With the general election well behind them and the three Government parties operating with a cohesion which puts some previous single party governments to shame and with the local and European elections not due until June 2009, our politicians can be relatively confident that, barring "events", 2008 will be an election-free year, writes Noel Whelan.
There will, however, be at least one outing to the doors and polls in 2008 because of the need for a referendum on the European Union reform treaty signed in Lisbon last month.
A date has not yet been set for that referendum, but campaign planners on both sides have pencilled in the last week in May knowing it to be Bertie Ahern's favourite time for holding polls.
It is still uncertain whether this referendum will be combined with one or more referendums on children's rights. The Taoiseach has indicated that that will be contingent on cross-party agreement on a series of constitutional amendments on children's issues. In his interview with this newspaper on Thursday, Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny was pessimistic about the prospect of such cross-party agreement and offered the view that the European and children's referendums might be best held separately.
The bulk of the campaigning for a Yes vote in the Lisbon referendum will rest with Fianna Fáil. They know they cannot win it on their own or with a low-key campaign, so they will have to work with the main Opposition parties and also with social partners and civic society in a broadly-based Yes campaign akin to that which secured a resounding victory in the second Nice referendum. In June 2001 that treaty was rejected by 54 per cent to 46 per cent, but in the second referendum in October 2002 the vote switched to 63 per cent in favour and 37 per cent against, mainly because half-a-million more people voted.
The Progressive Democrats in their current condition will be unable to add much but that will be more than offset by the interesting addition of the Green Party to the Yes side this time around. While the Green Party still has some deliberating to do, it is almost certain that, as a party, it will actively support a Yes vote on the treaty.
It should flow naturally from the decision to enter Government. To do otherwise would put their Ministers John Gormley and Eamon Ryan in an absurd position.
Fine Gael will also be central to the campaign. While the party's current leader may not have as ardent a Europhile profile as some of his predecessors, he knows that the balance of political advantage - as well as what the majority of Fine Gael voters see as the national interest - lies with the party putting in place an active Yes campaign and resisting the temptation to give the Government, and the Taoiseach in particular, a bloody nose.
The Labour Party is likely to come to the same view, although both Kenny and Eamon Gilmore will enjoy taunting the Government about how its unpopularity may damage the Yes campaign.
If the defeat suffered in the first Nice referendum is not enough to marshal the forces of the political and social partnership establishment to engage in an active and co-ordinated Yes campaign in this referendum then the quality of their opponents should. New groups have emerged to campaign against this treaty, the most significant of which is likely to be Libertas, a right-wing think tank led by businessman Declan Ganley.
Put bluntly, Ganley and his colleagues are much more formidable opponents for the political establishment than the likes of Justin Barrett. Ganley and others have the capacity and resources to deploy and hire the best marketing, copywriting and media-buying expertise for their campaign.
They also have better arguments and have already shown a flair for communicating stark and powerful messages which, at least initially, will prove attractive to elements of the Irish electorate whose broad support for the European project has never had great depth.
Ganley's efforts are likely to run parallel to other Irish-based No campaigners such as Sinn Féin and, since Ireland is the only country holding a referendum on the treaty, by manpower and money from eurosceptic forces from abroad.
The reform treaty comes with a number of political handicaps, not least the fact that, like most of its predecessors, it is impenetrable to many and makes little sense when read on its own. One fundamental problem is that this treaty has no grand new idea behind it. The main purpose of the Nice treaty was to facilitate the enlargement of the European Union to encompass the former Soviet countries of central and eastern Europe. In Ireland there was - at least by the time of the second Nice referendum - a real sense that the peoples of these emerging democracies and fledgling economies deserved the same opportunity we had to avail of the benefits of European Union membership.
This time around the supporters of the reform treaty speak about its purpose in minimalist terms and suggest it does no more than implement a number of administrative and procedural innovations to enable the European Union to operate more effectively with its expanded membership and to play a greater role in international affairs.
Even more than previously, this referendum campaign is likely to focus not on the contents of the treaty itself, but on the core question of Ireland's membership of the European Union. The issue will be whether we want to continue to be fully signed-up members and whether in return we are prepared to pay a further price in national sovereignty.
Notwithstanding the Nice one result, the Irish electorate has shown itself to be relatively hard-headed in these matters. The Irish people vote with their pockets and when mobilised to do so in sufficient numbers they vote Yes for European treaties.
The onset of harsher economic times may actually be the key determinant of the result of this referendum.