The British conservative MP Anne Widdecombe was quoted as having said this week that: "We now expect more from government than from God." Her remarks were a follow-on from an argument she made some months ago in a memorial lecture for the former Catholic archbishop of Liverpool, Derek Warlock. Warlock was well known throughout Britain not only as a church leader, but also as a social campaigner and in particular for his work on anti-sectarianism with his Anglican counterpart in the city.
In her address, Widdecombe expressed surprise at having been invited to give the Warlock lecture, since, during his lifetime she had been critical of the archbishop; not, she said, because she disapproved of his work but because to her he seemed, like so many enthusiasts for a cause, to expect government to solve all problems.
He seemed, she said, to be unable to accept that government might be faced with limits when it came to resources.
Ireland too, now has an increasing number of enthusiasts for an increasing number of causes who are demanding that government solve an increasing number of problems.
Political discourse in this country very often involves enthusiasts (in the form of spokesmen and spokeswomen for interest groups, politicians or media) insisting that government must do more, or must spend more on their chosen cause.
As in Britain, government in Ireland, both in its political and its Civil Service guise, often tries to argue that the public purse or the public service cannot do or should not do everything. They find it hard to be heard amidst a relentless clamour for more government action.
The problem is even more acute in Ireland than that of which Widdecombe complains in Britain because any argument from governments here that they do not have the resources to do everything is not taken seriously in an era when our sustained economic boom is generating record tax revenues.
However, the fact that Irish politics operates in a time of ample public resources does not mean it still does not involve hard choices.
No matter how much money a government has, decisions must be made about how that money is spent.
More regard needs to be had in Irish political discourse to what economists call opportunity cost. The true merits of every government decision or initiative must be measured not only by whether value has been achieved for the money and effort invested, but also by comparison to what could have been achieved if the same money and effort had instead been spent on tackling some other problem or improving some other service.
At the same time as government resources have increased, so too have the demands upon government.
At the very moment that people should need government less because they have greater private resources, the electorate are demanding more from government. In an era when individual taxpayers are paying lower taxes, their expectations about the quality and extent of public services to which they are entitled are increasing.
If they are not seeking greater public spending on their particular cause, then the enthusiasts are demanding greater political attention or more legislation. Public money or public law-making are now seen as the new panacea for all of society's ills.
The extent to which we run the risk of expecting too much from (or leaving too much to) government is illustrated by the debate surrounding a number of issues.
In the area of child protection, there are demands for more vetting, calls for the collation of soft information about suspicions of abuse, and an insistence on more stringent registering requirements for convicted abusers. All of this can play a significant role in protecting children, but it can never be a substitute for parental and popular vigilance.
Arising from the recent controversies about some nursing homes, there are demands for the State-run health and social services to ensure better standards in the delivery of care. An adequately resourced State-run inspectorate can help to achieve improved quality of care in nursing homes, but it cannot alleviate the need for family members and friends - as the people closest to the point of delivery of the service most often - to be vigilant of the level of care and to exercise the ultimate option of withdrawing parents or loved ones from those facilities they find to be inadequate.
More generally, there are increasing demands for the State services to meet many social needs previously catered for by families or local communities. It is unarguable that as our country becomes wealthier we should expect greater social services, but they cannot, or should not, displace the need for voluntary activity. A growing charity and voluntary sector need not be seen as a failing of State-run social services.
In the area of sports and recreation, more public lottery grants or government-funded initiatives are demanded. These can play a role in incentivising and supporting local community and sports activity, but they cannot replace local voluntary effort.
At a time when anti-social behaviour is causing concern and adding to fear of crime, there are demands for tougher laws and calls for greater Garda activity and resources, none of which is likely to be as effective at tackling the problem as parental control and supervision of teenagers.
Politics above all else is about the allocation of finite resources between competing demands. It is through politics that it is determined what private resources are taken from people through taxation and diverted instead to wider public use. It is through politics that it is determined how and on what priorities tax money is spent.
Government can do a lot, and could do a lot of it better than it does currently, but it cannot do everything.