Things could hardly be better for Bertie Ahern as he faces into his first ardfheis as Taoiseach this weekend. His Government is as secure as any minority coalition could be with the Donegal TD, Thomas Gildea, being added to the list of supportive Independents earlier this week.
He has achieved unrivalled public acclaim for his role in restoring the peace process and negotiating the Belfast Agreement on the week his mother died last April.
He has an unprecedented £1 billion surplus heading into the Budget, falling unemployment figures, and the enviable prospect of offering £400 million in tax cuts next month.
His position as party leader is untouchable, notwithstanding the fall of those with whom he associated himself in his early political years.
But if all of these outward indicators are beginning to read like the supposedly sycophantic Whelan/Masterson biography, Bertie Ahern: Peacemaker and Taoiseach, there is little for Mr Ahern or Fianna Fail to be complacent about at this time.
This judgment, in fact, is openly accepted by some sources close to the party leadership. It will be reflected in the Taoiseach's decision to set out a code of practice - tougher, it is said, than the Dail's ethical guidelines - for elected Fianna Fail members at the opening session in the RDS tonight.
Reviewing the 18 months since the last ardfheis just before the 1997 general election, Mr Ahern will undoubtedly claim that he has honoured the primary commitment made to lead his party into government.
He will also assert that he has delivered substantially on the major policy platforms on which he sought a mandate: taxation, crime and Northern Ireland.
He has cut the higher and lower tax rates in his first Budget; he has brought the crime problem down the political agenda, largely due to the successful onslaught on drugs; and he will assert that the unemployment figures are the lowest for years, with an average 210,000, or fewer, planned for 1999. Most important of all, the peace process is restored.
The success story of the Celtic Tiger and the Good Friday Agreement will be sold hard to a party which plans to use the ardfheis as a launching pad for the local elections next June.
Members will be told to hold their selection conventions by Christmas to facilitate a long run-in time to the campaign. In an unusual development, a special session with local councillors from all over the State will be held tomorrow morning, hosted by the Minister for the Environment and Local Government, Mr Dempsey.
All of the above, however, is Fianna Fail in Government presenting the best side of the picture for the 6,000 members and supporters attending the ardfheis. Little attention will be paid this weekend to the grey clouds on the political horizon.
All records in the 25-year history of opinion polls were broken by the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, the Government and the Fianna Fail party in the wake of the signing of the Belfast Agreement. The high figures are still being maintained six months later. Yet there is no sign of these ratings producing electoral results.
Bertie Ahern may well be the biggest asset that Fianna Fail has had since the days of Jack Lynch more than two decades ago. People can't dislike him. He doesn't do harm to anyone, save political opponents in his constituency. But, after three by-elections in the 17-month term of the Government, he has not managed to translate popularity into votes for the party. The result of the Cork South-Central by-election is the most recent illustration of the difficulty which Fianna Fail will face in increasing its number of seats in the next general election. The party's first preference share of the vote dropped from 42.62 per cent in 1997 to 29.43 per cent a month ago. At the same time, the party has accumulated considerable debts of £1.5 million from the presidential, referendum and by-election campaigns of the last year.
The popularity of the Taoiseach is also affecting the Government in a different way. He is the Government. Not one of his ministerial team has managed to build an equally strong - not to mention competing - profile. The party view is that Ministers Mr Martin, Ms O'Rourke and Ms Harney "on a good wicket" are the best performers, while there is internal criticism of Ministers Mr McCreevy and Mr Cowen over the handling of sub-regionalisation and the health service.
The only threat to the survival of the Government, according to sources across all Dail parties, comes from the two sitting tribunals and the dozen inquiries set up by the Tanaiste, Ms Harney. Fianna Fail simply doesn't know when the tribunals will finish. It doesn't know what's down the track for next year, or the year after. It is very conscious that the longer the tribunals sit without reaching their conclusions, the nearer it will be to the local, European or general elections.
Once again, however, the party is banking on the Teflon factor which immunised the Taoiseach from serious injury over his handling of the second instalment of the Ray Burke controversy earlier this year. The most notable feature about Mr Ahern's performance over the donation of the £30,000 Rennicks cheque to Mr Burke was that he knew precisely the questions not to ask party associates about payments to his former minister.
In the highly favourable circumstances of this Fianna Fail Ardfheis, it should be possible to make a firm political judgment about the Taoiseach. The theme of his presidential address tomorrow night will be modern Ireland. It will be interesting to see whether he has the capacity to cast aside the current day-to-day controversies for an hour to present a longer-term vision for a confident Ireland in the new millennium.