape Clear is a Gaeltacht island. Sherkin is not. It has become fashionable for people to acquire property on the cape and to make it an island retreat in summer. In winter they are nowhere to be seen because places like Cape Clear are really not so fashionable then. The south-westerlies are blowing, the seas are choppier and, all told, things are much more difficult.
But of course, when the summer is over and the visiting students and the tourists have gone home, island life and island issues must still be dealt with.
On Cape Clear, the dilemma is whether or not the only State-run ferry service in the Republic should be placed in private hands.
What are the implications? Easily defined, say the majority of islanders: extra costs and less reliability. Who in a commercially-driven venture would run a ferry from Baltimore to Cape Clear on a day in winter with one or two people standing on the pier clutching a few boxes of groceries?
The Minister says his review will relieve those anxieties. He also says Cape Clear pressed him hard for the review of island transportation services.
In urban areas there are pockets of poverty that defy reason given that the good times are rolling and usually close at hand. Where is the accountability in this? The islands want a fair shake and they deserve it. Micheal O Ceadagain, one of the leading island activists on Cape Clear, is seeking nothing less.
There is a move to privatise the ferry that has brought locals and tourists to and from Cape Clear since 1975. An earlier service operated, but before this it was a State-owned boat on contract to private individuals. After 1975 the service was guaranteed, winter and summer, whether or not there were tourists. It meant peace of mind for the 140-strong community.
The Cape Clear ferry is more than just a commercial enterprise. It is a vital social service, and this point should not be missed. We take great pride in our islands and their beauty but sometimes we forget that the people who live on them must come and go the same as land-based folk.
This matter has ramifications all around the coast wherever island communities wish to continue living. The matter is being dealt with, Mr O Cuiv says. Clout at the Cabinet table may be important in this. Some 5,000 islanders would welcome evidence of Mr O Cuiv's clout but he seems determined he will see the matter through in a just manner.
Just before the recent local elections, one north Cork politician described to me how bad things had become. Increasingly, the younger local population was in third-level education. They were equipping themselves with degrees and knowledge that could command attention and decent money.
But where was the money to be had? "Not here," he said. "We have no industry. Each one of them must go away. The old folk are getting older, it's like a form of ethnic cleansing, and who is doing anything about it?"
On Oilean Chleire, what might a threat to four jobs on the island ferry, the Naomh Ciarain, mean? A lot, is the answer.
There is a code among islanders. It is a widespread one, and on places like Cape Clear it is still the unspoken practice to turn to and help out. Because it is a State-run service, the ferry men on Oilean Chleire, all native islanders, believed their jobs on the island were secure. Now doubt has arisen.
Others on the island are unsure as well. Without showing his hand Mr O Cuiv would appear to be allaying all these fears.
Here is an issue that will not bother most people living in the great conurbation of Dublin which now houses almost half the population of the whole island.
I have always had a fondness a for the islands, and the people whose dogged determination kept them there, literally against wind and rain, those who kept a living tradition going, those who would not give in.
In Dublin and Cork, Limerick, Galway and elsewhere, we complain that the volume of traffic is rising to fill the new motorways as fast as we can build them with the aid of EU funding. There will, though, be a day of accounting. The structural funds will run out in the near future and then the upkeep will revert to the taxpayers, namely, the motorists.
But where are the motorways on the 18 inhabited islands around our coastline on which at least 5,000 Irish people live? There are none, and let there be none. But let there be proper services.
I doubt if anybody will care on a winter's evening whether or not the folk who live on the islands have their own motorway. Getting from Dublin's centre to the outskirts is one thing. Trying to get home to an island on a bleak evening is another.