READERS may have gathered over the past while that Drapier has not been a great fan of Michael Lowry.
As far as Drapier is concerned he brought everything down on himself. He painted himself to be the Fine Gael white knight who was going to cut a swathe through the Fianna Fail ranks seeking out all sorts of perceived wrongdoing. He played on the fact that, over the years, Fianna Fail has been painted as the bad guys, something which is not factual.
But Lowry fed off this and was regarded within Fine Gael as the natural successor to Bruton. All this posturing was a total facade, and while he was lucky that the Pat Tuffy/surveillance allegations were a puff of smoke, all the other claims by Lowry were found out to be unsustainable.
Who remembers the Horgan's Quay site in Cork city, which according to Lowry was a can or worms, and Fianna Fail worms, at that? Everything was found to be above board, but the damage had been done, with some of the mud sticking.
Lowry's downfall has been dramatic, particularly since his best friend for ever" John Bruton dumped him. That's politics, but what appeared in a Sunday tabloid and was repeated in some of Monday's dailies certainly went far beyond what, up to now, has been an untouchable area, namely the private lives of politicians.
The widespread reaction to the disclosures about his marital difficulties was one, not so much of sympathy but of abhorrence, mainly because if the tabloids are prepared to do this in Lowry's case, then we are all fair game. While Michael Lowry set himself unattainable standards in his political dealings, Drapier cannot recall him moralising on family or marital matters before.
But Drapier supposes that all in all Lowry had left many enemies in his wake and Drapier could think of quite a few people who would not be shedding a tear for Mr Lowry this week.
As regards Fine Gael distancing itself from Lowry, while it might outwardly be doing this, there is no doubt that the relationship is still pretty close. Time and time again over the last number of weeks Lowry has turned up to vote for Fine Gael and its Rainbow Coalition partners in the Dail.
While Drapier notes the statement from his Fine Gael replacement, Tom Berkery, calling on him not to go forward, Drapier would rather see Bruton coming out publicly and calling on Lowry not to go forward, because of the most recent revelations.
Only then would Drapier believe that Lowry is totally divorced from Fine Gael. Fine Gael cannot get over the fact that it has only put up one candidate in the constituency, given the fact that it normally puts up two.
Most politicians let out a sigh of relief once the tribunal was adjourned. The future evidence to the tribunal of Ben Dunne's solicitor Noel Smyth is like a noose hanging over Charlie Haughey's head (and to a lesser extent Fianna Fail's).
Fine Gael and Labour Ministers may have thought their time in the witness box would be minimal. The Labour Ministers Dick and Ruairi got off reasonably lightly, but even then the relationship with Ben Dunne, particularly in Dick Spring's case where he was able to secure £50,000 for Waterworld, raises questions as to how this approach was so fruitful.
All in all, it has been a pretty putrid week for Fine Gael. By all accounts the Taoiseach's evidence to the Dunnes tribunal was akin to his predecessor's (Albert Reynolds) to the beef tribunal, that is, disastrous. The apparent difference between what Bruton said to this tribunal and to the beef tribunal on the question of party fund-raising gave the opposition a tremendous opening, which it exploited with glee.
Drapier has never seen Alan Dukes receive such a drubbing as he received not once but twice this week. On top of his having to give evidence at the tribunal, on Question and Answers and again the next night on Olivia O'Leary's radio programme he was totally ill at ease.
On Questions and Answers he dared cross Vincent Browne, who landed punch after punch without return. On Olivia O'Leary's programme a caller put Dukes in a real corner. Referring to the Taoiseach's apparent conflicting evidence at the beef tribunal the caller put it to Dukes that, once he heard Bruton give this evidence (that it was not normal that party leaders should involve themselves in direct fund-raising from business people), did Mr Dukes not feel obliged to contact Bruton to inform him that such a mode of operation was indeed quite normal when he, Dukes, was leader?
Dukes rather meekly indicated that Bruton had just taken over Dukes's position as party leader and that he was not on particularly "intimate" terms with his replacement.
Michael Noonan did not appear to cover himself in glory at the Dunnes tribunal when apparently he was asked what took him to Ben Dunne's hospital bed with Lowry, and he retorted that he had nothing better to do.
The revelation that Lowry rang up his colleague Ivan Yates and informed him that £5,000 cash provided by Ben Dunne was waiting for Yates in a hotel probably confirms the widely-held view that everything as regards fund-raising over this period in Fine Gael revolved around Lowry.
But what really rankled with many Fine Gael deputies was what they saw as the stupidity shown by their ministerial colleagues who appeared at the tribunal: not so much by their evidence but more by allowing RTE the opportunity to film five Mercedes, lined up at Dublin Castle.
Such mistakes leave a very poor impression on the voters' minds. Fine Gael will want to forget this week, and that is why the election probably will not be called for another couple of weeks.
On Thursday afternoon word spread quickly about a Fine Gael emergency Parliamentary Party meeting. Why was this? Was Bruton calling a snap election? It was very unusual for such a meeting to be held on Thursday afternoon. It was learned afterwards that Bruton used it to try and rally his troops, some of whom had become spooked over the last week.
The House was awash with allegation, innuendo and invective, and Drapier feels it in his bones that this is going to be one helluva dirty campaign. If even half of the stories which Drapier has heard this week are true there will be certainly some weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Drapier would appeal to his colleagues to think before they rush in. Drapier feels that it has been a hallmark of politics over the last two decades that any allegation is fair game as long as some muck can stick, but those who make such allegations are doing a grave disservice to all those politicians who are damaged in the wrong in this regard.