"NOW you understand how Brendan Smith cases can happen," the Fianna Fail Chief Whip, Dermot Ahern (the coming man), remarked after wishing me well on my departure from "The Party". "It's a pity a few more of your colleagues couldn't get the opportunity to work on the other side and they'd have more understanding.

Dermot Ahern was reiterating that I had come to know well during my 15 months in Leinster House no political party is monolithic; parties are more complex ban being about agenda and conspiracies. A party lines up to its band; individual deputies march to the beat of their own drums.

I learned a lot during those 15 months. Politicians are badly paid, they work extremely hard and they have inadequate support services. I could never be one.

I also learned that they are obsessed with the media. I now know exactly what Sean Duignan meant when he wrote the first entry in the diary he kept as Government press secretary to Albert Reynolds: "They're all media mad here. This obsession with everything to do with the media can not be over emphasised - repeat - cannot be over emphasised!"

Some are more obsessed than others. It varies from person to person. The party leader, Bertie Ahern, for example, is probably one of the more temperate.

Then there is the media groupie. No issue is too great or too small for the deputy; its intrinsic value is measured in the inches of newsprint, the seconds of the sound bite on radio or television.

SO what is the press director's role in all this? Firstly what he or she is not. The director is not a strategist. Political strategy and communications are separate, although occasionally they become interlinked.

The press director is not some type of personal minder, holding the hands of the leader and the members of his front bench, telling them what to do next. Neither is he or she out every day trying to manipulate the media. I don't know any journalists who would allow themselves to be manipulated.

The press director is there to give advice on how a particular issue should be presented, to try to ensure there is fair coverage of the party's affairs in the media, identify opportunities for publicity and provide a service to political correspondents and journalists.

It's not all that easy for Fianna Fail. As the party that commands the largest percentage of popular support, it's there for the pot shots. It will always be lined up for the coconut shy.

I found myself asking if the same set of criteria applied to Fianna Fail as to other parties. As I flicked through The Irish Times, I often thought it didn't. So, does a Fianna Fail press director start at a disadvantage?

I leave "The Party" at a time when it is receiving conflicting signals from the opinion polls. One poll has its level of support falling "sharply", although if the figures translated into votes in a general election, FF and the PDs would easily form the next government, a point overlooked by many commentators. The most recent poll gave the level of FF support at 50 per cent, enough to give it an overall majority in the Dail. Fortunately for the party, it doesn't pay much heed to opinion polls!

But Fianna Fail for itself must reenter office after the next election - government has been the glue which has kept this large party together. It has never been out of office for two successive Dail terms. It is uncomfortable in opposition.

To regain office it has to do several things. It has to offer a real alternative - and it can do that. There are about 20 policy documents before the front bench, covering almost every serious issue facing the electorate. These have to be presented in a very clear and cogent manner, and as near to the election as possible (it's no point making the pact six months or more before the campaign). However, good policies alone won't win government.

IN the last election, we were told, Labour "caught the mood of the people", whatever that really means. Dick Spring spoke about bringing high standards to government and "all that type of auld shite" (to borrow a much used phrase from P.J. Mara). Fianna Fail must try to grab "the mood of the people" the next time round. The "Liberal Agenda" has been met. We are now in a "post liberal period", and that does not mean a "conservative period". Fianna Fail must tap into that use the catchy phrase, speak the correct language.

The party also has a superb asset in its leader. Bertie Ahern is an honest, decent and trustworthy politician. He is an able and clever man. He is a warm and "healing leader. He must be marked aggressively.

He also has a front bench balanced with youth and experience. Ray Burke isn't Just a long serving politician, he is probably one of the most pragmatic and imaginative around. As for Moire Geoghegan Quinn (the Mighty Quinn), she is the politician politicians admire. She is the biz. And then there are the people who, for me, would put the polish on a cabinet Dermot Ahern, Sile de Valera and John O'Donoghue.

There are also people in other parties whom I respected and liked. Mary Harney has been a friend for quite some years and is as fine a politician as she is a woman. Dick Spring - well you can't go past him. Michael D. Higgins a politician as well as a poet. Avril Doyle is awesomely competent. And the formidable Minister For Health, Michael Noonan, whose sense of humour stays as sharp as his mental capacities when the going gets tough.

I enjoyed my time with "The Party". I met and got to know people I would never have known. Martin Mansergh, head of research and adviser on Northern I policy, is generally acknowledged as of the more important, more admired and more private people on the Irish political scene. At the risk of sounding like a groupie myself, it was great to know that this political icon took time out to work in his garden at his country residence. Dr Mansergh's career has been well documented. On Northern policy he is a Colussus. On a personal level, he is warm and witty. He is funny and engaging, and most of all he is practical; he wouldn't have just guarded the harbour at Rhodes; he would have build a bridge.

There is Sile de Valera. I had never had the good fortune to meet her until I worked for Fianna Fail. A scion of a distinguished name - but so much more than that. She loves her job, her party, her constituency of Clare, but she also loves history, the arts, dance and music. She is a smart and feisty woman. She is kind, caring and clever - she was a revelation.

So now I start my "political decontamination" - three months out of politics and RTE to do my own thing, working abroad and also in the country. I decided on this route as the alternative could have been three months in the RTE library preparing obituaries.

I regarded my job with Fianna Fail as a temporary career break from journalism. This is happening all the time in most European countries, Australia and the US. Politics and journalism would benefit from more such exchanges. Therefore, I do not accept the argument that one cannot move from journalism to the political arena and back to work as an impartial, professional journalist.

I'm glad that a more mature attitude is now being taken on this. After all, Sean Duignan managed the transfer from journalism to politics and back to journalism again with an adroitness that would have flattered Riverdance. Maybe I'll get a supporting role.