WOW! What a week? A week ago, who would have thought that we would witness the sequence of events which commenced with the Michael Lowry revelation.
While the Taoiseach, in his initial reaction, said he had only "cursorily" read the article, he may have been buying time to give Lowry some space to find the answer.
The writing was on the wall for Lowry when the Tanaiste and Proinsias De Rossa went public on Saturday afternoon. After that, it was only a matter of time before the announcement came. It was not, of course, the fact that two party leaders had pushed him over the brink. They were only stating the obvious at that stage.
Even the most hardened old timer around here felt sorry for Lowry, but there was wonderment expressed as to how he allowed himself to get caught up in all of this. Maybe, in time, Michael Lowry will be able to give a legitimate explanation about the matters raised, but for the time being his inability to answer has allowed this matter to fester.
The other great speculation surrounded the unnamed senior Fianna Fail minister who is thought to have received a huge sum. This has tended to put the spotlight on Fianna Fail, but Bertie Ahern has shown a type of decisiveness for which he has not been credited with heretofore.
He laid it on the line that he would deal with anyone in his party who has transgressed. Due credit must be given to him for the almost clinical way in which he would appear to have questioned individually each of his parliamentary party members.
The other parties quickly took a lead from Ahern's initiative to trawl for any subscriptions from Dunnes. While others have been "closing their heads" this week, Bertie has shown that he can act and act decisively when required. Drapier noted that when the other parties (other than Fianna Fail) began to reveal whether or not they had received donations, they seemed to be doing so on a "party" rather than an individual basis.
For instance, Lab our indicated that they had been in receipt of a substantial amount of money from Dunnes during the presidential election campaign. However, they did not volunteer whether or not individual members were in receipt of donations.
Fine Gael, belatedly, nominated their party chairman to interview members. But the Taoiseach was following - rather than leading - when he admitted he personally asked Ben Dunne for money.
Until the report is published, we will not be able to get to the bottom of all these allegations. We are not even sure at this stage if this report will ever be published. But if the rumours are true there are people from all walks of life mentioned in the report as having been recipients of the Dunne largesse.
The entire issue puts a huge cloud of suspicion over every public representative in Leinster House, and the sooner it is all cleared up the better. People's reputations are being damaged by the minute without any definite proof being produced. Even Michael Lowry, in all fairness, is entitled to some space in order to allow him to come forward.
All in all it has not been a good week for Fine Gael.
The Labour Party may be keeping its head down, but reports that the Dunne family were able to get a direct line to the Department of Finance, in order to endeavour to have legislation changed to suit them, raised a few eyebrows.
It was pointed out, however, that the Minister for Finance in his budget speech last year indicated he was changing the format for submissions regarding the Finance Act/Budget.
Up to that any group who wished to make a point on budgetary matters made a submission directly to the Minister for Finance. Some were given an audience and others had their written submission accepted.
However, due to pressure of time and numbers of representations received, the Minister for Finance, Ruairi Quinn, obviously felt enough was enough and he decided that in future all these submissions would go to the Dail Committee on Finance and General Affairs who in turn would accept the submissions and subsequently report to the Minister en bloc on all of these.
However, it has now transpired that the Dunne family were able to by pass the committee and get directly to Department of Finance officials in relation to a possible saving of a reported £80 million which might become payable on the break up of the Dunne dynasty.
While the general debate in regard to the Dukes appointment/ Lowry resignation was low key, one discordant note was in the Tanaiste's speech when he referred to "the chancers in Fianna Fail".
One deputy, Sean Power, not renowned for bad temper, tore Mr Spring's script in half and stormed out of the chamber, saying he wasn't prepared to sit and listen "to the likes of that". Numerous Fianna Fail speakers rounded on Mr Spring.
ONE thing which is pretty certain is that in the next election Drapier will not be putting any bets on a Fianna Fail/Labour coalition. The hate seems to be mutual.
Bertie twisted the Fianna Fail dagger into Labour, when on Thursday he asked the Tanaiste to withdraw the remark, quoting from precedent. Mr Spring had no option but to do the gracious thing, which in turn was greeted with total silence from the Fianna Fail benches. You could hear a pin drop!
Both Fianna Fail and the PDs are like a dog with a bone regarding the Attorney General's involvement in the Special Criminal Court situation. Despite all the ramifications of the main issue of the week, they were at it again at Question Time with the Taoiseach, particularly John O'Donoghue and Michael McDowell.
Drapier would suggest to the two of them that, by now, the penny has dropped and it is well accepted that all who had an involvement in this, whether political or official, did not move as fast as they should in order to have the matter rectified.