IT WAS another bizarre week. But more than that it was a week of real sadness in here. Liam Naughten was a good and decent colleague and the tributes which flowed in testified to that, as did the thousands of people from all parties and all parts of the country who stood in the icy wind at Drum last Tuesday to pay their final respects.
Colleagues have spoken about Liam all week, none more movingly than John Bruton at Tuesday's Mass. All Drapier can do is extend his sympathy to Liam's wife, Mary, and the family.
Pat Magner had a point when he spoke of the increasingly heavy workload and impossible demands made on today's politicians, and for meagre financial reward. This was emphasised by three of our about-to-retire colleagues - Peter Barry, Ger Connolly and Jim Mitchell - on Thursday's Prime Time. The nature of the game is changing. It's tougher, more demanding, much less fun and less rewarding than it was in years past.
Drapier is not complaining, merely observing. But certainly this parliament has suffered greatly. The Seanad has lost its three finest members: Sean Fallon, Gordon Wilson and now Liam Naughten. The Dail has lost Brian Lenihan, Gerry O'Sullivan, Neil Blaney and Johnny Fox, while we have had an unprecedented five resignations: Padraig Flynn, John O'Connell, Pat Cox, Brian Hillery and Brian Crowley. It must be a record of some sort and not one Drapier would like to see broken.
Meanwhile, back in the House it was a mean week. The meanness showed itself in small ways as well as big. Drapier for the life of him - can't understand why Mary O'Rourke is making such a fuss about Garret FitzGerald being on the selection board for the new director-general of RTE.
THE idea of Garret FitzGerald being a party hack is ludicrous. He is his own man, as Michael Lowry and Niamh Bhreathnach can testify, given the grief he has caused each of them on major pieces of legislation. On Luas and the Universities Bill Garret's opposition has been more effective than that of the opposition parties, a fact they recognised by quoting him at length.
The reality is that we should be pleased someone of Garret FitzGerald's rich experience offers himself for public service. We don't have that many elder statesmen floating about not to make use of them.
Speaking of elder statesmen, there was a fair amount of sympathy for Albert Reynolds in here. But it was not universal. The wounds of Albert's time still run deep, most especially in his own party. Drapier noted the odd bit of schadenfreude here and there. It wasn't called that, mind you, but it was there all the same.
Most people felt Albert was mad to go to London in the first place. From the outset it was reckoned he was in a no-win situation, and as the weeks passed this conviction hardened. In Drapier's view what really sank Albert were the video recollections of Dan Wallace's committee investigation.
What Drapier and many others found bizarre was the nature of the award, or non-award. The event has taken a heavy toll on Albert and his family. They have put on a brave face - Albert was always a great showman - but the hurt and shock go deep. Bouncing back won't be so easy this time.
On the other libel trial - that of Proinsias De Rossa - there was a general sense of the newspaper in question needlessly dicing with danger in publishing as and when it did last Sunday. Was it hubris, a case of those whom the gods wish to destroy and all that, or was it just a bad call? Who knows?
One way or other the cost to the paper was high. Drapier has already talked of politicians suing and there are a few more in the pipeline. In Drapier's view it is a topic we need to return to. As do the newspapers.
The real action this week again centred on Nora Owen. Drapier wasn't the only person who saw this issue in terms of blood sport, and certainly some of the attacks - few but enough - went far beyond the political and into the personal.
AS his readers know, Drapier is not one to hunt with the hounds, he is sorry for Nora Owen. She is, he knows, a doughty fighter. She is warm and generous -and, in Drapier's view, a good politician. But he is beginning to wonder how much more punishment she can absorb.
She presides over a truly God-awful Department and inherited decades of failure to reform and modernise. Drapier was not impressed with the collective amnesia which gripped so many Justice officials and he, like others in here, is sceptical about the promised "disciplinary action".
It may well be that the series of disasters visited on Nora will prove the catalyst for the most sweeping set of reforms ever in the Department of Justice: a prison authority, a courts authority, structural reform of the Garda Siochana and reform of the ludicrously out-of-date Ministers and Secretaries Act. All of this will happen, but it is cold comfort to Nora, whose problems seem to be without end.
This, of course, is the weekend of the Progressive Democrats' conference, and if Drapier doesn't make it in person he will be with them in spirit.
It has been an interesting few weeks for the PDs, with lessons to be learned. In particular, there was the ineffectiveness of much of the opposition performance, characterised by the pathetic and pointless walkout, all of which has its roots in the jockeying for position between Fianna Fail and the PDs.
Mary Harney made a mistake last August in talking about being Bertie's Tanaiste, thus running the risk of making the PDs no more than a stepping stone for Fianna Fail's return to power, to be used if necessary and discarded if not.
Since then, the PDs have been trying to reassert their individual identity - not easy in opposition, where politics is so adversarial, with the result that opposition parties vie with each other in seeing who can be most bloody- minded and aggressive.
It worked for Dick Spring when he sidelined Alan Dukes and John Bruton, but there is little evidence it is working for the PDs at present. Michael McDowell is an acquired taste. Who knows, perhaps a kinder, more gentle image is what is needed. In Drapier's view the public is sick and tired of all the giving out and badmouthing. Voters, after all, are ordinary people.