WELL, it was quite a week. What between the FAI, the Mercy nuns and Bishop
Brendan Comiskey, all our institutions are falling around us.
All that's left intact are the AA, the Irish Countrywomen's association and the Pioneer Total abstinence Association. And who an tell? Maybe they will rumble in the ashes of mortality, 00, with a good old rip-roaring scandal. Nothing and no one is safe today.
Thank God that in the midst of all these failings our Sinn Fein leaders have preserved their personal morality as defined in Ireland. That means strict observance of the Sixth Commandment, and none of the others really count.
Isn't it great that our Sinn Fein heroes remain clean and pure, when you see what that crowd ever in Buckingham Palace get up to?
The icons may be breaking all around us, but Ireland will survive. Drapier even heard it suggested in the House during the week that George the Greek might be employed to raise funds for one of our hard-pressed political parties!
Of course, other little things happened, too. We had the long-awaited summit between John Bruton and John Major, and there seemed general agreement that it went well in all the circumstances. Everybody around Leinster House was relieved that some of the initiative, at least, was dragged back from the men of violence.
Nobody knows what is going to happen, but at least political efforts are in train, even if the IRA still refuses to restore the ceasefire.
There was unconcealed glee in Dublin at the way David Trimble walked himself into trouble. David was regarded as getting progressively more cocky and a wee bit big for his boots, but John Major and Co stopped him in his tracks on Monday night.
IT SEEMS a long time since the British government thought the unionists could do no wrong, and vice versa.
David will be more circumspect if he tries to make a private deal again in No 10 Downing Street.
One of the curious results of it all is that on elections John Hume and Ian Paisley are singing from the same hymn sheet. Drapier cannot remember that happening before. And this in the week that Hume and Gerry Adams met the IRA bosses.
The twists and turns of politics certainly can make strange bedfellows at times, but Paisley and Hume are one of the most incongruous partnerships of all. A list-system election is really an election for the leader, and everyone else can keep their heads down and get carried along in the current of support.
There was much admiration felt throughout the House for the brave stand of the O'Brien family in Gorey. Several speakers in the debate this week mentioned it.
It takes some courage for a distraught and bereaved family to stand up to the insidious godfathers who sent their son to his death, but the O'Briens did it even in their moment of greatest tragedy. Their action should give courage to others who are often too frightened to say No to the bully boys.
Everyone in Leinster House was taken aback by the vehemence of Ivan Yates's attack on Larry Goodman during question time. The beef tribunal report and its fallout simply will not go away.
Drapier was very struck by the parallels with the Scott report in England, where the Government tried to dredge up individual sentences to give the impression that it had been vindicated. It is reminiscent of Albert Reynolds's famous efforts late one July night to put a spin on the Hamilton report by running together half-sentences pages apart.
That was the night the Labour Party was, by some accounts, locked out of Government Buildings and not let near the report until Albert had got out his spin.
IN ANY event, Ivan is now gunning for Larry and his friends, and it must be an unusual sensation for them to have a Minister for Agriculture who is not on their side. Court cases are going to mount up and it looks as if Larry, for a change, will have no supporters in high places.
Drapier thought that even Des O'Malley was left a bit breathless by the unexpected passion of Ivan's attack, which looked and sounded premeditated. It is hard to believe that a Minister for Agriculture would tell the country that he would shed no tears whatsoever if Mr Goodman was to withdraw from the beef industry.
Drapier's memory went back to the famous press conference in the Department of Agriculture in 1987, when Charlie Haughey, Michael O'Kennedy and Joe Walsh portrayed Goodman as the greatest thing since sliced bread and the saviour of Irish agriculture and agri-industry. Oh, how the mighty have fallen!
That used to apply also to such categories as the religious, who apparently could do what they liked in the past. The transition to a more equal and equitable society is long, slow and laborious, but it does seem to be happening.
Drapier can always be relied on for an ingenious solution to our problems. Now that we need a tribunal of inquiry into the FAl, why not bring Sir Richard Scott over to do it? It would be nice light relief for him and he likes a spot of fox-hunting in Tipperary at weekends.
Furthermore, he comes cheap. He does not bother with lawyers and all that expensive nonsense and the whole thing would make gripping television. And we could have Peter Clohessy on the door to keep order. {CORRECTION} 96030100002