It was fall-out week on a big scale, and we will be picking up the pieces for the rest of this Dail and for a long time afterwards.
But to the immediate issues first. Rory O'Hanlon's committee did a good job, better than most expected and better than they have been given credit for. No committee of that sort is going to get a fair break from the media. This is not knee-jerk stuff but a statement of fact. The media expect more than the committee can legally or justly deliver.
The committee has no judicial status and no legal protection. It can only reveal the facts as it has been able to ascertain them. It can cross-examine witnesses but can't accuse them without strong evidence.
But most of all it has to depend on those before it telling the truth. Drapier suspects that most of those who appeared did so. Many were delighted to do so, relieved to come out from the nightmare of suspicion and innuendo which has long been hanging over virtually all members of Dublin County Council.
But Drapier is equally sure - and he has no doubt the committee shares his view - that the full story has yet to be told. Drapier saw many eyebrows raised at some assertions in the report. But there was nothing the committee could do without running the risk of libel or defamation. At least the people at Flood have been forewarned.
On that note Drapier is among many in here who hope the Flood tribunal will be able to accelerate the pace of its investigations. The drip, drip of revelations may be great for media drama but is creating an unbearable climate for the operation of politics. The sooner the whole thing is flushed out into the open the better, and the sharper and deeper the purging, the better still.
The present situation is not tenable. A general election is necessary, but in Drapier's view it would be better deferred until Flood can clear some of the air, maybe through an interim report, though even that is unlikely before the end of the year.
Drapier has seen many administrations come to an end. It is never a pretty sight, but the current Government is now in a palsied state.
It can get nothing right. Simple things go wrong. Unforced errors are the order of the day, and old hostages come back to haunt. John O'Donoghue's zero tolerance has a sick ring to it at a time when old people have never felt so vulnerable in their homes.
The O'Flaherty saga continues, and now Liam Lawlor has lobbed in his own grenade. Whether it is merely a smokebomb or has real political shrapnel, we will soon see.
But needing an election and getting it are different things. For a start there is no threat to the Government's Dail majority. Liam Lawlor and Denis Foley are Fianna Fail and always will be. They will not vote against the party. If Charlie Haughey could vote confidence in Jim Gibbons, they will not vote against Bertie Ahern and for an election which spells political oblivion.
SECONDLY, we are faced this year with the longest-ever summer recess, the only genuine safe period in politics. It's all because of the rebuilding programme at Leinster House. But if the Opposition has any sense it will not agree to the proposed late October return.
Other arrangements can be made, and it would be unconscionable that our parliament should be in recess for almost four months, especially at a time when it was never more urgent that government be held accountable.
Liam Lawlor has long been a political accident waiting to happen. And while he may protest his loyalty to the party and march into the division lobbies, he is not going to make life easier for his old colleagues or fade into oblivion.
No one fights harder than Liam Lawlor. He is as tough and wily a street fighter as there is. If there are buried bodies he is the man to know where they are. He sorely tried the patience of Rory O'Hanlon's committee, and did so with obduracy and skill.
More than that he feels he has been badly treated. Heaven knows why, but there is one aspect of the current spate of tribunals which should be borne in mind, the vengeance factor. Think of Gogarty or Gilmartin and the point is made.
Meanwhile the South Tipperary by-election assumes a new significance. It will be watched with a new intensity. Will there be a reaction against Fianna Fail? Is John Bruton in trouble? Will the anti-party candidate surprise us all? Can Ruairi Quinn make it four in a row?
Drapier has been to South Tipperary, talked to many local people and can't come to any conclusion. The campaign is still low-key, as much local as national, but even at this stage Drapier found Fianna Fail in a distracted mood, the eye not on the ball and little evidence of outside support.
He does not see Bertie Ahern breaking his miserable run in by-elections.
It was always going to be a difficult one for Fianna Fail, with Noel Davern getting the poisoned chalice as director of elections. It's a no-win situation for him and will remain such.
All candidates are getting a good response in what is a very courteous part of the world. But behind the courtesy and even allowing for local factors, the national scene is impinging. Flood and Moriarty are having an effect, and what promised to be a routine by-election may turn out to be a watershed. But Drapier is still cautious on that score.
Finally this week, to the general election with which most people are obsessed. In Drapier's view it is not imminent. There is no major parliamentary hurdle between now and the end of June, no obvious opportunity to bring the Government down.
In normal circumstances Drapier is a great believer in the recuperative powers of the summer recess. Governments can go away battered and come back refreshed. Oppositions can lose their edge through lack of opportunity. And, all the while, the spin-doctors can spin their line while Ministers dispense largesse.
This time, however, the scene is different. The autumn will merely mean a continuation of the tribunals, the resuming of the dripfeed, and heaven knows how many more media exclusives.
The crucial factor is the PDs, who now find themselves walking through a Bosnia of minefields. It only needs one to go off to blast them out of Government, and on any law of averages at least one such is likely to explode.
Such a scenario would represent Fianna Fail's worst option - seeking re-election without a coalition ally.
All Drapier can say with certainty this weekend is that many of his colleagues are pencilling in November as the likely date for the election. Drapier is inclined to agree, but if it is November a great deal will happen between now and then, and the election will be like none we have ever known before.