Just six days into the new year and already we are into what may prove to be one of the longest election campaigns in our history. Whether it's June of this year, as those political correspondents who generally get it wrong are saying, or September, as the each-way hedgers are predicting, or next year, as the really smart money is saying, it doesn't really matter.
We are, whether we like it or not, into election mode.
It started on Wednesday with Charlie McCreevy's exchequer returns. They were stunning. But Charlie has learned a lot of late - there was no boasting, no ego trips, no swipes at his critics. This was just another example of sound financial management, prudence in action. Charlie, the trusted family accountant. More than anybody else Charlie knows the growing list of those queuing up to spend his money. All have a good case. All occupy a "unique" position. And some do have a better case and are infinitely tougher than the ASTI.
Charlie knows, too, that the temptation to throw money at problems may prove hard to resist as the election draws nearer.
More than most he remembers Charlie Haughey talking tough and acting soft in 1980, giving away money that was not there and to hell with the consequences. Charlie McCreevy suffered then and has no intention of seeing it repeated.
That, then, is going to be the first great battleground of the new year, fought out more within the Government itself than with the Opposition.
It will not be easy to maintain a stiff fiscal upper lip. The public is not in a mood to accept excuses for the failure of basic public services and the continued high house and rental prices.
The spate of bad industrial relations disputes which disfigured much of the pre-Christmas period was not a once-off, and the Buckley report, though endorsed in full by the social partners and accepted by all parties, carries its own particular depth charges.
So will the tax cuts and other benefits sweeten the mood of the electorate? Up to a point, but only up to a point.
Political life has its own momentum, and as the year progresses, and in Drapier's view it will be an intense year, other matters will emerge to sour and discomfort the atmosphere. But Drapier would not underestimate the impact of the good news measures.
There is, of course, the continuing presence of the tribunals. Liam Lawlor will soon be back in the headlines, and unless some deft footwork has been done over the recess the prospect of one of our colleagues being jailed for failure to co-operate with an Oireachtas-appointed tribunal is a very real one.
And with Frank Dunlop due back, Tom Gilmartin due in, George Redmond set to reappear and Liam Lawlor an ongoing witness, the patience and tolerance of the public may yet be stretched beyond endurance. Or maybe, as many in Government are banking, the public is not all that put out.
One issue that will be bigger than Noel Dempsey and the Government expect will be the question of corporate funding of parties. The British Labour Party got itself into a huge mess this week through its policy on this issue of "Reform - but not before we get in the Loot" and Fianna Fail is going precisely the same way, and expects to get away with it.
In Drapier's view it is a key issue. There is good reason to be suspicious of major corporate or individual funding. There is possibly a middle way, but so far all we have got from the Government is delay and obfuscation. It is a nettle some of the younger members of the Cabinet know they have to grasp, but for most the old ways are the ones they know and like best.
The Opposition, if it has sense, will go in hard on this one. On another, more important issue - the North - Drapier has a strange feeling the eye is off the ball. He is not surprised this is happening, nor is he inclined to throw any blame about the place.
Given the intractable and tedious nature of so many of the issues it is hard for most politicians here or in Britain to keep up a head of steam, to maintain interest, let alone enthusiasm.
Most of us believed the Belfast Agreement was the beginning of a brave new world, and it was. Northern Ireland today is a very different place. The transformation is unbelievable, the potential enormous.
But some things never change. And just as Churchill talked of the "dreary steeples of Fermanagh and Tyrone" so today the whole experiment is threatened by those who can't rise above the inheritance of their past or the self-righteousness of their grievance.
In Drapier's view there is no point in blaming the leaders. David Trimble has walked his tightrope with skill and courage, but how many more ambushes can he survive from the pygmies of unionism?
Gerry Adams, in Drapier's view, is utterly sincere about bringing Sinn Fein fully into mainstream politics, but as things stand he is leaking members to the dissident IRA and losing credibility with those who were always reluctant to put their faith in the ballot box in the first place.
The SDLP is caught in between, unwilling to be outgreened and unable to offer a clear lead. Off stage, the loyalist paramilitaries are still close to the boil, and the dissident IRA and INLA are preparing for more murder.
The one thing needed is that the middle ground, which now includes Sinn Fein, comes together against the non-democratic forces and asserts its democratic authority. That was why President Clinton's first visit offered some hope.
This time, however, it did not work. He did his best, but a lame duck president is still a lame duck president, and there was no real clout.
Some people Drapier meets in here say the present situation is probably the best available, that if fudge can follow fudge, if people can muddle through one crisis after another, all will be well on the night, or put another way, people will eventually agree through sheer exhaustion.
It is a comfortable if not particularly noble scenario. But it is also a foolish one. We are now dealing with politicians in Northern Ireland who are on the brink of exhaustion, in many cases going round in circles unable any longer to see the bigger picture and with their hold on their own supporters increasingly tenuous. If it starts to go wrong, it will go very wrong, and the two governments will have to intervene. What Drapier is saying is that Bertie Ahern and Tony Blair are the only external forces which have any chance of resolving the current crises. Four more festering months of crisis and squabble could do irreparable damage. Bertie Ahern and Brian Cowen know that, and it will be their biggest task this January to persuade Tony Blair that his direct intervention may be the last hope for a long time.