Can reconvened Cabinet prove this Government is for all seasons?

I remember when August 15 was the turning point in summer. A last festival, both holiday and holy day. It was the end of the builders’ holidays (and for lots of other businesses that closed for the first two weeks in August, too).

For us, it was packing up in Curracloe, goodbye to all the Wexford cousins, and home to Dublin and school, and copybooks. When I was in the middle of school, it passed very slowly. Now, I realise it evaporated.

School days were from four years of age to 17 — 13 years. Not long, when the next bus stop is 50. Mind you, I prefer hitting 50 than 14. A great paradox about human flesh; as it sags, you become more comfortable in it.

Life doesn’t move anymore in the seasonal patterns that until recently seemed immutable. Those patterns were venerable. The rhythms of life that revolved around a Christian calendar, itself once wrapped around a pagan one, are barely traceable.

Echoes that evolved and resonated for nearly 1,500 years are fading in front of us. The simultaneous euthanasia of God and omnipotence of technology, colliding in the lives of a single Irish generation, are cultural change on a scale unseen since the Famine.

You would be hard-pressed to sense that August 15 marked any discernible punctuation point. I suppose the loss is compensated for by liberation.

The cycles of season and great religious festival, once pivotal to the pattern of life, are now anthropology. But schoolchildren, barristers, and politicians still shape their year around these formerly great festivals of religious belief. Now, of course, those festivals are just an echo of something, the original meaning of which is only faintly felt, if at all.

Michaelmas term is nearly upon us. So, schools, courts, and parliaments reassemble, until Christmas. Traditionally, it did not begin, in parliaments and courts that is, until the feast of St Michael and All Angels on September 20. Schoolchildren will return much sooner. Interestingly, our courts and parliament still commence their year with religious services.

One of the nonsenses about Irish politics is that the Dáil has extraordinarily long holidays. The Dáil, as a legislative chamber, is remarkably ineffective, and, by inference, so are most Irish politicians. They are, however, extraordinarily hard working.

Next Wednesday is the first Cabinet meeting after the summer break. The Dáil will resume two weeks later, on September 17, well in advance of the Feast of St Michael and All Angels on September 29. But the disparity between the effort of our system and its ineffectiveness cannot be measured in the number of days the Dáil sits.

Instead, it is counted in the amount of time TDs spend in their constituency, paying personal attention to their constituents and keeping a watchful eye on any emerging competition or talent in the ranks of their own party. It is that threat that is most dangerous and must be immediately pruned.

Much of the analysis over the coming weeks will focus on the challenges the Government faces. They have big decisions to make and these will be rehearsed and rehashed at the various party think-ins. There is the budget, of course, and the need to satisfy the heightened expectations created by the Government itself over the past few months.

In terms of our political culture, there is every sign that we have crossed back over the Rubicon that we swore, and they promised, we would never cross again. It’s payback time. We have demanded it, and they will pay out on-demand. Forget the improvidence; that’s politics. Well, politics as usual, Irish-style.

One of the less obvious pressures on government is time. In addition to negotiating a budget, managing relations between the two parties — one has a new leader and both are under increasing pressure from backbenchers, who know that the next election is their big day —there are other concerns.

The Government faces three by-elections, one referendum for sure, and potentially several more. Immediately, by-elections are pending in Dublin South-West and Roscommon–South Leitrim, owing to the election of Brian Hayes and Luke ‘Ming’ Flanagan to the European Parliament.

Interestingly, Labour in government won the last by-election in Dublin South-West, where Brendan Halligan won in 1976, after the death of Noel Lemass.

A third by-election will be required when Phil Hogan resigns his Dáil seat to take up his post as European Commissioner. That appointment, of course, requires ratification by the European Parliament, a process only the foolish see as pro-forma.

All going well, he will be gone by November and another by-election rolls on. The talk is that the Government will opt to have the first two in early October, before the budget.

That’s a right judgement, in my view. All the talk of fiscal laxative is going to leave a lot of people disappointed, and, in any event, the benefits in pay packets will not be felt until the new year. Better to get out, and get it over.

Hogan’s by-election and the referenda will be for next year. But that will come soon enough. The one referendum to which the Government is definitely committed is marriage equality. Other issues contending for constitutional referenda include reducing the voting age to 16, reducing the age of presidential candidates (it is currently 35), changing the wording in the Constitution that defines women in the home, and votes for emigrants.

No decisions have been taken, but they will have to be addressed by the Government, and ruled in or out this autumn. If they are decided upon, referenda will be held in 2015.

As the Government has already discovered to its cost, twice, getting referenda over the line is always an enormous challenge.

As faith in politics and authority wanes, the level of public assurance required to get referenda over the line increases. A reasonable doubt in the mind of the electorate can be enough to trigger a ‘no’ vote.

The underlying issue, and it’s one that continually resurfaces for all governments, but especially for this one, is its capacity to both govern and campaign effectively at the same time.

Moving forward successfully on those twin tracks requires a huge focus of time and energy from a relatively small group of people. People at the top in government are shockingly time-poor.

The consequence of not proverbially being able to walk and chew gum at the same time is that you trip.

When you trip up in government, you lose momentum, and then you are going backwards, not forward. “Summer time and the livin’ is easy” is over.

Michaelmas term is nearly upon us. So, schools, courts, and parliaments reassemble