When they pull things apart, you’ll notice only some of the wreckage

WE didn’t elect our Government to generate a crisis, did we? And we certainly didn’t elect them to start a whole series of crises, surely.

But in a year's time, I think we might be looking back at one crisis after another. 2003 is going to be a year of crises. And in a lot of cases, the prime cause will have been Government decisions. Not Government mistakes either. Calculated Government decisions, based on a particular premise.

And here's the extraordinary premise: "It doesn't matter what happens in 2003 and 2004. Even if the country falls apart, we can survive it. If we screw everything down for the next two years, even if it means chaos, even if it means hardship on an almost unprecedented scale, that doesn't matter. All that matters is that by screwing everything down now, we will be saving money for 2006 and 2007.

And in 2006 and 2007, what happens? Why, the next general election, that's what. Any resources saved now will be used then to buy as much popularity and as many votes as possible

You know, of course, that one of the reasons we have to save so much at the moment is because it is costing so much to service all those SSIAs out there. These special savings accounts are accumulating money at a rate of knots, thanks to the largesse of the taxpayer. And they, too, will mature around the time of the next general election.

So what will we get then? A massive injection into the economy because of the SSIAs all coming on stream together. All sorts of social issues and concerns getting a fillip from suddenly liberated public spending. And we'll all say, "what a good Government. They put us through a couple of tough years, but sure they probably had no choice. And as soon as the economy came right, there was plenty for everyone."

Except it will be a lie. If that's the way it works out two years of social irresponsibility followed by two years of increasing "generosity" it will have been one of the most cynical and socially corrupt pieces of political engineering in my lifetime. And if they get away with it, we all deserve whatever we get.

These are just some of the things that are going to happen in the next 12 months. Some of them will never reach the front pages of the newspapers, and some of them will attract a degree of publicity, but it won't be of the kind that gets us all worked up. All of these events will leave us poorer and worse off. Some of them will leave us less involved with each other as a community. All of them, great or small, matter. And all of them are entirely avoidable. Roads aren't going to be built. Land isn't going to be bought for housing.

School renovations, some of them long-promised, aren't going to happen. In at least one case I know of, that may lead to the local fire officer shutting a school down.

Hospitals aren't going to be able to cope. As the year goes on there will be more and more pressure on all sorts of non-emergency elective treatment.

Wards will be closed, acute staff shortages will get worse because people who leave won't be replaced. Patients will wait and wait. Some will be sent home after treatment, in some cases far too soon. Some will suffer, perhaps even die.

The library service will undergo a major crisis this year. It will literally run out of money to buy books. The Arts Council will have to rationalise the organisations it supports. Some will close down, all will have to cut back.

Sports bodies all around the country will have to make do with a great deal less over the next two years.

The fire service in different counties will be on tenterhooks. Equipment won't be replaced, training won't be up to date, manning levels will be low. They will be hoping and praying that their capacity to deal with a major emergency is never tested.

The gardaí, already suffering a drop in morale, will see people (their best people in some instances) leave and not be replaced. Figures will have to be massaged so there isn't community panic at the level of crime and at the inadequacy of the system even to patrol our streets.

At a more mundane (though just as important) level, dustbins may not be collected as often. Streets may not be swept as often. Street lighting will have to go on later and off earlier, and when it breaks it won't be repaired as quickly.

And investment in some important things will begin to dry up. Broadband, for instance. It was to be the promise of the future. Remember when every Government minister used to talk about us being an e-commerce hub? When was the last time you heard that? Instead, over the next couple of years, we're going to be slipping further and further down every league table where national technological progress is compared. You won't necessarily, as I say, read about all this in the newspapers. Most of these systems are run by public service managers, and are part of a reasonably well-oiled bureaucracy. Bureaucracy doesn't panic, and its managers aren't known to complain in public.

But at every level of the public service, there is now widespread concern. I won't go into the emerging crisis in disability services here, although I will certainly be writing about that issue soon. But in every other area of service, whether it is aimed at catering for children, elderly people, sports people, women, sick people, there is already enormous strain

And the strain will get worse. Our Government has decreed it. In the Book of Estimates and in the Budget they ensured that there would be no branch of the public services that won't suffer.

There is the possibility that, as a result, some dreadful catastrophe will occur. It is more likely that as a community, we will see a gradual deterioration in the overall quality of our lives. It won't be so noticeable or so quick for those with high incomes, but it will start to be visible all around us soon enough.

Am I scaremongering, hyping up the minor adjustments that have to be made? Am I exaggerating the difficulties that lie ahead of us? Will it really be as bad as that?

I'd like to think I'm exaggerating. I'd like to think the problem is only in my own imagination. No Government could be as calculating, as cynical and as callous as that, after all.

They have surely got something in reserve, some plan B to protect us from the worst excesses of all these unnecessary cutbacks. They're our Government elected by us to ensure that this is as civilised a country and as integrated a community as possible. Isn't that right?