WHISPER it, but are the days of the vested interest holding sway over government finally coming to an end?

The government's complete facing down of the Irish Pharmacy Union probably won't even be a footnote when the history of the economic meltdown of 2008/09 comes to be written, but it is a significant development nonetheless.

We shouldn't get too carried away by it. If the government couldn't impose its will on one of the most privileged groups in Irish society in the current horrendous economic climate, then it really would have been a case of 'will the last person to leave the country, please turn out the lights?' It simply wouldn't have the authority to make the much tougher decisions that lie ahead in the coming months.

And it was crucial not just that the government won the battle, but that it was clearly seen to win it. Compromise, the modus operandi of Bertie Ahern, was not an option. The message had to go out loud and clear. Not an inch. The government has made a decision and it's sticking with it. Deal with it.

And that's what happened. Despite some backbenchers and ministers showing a distinct lack of backbone and getting windy over the (pretty limited) fall-out from the dispute, health minister Mary Harney held the line.

Credit where credit is due. It's become commonplace in the media and in politics to portray Harney as a has-been, a fine politician who has fallen victim to the sheer grind that comes with being at the Department of Health.

But the minister showed that she still has more you-know-whats than most male TDs by taking an unwavering line during the pharmacy dispute. The cuts were happening – no mediator, no third-party intervention. The IPU, having marched its troops to the top of the hill, finally saw that it had no choice but to march them all back down again.

And if we are to have any chance of getting out of the mess that we are in, that's a stance the government will have to take time and time again in the coming months.

It will not get any thanks for doing so from the electorate. If the government does its job and attempts to put the national finances back on an even keel, there will be near-revolution. And there is every possibility that, in doing so, it will find itself propelled into a general election from which there can only be one outcome: a Fine Gael/Labour government and dozens of seat losses for Fianna Fáil and the Greens.

But that is going to happen anyway at the next general election whenever it is held, so the government might as well go down doing the right thing. It's not just that the country has to be saved; it is increasingly obvious that the country has to be saved from itself.

If the all the protests of the past 12 months – involving pensioners, the public sector unions, pharmacists, farmers, army personnel and the owners of mobile homes – show anything, it is that everybody agrees about taking pain once they know that the pain is shared.

Some of the electorate may see the wisdom of a tough approach, but there won't be anything like the approval ratings that Fianna Fáil enjoyed when Ray MacSharry was doling out the hard medicine over 20 years ago.

Expectations have been raised too high by the good years and there is too much anger and blame directed towards the government for the mistakes of recent years.

There has been ferocious criticism of the government's record over the past 10 years, some of it entirely justified, some of it grossly simplistic.

But if we rightly criticise the government for its biggest failing of the past decade – its propensity to say 'yes' to every interest group, regardless of merit, to buy-off political trouble – then we should also concede there are finally real signs of progress in addressing that weakness.

The introduction of the public sector levy, the victory in the battle with pharmacists and the resisting of local lobbying over cancer services are tangible evidence of this.

But the real challenges lie ahead. The budgetary and economic crisis demands that the government is going to have to say no again to the public sector unions. It's going to have say no to mothers outraged at cuts in child benefit, to farmers, to the Garda Representative Association, to PDForra, to opponents of a property tax, to those in receipt of double welfare payments, to college kids facing the return of some form of third-level fees, and to a whole plethora of local lobby groups outraged at the loss of a school/rail link/garda station/hospital service.

Between now and the December budget, the government is going to have say 'no' more often than Ian Paisley did in an entire political career spanning five decades.

If the government can keeping showing the necessary bottle then it is just possible that, by the time those students who got their Leaving Cert results last week have finished college and are entering the jobs market, the recession will be a increasingly distant memory.

It may not save government TDs their seats, but it would be a fine legacy to leave behind. No surrender.

scoleman@tribune.ie