THE five days between now and next Thursday, when the new Dail sits for the first time, are among the most interesting period in any Dail, particularly in this case where there is no clear overall majority.
There will be all the usual speculation and scare stories and the assorted Independents will try to flex their muscles. Some of them at least realise that it may be their last opportunity to show any muscle because once a government is elected it will tend to take over and dominate the scene, and Independents tend to recede into the woodwork.
Although technically this is a hung Dail the difference of six between the two blocks who fought the election as such leaves no one in any doubt that there will be a change of government. The Labour Party in particular seems almost anxious to get back into opposition, having been out of it for rather a long time.
While the contest for Taoiseach will presumably be fairly predictable, the manoeuvring which will go on in respect of the Office of Ceann Comhairle between now and Thursday is more fascinating. With a minority government in prospect, each side will want to get somebody from the other side to take the chair. It does not say a great deal for the importance or dignity of the chair in Dail Eireann that the principal concern seems to be to neutralise a vote on the opposite side.
When faced with this problem in the past, both sides of the House resorted to putting an Independent in the chair, as the next best thing to an opponent. That option is less open on this occasion because while we have a lot of Independents few of them have much experience. The only exception to this seems to be Tony Gregory but Drapier does not detect any great degree of enthusiasm on any side for him.
The turnover in this place is quite frightening. According to Drapier's rough calculations, apart from the 16 outgoing people who did not contest the election, a further 25 deputies lost their seats, producing 41 new faces, even if not all of them are unfamiliar.
The security of tenure is roughly equivalent to that of a 19th century Irish tenant farmer prior to the Land Acts. People can justifiably ask why we do it.
Drapier saw a few shell-shocked faces of the vanquished wandering the House during the week testing the Seanad waters. The Seanad is a great institution for the committed politician.
It is a refuge of the rejected and a training ground of the young, although it was not presumably designed for either purpose. It is almost entirely a political rather than a vocational body and few members are the sort of people that the mind conjures up when you use the term Senator.
Quite the cruelest devastation of the past week was the rejection by the Labour Party of many former deputies as Seanad candidates, four of whom are outgoing Ministers or Ministers of State and one of whom was a former minister. Niamh Bhreathnach, Joan Burton, Eithne Fitzgerald, Toddy O'Sullivan and Liam Kavanagh were not even chosen as candidates by the Labour Party. When the mighty fall in this State they really plummet.
Liam Kavanagh was complaining during the week that he did not even know the electorate who rejected him. If he didn't he was perhaps a foolish man to contest the selection. Why was he in any doubt? Why was the whole thing done so quickly and so abruptly?
Niamh Bhreathnach has gone the way of so many who became ministers on their first day in the House, except that in her case she disappeared more rapidly and more comprehensively than most who aspire to instant greatness. The Irish political system must vie with death as the great leveller. Those who are sore and sorry today can hardly imagine death as much worse.
The discussions between Fianna Fail and the Progressive Democrats appear to have gone quite smoothly. Many of the old tensions have disappeared. Fianna Fail accepts the coalition concept without any great difficulty this time round.
It viewed it with great trepidation the first time. This is not to say there will not be problems within a Fianna Fail/PD government but they are likely to be more easily overcome them when they arose in the past and were sometimes fairly traumatic.
CAOIMHGHIN O Caolain's arrival in the Dail coincided with the murder of two RUC men in Lurgan. That contemptible and cowardly deed caused universal revulsion. If the horror of Lurgan had happened 10 days earlier Mr O Caolain would not be troubling Leinster House with his presence. If it had happened before May 1st perhaps Mr Gerry Adams and Mr Martin McGuinness would not have to refuse to take their seats in Westminster. The IRA has a delicate sense of electoral timing for its atrocities.
It waited a week or two to make its statement about Dick Spring's naive description of a vote for Sinn Fein as "a vote for peace". Now it has guaranteed an even more difficult and possibly violent marching season.
Is it any wonder Garda statistics are looked at by the public with some scepticism? Assistant Commissioner Tom King told Pat Kenny during the week that O'Connell Street, Dublin, was a safe place and had one crime per day. The traders of O'Connell Street tumbled over one another to say that the reality was very different.
The ultimate irony was the fact that the late Liam Martin's parents persuaded him to come back to Ireland from New York because it would be safer. He comes back, feels unsafe and wants to return to New York.
Before he can do so he is stabbed to death in O'Connell Street and is the fourth murder victim on that street already this year. If that is the Garda's idea of safety there will be many of us heading for New York. Nora Owen's successor will inherit a bagful of problems.
The following joint policies for government were outlined at yesterday's press conference in Dublin by the Fianna Fail leader, Mr Bertie Ahern, and the PD leader, Ms Mary Harney.