The good weather should have lifted spirits and eased tensions in here this week, and certainly it did Drapier's heart good to see some colleagues disporting themselves in the sunshine on the few seats still left on the plinth, which for once these days was free of Charlie Birds and would-be Charlie Birds. Drapier was further heartened to see a few colleagues slip off early on Wednesday up to Lansdowne Road to watch Ireland see off Sweden. In fact, Drapier has to confess he was one such, and a good second half it turned out to be.
But neither football nor sunshine could disguise the underlying jitteriness which still pervades this place. The reasons are not the usual ones - the fear of imminent collapse and the prospects of a general election. This Government is solid and will remain so for the foreseeable future. As Drapier said before, the Independents have signed on for the duration, and there was no sign in Galway last weekend of the PDs in search of plugs to pull.
The reasons for the jitteriness, however, are not hard to fathom - the onset of local and Euro elections, the ghosts of times past, and the fact that the Sheedy case just won't go away.
The elections first. Drapier envies his colleagues in Westminster where local and national elections are utterly separate and MPs are barred from running for local councils. We are much more in the French mould; virtually every non-office holder in here is currently preparing to run and is under pressure not just to win his own seat or indeed her own seat, but to bring in a colleague with them.
Drapier knows by heart all the arguments as to why local and national politics should be separate. He is not, however, inclined to subscribe to them, even though it might make his life that bit easier.
We live in a small country where most local issues have national ramifications, and the TD who loses touch locally won't be a TD for much longer. Second, job security in here is precarious enough without giving a free run locally to some hungry colleague whose sole task will be to undermine the Dublin-centred deputy. And from a party point of view, control of county councils is important. Since people tend to vote for the names they know (although this time they may also be voting against a few names they know) there is pressure on all of us who can to get stuck in and do our bit.
This time, too, the stakes are more than local. In spite of soaring opinion polls, Bertie Ahern has lost all three of his by-elections to date. Now he faces local and European elections on June 11th, two further verdicts, indirect, maybe, but verdicts none the less, on his and his Government's performance to date.
Bertie and others will well remember 1979. It was just two years after Jack Lynch's historic 84-seat victory and the ignominious dismissal of Fine Gael and Labour and Liam Cosgrave's government of all the talents. Fianna Fail took a drubbing in 1979 and many observers see that date and the by-elections which followed as a major turning point in the fortunes of Jack Lynch. Eaten bread was soon forgotten, Jack Lynch was gone in a year and overall majorities became a thing of the past.
Bertie Ahern is in no danger of any move against him, but Drapier senses a funny mood out there, a point repeated independently by colleagues of all parties who have been out testing the waters. In spite of the Celtic Tiger, the punters are not as happy as they should be and it seems the long succession of scandal, misbehaviour and mishap is taking its toll. Drapier senses a mood beginning to crystallise, a trend starting to take shape, and he is saying now, and will come back to it closer to the day, that the elections of June 11th may be just as significant as those of 20 years ago. As yet, it is no more than a hunch, but Drapier has learnt from experience to trust his hunches.
Which brings us to the question of the ghosts of times past, so vividly captured in David Nally's compelling Prime Time programme on Thursday night. The simple truth is that Charles J. Haughey will not go away, and not alone will he not go away but his dark shadow lengthens and deepens with each passing day. As Michael Stokes, a one-time believer, pointed out at the end of the programme, it's going to go on and on. Between court cases and Moriarty, so it will. And the fallout could land anywhere.
Finally, to the Sheedy case. Drapier noted a range of sometimes conflicting currents in here. For a start, he detected little sympathy for those involved, a sense that they should have known and done better. But he also picked up, and indeed it was strongly expressed in the Seanad on Thursday by at least three speakers, a sense that the investigation into the Sheedy Three was inappropriate and fell far short of what due process and fair play should have entailed. Joe O'Toole made the case most trenchantly - the accused were not allowed to confront their accusers, they did not have an opportunity to cross-examine witnesses or to address the totality of the case against them.
So, as Maurice Manning noted, even though the Chief Justice "got a result", the process was almost certainly defective, if not downright flawed.
There was also a strong feeling that if we are now to seek the truth by means of Eoin Ryan's committee, we had better get clear in our minds just what it is we want that committee to do, what its rights are and whether it is sufficiently equipped to undertake such a task. The worst thing of all would be to embark on a course of action and discover half way that we can't finish the job.
Drapier hates the phrase, but we are now heading into uncharted waters. In Drapier's view, the Chief Justice and his colleagues did not do a good job. They did a half job and left many of the key questions unanswered. If they needed further powers or more time to get to the bottom of this case in a measured way, they should have said so, and they would have got what they asked.
But by rushing to judgment they have left the work unfinished, done it in a questionable way, and asked us to pick up the pieces.
Drapier is not impressed, and he urges caution on his colleagues this weekend.
Do we really want to go down a road which could result in an unnecessary encroachment by us on work that should properly be done by the judiciary? Drapier's advice is to send the report back to the Chief Justice and ask him to do better this time. Since there are no precedents, let us not establish ones we later come to regret.