No more than most, I'm happy enough to read Drapier on a Saturday without knowing the byline. Last week's column, however, made me particularly curious about the columnist's identity, vintage, family status et al.
He - it might be a woman though statistically, of course, it is probably a man - took grave exception to Green TD Paul Gogarty's politely stated contention that deputies' newly-hiked salaries and benefits were a "urination on the less well-off".
Drapier was beside himself: "Yet another new deputy with no family to support, and clearly no work to do, playing to the populist press gallery in the hope of getting easy coverage. This is the lowest form of political discourse which brings politics into disrepute at a time when it needs to be defended, at the very least, by TDs."
Drapier's response reeks of victimhood, over-kill and defensiveness. All young Gogarty asked for - amid savage cuts in the Estimates, relentless stealth taxes and reports of working people resorting to St Vincent de Paul - was a freeze on TDs' pay and a tightening up of the kind of procedures which allow them to claim unvouched expenses merely for turning up.
They may claim €61.53 a day, five days a week, whether the House is sitting or not. If they live more than 15 miles away, they can opt instead for an overnight allowance of €140 a day. They get mileage at a generous €1.07 a mile. No receipts required; no signing in; no one, as Gogarty pointed out, watching on behalf of the increasingly frustrated taxpayer. Deputies can come and go around the Dáil. Or not. The whole system operates on trust.
The problem with this is that no one trusts anyone else anymore, in any profession, situation or sphere of life. Unfortunately for Drapier, his colleagues are as vulnerable to this inconvenient turn of events as the next and frankly, as a body, they've made a very substantial contribution to this state of affairs. Sure, it may only be the proverbial few bad apples, but isn't that always the way?
The "few bad apples" are precisely the reason why organisations go to some bother and expense to establish checks and balances.
Anyway, compared to the general populace with families to support, Dáil deputies do very nicely. We last heard of Dáil family values from Mary Harney, when they awarded themselves time off at Hallowe'en. And how could we argue against quality time with the kiddies during mid-term? But you can bet your sweet bibby that the kiddies didn't get 11 days for Hallowe'en, nor will they be getting 42 days for Christmas, nor 11 for the St Patrick's festivities, nor 18 for Easter, nor three months for the summer, unless they're secondary students (who tend to work the summer nowadays anyway).
As for money - unsavoury and populist as the subject may be to political sensibilities - not many Irish children have the luck to have a parent on €81,000 (a TD's baseline pay) a year. Entire families of them are being reared on the equivalent of a week's worth of Dáil attendance allowances.
Then there's the pension (half-pay, index-linked, after just 20 years), the mileage and travel allowance, the constituency travel allowance, the constituency phone allowance, the set-up and maintenance grants for constituency offices, the secretarial allowance, the Leinster House perks of free, centre-city parking for life (reckoned to be worth around €3,500 a year), excellent canteen, etc. According to one TD, the potential is there to accumulate up to €150,000 a year between pay and expenses. At minimum they can come out with €100,000.
Perhaps Drapier is curious about where he stands among the ranks of the oppressed. Of the 1.7 million people who paid tax in 2000-2001, just 112,358 earned more than €60,000. Of those, only 31,267 earned more than €100,000. As for the Taoiseach, his baseline salary of €235,000 leaves him a mere €20,000 or so behind Tony Blair. The Minister for Finance of our modestly-sized economy earns about as much as Gordon Brown.
You will expect me at this point, no doubt, to add the usual words of balance: the horrendous working hours, the zero job security, the vulgar abuse showered on them by the ingrates they represent, the difficulty of getting bright, young talents to stand for election. All of it true, of course, even if much of it now is a consequence of national legislators unashamedly playing with the truth in Dáil Éireann and continuing to represent themselves as welfare officers in the constituency.
In the past decade, those of us in the private sector have also come to expect horrendous working hours, zero job security and a working culture that barks "if you can't hack it, get out".
It's noteworthy that Fiona O'Malley plans to reject the next pay rise after Christmas, saying that TDs "must lead by example".
New young deputies with no families to support playing to the populist press? Or new political blood with a handle on the world beyond Dáil Éireann?