SO John O'Leary and Jim my Leonard have joined the growing list of colleagues who will be bowing out at the end of this parliament.
They join Gerry Collins, Peter Barry, Michael J. Noonan and John Ryan who have already taken their decisions. And Drapier can tell you there will be more to come. The spate of conventions in both Fianna Fail and Fine Gael over the coming weeks will concentrate minds greatly, and all Drapier will say at this stage is that we will be in for a few surprises.
Neither Jimmy Leonard nor John O'Leary would be household names in Dublin 4 and would probably find little favour with the drafters of the Constitution review document which talked about providing more "quality" candidates for the electorate.
Maybe not, but each of them, time after time, passed the only test that mattered, getting and holding the confidence of their own electorate.
Jimmy Leonard, in fact, is a consistently good contributor in House and in committee. He has a solid grasp of day to day issues and, whether it is on North South co operation or the development of the mushroom industry, what he says is always worth listening to.
Johnny O'Leary does not overburden the House with his speeches, but he is an accomplished constituency worker who never gets too far from the real needs of the real people who vote for him.
Meanwhile, things seems to be going well for the Government. Too well, if you ask Drapier, who reminds his colleagues of Drapier's First Law of Politics: when things are going well is the time of greatest danger. Events have a nasty habit of dropping out of nowhere and Drapier has no doubt will do so over the coming weeks - and months. And, generally speaking, it's your friends who land you in it rather than your enemies.
Last Tuesday's Irish Times poll gave us all pause for thought, and the findings were the main topic of conversation during the week. Mind you, with the bar still closed, there is no natural meeting place to exchange views and few were impressed with Trevor Sargent's facile attack on the refurbishing work going on in it.
Trevor knows by now that it is the Office of Public Works and not ordinary TDs and senators who are charged with the maintenance of Leinster House, and Drapier asks if Trevor, a conservationist by creed, is saying that Leinster House, one of the most important of our historic buildings entrusted to the care of the State, is not worthy of detailed and careful maintenance.
Charlie Haughey was attacked when he transformed the old College of Science into a superb Department of the Taoiseach, but few would say today that he was wrong. The television image of that building which is flashed around the world almost daily does us all proud and, in Drapier's view, the same should go for our national parliament.
But back to the poll. Quite frankly it is bad news for Fianna Fail and Bertie Ahern. You don't have to walk very far in here to know that what's being called the Bertie factor is alive and well; indeed to a degree that must be worrying.
The drop in support in Dublin especially is beginning to concentrate minds, particularly since Dublin was seen as the key to Bertie's success.
IT all makes for a lonely enough time for Bertie. Indeed, Dermot Ahern in an unguarded moment on Morning Ireland recently struck almost a plaintive note about the loneliness of opposition.
But Drapier has one piece of advice for Bertie. Tough it out. You have the lousiest job in the business. More than anybody else you depend on events and on a bit of luck coming your way. Very few opposition leaders have been able to dictate events or fix the agenda.
As one of our journalist friends is given to reminding us, whoever the current leader of the opposition is will inevitably be described as "the worst ever leader of the opposition".
Jack Lynch and Liam Cosgrave both had that tag applied to as had James Dillon, Charlie Haughey, Alan Dukes and, perhaps most of all, John Bruton. It goes with the turf and Bertie can take comfort from the fact that there is no blindingly obvious successor barking at his heels and no incipient "heave" in the offing.
Pat Rabbitte's attempt to promote the lady he called the "Arianna Stephanopoulos of Fianna Fail, Maire Geoghegan Quinn, is in Drapier's book a little previous. The issue is a distraction and should be treated as such.
From a Fine Gael perspective the poll news was good but not great. The position in Dublin continues to improve and, in Drapier's view, this upward crawl is set to continue, especially if the Residential Property Tax issue can be got out of the way, which Drapier predicts it will.
Meanwhile, the sharp exchanges between Bertie and the Labour Party on this particular issue on Wednesday were not exactly the sounds of political courtship, never mind political foreplay.
DRAPIER thinks that on the question of electoral alliances significant things are happening.
The first is that that both Mary Harney and Bertie Ahern talked too much over the summer.
In a needless interview in late August - and in Drapier's book all politicians should shut up for August Mary Harney told the world how much she looked forward to being Bertie's Tanaiste while Bertie's overtures to Labour gave his own internal opponents a stick with which to beat him while upping the anti Fianna Fail ante in the Labour Party.
What all of this means, at least in Drapier's book, is that options are being needlessly closed down and that the line up for the next election is becoming more and more inevitable and more clear cut. Drapier will leave it at that for the moment.
The second point is significant and is something Drapier has been saying all along. As far as the election is concerned a large part of the electorate is simply not engaged as yet. It's all there to play for - for all parties.
The campaign itself, and maybe the period immediately preceding it, are going to be crucial. On present evidence it could go either way. A mood could develop for one or other leader such as swept behind Dessie O'Malley in 87 and Dick Spring in 92, or it could remain a Mayo/Meath war of attrition down to the end. Maybe even with a replay. Perish the thought. The memories of 81/82 still rankle.
And, finally, there is the date. Drapier knows that journalists have to write, and speculation costs nothing, but he can say that, barring a major accident, this crowd has no intention of going near the electorate before June of next year.
And if Mary Robinson decides to step down as President and Drapier will look more closely at that likelihood next week it might even postpone the day of reckoning to coincide with the presidential race.
Stranger things have happened.