EVERY time a new year comes around the elected inhabitants of Leinster House wonder whether or not there might be an election by the following Christmas.
This year is unusual because of the certainty of a general election by November at the latest. Something could happen as early as March, although most money is on the summer.
When it does happen, the fact that this Dail is now in its fifth year and that the election is imminent will colour everything that happens between now and the dissolution.
Deputies will be less and less interested in things that are not directly relevant to an election. There will be a new found enthusiasm for minor local matters, emphasising the localised nature of Irish politics and the competitive nature of multi seat constituencies. Getting members to serve on Committees of the House, for which they get no political or other thanks, will become an increasingly uphill task.
Drapier's readers, who are happily detached from the hurly burly of an imminent election, can relax and compare the frenetic activity that will take place here in the lead up to the election with the relative calm of the single seat and reasonably predictable constituencies in Britain's 1997 general election.
Only Tories defending small majorities will become excited in Britain, as they see the writing on the wall. In Ireland, everyone gets excited because virtually no seat is a certainty.
Because this has been a longer Dail than usual and because the pressures seem to become even greater than ever, Drapier confidently forecasts that a significant number of outgoing deputies will not seek re election.
Drapier first made that forecast nearly a year ago, and it has turned out to be increasingly true, as every few weeks somebody else announces his or her intention of not standing again. Even relatively young people feel that they have had enough.
The growing reluctance for reelection is not unrelated to the fallout from the Lowry affair. The damage done to the political profession and to the standing of public institutions by that matter, and by the way it was handled, should not be underestimated. It extends far more widely than just to Michael Lowry himself.
DRAPIER detects very little sympathy or support for Lowry in any part of Leinster House, even among his own Fine Gael colleagues. North Tipperary Fine Gael recently said they wanted him to stand again for them, but Drapier feels that too much should not be read into that.
It is likely that John Bruton will engage in another bit of arm twisting and persuade them to find a new candidate in Tipperary, just as he engaged in arm twisting on Hugh Coveney to get him to agree to stand after he was rejected by his own constituency organisation in Cork.
Hugh is probably not thrilled at the prospect of being an added or imposed candidate, but since he is on the Government payroll he doubtless felt that he had to agree to Bruton's urgings.
The Government seems to be doing itself no favours by the slow pace at which the Lowry affair and its wider ramifications are being investigated. If the whole affair is to be properly investigated by a Dail Committee, it will require some fairly strong legislation, which likewise is not being treated with any great urgency.
By letting the whole thing drag on for months and months, the Government is only increasing the uncertainties and the speculation.
In addition it is compounding the public disquiet. All of this concerns potential candidates in the general election and particularly outgoing deputies who are getting fed up with all being tarred by the same brush in the public mind. This will go on until all questions are answered and all the facts laid bare. Fianna Fail is particularly unhappy about the uncertainty.
OF the forthcoming general elections in these islands, the most intriguing preliminaries will take place in the North. John Hume justifiably complains about the failure to use proportional representation in Westminster elections there when it is used in all other elections from local to European.
The net result of this is that candidates with minority support can be and are elected in the North to Westminster. The two outstanding examples are Ken Maginnis and the Rev Willie McCrea in Fermanagh and Tyrone.
In the redrawn constituencies, the nationalist majority in both areas is even greater. The SDLP is faced with the dilemma of whether or not to do a deal with Sinn Fein.
Hume is known to be favourable to such a possibility, but he has come under great pressure within his party, particularly from the other three MPs. As a result he has come up with a formula which, as anticipated, Sinn Fein has rejected namely that there would have to be a permanent ceasefire and Sinn Fein would have to abandon its policy of abstention.
The dilemma facing the SDLP is very unsettling for the party. If they make a deal it will presumably entail ending the career of Dr Joe Hendron in West Belfast to the benefit of Gerry Adams. If they do not, Maginnis and McCrea will be re elected even though there is a clear and significant majority against them in their respective constituencies.
Ivan Yates is not having a happy new year. The Egyptian market was closed this week for live cattle, and five more counties, including his beloved Wexford, are for the Russian chop.
Ivan seems a bit fatalistic about it all and, for a change, Dick Spring is trying to do something about it. It will be seen as an awful reflection on Ivan and his Department if Iveagh House proves to be the saviour of the Irish beef farmer. {CORRECTION} 97010400161