Now that the European elections are over and Serbian forces have begun to withdraw from Kosovo, it's time to start a debate on foreign policy.
Some will say the time is past, that these were European elections, fought on European issues; and Ireland's attitude to events in the Balkans was determined by "our traditional policy of neutrality".
The elections have indeed been about membership of the European Parliament, but not about European issues; not even the changing balance between the parliament and the councils composed of ministers or heads of government.
Opinion polls showed the electorate would be influenced largely by local issues. The parties followed suit.
The untrustworthiness of Fianna Fail was the issue most often raised by (and, by all accounts, with) the candidates of Fine Gael, Labour, the Green Party and Sinn Fein.
Fianna Fail candidates said as little as possible about trust. They concentrated instead on what their governments had got from the rest of Europe, much as their colleagues in general elections concentrate on what they'd got for the constituency.
What Ireland might do for the rest of Europe was seldom mentioned and then only by the opposition; what Europe might do for the rest of the world - or that part of it which needs the help and encouragement of rich countries like our own - didn't count.
AS for neutrality, the use of the word "traditional" to describe it is significant. It suggests that anyone who dares to raise the issue, let alone question the policy, had better watch out.
In truth it has rarely been discussed other than at moments of crisis (such as the Falklands war) or in the white heat of electioneering when to be soft on neutrality was tantamount to national treachery.
The Government's decision to take part in the programmes of the NATO-led Partnership for Peace represents a remarkable departure from Fianna Fail's traditional attitude to the policy.
And the belated revelation that the decision doesn't need to be endorsed by the electorate in a referendum is an even more dramatic departure from the position adopted by Bertie Ahern before the 1997 general election.
His view that the European elections should be considered a referendum on PfP - instead of the referendum that needn't be held, as it were - can scarcely be taken seriously.
But now is the time to discuss both neutrality, which has never been satisfactorily defined, and participation in PfP, which has been defined in Dick Spring's White Paper on Foreign Policy, but never fully debated.
The debate on foreign policy should have started long ago, when Ireland was admitted to the United Nations in the mid-1950s, well before it joined the Common Market.
As our involvement in the wider world grew, so foreign affairs should have become an integral feature of Irish politics: integral but outward-looking.
It didn't. We simply turned things inside out: far from widening horizons, our engagement in EU affairs has been confined to self-interest; the Union has simply become a wider stage for Irish ambitions.
Few here have heard of Romano Prodi; everyone has a shot at guessing who our next commissioner may be.
The interest is in the person, not the job; the pay and perks, not the portfolio.
Starting a debate on foreign policy when the elections are over and the crisis in the Balkans has passed may seem a novel suggestion. It's certainly not what we're used to.
To take the most obvious example from another area of public life: the question of standards was first raised before the current series of tribunals began and has been given a weekly airing ever since.
After the first round of scandals - remember Greencore? Carysfort? the Johnston, Mooney and O'Brien site? - everyone seemed to agree that openness and accountability would be a good thing.
Indeed, openness and accountability were considered essential elements in a parliamentary democracy.
But senior members of the Fianna Fail-Labour coalition of the early 1990s were slow to accept that this meant old habits should cease.
And when the Fine Gael-Labour-Democratic Left coalition took the issue seriously, Eithne Fitzgerald, who produced much of the relevant legislation, found herself under attack from conservatives all round.
No sooner had he become party leader than Bertie Ahern promised an improvement in standards in Fianna Fail. It went down so well - outside if not inside FF - that he did it again. And again. And again.
Now he has done it so often that he's beginning to sound like someone who has just been to confession and is making what used to be called a firm purpose of amendment.
Sadly, it never works. When the next case of low standards comes to light, the round of denial, admission and promise of improvement will begin all over again.
At best, it may be necessary to admit being where David Andrews was when NATO's bombs began to fall, between a rock and a hard place.
AT worst, the bad old ways of professing an interest in change but refusing to budge, or making a move but only in a self-serving direction, affect many politicians of all shades.
So the State is divided into regions, clumsily drawn to meet blatantly opportunistic demands and electoral convenience.
(In short, Jackie Healy-Rae and staying in power.)
And, while everyone agrees that decentralisation is highly desirable and badly needed, no one can deny that it's seriously undermined by such shenanigans.
But those who say so in opposition now must admit that, in office, their performances were little better than that of the Government they criticise.
Anyone who has ever given the slightest thought to the issue knows that local government is in need of reform.
But local elections are held once in a blue moon, and local authorities are starved of funds.
And housing, which used to be one of the major responsibilities of local authorities, is blithely left to the mercy of the market, as if there was nothing our representatives at local or national level could do about it.
In a referendum that was all but hidden from the electorate - through no fault of the commission which set out the arguments, pro and con - we decided yesterday that the status of local government should be afforded constitutional recognition.
Those who made the proposal would have shown that they were serious about it if they'd managed to change, modernise and fund the system in time for the 1999 elections as promised.
Local government needs a hell of a lot more than constitutional recognition if it's to survive.