THE government due to take office on Thursday faces two major challenges: successful management of the rapid economic growth and wise distribution of the fruits of this growth accruing to the Exchequer through the taxation system; and securing, in partnership with the British government, a settlement in Northern Ireland.
We do not yet know if the search for a Northern Ireland settlement will involve the participation of Sinn Fein as proxy for the IRA, although all the indications seem to point to its self exclusion following what appears to be a failure by Gerry Adams and his colleagues to carry the IRA Army Council with them.
The search for a settlement is clearly endangered by tensions arising from the brutality, timing and location of the Lurgan killings. These were committed one can only presume by design at the very moment when a dangerous deadlock seems to be emerging in relation to the Orange parade at nearby Drumcree.
As to that potential deadlock, there is a genuine conflict of rights between those who assert the right to parade anywhere and those who assert the right of communities to be free in their areas from parades which are seen as provocative.
Neither of these "rights", however, can legitimately be asserted in absolutist terms over and against the superior right of the whole people of Northern Ireland to be protected from the danger of an escalation of violence to new and horrific levels. For that danger to be avoided, a compromise between the two sides at Drumcree is needed and a compromise necessarily involves both sides yielding ground.
The handling of this explosive situation will be a severe test of the diplomatic skills not merely of the new British government but also of the Taoiseach to be elected next Thursday. Bertie Ahern will need to avoid exacerbating an already unbearably tense situation, which rules out an espousal by him of the Garvaghy residents' stance vis-a-vis that of the Orange Order.
On the contrary, our new government's role has to be to urge compromise on the Garvaghy Road Residents' Association while simultaneously the British government concentrates its pressure for compromise upon the Orange Order and unionist politicians.
The prospect for serious political negotiation between nationalist and unionist politicians, with or without Sinn Fein, will clearly be affected by the outcome of Drumcree, and also perhaps, dependent upon loyalist paramilitary restraint in the face of severe IRA provocation. If, however, in the face of these hazards a genuine negotiation can at last be got under way, it could for a number of reasons carry a better chance of success now than at anytime in the past.
Firstly and most obviously, there is now a British government which has an overwhelming majority in parliament. Secondly, there is a Northern Ireland Secretary who, uniquely, has come to this post well informed, following a long period of preparation, and with a clear view of what needs to be done.
It seems clear that in her activist approach in the early stages of her period in office she is not inhibited as some of her predecessors have been, by excessive dependence upon over cautious Civil Service advice.
Should the inter-party talks fail the British government is committed in parliament to presenting to the Northern Ireland electorate, in a referendum in 11 months its own proposals, worked out in co-operation with our government. This scenario which, interestingly, has not evoked a hostile unionist response creates an entirely new situation.
IT IS arguable that the British government, prepared to take this course, offers a strong incentive to politicians in Northern Ireland - and perhaps especially to UUP politicians to arrive at an agreement on the future government of Northern Ireland and its relationship with this State, as well as with Britain.
If the politicians fail to reach agreement, it is at least possible that a clear majority of a Northern Ireland electorate, frustrated by this failure, would endorse a carefully designed compromise put to them by the British government in a referendum undertaken in parallel with a referendum in this State.
ALL this has to be speculative for there is no way in which we can judge now what will be the state of opinion in Northern Ireland in 11 months. It is indeed difficult enough to judge the state of that opinion today, for it contains markedly divergent, even contradictory, elements.
On the one hand there is clear evidence of deep polarisation, with unionist hardliners joining the Orange Order in significant numbers, while on the other Sinn Fein, by presenting itself as a "peace party", has just secured the electoral support of a record 17 per cent of the Northern Ireland electorate.
(However, as Gerry Adams no doubt realises, much of that support may, of course, prove ephemeral if the peace pose turns out retrospectively, perhaps for reasons beyond his personal control, to have been fraudulent.)
At another level, however, there is growing pressure for a settlement, emanating particularly from the business community, but also from a much wider stratum of society, unionist and nationalist.
On the unionist side, fear of the future has the capacity, now as so often in the past, to turn into unreasoning intransigence. But at this stage it could equally readily turn into a willingness to accept a settlement which leaves Northern Ireland's position in the United Kingdom secure so long as a majority in Northern Ireland wishes the Union to be maintained.
In such circumstances the British government would be right to present the people of Northern Ireland, one way or the other, with the choice of a settlement over which few may enthuse, but which perhaps a majority in both communities might be prepared, however reluctantly, to accept.
The government's role in this process will be a delicate one. It must respond positively to initiatives from what may well prove to be a very open British government, free of inhibitions which have limited in one way or another the capacity of its predecessors to respond adequately to the need for radical action in Northern Ireland.
Next, if the IRA is in the process of restarting its campaign of violence, the government, bolstered by public outrage here and among many Northern nationalists at what will be widely seen as betrayal of the promise of peace, must be prepared to make a tough stand against that organisation, probably in the face of contrary pressure from some of its supporters.
At all costs the government will need to avoid any appearance of ambivalence on issues such as extradition, a matter in which genuine legal difficulties have been allowed to play into the hands of extreme unionists.
In pursuing a settlement with the British government, the new administration here has the advantage of the backing of the Downing Street Declaration negotiated and signed by Albert Reynolds. This has emancipated Fianna Fail from the ambiguity of its traditional position on the issue of consent to reunification.
Bertie Ahern's choice of ministers of foreign affairs and justice may be crucial. Not all the potential candidates for these posts have in the past demonstrated the diplomatic subtlety and skill likely to be required at this time.