Fear that the opportunity for fundamental change, precipitated by the economic crisis, is slipping away and that we will sleep walk back to the future.

Those who are clamouring to exclusively debate economic detail are not the people who can solve our country's problems because their attitude is that the only thing wrong with the Celtic Tiger is that it's gone.

Our justice system be changed to, at least in part, an inquisitorial one as the adversarial system is runs on the ruthless principles of market forces, pushing up legal fees and creating a brutalising environment.

We need gender quotas in the Oireachtas and on state and company boards and we need to change the name of the country to the Republic of Ireland as both a consciousness-raising measure and as a mission statement to remind everyone that no elite coterie owns Ireland or its constitution.

As well as sound common sense and wisdom, we need to imagine a new republic with emotion, romance, sentiment and, above all, the idealism that spawns ideals.