The ink was hardly dry on the announcement of this week’s €250 million package of supports to respond to increases in the cost of fuel when the Government was signalling there might be more on the way.

Opening a housing development in Newtownmountkennedy, Co Wicklow on Wednesday morning, Tánaiste and Minister for Finance Simon Harris told journalists that the Government “may have to intervene further” later in the year if the crisis in the Persian Gulf continues.

Indeed, some of the thinking in Government suggests that if the elevated fuel prices continue, there might have to be two more packages of aid, one before the summer and one in the October budget.

“Thank God we have a surplus,” Harris noted.

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We won’t have one for very long if they keep this up.

For good measure, Harris also indicated that he intends to have tax cuts as part of next year’s budget.

“I still intend to deliver a budget in October that will seek to enable people to keep more of their own money as well,” he said, though he added that it was a little early for budget speculation. Ah, only a little, Minister.

The package of measures announced this week had been well-flagged over recent weeks by Ministers, and the leaders of the Government, trying to beat each other to the punch. Once the Government had suggested that it would examine the possibility of helping people with fuel bills, it was inevitable that money would be thrown at the problem. That’s what happens when governments have spare money.

As usual, there is absolutely no constituency for prudence and caution in Irish politics. Opposition parties seek to outdo one another in demanding that the Government immediately give people money. The Government – conscious that holding the line on spending consigns it to Opposition attacks and endless media badgering – promises that if necessary it will find more money to spend. Media reports stress the hardship that higher prices are causing (are people really being “crucified”?) and suggest the only solution is more Government spending.

This is the way our politics works now – a constant stream of demand and response. Is there any thought given to sensible long-term fiscal and political management? By anyone?

Yes, the Government is running a huge surplus. But that is not, categorically, because it has run a carefully managed and restrained budget strategy: it is because Ireland has been fortunate to receive massive payments in corporation tax from US companies. Having unexpectedly rocketed in the past decade, we know that these receipts are not guaranteed to continue.

Yes, the Government has put money into savings funds. But not, many economists think, enough. This year, €1 out of every €7 of the corporation tax receipts will go into the funds.

Government policy has evolved a bit, I suppose, from when Charlie McCreevy said: “When I have it, I spend it.”

Now they say: “When we have it, we spend most of it. But not absolutely all of it.”

It’s progress. Up to a point.

Right now, Ireland is certainly in a better state to withstand the turbulence that is coming – described this week by Finland’s President Alexander Stubb (one of Europe’s wiser leaders and Donald Trump’s golf buddy) as a global recession and possibly a wider war. But if we continue to insist that nobody should be disadvantaged by anything and the Government should always step in with money, that advantage certainly won’t last very long.

Three things may fairly be said about this state of affairs.

Firstly, almost our entire political debate consists of demands for more spending.

A casual lookback at my inbox from this week reveals demands for more spending on: publicly funded egg freezing; an end to carbon tax; paid leave for cancer screening appointments; the complete removal of excise and carbon tax from home heating oil; higher student grants for accommodation; a legally enforceable right to remote working; more special needs assistants; paid miscarriage leave; an end to exam fees; more financial supports for fishermen; more funding for schools which do not qualify for Déis status; more funding for schools which do qualify for Déis status; better pay for the gardaí (who are, CSO statistics constantly attest, the best paid public servants); a cut to public transport fares; an increase in mileage payments for home carers; a €500 electricity credit; a €400 cost of living payment to disabled people; an extra week of social protection payments; price controls; PRSI relief for small businesses; and so on and so on.

Is this really all we think politics is about?

Secondly, despite the pressure this political culture undoubtedly puts on Government, we still have a right to expect that our elected leaders can rise above this, can risk short-term unpopularity, in order to do the right thing for the country.

Sure, that’s not easy. Good leadership is hard; and good politics is not always immediately appreciated by the voters. Sometimes it never is. And while it’s hard to convince any politician that virtue is its own reward, surely the prospect of going down in history as the generation of leaders that squandered another boom can’t be that appealing either.

Thirdly, if Government is able to exercise only minimal restraint when times are good, then it must be constantly watching out for evidence things are about to change – and then it must act quickly to respond. In other words, if there is a sign that a recession or other economic shock or something worse is unfolding, then the Government immediately needs to review its spending priorities – not because it shouldn’t help people, but so that it has the resources to protect the people who need the most help, over perhaps a longer period. I fear this may well be the point we are now at.

© The Irish Times