The appalling vista may be about to happen, a Fianna Fáil overall majority. The vast majority of the Irish people don't want that but their individual choices may add up to that. There is only one way of preventing it: don't vote Fianna Fáil. Better still, vote for the Green Party, the party that most realistically now could coalesce with them and could best corral them.
If we had had a Fianna Fáil majority government since 1997, Ray Burke certainly would have been in office far longer than he was and there would have been no Flood tribunal - Bertie Ahern did his utmost to prevent an extension of the terms of reference of the Moriarty tribunal to encompass questions concerning Ray Burke and then tried to prevent the establishment of the Flood tribunal (he now takes credit for that tribunal).
There would have been no inquiry into the Ansbacher scam. The Garda would be even more out of control than they are (if the revelations at the Court of Criminal Appeal last week in the Frank Shortt case are true, they are quite the worst disclosures so far about the force, but nobody seems to be paying any attention). No independent inquiry into the McBrearty affair. The DIRT inquiry probably would not have happened. The banks would have escaped any retribution - they escaped most of the retribution they deserved anyway but at least there was a slap on the hand.
That's what would not have happened, no one knows (including God) what would. But it is likely the Bertie Bowl would be merely awaiting its electronic cover and the last touches to the fake Georgian decoration of the corporate boxes.
Fianna Fáil is like that. Not that the party is inherently corrupt or that the likes of Bertie Ahern, Brian Cowen, Mícheál Martin and Noel Dempsey are more prone to abusing power than the rest of us. But the culture of the party is arrogant, a culture bred from years and years in power on its own. Anyway, any party in power on its own, enjoying an overall majority, would abuse it, for that is the nature of power and that is the nature of humanity.
A large proportion of the electorate seems set now to vote Fianna Fáil.
A floating vote, comprising no more than one twentieth of the electorate will decide whether the party gets the overall majority or is restrained either by having to do a deal with a smaller party or rely on a handful of independents. And it is to this floating vote in about 15 constituencies that our entreaties are directed.
Even if you want Bertie Ahern returned as Taoiseach, you can rely on sufficient numbers of your fellow citizens to ensure that. Only you can ensure the appalling vista is avoided by voting for other parties and voting right down the line for other parties.
The likelihood now also is that there is a sufficient number of committed Fianna Fáil voters to ensure Fianna Fáil is close to an overall majority - certainly 78-79 seats. So there is little chance of Labour been required to make up the numbers. It comes down, therefore, to either a smaller party being part of a coalition with Fianna Fáil or a minority Fianna Fáil government supported by Independents.
Is it plausible that the likes of Jackie Healy-Rae could restrain Fianna Fáil arrogance over five years? Is it likely he would force a minority Fianna Fáil government, for instance, to face down the brazenness of the Garda Representative Association which yesterday scorned proposals for a Garda ombudsman?
Of the likely outcomes to the election now, by far the preferred outcome would be a coalition between Fianna Fáil and the Green Party - the Greens probably would be preferred by Fianna Fáil than reliance on Independents, for that would be more stable and the Greens would settle for just one Cabinet job and a high-chair baby ministry. A Fianna Fáil-Green coalition would be a fairer government than the Fianna Fáil-Progressive Democrats one, it would be honest (sort of), a bit on the paranoid side, admittedly, but that would merely add to the gaiety of the nation.
They might address the real scandals of inequality and deprivation - 20 per cent of the population (three quarters of a million people) living below the poverty line of disposable income of €150 a week. Father Sean Healy, of the Conference of Religious of Ireland (CORI), has pointed out that over the past five years the gap between rich and poor widened at a rate twice as fast as it did when Labour was in power from 1992-1997 (inequality deepened then also but at a slower rate, which hardly says much of a "socialist party").
We would probably be a little more civilised in our treatment of Travellers and asylum-seekers. The conditions for disabled, including those suffering from mental illness, would probably be better and the environment would be better protected. The Garda might be brought to heel and there might be a phased introduction of "car unfriendly" policies, policies that discouraged the use of private transport, rather than the madcap policies of road building and widening that is now under way.
Of course, coalition with Fianna Fáil would do for the Green Party what it did to the Labour Party but, so what? So, on Friday, you 100,000 floaters, even those of you who want Bertie as Taoiseach, DON'T VOTE FIANNA FÁIL and, where possible, vote Greens. Trust the committed voters to ensure Bertie will be Taoiseach again, we are relying on you to avoid the appalling vista.