Inside Politics:The political atmosphere in the last few days before the Dáil adjourned for the Christmas recess was not what the Government had planned.
The biggest giveaway Budget in history was pushed to the sidelines by new political controversies over the age of consent and care of the elderly, while the spate of vicious gun murders pushed crime back to the top of the political agenda.
The combination of issues came as a reminder to politicians on all sides that unforeseen events can change the political dynamic in an instant.
No matter how well the political parties prepare themselves for the forthcoming election they will not be able to anticipate every development. They have no way of knowing what issues will dominate public opinion next May.
A few weeks ago the Government appeared invincible when the opinion polls suddenly turned in its favour. Whether this was in spite or because of the payments controversy nobody was quite sure, but the timing was ideal. The plan was to follow up with a generous Budget that would set the scene for the six-month election campaign.
However, the carefully orchestrated campaign to sell the Government's economic policies with a Budget triumph fizzled out within days. One reason was that, apart from the substantial increase in the old-age pension, there was no clear theme to the Budget.
A bigger problem was that it was quickly overtaken in the publicity stakes by other political events. Some of these could have been anticipated but others could not.
The row over the proposal that the age of sexual consent should be lowered from 17 to 16 was a slow burner until the Taoiseach's sudden fit of the jitters propelled it to the top of the political agenda.
Mr Ahern began to publicly back away from the position taken by Fianna Fáil and PD members on the Oireachtas Committee on Child Protection after the Catholic bishops came out against it.
However, he had already been spooked by Fine Gael and was clearly not prepared to take a political risk in support of the proposal endorsed by his own Ministers and backed by Labour.
Enda Kenny has taken a strong and consistent line against reducing the age of consent since the beginning of the controversy over statutory rape last June.
He appears to have struck a chord with the public on the subject if the Taoiseach's reaction is anything to go by.
More importantly, he has shown that he is a politician who is capable of taking a stand on an issue he regards as important. Given that the political and media consensus appeared to be against him, that took political courage as well as good judgment.
An even trickier political issue, which is causing jitters on the Government side, is the package of measures to care for the elderly announced on Monday by Minister for Health Mary Harney.
To be fair, the Minister has shown commendable courage in coming up with a comprehensive set of proposals to deal with a huge social issue that has to be tackled sooner or later. Over the past 30 years and more successive governments failed to put the financing of nursing home care for public patients on a proper legal footing.
The result was that a system of deductions from pensions, which was not in itself unfair but was certainly illegal, became the accepted way of dealing with the problem.
When the illegality was exposed the taxpayer was landed with another massive bill for the State's incompetence.
At the core of Ms Harney's scheme to finance long-term residential care is the proposal that 15 per cent of the value of the house owned by those in State care should be paid to the exchequer after their death.
This has sparked an intense debate and a great deal of hostile and misleading media coverage for the Minister.
The image of a "death tax" has already taken hold and will probably make rational debate impossible.
What Fianna Fáil TDs can't figure out is why the Minister came up with such a controversial plan just six months before the election. Regardless of the rights and wrongs of the scheme, the political risks are obvious for all to see. Expecting a mature debate on an emotive subject during an election campaign is asking too much as political opponents will inevitably misrepresent what is being proposed.
Ms Harney herself knows this only too well given her disastrous attempt to have a debate on the issue of single mothers during the 1997 election campaign. Reason simply went out the window and the PDs were hammered.
The only conclusion is that Ms Harney is determined to leave a significant legacy when she leaves the Department of Health in six months. In terms of the national interest she has done the right thing by, at the very least, getting a real debate going about how the elderly are to be cared for and how the system should be funded.
In political terms, though, her Fianna Fáil colleagues won't thank her for opening such a Pandora's box.
Crime was the other big issue to jump back up the political agenda with a renewed outbreak of vicious gun murders. In political terms the shootings have made Michael McDowell a target for the Opposition but he has sought to shift the focus on to the judicial system and its failure to implement the laws passed by the Oireachtas and the bail referendum passed by the people.
It does appear that the legal system had been acting in open defiance of the political system in recent years by refusing to impose mandatory sentences and continuing to implement a liberal bail regime. It is the Minister, though, who has to carry the can in political terms for the rising tide of violent gun crime. It was just one further illustration of how unexpected events may dictate the political agenda at any time between now and the election.