DRAPIER was at Arbour Hill yesterday for the official 1916 Army Commemoration. The May sunshine had a winter chill, but the ceremony had a dignity and austerity in sharp contrast to the war of words initiated by Bertie Ahern in the same Arbour Hill last Sunday week and continued by John Bruton in Mullingar on Friday night.
The message of Arbour Hill, as Drapier saw it, watching the Army go about its commemorative ceremonial in its usual impeccable way, was that it was time once again to concentrate on the bigger picture and hopefully with the air now cleared time to get back to real bipartisanship.
The problem for all of us is that the pressure of daily events can obscure the importance of the next few months for the entire Northern process. Drapier doesn't like cliche's, but for once we are at a historic crossroads where real progress, of a kind never sustained before, can be made. Or we can find ourselves back, deeper and more desperate than before.
In such a situation, words can be lethal. In Drapier's view a little verbal chastity all round would not go astray. Any Irish politician who turns Northern Ireland into a party political weapon will not be lightly forgiven, and doesn't deserve to be. And following his own precept that is all Drapier has to say on this matter for now.
At another level the week just past has been a worrying one for the Government, with a number of issues that simply won't go away. Michael Lowry does seem to have put the Esat controversy to bed at last. His performance on Tuesday did much to persuade most people that everything was above board.
Drapier has never been all that persuaded by the campaign against Esat, a view indeed shared by most of the business commentators. Drapier has always felt the issue was something of a stick for those who had other Lowry agendas or indeed other agendas.
In any event, life with Lowry is never dull. He now faces up to the Luas issue one Drapier feels is something of a slow burner, with views hardening on both sides. To' a very real extent it all depends on where you live. Those in the south outer Dublin areas can't wait for it to happen those closer to the city centre are increasingly apprehensive and the environmental lobby has all sorts of drums to beat. (And, of course, the north side must wait). As a rural minister, Lowry is going to find himself in the middle of a very urban row.
THE hepatitis C row refused to go away, too. Drapier sat in the chamber for Michael Noonan's question time on Wednesday Drapier thought Noonan gave one of his best parliamentary performances, clear, confident, composed but the problem is the issue is both emotive and complicated and after the Brendan Smyth saga the word "file" raises all sorts of sinister possibilities.
One way or other the continuing saga is not fair to the victims nor is it fair to a Minister who inherited a problem for which he was not responsible and who has worked with might and main to address the issue.
Drapier believes he has been both fair and humane, but it is in everyone's interest that any element of confusion be clarified and clarified quickly, and if there are any final issues to be addressed then for heaven's sake let them be addressed.
The nurses' rejection of the pay deal and the continuing CPSU row put the finger on the Government's deepest problem and what may yet prove its most intransigent, public service pay.
Drapier noted during the week the very sane contribution of Joe O'Toole in the Seanad and David Beggs in Waterford on the need for calmness and not scuppering the National Wage Agreements without at least a rational debate. Drapier says Amen. .
The CPSU go slow is already nasty, particularly in the Department of Agriculture, where staff are tuming up, but little or no work seems to result and enormous problems are being created for the livestock industry, especially through the withholding of "blue cards". The nurses' dispute also has the potential to turn nasty.
What all of this says to Drapier is that something funny is happening "out there" and it has taken the union leaders as much by surprise as the rest of us. What it is not yet clear a temporary militancy, a once off anger or a much deeper, longer lasting anger.
ALL this happening as it did in the week of Packard and trouble at Airmotive pointed to gathering storm clouds for the Government. The Packard business was nasty and shabby, but the public sector issue has to be the most deeply worrying one facing the Government. It is going to test Ruairi Quinn's skills of imagination and negotiation over the coming months, and Drapier's advice to Ruairi is not to bank on any extended holiday this summer.
Another Minister in the firing line of late is Ivan Yates. When bad luck hits a Minister it rarely does so in isolation. Yates started off as a Minister in a hurry. The Farmers' Charter was a great idea, long overdue, and' gave him a good start. In general his enthusiasm and energy went down well with the agricultural community.
Of late, however, it has been one catastrophe after another, and none of them of his own making.
First there was the inheritance of the beef tribunal and the long row over the Euro fines. Then came the row with the vets followed by BSE and now, possibly most damaging of all, the ramifications of the CPSU go slow which is causing huge anger among the rural deputies.
None of this is Ivan Yates's fault. No other Minister would have done much better, but luck is a funny thing. It's the one variable none of us can do anything about.
Ivan must be hoping his will turn soon and, being the bookie he 15, no one knows the odds better.
John Bruton's reference to Sean Lemass brought home to Drapier that Lemass is 25 years dead this month. It is amazing how time passes and it is extraordinary that one of the most low key of men has come back so much into fashion.
Drapier has always regarded Lemass as one of the two great prime ministers, the other of course being the founding father, W.T. Cosgrave. He hopes some suitable means will be found to honour the Lemass anniversary.
Finally, a plug. Drapier's good, friend Maire Geoghegan Quinn is launching her novel The Green Diamond on Wednesday night. This is not, of course, the first political thriller written by a member of the House. John Kelly's The Polling of the Dead (a great read) was written at the time of the Arms Trial, while Drapier hears rumours of another political thriller being written in here. Drapier looks forward to reading The Green Diamond. He is told it is very good.