We are approaching decisive moments in two crucial areas of Irish life. The choices made in this year's Budget and on decommissioning will make a lasting difference to all of us. And in both cases the question is not so much what can be done as whether there is the political will - and skill - to do it.
Because this year's Budget will be published (on December 2nd) as Economic and Monetary Union gets under way, we may expect more financial piety than usual.
We need more than piety, not only to mark the beginning of EMU - important enough in itself - but to suggest a visionary approach to the promise and problems of decades ahead.
Prosperity makes it possible for the Government to respond to the challenge. The social divisions, of which so many have had bitter experience, make it essential.
Voluntary organisations by the score and members of both coalition and opposition parties have reminded Bertie Ahern and his ministers of an opportunity which, many believe, may not come their way again.
Ministerial reactions to growing public disquiet have been disheartening. Present and planned spending on health, children and overseas aid has not only angered the opposition, volunteers and public servants; it has dismayed some junior ministers.
It doesn't seem to have occurred to Charlie McCreevy and Brian Cowen to look first at people's needs and then at the State's swelling finances. Neither they nor their colleagues seem to have learnt that savings now on education and welfare are liable to lead to vastly increased spending on security later on.
Opponents of change who harp on about taxation are in reality defending the cowardice of politicians who like to pretend that the electorate is as mean and unimaginative as they are. The punters wouldn't like it, they say - as if the system was sacrosanct, the only source of revenue was income tax and the only division between public and private sector workers.
This kind of thinking was on display on Dunlop and Finlay the other night. When Sean Healy, of CORI, suggested that improved public services might be paid for by corporation tax, Michael Woods, Shane Ross and Frank Dunlop were shocked rigid. As for a visionary approach to the State's affairs - on which Sean Healy had the support of Eithne Fitzgerald and Fergus Finlay - Messrs Woods, Ross and Dunlop wouldn't hear of it.
If the Government follows this line in the Budget, even the modest proposals to make ours an inclusive society, which form part of Partnership 2000, will have come to nothing; an opportunity we cannot afford to lose will have been thrown away.
Mr Ahern, Tony Blair and party leaders in Northern Ireland are about to embark once more on an intense effort to ensure that that other opportunity - presented by the Belfast Agreement and blocked by the row over decommissioning - is not also abandoned.
Mr Blair will return to the subject when he addresses the Houses of the Oireachtas on November 26th. Officials in Dublin have not excluded the possibility of a visit to Belfast by Mr Ahern at about the same time.
Some politicians and commentators here believe decommissioning can be resolved by fudging or formulae, as if it were just another point of disagreement between parties. They see it as an issue raised by David Trimble's opponents, in his own and other unionist parties, to undermine the agreement and his leadership.
But this isn't an issue which can be resolved by facing down Mr Trimble's internal critics - as Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness claim - or by burrowing through the text in search of legalistic escape hatches. The essence of the agreement is to assert the primacy of politics in Northern Ireland. And that means putting an end to paramilitary power and influence, whatever flags the militants follow.
No one opposes the primacy of politics. Not in theory and certainly not in public. In practice, the IRA refuses to decommission its weapons; so does the UVF, and there are doubts about the UDA.
The IRA's position is most significant because Sinn Fein is entitled to take two seats in the executive under the terms of the agreement. Mr Trimble argues that that depends on the IRA's willingness to decommission and points to provisions which clearly support his argument.
Parties to the agreement reaffirmed their "total and absolute commitment to exclusively democratic and peaceful means of resolving differences". They also declared unambiguous opposition to "any use or threat of force by others for any political purpose".
Mr Adams and Mr McGuinness say they are committed to meeting all of the agreement's provisions, though the IRA says: "(It) will not be decommissioning its weapons through either the front or back door."
The fact remains that the commitment to non-violence is at the heart of the agreement and refusal to decommission weapons contradicts it. Indeed, Mr Ahern said last week that without decommissioning there would be no executive, while Seamus Mallon spoke of decommissioning as the issue which blocked progress.
Alex Maskey says that without Sinn Fein an executive cannot be formed. But, as John Bruton argues, no government here or elsewhere would allow a participating party to maintain links with a private army.
If Sinn Fein's commitment to the Belfast Agreement is to be taken seriously, it must show that it's serious about decommissioning. It can do this by an unambiguous declaration that the war is over, by agreeing arrangements for the destruction of weapons, beginning with its supply of explosives. It may not have to surrender weapons or suggest that it has been defeated. But it cannot expect other parties to the agreement to wait until the last minute for proof of its intentions.
The agreement fixed April 10th, 2000 as the date by which all of its arrangements must be complete. Some deadlines - for the referendums and the elections to the Assembly - have already been met. In other areas, significant headway has been made. The Commission on Policing has completed much work in private and has begun a series of public meetings. Its final report is not due until the summer of 1999.
Troops have been returned to barracks in Britain. The latest movement of 400 soldiers was announced yesterday. Some watch-towers and outposts have been closed down. More than 200 prisoners have been released. Most of the 200 still in custody who qualify under the agreement will have been set free by June, 2000. The rest will be released then. The LVF ceasefire was recognised this week.
Officials have been at work on human rights legislation and identifying the areas to be covered by the North-South Ministerial Council. The deadline for its introduction hasn't been met because a shadow executive hasn't been set up. We are back to decommissioning.