DRAPIER: Seeing the new deputies arriving here to sign on officially, Drapier considered retitling this week's column "A Beginner's Guide to Politics" rather than "An Insider's Guide". Many of the new intake were easy to spot as they walked around with their large white folders telling them the ins and outs of the place.
Coming in here can be a steep learning curve. Finding your way around the place is the least of your difficulties. No amount of folders or booklets can make up for the advice and assistance of experienced colleagues.
Nonetheless, some are already appearing to settle in quickly. Not least the Sinn Féin deputies, who were already stalking the corridors as if to the manner born.
Such was their frenetic activity that Drapier retreated to his corner of the bar to hear the dispatches from Fine Gael's conclave in Citywest and to consider the week ahead.
Fine Gael's determination to elect, or select, a new leader so it can have someone to nominate for Taoiseach next Thursday is perplexing. One could perhaps justify the haste if a clear contender was emerging around whom the party could unite, but as yet there seems to be none.
The four contenders so far - Phil Hogan, Richard Bruton, Enda Kenny and Gay Mitchell - are all capable and able people. Drapier's Fine Gael colleagues argue that it is quite probable that the eventual leader would have emerged from these four, even if they had waited and gone to the party membership.
This may well be the case, but it does not excuse the rush. They have just come through a traumatic experience. Brian Hayes's suggestion of a special ardfheis was a sensible one. The rank-and-file of the party need to have their say and will not appreciate these attempts to do an end-run around them.
Drapier believes that they should have used the summer to take "soundings" among the party membership rather than opt for an impromptu decision.
Fine Gael are not the only ones facing some big decisions. Drapier has detected some mutterings among his Labour colleagues. The political centre of gravity within the Labour parliamentary party has shifted perceptively to the left with the return of people such as Joe Costello and Kathleen Lynch.
Already the siren voices, both inside and outside the Labour Party, are telling it to move even further left. They argue that people voted for centre-right parties because Labour is not left-wing enough. Drapier finds this a curious logic. More importantly, it is a dangerous one, as it paves the way to political oblivion, or at least permanent opposition.
John Bruton was right when he argued last week that the public would never trust the management of the public finances to an alliance of Labour, the Greens, Sinn Féin and Independent Socialists. The problem was that it was phrased in such a way as to cause maximum offence to the Labour Party and to Eamon Gilmore in particular.
Fine Gael and Labour have social democratic wings which virtually overlap, particularly in the Dublin constituencies. Yet the putative leaderships of both parties seem determined to drive a wedge between the two and steer off in opposite directions.
Meanwhile, Bertie Ahern's and Mary Harney's respective negotiating teams prepare their programme for government in advance of last-minute discussions between the Taoiseach and the Tánaiste. The process has almost developed a special ritual of its own.
It may be a testament to the inevitability of it all that most speculation around the House has concerned the allocation of portfolios rather than the content of the final programme.
Drapier spent most of the week tracking the cabinet predictions of colleagues. Most were minimalist, up to Bertie Ahern's comments that he would be starting with a clean sheet. Since then, a number of new names have featured in the prognostications.
Drapier is not so bold or foolhardy as to second-guess Bertie or Mary and commit 15 names to paper here. From conversations with colleagues, there appears to be consensus around three main criteria for changes in the Fianna Fáil ranks.
Bertie will pick the team he intends to fight the next election with. The Taoiseach is a believer in stability, and, barring some mid-term alterations, he will want to see the ministers he picks on Thursday still in place in five years. This makes Brian Cowen, Charlie McCreevy, Noel Dempsey, Mícheál Martin, Dermot Ahern and John O'Donoghue virtual certainties to be retained.
Anyone approaching retirement age over the next five years will be encouraged to step aside. Familiar faces such as Michael Woods, Michael Smith and Joe Walsh may well be asked to stand aside or to consider other options, such as Ceann Comhairle, Leas Ceann Comhairle or even Europe.
Bertie will promote those who can defend Government policy well in public.
The three junior ministers most frequently put forward by Fianna Fáil during the election campaign, Séamus Brennan, Willie O'Dea and Mary Hanafin, can expect elevation to Cabinet, as can Brian Lenihan, possibly to Chief Whip.
Whatever the predictions now, next Thursday will be a tense time for all concerned.
Like everyone else, Drapier was most saddened to hear of the death of John B. Keane. The great chronicler of a changing Ireland will be greatly missed. Drapier found himself thumbing through a copy of his Letters of a Successful TD and wondered how John B.'s alter ego, Tull McAdoo, would cope with things around here now. Mightily well, one suspects.
Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam.