TODAY IS THE 9TH of March, 2015. It's four years to the day since the first meeting of the 31st Dáil - the one elected on the back of the "democratic revolution".
It was at that meeting that Enda Kenny was elected Taoiseach by 117 votes to 27, and led a new administration taking office with an unprecedented mandate to rescue the public finances.
Four years later and there is a clear public itch for another election.
Mandates are a strange thing: although the public gave the 31st Dail permission to sit for another year, the opinion polls now firmly indicate that the present government would not be re-elected, and therefore the public would like to bring forward its chance to replace it.
That, of course, leads us to the question of election campaigns and what each party would stand for. Although both Fine Gael and Labour are officially determined to squeeze every last day out of their present mandate, both parties' conferences in the last few weeks leant very heavily on attacking a facetious opposition, and bigging up their own accomplishments of the last four years.
At the conclusion of the Labour conference eight days ago, Joan Burton was asked if she would welcome the chance of a head-to-head debate with Sinn Féin's deputy leader Mary Lou McDonald.
"I am happy to debate the economy with Mary Lou Mc Donald to see if she has any plans to get people back to work," she said in response. "She is very very focused on having a welfare economy."
Challenge accepted, it would seem - until Deputy McDonald told her own Ard Fheis, six days later, that the Tánaiste had spurned invitations from both RTE and TV3 to take part in such a debate.
I asked a Labour Party spokesman why this was the case - and was reminded that Mary Lou McDonald and Joan Burton also addressed each other at Leaders' Questions in the Dáil every Thursday.
So what about the other side? TheJournal.ie recently bagged an interview with Enda Kenny, where Hugh O'Connell asked the Taoiseach whether he would agree to a head-to-head debate with Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin.
"I don’t think Micheál Martin is the leader of the opposition at all," he said, surprisingly bluntly. "I wouldn't say to him, at this stage, that we would give him coverage by having one-to-one debates.
He added that, when the election was called "in twelve months' time", he was minded to participate only in omnibus debates with several other leaders and was not interested in a one-on-one.
Referring to the current dispute about TV debates in the UK, he said: "All of the opposition groups, and those who lead the opposition groups, all want one-on-one debates."
He also made a passing reference, however, to Leaders' Questions in the Dáil - where, twice a week, he and Micheal Martin lock horns on the topical issues of the day.
He's got a point there - but, despite what Enda Kenny and Joan Burton may intend, governments do not always end in the orderly way their leaders expect.
Yes, Fine Gael and Labour have overcome a more tumultuous economic climate than anyone who went before them - but that doesn't mean the government can now coast into spring 2016.
There are all sorts of banana skins that could yet conspire to topple the government - Irish Water failing the Eurostat Market Corporation test and prompting a mini-budget, for example. Or the potential defeat of the Marriage Referendum because Fine Gael's ministers did not put enough clear blue water between the referendum and the Children and Family Relationships Bill. Or the findings of the Fennelly Commission which could be damaging to the moral authority of the Taoiseach.
If any of those were to go against the government this summer, the coalition could crumble - and the resulting election campaign would be very brief indeed.
The 31st Dáil will be dissolved a year from today, if not beforehand. The next election, to bring the state to its centenary, could be the most profound electoral shift in its modern history. But if the election comes early, with no clear agreement on their format, debates could become collateral damage.
That's why it's important to start watching the 'debates' (such as they are) now. Enda Kenny deals with live, unscripted questions from Micheal Martin, Gerry Adams and an independent TD in the Dáil every Tuesday at 3:15pm, and every Wednesday at noon. Joan Burton takes similar queries from Mary Lou McDonald and others from the Fianna Fáil and independent benches on Thursdays, also at noon.
Those debates are always streamed live online, at dail.tv, or on the Oireachtas TV channel, and regularly on RTE News Now.
Watch them. Pay attention to what everyone says. Are Micheál Martin and Gerry Adams raising the issues that matter to you? Are they putting forward credible alternatives to the path chosen by the coalition? Are Enda Kenny and Joan Burton mounting an acceptable and rigorous defence of their actions? Are they answering the questions comprehensively and credibly? (Are they answering them at all?)
If neither of the government leaders yet wants to debate their rivals outside of the Dáil, it's incumbent on us to watch all the more closely when they do so inside Leinster House.
It may yet be the only opportunity we get.
