And once again, she and Brian were saluted and complimented on their long-standing union.

But while all looks happy on the surface, this really has become something of a marriage of convenience.

Brian Cowen's decision to publish the first ever pre-budget economic outlook is welcome, as are the figures contained in it. We can't but delight in the fact that yet again, this country's coffers will overflow far beyond last year's wildest predictions: tax income will amount to at least 1.8bn over what the minister plans to spend next year.

That surplus will be put away to shelter us against a rainy day, a nest egg to buffer against the widely signalled global economic squalls due for 2007 and 2008, as well as a downturn in income expected from construction and property.

Cowen is right to say that "framing the budget on the basis of growth in property taxes would be irresponsible."

He has been right, too, to quash expectations about stamp duty and to state clearly that he has no plans whatsoever to change the lucrative stamp duty regime in this budget.

He is right, not because stamp duty rates do not need reform, but because hints by junior partner Michael McDowell on his elevation to Tanaiste that stamp duty needed to be examined have partly contributed to the dramatic slowdown in sales at the top end of the Dublin auction market . . . ironically in the PD heartland of Dublin 4 and 6.

But on the broader issue of operating on a massive budget surplus, we need a far more robust debate.

Yes, there is consensus that we want stability, but the massive sums involved allow for much more freedom of manoeuvre and a more intense ideological debate about where money should be spent than the government would have us believe.

This is, after all, not the government's money but the taxpayers'. Either the government has too much of it . . . and therefore should give it back to us in the form of tax cuts or rebates . . . or they should spend it.

The worst of all worlds, as the Labour party's spokesperson on finance Joan Burton has pointed out, is that this massive surplus is used simply to conceal waste and inefficiency.

Spending the surplus doesn't have to mean profligacy. But we should not forget that we are a nation that does not have a health service that is free at point of entry, unlike almost every other EU member.

We are a country, as this paper has shown, which forces children with Down's syndrome, autism, dyslexia and a wide variety of physical disabilities to languish on long waiting lists . . . or else pay for basic and vital supports and services.

We are a nation that fails our elderly. This is not just about Leas Cross and the negligently slow introduction of legislation for the full regulation and independent inspection of every nursing home in the country. Funding for community care and supports in the home is still well short of what's required and is inequitably disbursed.

The infrastructural deficit of poor roads coping with gargantuan urban sprawl; the black humour of a metro to the airport by, believe it folks, 2012; the farce of the primary curriculum demanding an hour's PE when many schools are without gyms; the self-delusion of promoting Ireland as a technological superhub without a broadband superhighway; the embarrassment of the government having to u-turn over the decentralisation of its data centres because the ESB can't guarantee the power in certain areas outside Dublin . . . do we need any more pointers as to where new money needs to be spent or existing money spent more wisely?

This government may be buoyed by the opinion polls of last week, but a long and forensic look at how prudently they have really managed services that are so central to people's lives could cool that warm Bertie glow.