It wasn't a good week for serious politics - but it was even worse for serious journalism. At the start of the week every paper - The Irish Times included - devoted pages to meaningless comparisons of politicians' expenses.
The comparisons were meaningless because, due to bureaucratic accounting inadequacies, the figures published were inherently not comparable. First, they referred to different periods of time, as some included back payments from the preceding year. Then the foreign travel expenses of those deputies who are required to make visits abroad as members of bodies such as the Council of Europe were lumped in with the routine domestic expenses.
An example of the distorting effect of these two defects was the highlighting of one TD with only average domestic expenses in 1998/9 - Tom Enright - as having topped the expenses list. No accompanying explanation could undo the false impression created in readers' minds. Such a misleading presentation of financial data would never have been released by an organisation in the commercial world. Nor, if released, would it have been published on the business pages of any newspaper. But politics, unlike business, does not have to be treated as a serious issue.
There are many genuine issues that could, and perhaps should, be raised about the manner in which politicians' expenses are reimbursed. But such issues, which would require some serious research, have been almost completely ignored by the media.
Many more serious issues in Irish politics deserve to be widely debated. Some of these issues do receive appropriate attention from well informed and thoughtful political correspondents. But, in the nature of their jobs, these correspondents have to concentrate most of their attention upon on what is immediately newsworthy.
Inevitably, the trees of politics get fuller treatment than the forest of politics itself. One part of that forest that is rarely referred to outside the context of immediate events is the political party system. Is it fulfilling its function? What is and what should be its function in an Irish context?
For much of the life of our State this question more or less answered itself. From a dispute over the political status of our new State - which half a century ago had ceased to have any relevance - two main parties emerged which thereafter offered the Irish people a choice of government.
In so far as these parties came to be divided on economic and social issues, Fine Gael initially favoured free trade, pastoral farming, and conservative financial policies, while Fianna Fail supported industrial protection, arable farming and expenditure on social provisions such as housing and more widely available unemployment payments. Fianna Fail was Anglophobic, Cumann na nGaedheal (later Fine Gael) pro-Commonwealth.
By the end of the second World War it was clear that Fianna Fail's political dominance could be challenged only by a combination of Fine Gael and Labour, initially with other parties. Between 1948 and 1997 no fewer than six such administrations were formed. During the 1970s this process was facilitated Fine Gael's move to a more social democratic stance, whereas Fianna Fail, backed by many business interests, had become more conservative.
ON the whole, however, Irish politics has been fairly non-ideological and pragmatic. The division between the two main parties centred not so much on socio-economic issues as on degrees of intensity of nationalism and, from the 1960s onwards, upon different degrees of sensitivity to issues of probity. For, despite the unchallenged integrity of many of its leading members, Fianna Fail fell for a period under the influence, and later the control, of a small group who became more preoccupied with personal advantage than the public good.
After 1969 the differentiation between the alternative administrations on socio-economic issues was reinforced as Fine Gael and Labour began to adopt a pluralist approach to the issue of nationalism. Fianna Fail was slower to abandon publicly its former irredentist stance, partly because this position reflected the traditional convictions of many of its members. But it may also have been because during the 1970s and 1980s Fianna Fail's leaders were conscious of the need in the national interest to maintain its traditional role of forming a mudguard against the IRA - by operating in such a way as to keep "republican-minded" people within the constitutional fold.
From 1979 onwards politics was further polarised by the emergence of Charles Haughey as leader of Fianna Fail. And after 1989 Fianna Fail ceased to be a fully independent party in the sense that, having lost its former political dominance, the thrust of its policies in government came to be determined by whether its partner in power was right or left of centre.
In the 1980s the political scene was further complicated by the emergence of smaller parties - Official Sinn Fein which became Democratic Left; the Progressive Democrats; and the Greens. And latterly Provisional Sinn Fein, which now permits elected members to take their seats, is another serious contender for Dail seats.
Democratic Left has since disappeared without as yet seeming to add new dynamism to the Labour Party. This has had the effect of depriving the traditional system of its key left mudguard against Sinn Fein gaining a foothold in some disadvantaged areas.
The 1990s have seen two further important developments, the first of which was the negotiation and signature of the Downing Street Declaration by Albert Reynolds six years ago. That marked the formal abandonment of irredentist republicanism by Fianna Fail. It had happened informally in the early 1970s under Jack Lynch, but between 1979 and 1992 it had been played down by Charles Haughey.
A second new factor has been the recent exposure of financial dealings by a number of former leading members of Fianna Fail. This seems likely to speed up the process by which Fianna Fail rids itself of the unsavoury image that this element inflicted upon it from the 1960s onwards.
The rationale of the party system has been further confused by the colour changes of the Fianna Fail chameleon as, after each election, it seeks a partner from the right or the left, according to the post-electoral state of the Dail's composition.
Ideological differences about economic policies have effectively disappeared, here as elsewhere. In relation to tax and social policies, the pressure on all the parties to seek the support of the floating urban middle class vote has also attenuated, to a disturbing degree, the kind of differences about such policies which in the past have given meaning to party politics.
One consequence of the shift to the centre has been a notable failure to deploy the recent massive increase in available resources to tackle poverty, drug-taking, and general disadvantage. The persistence of these evils under conditions of rapid economic growth is impossible to defend. It is also alienating a large fraction of our population from our traditional political system, driving whole communities towards dependence on vigilantism and towards growing political support for Sinn Fein.
The key question is surely how our party system can most usefully adapt to this transformed environment. But nowhere does this appear to be under serious discussion - neither publicly nor, so far as I am aware, privately within the political system itself.
All we hear occasionally are echoes of the old refrain - that Fianna Fail and Fine Gael should merge - leaving Labour to lead from the left. But nothing could be more dangerous than such a merger. For it would yield a monster party, holding some four-fifths of the Dail seats, and with a potential capacity to remain in power almost indefinitely.
There are some starry-eyed idealists who believe the huge majority an FF/FG government would enjoy initially would quickly evaporate in the face of a challenge from the left. I hope no one falls for this piece of dangerous and unreal optimism.
One great merit of our political system during the past three decades has been that no party stayed too long in government. It would have been better if many of these governments had secured a second term, governing for seven to nine years instead of two to four years, but at least we have been preserved from the politically debilitating 16-year terms that dominated the bulk of the 1932-1973 period.
In the past, internal policy shifts within our main parties have enabled them to serve the public interest in changing circumstances. But this may no longer be sufficient to provide a real prospect of alternating governments offering genuine policy choices about the distribution of national resources.
This subject requires at least as much attention as politicians' expenses.