Politicians return to Leinster House in four weeks to operate a parliamentary system and timetable which remains unchanged in key aspects since it was copied from the Westminster model when the State was founded.
The strange ritual known as "voting" is the most obvious example of the bizarre nature of parliamentary procedure.
First, speakers in the corridors, offices, restaurants and bars of Leinster House will broadcast the dreary sound of a gong clanging monotonously for four minutes. Four minutes after this racket ceases, deputies are expected to have got to the Chamber and the doors are locked.
TDs then spend the next five minutes milling around in the Chamber, ambling up a staircase, turning right or left depending on how they wish to vote, being counted and having their names ticked off as they walk through a gate. Then they walk down another staircase and hang about until the doors of the Chamber are unlocked, allowing them to return to the offices, restaurants and bars.
If there is to be a subsequent vote there is a further three minutes of clanging, with two minutes of silence each time before the doors are locked again to allow for more milling about and climbing up and down staircases.
This often happens late into the night and deputies must stay in or near Leinster House in case they are required for these bizarre procedures. In the present tight ail voting situation in the Dail, the pressure on Government deputies to spend the night waiting for the sound of a clanging gong is even greater.
An absence could lead to the defeat of important legislation, as happened during the Rainbow Coalition's term when too many government backbench ers took a chance one night and stayed away, leading to the defeat of the legislation enabling the Luas light rail system to be built.
According to one non-Dublin deputy who struggled for some years with an excessive liking for alcohol, the voting procedure was a significant factor in fuelling his consumption. He might finish his business about teatime, but could not go to the cinema, the theatre or any other social or cultural event away from the House.
Instead, the most attractive option was to retire to the Dail bar or to a cosy hostelry nearby, where a phone call could bring him back to the Chamber within minutes.
The Dail's procedures and working hours are anti-social and outdated. The voting procedure and routine late-night sittings add to the already heavy burden of constituency work and clinics to make a politician's life appear deeply unpleasant to those who work in normal jobs.
Many politicians now complain privately about this, but they have no one to blame but themselves. They choose the rules and only they can change them.
This week Labour's Sen Pat Gallagher announced his retirement from politics at the age of 36. He has been offered an attractive job in community development, an area in which he has worked before and which, he says, inspired him to get involved in politics.
The new job was one reason he gave for quitting. The second reason was the "family unfriendly" life of the politician.
Mr Gallagher was elected to the Dail in 1992 as a 29-year-old single man. He is now a married father of two children. He lost his Dail seat in 1997, was elected to the Sean ad and devoted much of his political energy to working to regain a Dail seat at the next election. The grind, the travel around the Laois-Offaly constituency measuring some 70 miles by 50 miles, the clinics, the insecurity and the late nights in Leinster House waiting for division bells to ring contrast poorly with the new job which, he says, will be both challenging and secure.
Many politicians from all parties privately agree with his comment that the politician's life is "family unfriendly". The electoral system is part of the problem. This summer has seen plenty of discussion of how the multi-seat Dail constituencies, with the resulting rivalry within political parties, impose a huge workload of mundane messenger boy tasks on politicians. ail to pervert democracy and get an overall majority. It need not be so. The alternative operates in Germany and elsewhere in Europe where parliamentary democracy has not given way to permanent single party rule. It could work here.
Another cause of the "family unfriendliness" of politicians' lives is the Dail's sitting hours and voting procedures. Some 143 of the 166 ail deputies are or have been married and 130 have children. Just over half of them live far enough from Leinster House to make daily commuting impossible, and so for two days a week they stay away from home.
Close to half the deputies live within commuting distance of Dublin yet when the Dail is sitting they are usually confined to Leinster House and its environs late at night. ail term. Of course there are long recesses, when Dail committees sit but the Dail itself does not. But During Dail term, the idea of seeing partners and children is just not allowed for during much of the week.
The Dail week gets off to a slow start, not sitting at all on Monday. Monday is for local authority meetings - the holding of this dual mandate being not only tolerated but facilitated by the Dail timetable.
Noel Dempsey's Local Government Reform Bill aims to ban the dual mandate but will face strong opposition from within all major parties. Many TDs feel they need to hold a local authority seat, both to keep up their local profiles and guard against the enthusiastic councillor from within their party who will undermine their position at home while the TD is working in Dublin.
The Dail does not sit on Tuesday morning to facilitate non-Dublin members who attend local authority meetings on Monday nights. They can then travel to Leinster House at a leisurely pace for the start of business at 2.30 p.m. The House then sits until around 10.30 p.m. on Tuesday, and on Wednesday from 10.30 a.m. until 10.30 p.m., sometimes later.
On Thursday, the House sits at 10.30 a.m. but rises about teatime to allow non-Dublin deputies time to travel home.
It does not have to be like this. The new Scottish parliament has broken away from the Westminster model and established a new, family friendly system.
For many years, according to an official at the Edinburgh-based parliament, Scots have watched how decisions were made at Westminster. Scottish MPs sat in the Westminster building or in nearby pubs and restaurants late at night far from home waiting for a division bell to ring so they could troop like sheep through the lobbies to register their vote. Some restaurants in the Westminster area even have speakers installed which relay the sound of the division bells to diners.
Before setting up their own assembly, a cross-party consultative steering group which included representatives of churches and civic groups met to consider how the parliament could be organised in a more family friendly - indeed, human friendly - way.
The group's report formed the foundation of how the new parliament would work. "We wanted to make membership of the parliament appeal equally to married mothers with big family commitments and to single men with none," says a parliament spokesman.
The main innovation was that there would be no working into the night and there would be electronic voting. As in this State, Mondays and Fridays are set aside for constituency work and party meetings. The parliament meets on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays from 9.30 a.m. to 12.30 p.m. and from 2.30 p.m. to 5.30 p.m.
It is the simplest change - the introduction of electronic voting - which has had the greatest effect. MSPs are told in advance that votes will take place on, say, Wednesday and Thursday at 5.20 p.m. All decisions are taken at these prearranged times by the MSPs, who sit in their seats and press buttons to vote.
The lives of politicians could be made considerably more civilised by reform of procedures. And, seeing that this is a week for declaring personal interests, it would also allow political journalists to get home earlier.