Not since the Great Auction of 1977, a general election widely blamed for precipitating a 15-year economic recession, has so much been promised to so many, with so little explanation as to where the money will come from.
The three largest parties are all pledging to invest heavily in infrastructure and public services, in particular health. Yet all are also promising not to increase either income or corporation taxes, at least not until at least 2007. An obvious source of cash is the National Pensions Reserve Fund, but Fianna Fáil said it wouldn't even consider touching it.
Fine Gael said it would consider investing, "on a commercial basis", some money from the fund to pay for roads, hospitals and schools, while Labour has committed itself to reducing contributions to the fund by 75 per cent for five years, a move which will generate over €5 billion for capital investment. Whether that will be enough, however, to cover the cost of other Labour pledges, such as free GP care for all, the PDs, for one, chose to question.
Ironically, the party showing greatest leanings towards fiscal rectitude is the Socialist Workers, otherwise known as the Trotskyists. All seven of their candidates have pledged to take an average industrial wage from their Dáil salaries, if elected, and to donate the rest to worthy causes.
What Michael McDowell of the PDs said: "If Labour wants to go on a borrowing spree, so be it. But destroying the pension fund of future pensioners is simply madness."
What Labour leader Ruairí Quinn said: "The fund is not being raided. Labour is being honest."
Mixed message of the month: "We believe it is important to avoid a return to borrowing." - the Minister for Finance, Mr McCreevy.
"There might be borrowing." - the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, ruling in what his party colleague had just ruled out, in an Irish Times interview.
Regional pledge of the month: In a period which saw Government ministers promise €50 million for Killybegs harbour, €76 million for sports, including a record allocation for Donegal, and the extension of the national gas pipeline, coincidentally or not through ministerial homelands, Fine Gael's Leitrim TD Gerry Reynolds complained that regional development was operating on a principle of "where you have a cabinet minister you spend money". Fine Gael's solution (as promised by party leader Michael Noonan last weekend)? A Minister for the West.
Just how voters in the north, south and east will take to the idea, time will tell.
Referendum pledge of the month: You'd think after the Taoiseach's self-damaging commitment to the anti-abortion movement before the last general election, the parties would be eager to avoid making promises on referendums. Not so. Fine Gael has pledged to seek a referendum to safeguard the rights of people with disabilities, while Sinn Féin says it will enshrine the right to housing in the Constitution.
The most significant pledge, however, is from the Green Party, which says it won't participate in a coalition which does not insert a protocol in the Nice Treaty safeguarding Irish neutrality. Given the Government's announcement earlier this month that it would countenance only a declaration on neutrality ahead of a re-run Nice referendum, the Greens appears to have lost at least one coalition option.
Unsynchronised pledging: Last month's Promises Promises illustrated how certain parties are not just sharing policies but the manner in which they are communicated to the electorate. It has since been pointed out that some have yet to master the skill.
Note this bullish declaration by the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern: "On the issue of crime, we dealt with organised crime, we dealt with the drugs barons. Those who thought they were untouchable have been reached and sent away as a consequence of Fianna Fáil's crime policies over the past five years."
Now, his coalition partner, the Tánaiste, Ms Harney: "There are no easy answers to the problem of crime. There is no quick-fix solution and it would be wrong of any politician to suggest that there was."
Triers of the month: One cannot but be impressed by the number of policy documents being produced by Fine Gael. After Just Economics, an economic strategy document promising US incomes and EU levels of social protection, came Just Housing, a housing policy which would cost €500 million in the first year, and includes a scheme whereby the State would pay part of the deposit on first-time buyers' homes. What next? Just Education? Just Health? Just Vote for Us . . . Please!?
Garbled message of the month: For pure confusion created by election literature, the prize goes to Fine Gael Dún Laoghaire candidate Senator Helen Keogh, whose manifesto, a correspondent to this column points out, contains the claim that if we are to sustain our prosperity, "we must constantly extend our capabilities, all the time moving up the value-added chain". Whatever that means, it sure sounds painful.
Heard any promises? E-mail them to promises@irish-times.ie