The new year is so laden with challenges and difficulties, the earliest of which will be evident in January pay packets, that it is difficult to greet it with anything but trepidation.

We enter 2011 battered by the ever-worsening economic shocks of 2010 and the added difficulties posed by the recent severe weather. The four-year horizon we face into under the close watch of the IMF, the EU and the ECB does little to lighten the mood, particularly in the larger context of the deepening crisis facing the euro itself.

But for all the economic difficulties that we face, change is coming.

Most importantly for the national psyche, we will have a general election and we will have a new government.

Bertie Ahern's decision not to stand for re-election marks a watershed. His departure was inevitable, not just because it is personally more advantageous for him to leave politics this year rather than next in terms of his pension entitlements, but because of the almost visceral disgust most people now feel towards him.

It seems extraordinary to remember that his re-election in 2007 was because people trusted him with the economy.

The hope is that his departure may be cathartic and symbolise an end to the old ways of doing business in Ireland and the beginning of a new era of principled and efficient governance.

People will always recognise the contribution Bertie Ahern made to find peace in the North along with John Hume, Bill Clinton and Tony Blair. But they will never forgive him for leading this country to economic disaster.

The anger that has characterised the public response to his going is a taster of what Fianna Fáil politicians will feel on the doorsteps during the general election campaign.

As the election approaches, all parties have to understand that people do not want policies that restore this country to where it was. Transformative change on the scale of a political, ethical, professional and cultural revolution is being demanded. Nothing less.

And if Fine Gael and Labour do not provide constructive and detailed policies about just how swiftly and radically they will change the way politics is done and public services are delivered, they too may find the reception at the doorstep frostier than they had envisaged.

The hallmark of Brian Cowen's government has been its inability to see that wholesale structural reform was needed in every institution of our state. The incremental tinkering around the edges of the banks, public sector reform and our political institutions was doomed to failure because the rot of waste and poor governance remained endemic.

Ahern's response to questions about whether he had any regrets about his economic legacy neatly illustrates the state of denial that still exists across this government.

"If I had seen the banking crisis coming... nobody advised me, no economist, all those people now writing books saying 'I told you so' – none of them… If anyone had told me."

In truth, Ahern and his colleagues had guaranteed that nobody would challenge their group-think by stuffing all institutions of state with cronies and like-minded acolytes to create a golden circle where the raison d'etre was to sustain their own power and influence. The internal culture that has caused crises across every sector remains unchallenged precisely because those who perpetuate it benefit most from it.

It is for the new government to dismantle all that. The economic challenges are monumental. Their work will be cut out for them in carving out a strategy for growth within the narrow parameters left under the IMF-EU agreement. But just as urgent is the need for a widespread and visible sense of renewal across every institution of public life, starting with the Oireachtas and the way business is conducted there.

It is traditional that the impact of a new government is measured in its first 100 days, so it is critical to the mental health of this nation that, by June or July, a lot of the political, legislative, and institutional deep-cleaning that is needed has been set in train. By the middle of 2011, citizens must have tangible evidence that this country is being turned inside out so that the old way of doing things is consigned to history.

Battered and bruised Ireland also expects that finally, in 2011, those responsible for the economic crisis – be they bankers, developers, lawyers or accountants – are brought to court to answer for the destruction they have caused.

Nama, the insolvency of our banks, our burgeoning debt and the austerity that will come as we try to repay it, will remain an unavoidable part of our landscape for more years than we care to think of.

The economic numbers are stacked against us. Our reputation has been damaged. But history has shown that out of the darkest times comes the will to reform.