The summer break, in common with the rest of Euroland, gets properly underway this weekend although two events have marked its start here already. Last week the cabinet - members only, no partners - had its end-of-term dinner and this week the Galway Races saw Fianna Fail gathered in strength. Barring emergencies the cabinet won't meet again until the end of August, although most ministers will be at their desks part of the time. The new session will start on a high because of President Clinton's visit at the beginning of September. But what will the autumn bring the FF/PD government which has survived unshaken a rocky enough first year? The answer is tribunals and inquiries, public sector pay claims, the December budget and tax cut arguments, army deafness payments, Millennium and euro planning, a realignment on the left in Leinster House, preparations for next June's local and Euro elections and, as usual, the ever volatile North.
The tribunals - Justice Michael Moriarty investigating payments to politicians and Justice Fergus Flood looking into planning in north Dublin, both delayed by legal actions - present a serious threat to the stability of the coalition. No one can predict in what direction they will go and what shocks will emerge. The prospect of former Taoiseach Charles Haughey and former Minister Ray Burke giving evidence is causing some sleepless nights on the government side. The inquiries initiated by Tanaiste Mary Harney, meanwhile, into NIB, Michael Lowry's Garuda, Ciaran Haughey's Celtic Helicopters, Guinness and Mahon, Ansbacher, the Cayman Islands and so forth, a dozen in all, are problems for the individuals concerned rather than the government itself.
Any of the above could bring down a government but the predictable rows, on public service pay claims and what Charlie McCreevy does with the surplus billions in his budget, won't. The cabinet will eventually agree. The independents flexing their muscles, as Jackie Healy Rae did this week, won't collapse them either. Taoiseach Bertie Ahern has warned his troops, senior and junior, several times that they must do nothing, even at constituency level, to antagonise the three pro-government independents and endanger his majority. The danger lies in the unexpected.