Full marks to our thoughtful friends in the medical world, who have recognised the plight of politicians during these fraught weeks of Election 2007.
Public information adverts running on radio at the moment are highlighting a distressing condition that afflicts many of the nation's leading TDs.
Overactive Blather Syndrome is no laughing matter.
Symptoms include frequent visits to the microphone, coupled with uncontrollable urges to speak at length about oneself. The condition is further exacerbated in times of stress, such as election campaigns.
The sufferer is often unaware that their self-serving verbosity is a cause of extreme annoyance to those who have to listen to them. This can lead to a dangerous drop in the polls.
It also leads to anger and embarrassment among their political colleagues, who have been bravely fighting the disorder with the help of media handlers and focus groups. They can only look on helplessly while the hopeless cases continue to irritate voters.
Fianna Fáil - particularly prone to this syndrome after 10 years in power - has taken a proactive approach to the treatment and rehabilitation of the worst affected in its ranks. With commendable compassion, the party sidelined a number of ministers when the campaign began, in an effort to steer them away from temptation.
Minister Dick Roche was tentatively reintroduced to the national airwaves during the week, but with little success. Minister Martin Cullen, on the other hand, was carefully returned to the press conference table yesterday morning for the party's daily election briefing.
Deputy leader Brian Cowen did almost all the talking. Martin sat silently while he spoke, party handlers anxiously monitoring his progress. The calming presence of Mary Hanafin, was beside him. Now there's a woman who can hold her water.
This was an important morning for Fianna Fáil. It was the morning after the night before, and a chance for the party to capitalise on what it was calling a major victory for Bertie Ahern against Enda Kenny in the big leaders' debate.
Both before and after the press conference, the amount of crowing from the backroom team presented worrying indications that Overactive Blather Syndrome is not confined to the sub-group of politicians.
Biffo, who has a reputation for blathering on at length with economic jargon, has been taking the medicine. He is a different man during this election: when he chairs the briefings, he comes across as tough-talking, plain-speaking and authoritative.
There are occasional relapses. (There is no lasting cure for the overactive blatherer. Bertiegate silenced the Taoiseach for the opening weeks of this campaign, but he was showing strong signs of activity again in Cork yesterday.) As Mr Cowen showed yesterday, there is nothing worse than the reformed sufferer. He set about exposing Enda Kenny's "Contract for a Better Ireland" as a pitiful example of overactive blather in action.
"It's a con job," declared Biffo.
The inexperienced Fine Gael leader was "flip-flopping" and "flippant" on the big issues. "I'm afraid governing a country is about mastery of the detail," said Brian modestly, apologising to Enda for being so blunt.
Then he launched Biffo's bed-push to illustrate his point. Fine Gael's proposal to provide 500 extra hospital beds, funded by the National Development Plan, didn't add up.
In order to pay for them, explained Brian, getting his furniture confused, "he has to see something else fall off the table." Fianna Fáil is promising 500 beds without other services falling off the table. The plan is their "bedrock". RTÉ's George Lee, who knows the NDP backwards and strikes fear into the hearts of the handlers when his soft voice politely pipes up, begged to differ. Those beds weren't in Fianna Fáil's bedrock plan. They were only thrown in two months ago, by a Government with 10 years to compile its contents.
Under pressure, Minister Cowen experienced a brief blather moment. "They are being provided for in my budgetary framework going forward for the next five years." He decided to switch from economics to ergonomics. Enda's beds "don't stack up", he said repeatedly.
You read it here first. Fianna Fáil's intends to ease A&E congestion by introducing bunk beds into the corridors. Genius. A few more broken hips is a small price to pay.
Finally, just as PJ Mara announced it was time to wrap up, somebody asked Martin Cullen why he had been absent from the campaign thus far.
After three weeks in a darkened room watching videos on how to control overactive blathering, the Minister replied with a succinct contribution on the success of Transport 21.
Then he shut up. It was a triumph. The handlers breathed a sigh of relief. But he wasn't allowed into the open zone of the refreshment room where journalists with microphones and notebooks roam at will. Ministers Cowen and Hanafin did the mingling.
One day at a time, Martin . . . One day at a time.
