While hospital staff were on the lookout for strange bugs last weekend, delegates at the Fianna Fáil ardfheis came down with a familiar political affliction, a right old dose of amnesia, writes Dick Walsh.
And it wasn't only the delegates whose memories failed them. Ministers, from Bertie Ahern to Willie O'Dea, seemed to forget that Fianna Fáil had been in government for 12 of the last 15 years; for 52 of the 75 years since the party entered the Dáil.
But Ministers and delegates alike were to be heard reeling off deficiencies in health, housing and transport, regional imbalance and urban sprawl, as if these were the result of someone else's failures, the policies of parties with ideologies alien to Fianna Fáil and the Irish people.
His audiences must by now be well used to Bertie Ahern's mangled statements and double-wrapped promises (Whatever you're having yourself, your honour, as he seemed to say to George W. Bush when they met later over a nourishing bowl of shamrock in the White House).
But what were the ardfheis delegates - or the wider audience in the real world - to make of Micheál Martin's plans for the health service and the improvements he promised, as if he wasn't already in charge, in a Government so well funded that its boast of being the envy of Europe seemed only a slight exaggeration? Anyone who'd attended ardfheiseanna over the years could have warned Ministers and delegates of the risks they ran if they tried to ignore events that were fresh in the minds of the public; if they insisted on pretending that all was well as the party shaped up for an election when, clearly, all was far from well.
The triangular coalition of Fianna Fáil, the Catholic bishops and their lay allies had just been beaten in the abortion referendum. This would have been bad enough on its own. But it was bound to remind the electorate of other FF defeats - in the referendum on Nice and in half a dozen by-elections, though never before in partnership with the Hierarchy.
In accident and emergency wards around the State, nurses, porters and junior doctors who for years had borne the brunt of conditions imposed by weak politicians, inadequate funding and poor planning, seethed with anger at the neglect of their patients.
Unions were already preparing for a stoppage to be followed by a work-to-rule.
Campaigners who'd worked long and hard for a serious measure which would acknowledge the rights of people with disabilities - and support those who cared for them - had finally abandoned hope of improving the pathetic Bill which the Government produced.
Some among them had already decided that the only way to gain, and hold, attention for their cause was to stand for election. And if anyone wants to complain about single-issue candidates, let them find a place for disabilities in their own programmes.
Other campaigners have ceased to hold their breath in anticipation of action by the Government; leaving Ministers and TDs who promised support to wonder if, perhaps, they are also waiting in the long grass for the election.
I'm familiar with the case of the Dyslexia Association of Ireland (my sister, Anne Hughes is its director). A 17-member task force on dyslexia was set up by the Government in 2000.
It sat for eight months, received more than 1,200 submissions and produced a 150-page report with 61 recommendations in the summer of 200l. Since then it has been parked in the website of the Department of Education.
All of which must remind the thousands of volunteers who work freely for the community how their contributions are taken for granted. How it also takes time, pressure and, too often, legal action to secure help for citizens that should be available as of right.
SOME commentators complain that lack of interest in politics is due to an absence of difference between parties and, for that matter, a lack of issues on which to disagree. This is not entirely true and it omits the role and responsibilities of the media themselves.
Health is an issue of major importance which not only divides the parties but exposes the differences that mark the lines between alternative administrations. Health is an issue to which welfare, housing, education and environment are linked.
They form a group which tell you about a party's attitudes to the community; and they are bound to the central issue of finance, wealth and its distribution.
Micheál Martin can say what he likes; if Charlie McCreevy doesn't come up with the funds, Martin's promises are worthless. And McCreevy, it's clear, takes a different view of spending on health to spending on tax reductions.
When tax reductions are handed out to those who don't need them, McCreevy talks about returning their own money. You won't hear him say anything of the sort to those who depend most heavily on our lopsided, class-bound health system.
A debate on RTÉ radio this week showed clearly the differences between Government and Opposition parties on health, the choice that will fall to be made by the electorate after a few more sittings days of the current Dáil.
Some who still complain about an absence of issues will concentrate on power and the fight for it, not on how it's used. They will use and abuse opinion polls as weapons in a psychological campaign that bears more than a passing resemblance to The Weakest Link.
Last weekend a poll in the Sunday Indpendent was reported as showing that the Government hadn't been affected by its referendum defeat, although the poll was taken as the results from the constituencies came in.
A few weeks earlier an Irish Independent poll taken before the Fine Gael ardfheis was published after it had ended with the date of the research buried deep in the text. Later commentaries simply claimed that the FG ard- fheis had made no diffeerence to the party's standing.