Drapier: It's been a nervous week in Iveagh House as the New Kids on the block have got off to a pretty auspicious start.
First up, Conor Lenihan. Conor, it should be said, is almost universally regarded in Leinster House as affable but mad - not raving loony mad but certainly well short of a full Meccano set.
He has a fluency which would grace any mart in the west of Ireland. He is chirpy, jovial and committed. You wouldn't hesitate to put him in charge of the best of kiddies' parties. You could easily imagine him as the MC in a better-than-average circus.
Bertie, of course did neither of the above. Instead, he chose to put Conor in charge of our relationship with the Third World.
Shortly after Conor's appointment Pat Rabbitte spoke eloquently in the Dáil about the reverberations which the appointment would cause the length and breadth of sub-Saharan Africa.
But even the prescient Pat could never have imagined that within a week Conor would be condemned by all the aid agencies bar none, rebuked by the Tánaiste and provoked the diplomatic equivalent of an RPG from the secretary general of the United Nations.
All for stating the blindingly obvious. Namely, that there isn't the remotest chance in hell that Bertie will keep the promise on aid which he made in New York just a few years ago.
Nothing new in that, you might say. Politicians break promises all the time, and Bertie has broken a fair whack of them in recent years.
But it's one thing to promise the sun, moon and stars in order to get the votes of the good people of Ireland. It's something else to tout a solemn commitment in the ministries of the world from Belize to Bujumbura in order to get yourself elected on to the Security Council of the UN.
By week's end the solemn commitment was back in place, and Conor was exhibiting a verbal dexterity worthy of his late father. When all is said and done, the people of sub-Saharan Africa may yet have cause to celebrate Conor's elevation, but Bertie must surely be wondering why he didn't give the job to someone less honest.
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Bertie has been away all week carousing with sheikhs and communists. Few would begrudge him the sun and shish kebabs, and the pictures from the Gulf suggest that Bertie is lapping it up.
Sadly, events from north of the Border have a way of intruding into the best of junkets, and by all reports Dermot Ahern's remarks in Stormont nigh on caused the Taoiseach to choke on his couscous.
Dermot, it seems, got a mild dose of the honesty bug which is doing the rounds in Iveagh House during these days of transition.
It was only a matter of time, he said, before the Provos are in government in Dublin.
He went on to say that Fianna Fáil would do the business with the Shinners "if circumstances changed".
Most people in Leinster House, Drapier included, regard the prospect of the Shinners in government with a hefty measure of distaste, but few of us doubt that it will happen sooner or later.
Why then the uproar at Dermot's carefully-constructed remarks?
The Blueshirts and the PDs have no choice but to askew the Provos in every which way. Their support base would expect nothing less.
But for Labour, and even more particularly FF, things are just a little more complicated.
For the first time in ages, Fianna Fáil's working class base is under threat. Labour must compete with the Provos for the votes of disillusioned working class FF voters. If it fails to do this, the Rainbow is dead and Rabbitte is history.
For Fianna Fáil, the Shinner question is the stuff of nightmares. Almost all the Shinner gains in the local elections were at the expense of Fianna Fáil. If this were repeated in two years' time, the result could be catastrophic. There are many in Fianna Fáil who want to suck in the Provos as soon as can be. They reckon the Shinners will do less well if they are thought of as possible participants in government rather than an easy repository of protest votes. Most FF people want to be in the business of getting Provo transfers, and a minority, Ned O'Keeffe included, want to ditch the PDs and do business with the Army Council instead.
Trouble is that the traditionally volatile middle classes who voted for Fianna Fáil last time out don't much like this talk of cosying up to the Provos, and might desert in droves if the policy got official sanction.
Hence the instruction from the desert for Mary Hanafin and Willie O'Dea to redress the balance. For the moment at least Fianna Fáil has to straddle the argument, but it won't be easy to keep the ball in the air.
Shinner votes may well determine the next election, but few of us actually believe that they will do well enough to get into government. But they could do well enough to make Liz McManus Tánaiste.
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Drapier quite likes Michael Ring. That said, it's not difficult to see why Enda Kenny would prefer if he took himself over to Achill and never came back. Michael is fun, but dangerous. He is hard working, mercurial, hyperactive. He is both eccentric and egocentric. You'd love to share a pint with him, but sharing a constituency would be a real pain in the neck.
Enda may well have silenced Ring in Leinster House, but there will be grief to pay in Mayo. Enda must be more than a little grateful that Jim Higgins has been packed off safely to Strasbourg. That, at least, should make it that little more difficult for Michael to exact the ultimate revenge.
Pat Rabbitte might just be tempted to dust off his green and red jersey and give Michael a ring this weekend. Drapier has a few words of advice for Pat. Life is too short.