DRAPIER was well back night when the news in his constituency last came in from Canary Wharf He was shocked and a quick few calls around told him so was everybody else. The feeling was sick. But experience told us that it was time to hold back. We have all rushed to judgment in the past and all of us have put too much both of hope and effort into the present peace effort to let it fall away without a real fight.
Drapier, like everybody else here, wants it to be a maverick operation and wants to believe that Gerry Adams, who has impressed so many of us by his apparent sincerity and commitment to democratic credentials, is still in control. It will be a sober House next week and meanwhile all Drapier can do is reflect on the week just past. Not a great week, but as far as they could the government was getting it right on the North and making a hames of some of the smaller issues.
And as Albert Reynolds remarked on a famous occasion, you handle the big ones, it's the small ones that bring you down. Words worth reflecting on.
Earlier in the week John Bruton kept his cool, avoiding the easy temptation to hit back at John Taylor, knowing that to do that was one sure way of scuppering the process and playing into the hands, not just of the unionists, but of those Fianna Fail people, including it must be said Bertie Ahern, who have been hinting, none too subtly, that John Bruton is not really "up to" dealing with the North.
The defence of Dick Spring by Bertie Ahern and in particular the distinction he drew between Spring and Bruton underlined Bertie's attempt to make this point stick. It's almost as if subconsciously Fianna Fail resents John Bruton being in the driving seat on the North, that in some way he has usurped the natural order of things.
As a result we have had the long series of half-made charges, hinted rather than clearly expressed, of his "inexperience", his "judgment", his "unionism".
All this forgets that Bruton is probably the most experienced politician in Leinster House, that his career coincides almost exactly with the Northern troubles.
IN fact Mary Harney read the past week much better on the North than did Bertie, as she usually does. It may be because she has a smaller, more coherent party with no Ned O'Keeffe waiting in ambush for any deviation from nationalist orthodoxy. Fianna Fail was never slow in the past to play the "Orange" or the "British" card, and this week it was back to basics. After Canary Wharf they may wish to think on it this morning. Michael McDowell had a point when, after Ned 'Keeffe's attempt to associate John Bruton with the sergeant of the DMP in 1916 of the same name, he suggested that we might at least move on from 1916 to Civil War politics.
Ked O'Keeffe's intervention merits reflection. It was not a spur-of-the-moment action. It was premeditated and as such would have done little credit to a TD of the 1920s, who might at least have some justification for bitterness, but it was totally out of order in the Dail of the 1990s.
Whether or not John Bruton was a relative of the DMP man of the same name - and apparently he is not - is not the issue. At issue is the playing on tribal passions and "closing-time republicanism".
Drapier wonders whether Sean Lemass or Jack Lynch would have sat by and condoned Ned O'Keeffe as Bertie Ahern's silence seemed to do. Drapier thinks not.
Dick Spring showed no urge to rise to the Fianna Fail bait. Being attacked by John Taylor will do him no harm in north Kerry, and he was wise to let Taylor's words speak for themselves, realising that sooner or later he will have to do business with Taylor.
But the whole episode reflects no credit on Taylor. He had shown signs in recent years that he was capable of rising above the smart-aleck nastiness and penchant for the gratuitous insult which was such a characteristic of his earlier career.
Indeed, people had even been speaking of him before the unionist leadership election as being a possible F.W. de Klerk for the North. Old habits die hard, or so it seems.
NOR did David Trimble's bad manners do much for his image; and before
Harris rushes in to tell Drapier that The Irish Times, or indeed Dail Eireann, cuts little ice in Whitehall or Glengall Street, constant misrepresentation by unionists of the genuine desire for a fair settlement which is the wish of most members of this House does their own case little good.
The association of the Government's proposals with Dayton, Ohio, may have been unfortunate in that none of the protagonists in the North see themselves in the role of either Bosnians or Serbs, but at least the proposal is one which, when the rhetoric is stripped away, must be seriously addressed and should oblige the British to face up to their commitments to inclusive all-party talks. Bruton's Newsnight performance was particularly strong on this point.
That was the big issue. From the Government's point of view the smaller issues were not so comfortable. Fianna Fail made a meal of Proinsias De Rossa's "advertisement which was not an advertisement" or the "non advertisement which was an advertisement". From Drapier's perspective you pick your dictionary and take your choice.
It was the first piece of serious flak to hit the former comrades since coming into Government and Fianna Fail could hardly believe its luck. A few blows were landed, though once again the absence of one strong performer and the proliferation of assailants weakened the impact. Drapier was in the House when De Rossa made his original statement.
Drapier thought De Rossa was up front and made no bones about the political nature of his appointments, but feels that if he had clarified the exact nature of the "advertisement" at the outset this week he might have made life easier for himself. But that, as they say, is a matter judgment and it may be that Fianna Fail having scented blood were going to have its go, come what may.
How much harm has been done? Drapier thinks very little. For the moment at least it is an issue that has failed to ignite - but it is one that could yet be a sleeper.
The other "small" issue this week was the art exams and Niamh Bhreathnach's handling of it. Drapier does not minimise the impact of the issue, but so far Niamh has managed to distance herself from the way it was managed.