IT WAS a depressing week for the peace process. The reality is that there was a breakdown of communication and the fault did not lie at this end, even if the British could say there was provocation from the leaked copy of the Mitchell report.
Drapier is long enough around to know that leaks rarely come from the obvious source but, that said, there was disappointment that John Major had changed tack without informing John Bruton, thus causing problems for people on this end as well as stalling the entire process.
Drapier's point, however, is different. From the perspective of Leinster House there was genuine disappointment that John Major appeared to do what he did, because in Drapier's experience no British prime minister has had so much genuine respect and credibility among members of Leinster House as John Major.
He is seen as straight and decent and our best hope of making progress. For that reason there was a sense of relief that Bruton managed to keep the temperature low, that time was bought to allow Dick Spring to put things back on the rails with Patrick Mayhew. But the whole thing was a pity, and however much is clawed back it may well be seen as a defining moment, and not necessarily a good one, in the whole process.
Nora Owen ended the week better than she started it. There was something unreal about the personalised and at times hysterical nature of the criticism she had got the previous week, and Drapier wasn't the only person in here who agreed with Vincent Browne's view that much of the hysteria was contrived and misplaced, even if there is real fear in parts of the community.
NORA regained a fair bit of ground this past week, in part because her two leading antagonists in the Dail chamber, John O'Donoghue and Liz O'Donnell, went fairly consistently over the top and strained the credulity of fair minded deputies with the implied assumption that all crime problems started with the arrival of Nora Owen, ignoring not just the wasted years which preceded her but also the obvious fact that ad hoc solutions in the past are part of the present problem.
John O'Donoghue is, as Drapier has said before, one of Fianna Fail's better performers and that is why Bertie Ahern has put him in the key justice role.
However, in spite of good performances, John is in danger of over egging his pudding if he insists, as he does, in going for the jugular every time and turning every point into a political one.
Drapier did a spot check in his local during the week, and found there was a war weariness with the constant hammering at the Minister and the ranting nature of some of the contributions on the subject. In fairness John O'Donoghue doesn't rant, but a few variations on the theme might help.
Nora Owen helped her own cause this week by good performances in both Houses and in the media. Nora is tough and determined, but she would need to be, because crime is going to be centre stage over the coming months, and increasingly there will be no hiding places.
Her problems are formidable. The ghosts of previous administrations in Justice are not easily exorcised, and the culture of that particular Department is deep rooted. It is a Department which has always seen itself under siege, and has never been noted for its openness to change or outside advice.
Then there is the question of the Garda. If ever there was a state within a state it is our police force. Maybe it goes with the patch and is true of all police forces, but there is no doubt that sections of the Garda see themselves as being impervious to outside direction and change, and any Minister who tries to shake them up can quickly pay a heavy political penalty.
Drapier thinks it a monstrous outrage and a waste of public time, money and energy that the Government and the Oireachtas should have to sort out a dispute between the warring Garda representative factions.
At times over the past few years the Bosnian Serbs have looked reasonable in comparison with some of the public antics of these groups, and the fact that valuable parliamentary and government time must now be devoted to sorting out a needless industrial relations problem, or more accurately an internal power struggle, is to Drapier a genuine and unedifying scandal.
THE crime issue dominated everything else in here this week, which can have pleased Ruairi Quinn all that much. The debate on his Budget was a non event and those taking part in it seemed to be doing no more than going through the motions.
Quinn is right when he says that the whole Budget scenario, which goes back to the days of Gladstone or even before, which we inherited from Westminster and which has remained virtually unchanged since the days of Ernest Blythe, is on its last legs.
It now bears little relation to the workings or the needs of a modern economy, and these days provides little more than justification and fees for the growing army of lobbyists and financial analysts who descend upon the House both before and after the event, but leaves the rest of us cold.
Or so at least it seems this year. Maybe it's because Ruairi Quinn's exercise ruffled so few feathers and for the moment at least does not seem to have any hidden depth charges. The Finance Bill may tell a different story, but meanwhile we should bid adieu to a Budget process that has no real relevance any more.
We are now into the run up to the Seanad by election. There will be six candidates but of course it's a two horse race - Sam McAughtry and Paddy O'Hanlon.
O'Hanlon was a good choice from Fianna Fail's perspective and is genuinely well liked and respected. He has the backing of Fianna Fail and the PDs and will do well from the nine floating votes, the Independents.
But even with that he will be four or five votes short, and Drapier, like his friend, Charlie McCreevy, is a great believer in figures. It will be tight but McAughtry has the numbers. Only barely, but he still has them, and unless something goes awry, then that should be that.
Drapier was struck by the general lack of attention paid in here to Ken Whitaker's provisional report on the Constitution. It may be because most of the issues considered so far have little direct bearing on our members. The only real issue was the electoral system.
At first reading it seemed to favour the status quo, but a closer reading does not rule out the possibility of some modification of our present system, with the possibility of additional seats from a list system.