The government is vulnerable on several fronts.

In this newspaper last weekend, we editorialised on the lack of a response to the penal rates of stamp duty levied on those entering the property market or seeking to trade up. Yet, whereas the government is somewhat vulnerable over the property market, it may have made a very serious miscalculation over nursing-home charges. The solution offered last week for paying for the cost of nursinghome care seems sensible. But where property is involved, sometimes sense does not always prevail. Harney's plan may be a slow burner but the proposal to hit the estates of public nursing-home residents for a maximum of 15% of the property's value may just be the modern-day equivalent of the residential property tax debacle in 1992/93. The Irish public has long had a not very rational aversion to paying taxes on property.

This issue will rumble into 2007 as will the mess that has been made of Ireland's response to climate change.

Last Thursday the Dail approved spending 270m on carbon allowances between 2008 and 2012. These allowances effectively allow the government to buy its way out of international commitments to reduce harmful carbon-gas emissions. It is a legitimate response but a short-term one which does little to make Ireland greener and cleaner.

"A clear lack of priority is attached to measures in this country that would save us from having to pay for a carbon fund, " Green Party leader Trevor Sargent said in the Dail.

The 270m is probably a best-case scenario. The money involved will, as Labour's Eamon Gilmore has predicted, put into the shade the millions wasted on PPARs, e-voting machines and the equestrian centre in Punchestown. The Fianna Fail-PD coalition has been very slow to respond to the dangers of climate change, with energy efficiency in homes and schools to reduce carbon emissions hardly a priority. But it seems this government has reached the stage where there is so much money available that environment minister Dick Roche can effectively shrug his shoulders about spending potentially 0.5bn for carbon allowances. With more foresight that money would have been better spent looking after our old people.