SO far at any rate this particular August is very different from the last two. In recent years August lived up to its reputation as a wicked month rather than the silly season month of tradition.
Last year, you may remember, we had he saga of Michael Lowry and CIE, while the previous year we had Liam Hamilton's Report and its subsequent hijacking by Albert Reynolds which set in motion the train of events which ultimately made Albert our shortest serving Taoiseach.
This year things could hardly be quieter. With the North once again on hold the whole country appears to be in holiday mode. Drapier has never seen the House quieter. The renovation work has turned the main hall and corridors of Leinster House into a building site, while the refurbishing of the bar denies us a natural meeting place, so there is no great incentive to linger overlong.
At any event Drapier is enjoying the peace and quiet of it all, though being a bit of a pessimist by nature he is very conscious that it is the quiet times when all seems well with the world that can often be the most dangerous.
The only real political story in town this week is the controversy surrounding the Olympic Council of Ireland. The squabbling and general nastiness of what went on in Atlanta has gone down very badly and serious questions are beginning to surface.
You may ask what business it is of ours, and certainly there will be few enough of us jumping into what looks like a piranha infested pool. The fact is that in spite of all that flak about the absence of a 50 metre swimming pool the taxpayers are major funders of sport in this country and will continue to be.
Very few people are happy with the current level of accountability, and every politician Drapier spoke to who had been to Atlanta in either an official or private capacity came home disillusioned and in some cases very angry about some of the antics experienced there.
Drapier is certain this story will run and run, and it is over to Bernard Allen to try to knock heads together. Now is the time to do it with the next Olympics four years away. But, as Nora Owen and Maire Geoghegan Quinn discovered with the GRA getting involved in internal rows can be a thankless and punishing job.
MEANWHILE, with just over a year left in this particular Dail, speculation continues about the date of the election and what the line up will be.
Drapier has said it before and will say it again barring unforeseen accidents this Government will go the distance. It will certainly go to next June and maybe even do what only one previous Dail has done (that of 1938-1943) and go the full distance.
Why is Drapier so confident? First, the Government is working well, with no evidence of internal friction over and above normal wear and tear. Fine Gael has no interest in rushing to the country and in any event has a few small issues to tidy up, especially the Residential Property Tax, which is going to cause it a lot of grief in Dublin this winter.
In addition, John Bruton will want to ensure that his party's slow but steady rise in the polls is maintained as long as possible. The same polls will stay the hand of any Labour desire to rush to the country.
In addition, Dick Spring knows that Labour was blamed for bringing down the last government (not strictly true in Drapier's view) and will not want to be the cause of bringing down another.
Democratic Left likewise has no compelling reason to pull out and with the work rate of its two senior ministers will have plenty of reasons to stay in as long as possible.
Drapier knows there are no certainties in politics. A few unexpected by elections, a major scandal, a serious economic downturn, a back bench revolt, a deterioration in trust between party leaders all or any of these could change the picture. But to date the one thing that will not change the
Government is the Opposition.
The current Opposition is as bad as any in Drapier's memory.
It is not that they are not working or that there are not enough advisers and back up teams. In fact no opposition parties in history have been as well serviced as the current two.
Nor is it the lack of issues. Crime, Northern Ireland, property tax, water charges, ministerial gaffes, have all provided opportunities which for the most part have been fluffed. On crime in particular, where the punters have been deeply critical of the Government, the efforts of John O'Donoghue and Liz O'Donnell (and both have tried hard) have won few if any converts for the parties.
Drapier is well aware that in Fianna Fail there is an undercurrent of anti Bertie talk, but in Drapier's view Bertie is Fianna Fail's best available leader. He is Just learning the hard way what John Bruton and Alan Dukes learned in their time about the loneliness of being leader of the opposition and learning how easily the bigger party can be upstaged by its smaller, more flexible partner.
Bertie is getting from Mary Harney the sort of upstaging Bruton and Dukes got from Dick Spring, although in Mary's case there is no evidence that the performance is actually producing extra votes.
Drapier has said before that a large chunk of the electorate still has to make up its mind. The election campaign and the alternatives on offer will be crucial. Anybody who tells you at this stage how the next election will go is talking rubbish. It is still far too early to call.
DRAPIER put Jim Baker, or James A. Baker III as he prefers to be called, the Silly Season category. Baker's reputation both as Ronnie Reagan's Chief of Staff and later as Treasury Secretary has taken a hammering lately, especially from those who served under him.
In fact, he was savaged only this week in America's latest political best seller, Ed Rollins's tell it all tale of goings on in the Republican party. Be that as it may Drapier sees Baker's outburst as little more than a cynical but futile stick to attack Clinton's foreign policy, but more important, to try to make Clinton seem ambivalent on terrorism.
It won't work. The Irish lobby in the US and especially the moneyed Irish lobby is as much Republican today as it was Democrat in the past, and no sane presidential candidate will beat an anti Irish drum. Dole certainly won't. He is in enough trouble as it is.
Finally this week Drapier would like to pay tribute to the Captain of the Guard, Cathal O'Laoghaire, who retired on Wednesday. Cathal is a great gentleman and he takes with him best wishes from all sides.