Millennium fever is beginning to grip the country, and it can only get worse. Almost every town and village is making plans for the start of the new era. Hotels, restaurants, clubs and dance-halls are being heavily booked. Committees all over the State are arranging festivities. The greatest brains in the land are beavering away, trying to come up with a few original ideas.
Apparently, Ireland was a bit slow in getting out of the blocks. Of course, we haven't got an awful lot of money to spend, relatively speaking. In Britain - believe it or not - £68 per head is being spent and the total bill will be around £4 billion. I don't think Charlie McCreevy would be too keen on taking on that sort of expense.
Millennium committee
We must be more modest in our ambitions. The Government plans to spend £50 million financing up to three projects and expects this figure to be matched by funding from the private sector. The National Millennium Committee, chaired by the Government chief whip, Mr Seamus Brennan, is believed to have already received submissions for more than 100 projects, costing about £300 million. They include plans to renew O'Connell Street, Dublin, plant four great forests in the provinces and build a national trade and conference centre in Cork. We have already seen the model of the "needle" in O'Connell Street, which was unveiled recently, and which has caused so much comment.
The churches in England were astounded when a Gallup survey found that only one person in six recognises that the millennium marks the 2,000th anniversary of Christ's birth. The poll also showed that most of those questioned would rather see the £750 million spent on the Millennium Dome put into schools and hospitals. Quite right too.
So far, I must admit, I have nothing planned for the big bash. Nobody has invited me to a party, a dance or a get-together, no old friends have popped out of the woodwork and asked me to join them for a millennium pint. I hear the millennium talk all around me, but nothing tangible seems to be coming my way. It's the sort of situation that breeds an inferiority complex. When someone asks me in 10 years' time where I was on Millennium Night, I might have to put up my hand and say: "I read a book." This won't look too good on my social CV. For social outcasts like me who have nowhere to go except their sitting-rooms, news on the television front is bleak to say the least. There is a suggestion that a "one-last-time" three-part special of the BBC series Only Fools and Horses could be shown. That should certainly bring in the millennium with a bang. In fact, it could force you to bring the dog for a walk. The British channels will all screen the official state ceremony at the Dome. Clive James will host an ITV millennium eve review on ITV. There is no hint yet of what Irish TV stations will offer.
Computer industry
I was reading recently that British commercial TV companies expect to sell advertising time around the chimes of midnight for £100,000 for a 30second slot compared with the normal £15,000 for a Friday at midnight.
But will the millennium mark the end of the world as we have come to know it? The effect of the change of the millennium date on the computer is terrifying everyone. We have become so dependent on the microchip that if anything happened it we might have to go back to the wheel and start all over again. Panic is rife in the computer industry. It is the only thing that frightens the new macho generation. A little blip in the works can make mighty man look so helpless, so puny. It is now homo sapiens in the green corner versus the machine in the red corner. Who is going to win? The greatest brains in the world are hectically working on it as we speak. Can they succeed, or will our feeble little species collapse in the face of such a challenge?
Seminars are being held all over the State, some organised by the Department of Enterprise and Employment, to see what can be done about the 2000 threat to our computers. Some people say if the worst does happen, the insurance companies will cover any disaster. Not so, according to some experts. Apparently, insurers only cover you against the unforeseen, not the inevitable. Insurance companies do not get caught too easily. The Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, has directed all Government departments to ensure that there are no flaws in their systems and he expects them to take all the necessary precautions. This is bad news for people who were hoping that a little bug would get into the Revenue Commissioners' computer system and obliterate their files. But we all know the Revenue Commissioners are infallible and even if every Government Department fell, the Revenue would still be left standing. There is a frightening permanency about income tax.
Safety checks
Recently we heard that company directors could be sued after the year 2000 if computer failures lead to death or injury due to the M-bug. Mr Chris Gooding, of LeBoeuf, Lamb, Greene and McRae, an English-based company, said that "directors and officers' liabilities" would emerge as microprocessers failed because of the inability to read dates beyond December 31st, 1999. "At the end of the day you have a paper trail leading directly to the board of directors who have ignored the warnings." He predicted that there would be loss and injury to people as a result of any setback, especially in the "semi-developed" world where safety checks are not as strict.
This is enough to give the more timid of us heart failure. One imagines planes falling out of the skies, ships sinking, telephone and communications systems collapsing, governments in chaos, businesses in total disarray - all because of a change of date. The mind boggles.
It seems the micro-chip is now like oxygen; we can't breath without it.