The abandonment of Bertie Ahern's dream of a publicly- funded national stadium is a defining moment in the Fianna Fáil/Progressive Democrat era, writes Mark Brennock, Political Correspondent.
Nothing marks more clearly the metamorphosis of Bertie Ahern's fortunes as Taoiseach than the unceremonious scrapping of his plan to build a national stadium. Mr Ahern and his ministers, who rejoiced in five years of boom and party time, are careering helplessly into a new and fearful phase. In the new financial context, the stadium had to go.
Bertie Ahern must now lead his ministers into a period which will involve cutting services, missing deadlines for road and rail projects, failing to shorten hospital waiting lists as promised and telling an angry public that no, they weren't misled by the coalition parties during the election campaign.
In six weeks or so, the Government must persuade a sceptical and cynical public to vote Yes to the Nice Treaty they rejected last year.
And Bertie Ahern's aura of political astuteness and invincibility has been dented by what is a most personal political defeat over a project he has championed for most of his time as Taoiseach. A second Nice referendum defeat would be a devastating blow to his and his Government's authority.
The abandonment of the stadium project is the clearest sign that, post-election, this is a different country. The state of the public finances dictated that there was little alternative. But it is not just the FAI and the IRFU who have lost out: the manner in which the Taoiseach had to cave in after three years of unrelenting PD opposition to the Bertie Bowl has appeared to weaken his authority.
He did a long interview last Sunday on RTE Radio's This Week programme, during which he could have chosen to make a voluntary and dramatic announcement that the state of the public finances dictated that the stadium had to go.
Indeed, he could have made the announcement any time over the last few weeks. By waiting until Tuesday's Cabinet meeting and what was seen as a 90-minute showdown with the Tánaiste, he looked less like a Taoiseach taking a lead than a politician conceding to irresistible pressure.
He and his ministers have not only missed out on a post-election political honeymoon; they didn't even make the plane. Already, they have been forced to save €300 million this year through hasty cuts and new charges, and they ain't seen nothing yet.
In three weeks' time, ministers will see what three outside experts they have retained have done to departmental spending plans for next year, and it will not be pretty. Ministers have made their opening pitches for resources for 2003 and will have them steadily pared back as Charlie McCreevy and his officials struggle to keep public spending under control.
The ambitious boom-time plans for infrastructural projects are falling behind; targets for ending hospital waiting lists will not be met. Health service staff are up in arms while the negotiations for a new national wage deal are looking more and more nightmarish.
Tax increases - or some other means of extracting money from taxpayers to boost the depleted national coffers - are back on the agenda for December's Budget.
The Government's lightning switch into cutbacks mode has rejuvenated a tired Opposition. The parties and independents on the Opposition benches have quickly exploited public bewilderment and anger by accusing the Coalition of winning the election through fooling the voters.
There is now growing alarm at senior Government level and among the pro-Nice Opposition parties that antipathy to the Coalition will scupper the referendum again. The only silver lining is that, by dropping something so dear to his heart, Mr Ahern will be in a stronger position when he asks his ministers to make similar sacrifices from their own budgets.
Unusually for him, Charlie McCreevy chose to go on radio yesterday to explain the stadium decision and defend the Government.
He took the opportunity again to declare that the Government would "do whatever is necessary" to get public spending under control. Ministers listening will know to expect that, when Mr McCreevy begins his series of pre-Budget bilateral meetings with them next month, the atmosphere will be very grim.
The days when the Government could neutralise the Opposition by providing both tax cuts and spending rises are over.
Now they are faced with the traditional political choice of either good public services and higher taxes or low taxes and inadequate public services.
The stadium project was to have been a symbol of the new Ireland. To its supporters, the national stadium would have been among the crown jewels of a society transformed by 10 years of economic boom into one with services, infrastructure and facilities to match our wealthy European counterparts.
To its opponents, it was always an extravagant folly, a waste of hundreds of millions of euro. They could point to the money earmarked for it, as they could point to funding for the arts or for the purchase of historic buildings, and calculate how many hospitals, or schools, or kilometres of road or hip-replacement operations could be paid for if the funds were diverted.
But, to the Taoiseach, a thriving sports culture is a sign of a healthy society, just as a vibrant arts sector was to one of his predecessors, Charles Haughey.
Mr Ahern took on the stadium and sports campus project as a personal crusade. The boom years and the enormous Exchequer revenues that went with them meant that we no longer had to choose between essential services and public leisure facilities - between bread and circuses. We could have both.
This week's dramatic abandonment of the project shows that, despite the extraordinary and sustained boom, we cannot have both and may indeed get neither.
There will be no great State-funded sporting arena. The European soccer championships in 2008 are now less likely to take place here. All three major sporting organisations are enraged, with the Football Association of Ireland feeling particularly humiliated.
Interestingly, despite their persistent opposition to the stadium, the PDs backed off a showdown on the issue as recently as June. The agreed Programme for Government said work on a new national stadium would begin, despite colourful rhetorical denunciations of it during the election campaign by the PDs' Michael McDowell, now Minister for Justice.
However, the autumn of cuts and "adjustments" gave the Progressive Democrats an easy victory in the end. One Government source remarked ruefully yesterday that if the PDs hadn't opposed it from the start, work would now be well under way on the project.
PD opposition led to delays and consultants' reports and further delays, giving them the opportunity to kill it off easily in the new climate. Now the FF/PD Coalition will turn to the core issue of deciding on its spending priorities. The Taoiseach admitted on Tuesday that the National Development Plan - roads, rail and other infrastructural projects - was in danger of falling behind time. The implementation of the €10 billion health strategy on schedule must now be in doubt.
The only way to avoid painful abandonment of ambitious targets is to raise more money through taxation - or taxation by another name.
Since 1997, the Coalition has reduced current Government expenditure as a percentage of GNP from 36.5 per cent to 32.4 per cent - the equivalent of €4 billion per annum or enough to build about 10 national stadiums each year.
This change has happened in parallel with the relentless pursuit of cuts in capital, business and personal taxation.
Much, but not all, of this was required by commitments to the trade unions under the social partnership deal.
With taxation revenues falling, the Coalition must either find a way of increasing its tax revenues or reap what it has sown by cutting back on projects much more central to voters' concerns than Bertie Ahern's ambitious national stadium.