Ask Bertie Ahern what's new in these opening days of his second government - the first to have been re-elected since 1969 - and he'll happily point to some familiar faces around the Cabinet table.
There they are, however familiar or experienced, new members of the first coalition Cabinet to have been given a second term since coalitions began: Seamus Brennan, Michael McDowell, Martin Cullen, Mary Coughlan and Eamon Ó Cuív, with Mary Hanafin tucked in as chief whip.
Some, like McDowell, have had the opportunity to deliver political critiques, but only outside the Dáil; their conclusions or proposed alternatives (with few exceptions) have not been put to the test of public and parliamentary scrutiny and debate.
One current issue is of immediate interest here.
McDowell has arrived in Justice just when public interest in the organisation, operation and supervision of the Garda Síochána has been aroused by a series of deeply troubling events.
Some of these events have been the subject of court cases; others have yet to be explored.
But there seems little doubt that, in the interests of the public and of the force, there should be an independent system of investigation and adjudication which has the confidence of both.
I know that many commentators disagree with McDowell because of opinions expressed as president of the Progressive Democrats or in the course of debate on economic and social affairs.
I too disagree strongly with some of his views.
But on his Department responsibilities, he should be heard, as soon as possible and with a minimum of interruption.
Other new ministers, like Seamus Brennan, have already served their season in purgatory; in his case in the service of party and parliament.
Brennan spent the last five years keeping track of Government backbenchers and Fianna Fáil -inclined Independents with the object of maintaining the FF-PD coalition in office.
Now, though, it's up to Mary Hanafin to look after Jackie Healy-Rae and his fellow Independents, but in changed circumstances and in such a way as to ensure that they are not treated differently from other deputies.
There are more Independents than ever in the 29th Dáil and already they and the smaller parties - or at any rate the Green Party and Sinn Féin - have begun to claim rights which have long been denied to all but the established parties.
It's not only the Government which must respond to their demands for opportunities to take part in the organisation of the Dáil; to participate in committees; to raise questions with ministers and to contribute fully to parliamentary debates.
No sooner had Enda Kenny been elected leader of Fine Gael this week than he promised vigorous opposition, both inside and outside the Dáil, and the scrutiny of public finances which Ruairí Quinn and Labour spokesmen had already begun.
As the Opposition representatives of all parties commented on the Programme for Government, it is plain that, though this was a new Dáil, what Fianna Fáil and the Progressive Democrats now proposed on the social, economic and financial fronts could not - by any stretch of the imagination - be called a New Deal.
The theme of the FF and PD election campaigns had been: what we have we hold, and no one could deny that gains had been made during the five years of Ahern's first coalition.
But no one would be foolish enough to pretend that those who'd made the greatest gains were the people and the corporations which needed them most.
But there were promises in the first programme for government published by the coalition - and in the interim report which came out at the end of 1999 - which suggested the administration seriously intended to improve the lot of the majority, with emphasis on the needs of the poorest.
The unspoken condition was: when the time was right. What exactly the government was waiting for was not clear.
But during the five years of Ahern's first coalition, programmes constantly referred to such issues as the abolition or reduction of hospital waiting lists and the removal of the low-paid from the tax net.
Not so in the latest programme.
Not only was there no commitment to a deadline for the abolition of waiting lists in the document published on Tuesday; the promise had shrunk to vanishing point.
The prospect of increased public spending had always been present, whether explicitly stated or implicit in proposals for the development of public services.
In the latest programme, there were no references to increased public spending; so the Government was left with a free hand: if conditions changed, so would the force of the promise.
And for every promise on social and economic development in the programme, conditions were attached which would allow its abandonment if circumstances changed.
It now seems to be clear that we have come to a point at which the financial difficulties into which the coalition has plunged the Republic render all promises null and void.
It's in these circumstances that the new Dáil gets down to business.