On 10 March 1987, Charlie Haughey was elected Taoiseach of the country and appointed Ray MacSharry as his finance minister. It might be stretching matters to say that the Celtic Tiger was born or even conceived that day, but certainly everything changed from that point on.

It's not the intention of this column to eulogise Haughey or Fianna Fail's role in the transformation of a basket-case economy into one of the richest countries in the world. Fianna Fail's general-election campaign of 10 years earlier had set the country on the road to bankruptcy, and in his two tenures as Taoiseach between 1979 and 1982, Haughey failed miserably to address the crisis in the country's finances and, indeed greatly worsened the problems that existed. Furthermore, the way in which two members of that 1987 government . . . Haughey and Ray Burke . . . devalued politics by their actions cannot be overlooked.

Any recollection of the events of 1987 and beyond would also be lacking in fairness if it failed to detail the role played by the new Fine Gael leader Alan Dukes . . . the best Taoiseach this country never had.

Dukes' courageous decision to back Haughey and MacSharry's efforts to bring order to the public finances . . . known as the Tallaght Strategy . . . did not thrill everyone in his party. Nor did it win him much appreciation from the electorate. But it was arguably the single most significant achievement by a leader of the opposition in the history of the state.

Now regrettably out of politics, Dukes can look back and take pride in his part in the Irish success story. To put an American twist on the famous Othello quote: He did the state service, and then some.

The PDs role in putting fiscal rectitude at the centre of political debate also deserves honourable mention.

But it all comes back to Haughey and MacSharry . . . or 'Mac the Knife' as he became known at the time. There has been some debate in the intervening years about who really drove the cutbacks, but what we do know is that Haughey was determined to walk the walk seven years after he famously talked the talked with his televised warning that the nation was "living away beyond its means". And in MacSharry, he had a finance minister who had a mastery of his portfolio and the backbone to stand firm when the inevitable howls of outrage began to sound.

It has been argued that Haughey and MacSharry got lucky . . . that the economy had started to turn, that inflation and interest rates were on the way down. Perhaps there is some truth in that. But there can be no doubting the psychological boost to the economy and the population when it became clear that after a decade of foostering and tinkering, the people in charge were willing to take the necessary decisions to tackle the country's enormous budget deficit and national debt.

A bizarre thing happened. Despite cuts in spending which should have prompted a further contraction in the economy, the economy actually began to grow. After the unrelenting gloom and sense of failure that hung in the air in Ireland throughout the 1980s, it was the first bit of good-economy news that the country had received in years. The lift that was given to the country's deflated spirits was palpable.

It wasn't by any means plain sailing after that. While the public finances improved and Ireland lost its 'sick man of Europe' tag, it would be almost a decade before the twin evils of emigration and unemployment were conquered. Whatever problems Ireland faces today . . . and there are many . . . we face them from a position of virtual full employment and where mass emigration has been replaced by the highest per-capita rate of immigration in the world. Twenty years ago, nobody thought that was possible.

Many factors have been cited to explain the Celtic Tiger phenomenon . . . the introduction of free education in the 1960s by Donagh O'Malley; the 10% corporate tax rate; generous EU subsidies, to name but three. They were all factors, but the political leadership was also crucial and, in that context, 10 March, 1987 was a key date.

Twenty years on, the obvious question is: could we ever return to the bad old days? Until recently, my answer would always have been an unequivocal 'no'.

While history tells us booms cannot last forever, there would be no way that people would give up the enormous gains made in recent years.

On balance, that would still be the answer, but for those looking for reasons to be fearful, they are not as hard to find: the unsustainable increases in government spending; the enormous rise in the public-sector pay bill (without any reforms in return); the serious re-emergence of auction politics; the general loss of international competitiveness; the dependency on the construction sector; the ongoing failure to tackle vested interests.

But of most concern is that none of the political parties seems keen to address these problems. We are certainly not, thank God, in a 1987-type situation. But, the seeming lack of stomach within the political establishment to tackle these potential pitfalls does have certain echoes of another general election year with a seven at the end . . . 1977. And that's an anniversary that none of us will be celebrating.