With the election set for May, the phoney war has ended and the hard business of buying, sorry, winning votes has begun. Since the last instalment of Promises Promises, four of the political parties have held their ard-fheiseanna, and countless policy papers have been published.
Fianna Fail has courted the elderly - by promising to increase the old age pension to €200 a week; the Greens stay-at-home parents - by pledging to value "economically" the work they do; and the Labour Party those beleaguered souls at Montrose - by saying it would, in Government, "expedite" a review of RTÉ's licence fee.
Pledges are now even being made on pledges - as illustrated by the PD leader, Mary Harney, who promised not "to make reckless promises" in the run-up to the election.
Better still, the Fine Gael leader, Michael Noonan, this week promised to appoint a "cabinet enforcer" in government with a full ministerial brief whose job it would be to see that election pledges are kept. A Minister for Promises, in other words.
Vaguest promise of the month: "With principled, far-seeing economic management, we can create in Ireland a society that embraces both a US standard of income, and EU levels of social and environmental protection" - Mr Noonan, speaking at the publication of his party's Just Economics finance document this week.
Most ambitious pledge of the month: Various solutions to the country's traffic problems have been put forward by candidates. The PDs have promised to send local and national bus services down the same road of deregulation so painfully travelled by taxi drivers. Fine Gael has proposed, among other things, free off-peak bus travel, congestion charges and tax breaks for commuters.
The Greens, meanwhile, are advocating a range of measures which would reduce congestion and increase road safety, including the extension of the proposed Metro line to Swords, North Dublin and Bray, Co Wicklow, and the introduction of 30 kph speed limits for drivers in residential areas.
By these standards, Fianna Fail's plan to establish "a unified Department of Transport", charged with "delivering on target our already ambitious plans", appears almost a step backward.
(Time-) warped pledge of the month: "We will introduce a points system which will compel drivers to be careful if they want to stay on the road" - the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, at his party's ard-fheis this month. The pledge came 42 months, or almost four years, after Mr Ahern first announced the Government would introduce such a scheme as a matter of urgency.
Cutest pledge of the month: While the Taoiseach frets over his field of dreams in Abbotstown, Sinn Féin candidate for Sligo-Leitrim, Sean MacManus, has his eye on a more pressing sporting need. Citing the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which, he said, contains "a right to playgrounds", Mr MacManus remarked: "Not only would I call on the next government to commit to a capital program for funding playgrounds, but also to establish a playground insurance fund to cover these costs." Nice to see Sinn Féin has its soft side, eh?
Synchronised pledging: An interesting aspect to political promising is the way in which parties try to woo not just the electorate but potential coalition bed-fellows. Thus, witness a merging of the policies of Labour and the Greens. Both have pledged to oppose incineration, both have made inequity the key health issue, and both have expressed an intention to raise certain indirect taxes to fund better public services.
What's revealing, however, it's not just what they're promising but how they're arguing for it. Note Labour leader Ruairi Quinn: "We are now the eighth richest country in the world." Now Green TD John Gormley: "We are the eighth wealthiest country in the world." One wonders: are they sharing a scriptwriter too?
Most unambigious promise of the month: "If re-elected I will go ahead with this project" - the Taoiseach on the completion of Campus and Stadium Ireland.
Heard any promises? Email them to promises@irish-times.ie