So many "revelations" or alleged scandals seem to arise so rapidly nowadays that the blazing headlines of Sunday are frequently overtaken by a blazing headline of Tuesday or Wednesday and Sunday's story is forgotten about. A good example in the past week was the Beverly Cooper-Flynn/NIB revelations of last Saturday, which by Tuesday or Wednesday were replaced by Ruairi Quinn's conversations with John Meagher of Independent Newspapers and Irish Marketing Surveys.
What the press might have dined out on for weeks or months in the past is now no more than a mere snack of a day or two.
To say the least, Ruairi Quinn was not impressive in dealing with questions about his contact with Meagher. It does appear on his own admission that he telephoned Meagher, after he and Brendan Howlin had been declared the two candidates for the leadership of the Labour Party, to inquire if the Independent intended to run an opinion poll as between himself and Howlin. He went on, according to his own version, to express the view to Meagher that he thought an opinion poll would be helpful to his candidature.
He did not, he claims, specifically suggest that an opinion poll be run and published but, lo and behold, one appeared a few days later. Nobody, of course, spoke to anybody else, or so we are assured. It all just happened.
Brendan Howlin was not amused at the fortuitous appearance of this opinion poll shortly before the vote, especially when it showed Quinn ahead of him, but he held his peace at the time at least in public. Howlin was not concealing his anger too strenuously this week at the contacts between Quinn and Meagher and apparently was offered an apology by Quinn for the latter's breach of the spirit of the agreement between them in the contest.
An interesting aspect of that contest came to light this week. That was confirmation of what was long suspected, namely that Dick Spring strongly favoured Howlin in the contest. If Spring had been aware at the time of the contacts between Quinn and Meagher about the opinion poll, his support for Howlin would have been copper-fastened still further because the Independent Group and Spring had not seen eye to eye for quite a while. This antagonism seems to have started when, as Spring claims, he vetoed efforts to make certain changes that were sought in the laws relating to capital acquisitions tax.
The whole Quinn/Howlin saga strengthens the reservations of an increasing number of people who are doubtful about the legitimacy of the use of opinion polls when an election has been called.
The feeling around Leinster House is that the proposed merger between Labour and Democratic Left is almost a done deal. That is not to say that there is not a fair amount of angst amongst some members of both parties about the proposal, the official talks for which are now under way.
The limited reservations of each party are mainly personal and relate to the small number of deputies or would-be deputies on each side who may lose their seats to somebody who is perceived as stronger on the other side in the same constituency. An example of this is in Dublin North West, where Roisin Shorthall of Labour will have to face Prionsias De Rossa and neither has a guarantee that there will be more than one left-wing seat. The increased number of constituencies in Dublin the next time round will help, but nonetheless there will be many tensions in the new arrangement.
De Rossa was never known to be in favour of this merger - which, incidentally, one is not supposed to refer to as a merger - but a clear majority in his party prevailed on him to go along with it. Prionsias has travelled a long road since the heady, revolutionary days of Sinn Fein, Official Sinn Fein, and the Workers Party. By Drapier's count, De Rossa is destined for the Guinness Book of Records as he approaches membership of his fifth different political party.
Will people like Joe Higgins or Tony Gregory join the new merged party? Or more significantly will they be invited? Drapier's forecast is that the answer will be in the negative. They will be regarded as too troublesome for reformed and quiescent ex-revolutionaries who have lost their stomach for any form of radicalism and who now tend to accept society as they find it.
There was intense interest in Leinster House this week in the strongly contested Assembly election in the North, coupled with a sense of relief that we were not ourselves involved because deputies quite simply do not like elections. There is some satisfaction at the apparently good vote recorded by the SDLP. Some months ago there was a fear that they might be eclipsed by Sinn Fein but they have now reverted to their approximate figures of recent elections.
While the final results of the Northern election will presumably not be available until sometime later today, the indications suggest that a sizeable majority of the seats will be taken by candidates who are prepared to work the Agreement. With all the built-in voting margins that are necessary the overall result may not be clearcut until the Assembly actually meets and votes but it does seem that it will be able to work as intended. There will be relief at this in many quarters.
The splits in unionism are quite remarkable and the way the formerly monolithic vote has fragmented would have been disastrous for them in a first-past-the-post system. Ironically, what will save them is the Irish form of proportional representation which has been adopted in the North for Assembly and local elections. Transfers of a lower order may be even more important in the North than they are in the Republic's elections and there may well be some surprising people elected as a result.
The whole process of the Assembly's workings and the selection of a chief minister and deputy chief minister, together with other members of the executive, will be a fascinating study in the months to come. The 94 per cent majority of people down here who voted for the Agreement will fervently want the whole thing to work and at least the prospects this morning are relatively hopeful.