A chamber of past horrors as ghosts return to the Dail

THE late Oliver J Flanagan was always a great man for the ringing phrase. Drapier remembers the time Oliver thundered across the House at the Fianna Fail benches about the "ghosts of the slaughtered calves [from the economic war] marching down Kildare Street to haunt this and every future Fianna Fail administration".

Well, in the unreal week just gone, we have had plenty of ghosts to keep us company - the ever present and deadly spectre of violence in the North, the ghosts of the beef tribunal and of phone tapping in old, unhappy far off days. All this and the ever present uncertainty of events yet to come.

First the North. Drapier, like many others in here, met John Hume in the House during the week. It was a worried, sombre John Hume. Dark deeds, dark secret deeds, are afoot in the North and most of us fear a bad, bad summer.

The shooting of a policewoman, Ms Alice Collins, in Derry was barbaric, but there is something primal about the burning of churches. It is almost as if the forces of extremism are deliberately setting out to polarise the community even further - whether for immediate electoral purposes or future events - but there was general approval of John Bruton's blunt talking about Sinn Fein and its weasel words.

The sad reality is that the British general election has put the Northern Ireland file on the shelf, dangerously so, these past few months. A vacuum has been allowed to develop and into that vacuum have come evil forces from both sides - plain unadulterated evil from people who fear democracy and see compromise as weakness.

As Dick Spring said on Morning Ireland, who in their right minds would talk to Sinn Fein while this violence continues?

As to the other ghosts, well Mr Bruton discovered how sensitive the memories of the beef tribunal still are when Ray Burke lost his cool at Taoiseach's Question Time on Tuesday over an alleged slur.

Drapier was in the Chamber, safely on his backbench perch, band he was astonished at the intensity of the exchanges. Mr Bruton did, however, make clear what most of us in here have long accepted that Mr Burke's reputation was in no way tarnished by the beef tribunal, that he behaved properly and carefully at all times.

IT all shows how tense things are now. After Tuesday's Prime Time on Vincent Browne and his phone, we expected sparks in the Dail Chamber when Nora Owen took questions on Wednesday. As it was the sparks all flew in one direction - from Nora to her hapless opponents.

Liz O'Donnell had put down a vague question - unusually for Liz who is normally so sharp and paid the price. Liz ended up having a lengthy and pointless row with Joe Jacob which left her drained by the time the substance of the question was reached.

By that stage, Drapier was glad to be high on the backbenches because Nora was taking no hostages, mowing down all that stood in her way. Nora clearly was happy in her position, her anger focused in roughly equal measures on Liz, Vincent Browne and the Prime Time programme.

Drapier would like to see an official examination of the phone saga.

With passing time, myth can become accepted fact, old issues be come part of new agendas, reputations can be unfairly damaged. Drapier is bored with the subject, as he suspects most people are, but he would encourage Mrs Owen to think of some way of getting all the facts into the public arena as cheaply and speedily as possible.

Such openness would be particularly appropriate in a week that saw Eithne Fitzgerald's Freedom of Information Bill finally emerge from both Houses. The Bill ended its parliamentary life in the Seanad on Thursday, almost a year after it began its voyage in that House.

It was a low key occasion but the tributes paid to Ms Fitzgerald were warm and sincere. Her Bill is one of the most revolutionary for many years; it challenges decades of the culture of official secrecy and will transform attitudes and practices as nothing else has done. Eithne at least can look her conference delegates straight in the face this weekend.

TALKING of conferences, Drapier is going to have his work cut out getting around the place over the coming fortnight - Labour today at Limerick, the Soldiers of Destiny at the RDS next weekend, and DL by the seaside a week later.

Drapier has also got an invitation - and he is told they are as scarce as gold dust - to Thursday's Fine Gael bash at the Burlington to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the foundation of the State. It promises to be the most speech free and enjoyable of the lot and, with recent poll boosts behind him, John Bruton should have no difficulty in enthusing his troops.

Jackie Healy Rae's decision to leave Fianna Fail will inflict some local damage on the party, though not very seriously. It is indicative "of a growing trend for candidates who don't get a party nomination to go independent. Declan Canty, of the PDs, has already taken that decision in Cork and, in Limerick West, Fianna Fail already has one independent Fianna Fail candidate and may yet have another.

Indeed, in Limerick West, people are looking seriously at the possibility of Fianna Fail getting only one seat, that of Gerry Collins's brother, Michael, with either Fine Gael or Independent Fianna Fail taking a last seat.

Finally, to the row over water. Drapier agrees with Denis Coghlan that Mary Harney had a good issue but grossly overplayed her hand. After the initial shock - and talk about gaffes - she seemed to be going well, inheriting Noel Browne's mantle of "the only honest politician", but ran into real danger with her European claims.

She simply flew in the face of too many facts and was left explaining and defending rather than attacking. The European exercise may have been a step too far and damaged her credibility.

Still, she has kept her party in the headlines and the real damage was done to her relationship with Fianna Fail which is not in the least amused as to what might happen to the issue as it develops during canvassing and, more importantly, in Government.

Not so amused either were some of Ms Harney's own colleagues who have taken a strong stand in the past against water charges. But, on balance, Drapier's view is that Mary has done well, at least in the short term, on this particular issue and it may be indicative of the type of shock tactics, part of the "be radical or be redundant" strategy the PDs will adopt over the coming weeks.