It may well be that political promises, implicit or explicit, are a bit like New Year resolutions - made to be broken. But there are a few social undertakings which the Government, and various of its ministers, will do well to honour and implement in 1999.
There is the case made by the nurses that their work and responsibilities had changed almost beyond recognition in recent decades and was deserving of better career structures and remuneration more appropriate to the skills and qualifications now required for the job. Perhaps the most clamorous support for their claims came from the present Minister for Health when he was still in opposition. Yet when the independent commission, established by his predecessor in office, delivered its report largely confirming that nurses had a special case, Mr Cowen first tried to shunt the pay elements into the public service pay mechanisms despite the commission having said that they should be adjudicated by the Labour Court.
Mercifully, he changed his mind and the outcome of the Labour Court's deliberations is now awaited. When it comes, Mr Cowen must surely accept the Court's recommendations, however great the cost will prove to the exchequer. To do otherwise would be to dishonour his original vociferous support of the nurses' claims and would do less than justice to a unique profession which not only deploys considerable technical skills but continues to provide the care and compassion traditionally shown by Irish nurses. Besides, to fail the nurses now will cost more than granting them the justice they deserve: it is already very difficult to recruit personnel to the nursing service and hundreds of nursing posts lie empty because there is no-one willing to fill them and the cost of that deficit cannot be measured in mere money.
Mr Cowen has another problem (and, to be fair, this is not of his own making) which has to do with costs. It was demonstrated by the financial debacle of the new Tallaght hospital where, clearly, the initial budgets allocated by the Minister's department were inadequate in the first place and the administration of them by the new hospital's boards and executives was as bad. Hospital costs and their predictive and retrospective measurement have been deeply unsatisfactory in this State for decades past, and new, more sophisticated systems are urgently required. At least the Minister has done more than his predecessors to attempt to confront this inadequacy, but more still needs to be done in 1999.
And with a booming economy and a Budget in 1998 which was claimed by the Minister for Finance to shift the traditional balance to give more weight to the needs of people in poverty, the failure to meet poor children's needs more directly requires remedy. Mr McCreevy did make at least some radical move by way of tax credits to change the emphasis somewhat to the benefit of lower-paid workers and shifted the lowest paid out of the tax net - at least for a while. But a great deal more needs to be done before the Government can lay claim to having effected real social justice for the most needy.
And then there was the deplorable attempt by the Minister for Social Community and Family Affairs to deprive the most needy of their minuscule Christmas bonuses. For Mr Ahern to try to decrease both the payments and the numbers receiving them on a once-off basis, suggests at least that his heart is not fully in his allocated portfolio. There has also been the wretched handling of a number of refugee immigrants by the Minister for Justice and his departmental officials and their agents. In a country which has had a higher emigration rate than most, the treatment of refugees here has been unforgivable.
Let the Government resolve collectively that, during the coming 12 months, and well beyond the millennium, this State will have social justice at least as high on its agenda as fiscal rectitude. But the evidence of 1998 is not encouraging in this regard.