It was called a "committee week". In reality it was an undeserved mid-term break that we neither needed nor earned. Drapier for the life of him cannot understand why we did not sit last week. It was a decision which reflected credit on none of us.
The principal blame lies with the Government Chief Whip who organises the business of the House. Seamus Brennan signalled his intentions well in advance - well enough in advance for the Opposition parties to have mounted a serious attack had they been so minded. Apparently they were not.
The only people to benefit from the Dail not sitting are the Government Ministers. The Dail is the one place they can be held accountable, and just as Tony Blair and New Labour have done much to sideline the House of Commons, preferring to communicate through spin and sound bite rather than face real questioning, so our Government also seeks to avoid the Dail chamber as much as possible.
It's not new. All governments get that way after a while.
Some may deride the daily Order of Business as unfocused and anachronistic but it is nothing of the sort. It is the one occasion each day when the Government can be questioned on issues of current importance, one of the few opportunities the Opposition has of making the Government explain itself in matters big or small. Reputations are made and lost on the Order of Business. Some of Dick Spring's sharpest questioning of Charles Haughey was done on the Order of Business. Both John Bruton and Ruairi Quinn are experienced and effective performers, while Michael Noonan and Pat Rabbitte rarely take prisoners.
The Order of Business can show up cracks or inconsistencies in a government, highlight ministers who are failing to deliver on promised legislation, or expose a taoiseach who is not on top of the job. Likewise, it can do harm to the image of an underperforming opposition. But, by and large, the Order of Business is an opportunity for the Opposition to keep the Government under pressure - an opportunity lost this week because the House was not sitting. The opportunity was lost, for example, to hammer the Government for its utter failure not just to resolve the Dublin taxi crisis but for adopting a strategy which has made the situation much worse. In particular, the opportunity was lost to question directly the architect of that strategy, Bertie Ahern. The taxi issue is an example of this Government getting what Albert Reynolds used to call "the small things" wrong. The reason they are getting it wrong is because of the stranglehold the taxi-drivers have on the Taoiseach and a handful of his northside colleagues which has prevented them facing the issue head on and given us one unworkable fudge after another.
The fact the House was not sitting meant these hard questions could not be put directly to the Taoiseach and the origins of the legal advice on which the failed legislation was based - advice which has cost taxpayers more than £100,000 in legal fees, given us unworkable legislation and another taxi famine was not explored.
That was just one of the issues which could have been tackled this week but instead was left to press releases and the sustained anger of Eamon Dunphy. If the Opposition are as hungry as they claim to be and eager to harry the Government they should never again agree to a mid-term break, or any sort of break which has the House in long recess.
They should remember in particular that they had the Government in disarray at the end of June, but as Drapier noted at the time, governments can retrench and revive during a long break.
With only six weeks left this session, and the Budget due in the middle, opportunities are running out for the Opposition to make a real impact or inflict the sort of damage it showed itself capable of doing back at the start of the summer.
Drapier knows his colleagues will tell him he is unbalanced - that the committees are working well. And in fairness they are. The success of Jim Mitchell's PAC is well documented - and it was good to see Jim make a brief return this week - but other committees are also performing well. Sean Ardagh's committee has begun to look at the high profile and disturbing Abbeylara case; Sean Doherty's Public Enterprise committee is taking a serious look at Shannon flooding; Des O'Malley's Foreign Affairs Committee has heard from both Israeli and Arab ambassadors.
One could go on. The truth is the committees are the way of the future, but Drapier is oldfashioned enough to believe the essence of parliament still resides in the main chamber and any Opposition which neglects that fact does so at its peril.
Speaking of Des O'Malley, Drapier was present to hear his extraordinary attack on Trinity and the Trinity Private Bill. It was excoriating stuff, and if Dessie is looking for an honorary doctorate to crown his political career he had better look to Belfield or Limerick. It certainly won't be coming from the College of the Most Holy and Undivided Trinity.
It was a coruscating performance and must have left the Provost and his senior colleagues wishing they had taken the route of the other universities when Niamh Bhreathnach brought in her original legislation. What made matters worse still for Trinity is its defenders, Shane Ross, Mary Henry and David Norris, are all Seanad members and it had nobody in the Dail to make its case - thus leaving Dessie's version as the unchallenged version as far as the Dail record is concerned.
The whole episode of Trinity's Private Bill is a complicated and bruising saga. Drapier will not be surprised it it does not form the basis of a future PhD, as well as proving a very costly experience for those involved. Not to mention an enormous waste of time for those who sat on the joint committee. As usual the only winners were the lawyers.
Speaking of publications, Drapier has had a chance to read three of this season's political offerings. John Horgan has given a fair and final view of Noel Browne, Barry Desmond takes no hostages in his lively political memoir, while Stephen Collins's The Power Game is a very readable, very pacy and very accurate account of our recent turbulent history.
Finally this week, a word of sympathy to the family of Michael Pat Murphy. Michael Pat was "Old Labour", a decent, honourable spokesman for the people of west Cork. His socialism was of the heart rather than the head. He knew his people better than the head office intellectuals and held his seat until he made the decision to retire, which he did in his own time and in his own way. Michael Pat made friends on all sides of the House - and no enemies that Drapier ever heard of.
May he rest in peace.