Making Northern Ireland work continues as a political mantra even though we are increasingly living in the reflections of the two states, England and Ireland.
The reflections were always thus, but the speed and the depth of the change in those reflections is what will greatly determine the political debate on this island in the coming months and years.
England’s reflection was of the dominant, the powerful, the wealthy. Ireland’s reflection was the dishevelled, the romantic, the suppliant.
It is the radicalness, the almost completeness of the change in those images, that is so startling.
And those reflections have practical implications in the workings of governments and in the day-to-day services that enhance the lives of ordinary people.
A senior official in one of Stormont’s largest departments informed me recently that it was the lack of spare cash that made it so much harder, if not impossible, to bring about the changes necessary to make his services effective and sustainable.
He was telling me that he was running his department on the worn rims but he didn’t have the money to buy new tyres that it would need.
He also told me that, these days, the only two sources to get your hands on a bit of extra cash for public projects, like the one he is in charge of, is Peace Plus or the Irish Government.
For anyone not involved in the hundreds of organisations that are looking for that kind of money, the European fund has €1.1 billion to spend that comes from a get-together of British, Irish and, mostly, European monies. It is called Peace Plus and it is the fifth and the final input of money from the EU in recognition of our troubled past.
But most of that fund is already doled out, leaving the Irish Government as the only continuing financial donor of the extra money the senior official claimed he would need.
Considering that it is only a few years ago that Ireland was broke and had to be bailed out by Europe, the turnaround is extraordinary. Neither should it be forgotten that England gave a generous loan of £3.2bn to that bail-out.
The Irish Government has since repaid the loan and is now not giving loans but donations to projects up here in the north.
The Irish financial tide has turned and is producing budgetary surpluses on a regular basis. Stormont, meantime, is strapped for cash because our pay-master, the British Government, is walking a financial tightrope.
A fist fight between Labour and the Conservatives has broken out about the veracity of a £20bn hole in the public finances. The leader of the Labour Party in the Commons said the new government has to be careful to avoid a run on sterling and Keir Starmer is not mincing his words on the hard financial decisions that his government is about to take in the coming budget.
Meantime, the Irish have committed €102m euro to the Narrow Water Bridge, €50m to Casement Park, €600m to the upgrade of the A5 and €45m to a teaching block at Magee university in Derry. That is just for starters, as the Irish say there is more to come.
It does not, of course, mean that the named projects will all happen. That will be down to the precarious finances of the English government or the Stormont government or Ulster University. The latter has spent the bulk of its income on extensive new buildings in Belfast.
In the world of policing there is a mantra that says follow the money if you want to achieve results. The same mantra probably applies to politics.