Those who expected the new year to see public anger and frustration at the ongoing ASTI action descend on the Government couldn't have been more wrong.
It is remarkable that ASTI members, aided and abetted by their own leadership, seem to be doing all they can to portray the teaching profession as arrogant, resistant to change and, worst of all when vying for hearts and minds, unreasonable.
We all appreciate the job done by dedicated teachers, but people won't buy their demand to be treated almost as a class apart: paid in line with top-earning private jobs, subject to no review and exempt from social partnership. Demanding the right to be paid even though you have closed your place of work really takes the biscuit.
Drapier wonders if many of those running the ASTI's strategy fully grasp the basics of undertaking an industrial dispute. The first thing you don't do is define the dispute in terms that preclude your employer from effectively settling.
One man who does understand this simple first principle, the ASTI general secretary, Charlie Lennon, seems increasingly uneasy with some of the lines he's been sent out to defend.
Experienced trade union observers tell Drapier that Charlie is probably the toughest and most effective of all the teachers' union officials, but that he has made the mistake of preferring real progress to appearances on the news. Drapier suspects Charlie is now tearing the last of his hair out with frustration at the naivety of his executive members.
The second thing you don't do is alienate public sympathy or support.
Drapier was much amused by a good friend's report of an industrial relations dispute on the Brussels metro, tram and bus system over the Christmas and New Year holidays.
Rather than pursuing the ASTI model and causing maximum upset and disruption, they opted to keep the system running fully but refused to charge passengers. As a result, the good citizens of Brussels could travel anywhere in the city for free.
Their rationale was that they were in dispute with their management and saw no reason why they should inconvenience the travelling public. Drapier would counsel his friends in the teaching profession - and there are many of them in Leinster House - to learn this lesson carefully before they totally alienate any remaining public sympathy.
Talking to colleagues around the House, Drapier finds he is not alone in judging the mounting political and media pressure on the SDLP to nominate members to the new police board to be a little disquieting.
Drapier is surprised at Peter Mandelson's political heavy-handedness. His categorisation of the SDLP position as absolutist is fundamentally flawed. The SDLP accepted the Patten recommendations - which fell short of their own proposals - as a workable and acceptable compromise. But Mandelson's own Policing Bill effectively further compromises this compromise.
The Northern Ireland Secretary needs to realise that this is neither negotiating tactics nor pre-election posturing by the SDLP. It has genuine concerns and is working to resolve these.
Politically, it's not Sinn Fein that causes the SDLP concern, rather it's the UUP and where it will jump next. How could the SDLP, or anybody else, agree to nominating members to a police board only then to find that the UUP Council has again brought the agreement to a standstill by precipitating a suspension of the Executive and Assembly?
Fear of another suspension of the institutions is palpable. Even moderates in the UUP have trepidations about facing into the forth coming UK election while still in the Executive with Sinn Fein. They foresee their South Antrim by-election defeat, at the hands of the DUP, being repeated in other strongholds.
Last week Mark Durkan and Alex Attwood reminded us that we need to return to the template which begat the Good Friday agreement. It is vital that all pro-agreement parties, notwithstanding their own concerns, realise that they are all in the agreement together, and resist the temptation to get in a bit of early electioneering by deliberately causing problems for each other.
Early electioneering will be the hallmark of the next Dail session. Once again it seems that the Opposition's principal strategy is to hope and pray that something sensational comes out of the tribunals and then use that as a stick to beat Bertie with.
We first saw this particular variant of the play-the-man, not-the-ball tactic in the personal on slaughts launched against him in the last week of the 1997 election. Since then almost every key speech delivered by Quinn or Bruton has as its key aim an attempt to loosen the still strong bond between Bertie and the public. Yes, he's taken a few hits, but he still stands far above his rivals in the satisfaction stakes.
Bruton and Quinn would both do well to remember Maurice Saatchi's maxim: Satisfaction equals performance minus expectation.
They will not pull Bertie's ratings down by attacking him. They need to seriously gear up their own performances on TV and in the Dail and recognise that the public still has relatively high expectations of both of them, despite the dreariness of their recent offerings.
NEXT week may assume a particular importance as reports circulate about the House that Bertie's case against Denis O'Brien is due up again. There is a growing sense, among those who are believed to be in the know, that this case will show there can be smoke without fire. If this proves to be the case then expect to see Bertie greatly strengthened by it.
It's still too early to say how tribunal-related stories will play at the next election, but their impact may not be as great as some hope. Drapier's friends on all sides of both Houses have taken to a new theory while supping their New Year resolution-breaking pints. Essentially it goes like this: the public won't buy the line "they must have known because everybody knew", because if "everybody knew" then why did we have to spend five years and tens of millions finding out what happened?
Whatever Noel Ahern says, and Drapier has always admired his direct, straight-talking approach, there is little or no reason to expect an election this year. Noel may well be reflecting the view of many backbenchers on all sides, but older and wiser voices still advise that late spring 2002 remains the best bet.
Not only because Bertie and Charlie McCreevy have repeatedly said so, but because it will take another year or so for all the Budget changes to impact fully, Moriarty will have finished his deliberations and, so the powers that be hope, our recent bout of economic self-doubt will have been overcome.
Whatever happens, the Government needs to step up its political activity and get out and about selling its message. While it may be laudable for Ministers to concentrate on the day-to-day business of government, it will not get them re-elected by itself. So expect some good bruising sessions, both before and after the summer recess.
Drapier's looking forward to it.