Drapier: Many the slip between cup and lip encapsulated the mood on Tuesday in Leinster House as the big build-up to a final breakthrough on IRA arms fell flat.
Now Drapier has been long enough around not to get carried away prematurely in these matters. This time, however, it had looked as though we were in business since the deal appeared to hang on an Adams/Trimble axis, marking an end to the bizarre cold war between the two men.
Not before time, Sinn Féin and the UUP are talking like pro-agreement allies and are starting to see that they need each other to make the whole project of the peace process viable.
Drapier was surprised that the governments jumped first and called the elections, presumably in the belief that the rest was in the bag.
However, the general's shaky press conference performance was never going to be enough to drag David Trimble and his reluctant colleagues over the line.
Still, it's not the end of the world; nothing that the mandarins in Iveagh House and Downing Street cannot overcome.
The SDLP has been whinging a lot these days about being "excluded and sidelined". Now Drapier has a lot of time for the SDLP - no one should forget their stabilising and progressive influence for 30 years in Northern Ireland. But in politics whinging about exclusion doesn't win votes. They should be dining out on their own considerable virtues rather than coveting the attention Sinn Féin is receiving as it is forced to cast off paramilitarism.
When all this was going on, the six-monthly meeting of the British-Irish Parliamentary Body, established under the Anglo-Irish Agreement, was taking place in England. Unionists do not attend, which is a pity since the work of the body is dominated by the peace process. Useful relationships are formed between the parliaments and the assemblies of Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
Sen Brian Hayes has been working on a paper which proposes a harmonisation of enforcement on penalty points on the island of Ireland. Jim O'Keefe arranged for the next meeting to take place in Clonakilty, Co Cork, in April.
Tony Blair's heart trouble has prompted some concern about the stress levels of those in high office. It has been an annus horribilis for the Prime Minister. The combination of an unpopular war in Iraq, which split his cabinet and his party, and the GUBU nature of the David Kelly affair, not to mention the Hutton Inquiry exposures, have taken their toll on his trademark bounce. A good outcome in Northern Ireland would do him a power of good.
Just as David Blaine emerged from his glass box suspended at Tower Bridge, our hero Joe Higgins was liberated from the Joy. Poor Joe. The irony was that while he was languishing in jail like many the martyr before him, the Shinners were making hay on the ground in his absence on the bin tax issue. The bin protest has run out of steam, and as Mary Harney told the House it has been counterproductive and has actually resulted in a significant rise in compliance rates, not only in Fingal but everywhere.
This week also saw the start of the debate on Noel Dempsey's long-awaited Education for Persons with Disabilities Bill. This puts a guarantee of education services for children with disabilities on a statutory basis for the first time. A range of services are to be provided for children with special needs, including assessments, individual education plans, support services and even a mediation and appeal system.
Drapier feels this is the right thing to do, and reflects a strong public consensus that children with special needs should be fully integrated into our education system as of right. Hopefully, this marks an end to the unconscionable plight of exhausted parents forced into the courts to vindicate their children's constitutional rights.
There was the usual tantrum from the Opposition because the Dáil is not sitting next week. Drapier groans at this sort of playacting in the Chamber.
Across all parties there is an appetite for Dáil reform but consensus is difficult to reach given the different demands of rural and urban deputies.
Overall, it was a traumatic week. There was a poignancy in the fact that the forensic identification of the remains of Jean McConville, a young mother murdered by the IRA so long ago, coincided with the Sinn Féin/IRA combined statements, which in Drapier's view, effectively marked the closure of the vexed conflict on our island.
Gerry Adams's statement on Tuesday will in time be seen as historic. Such momentous developments are hard won and should not be taken for granted. The fact that all did not go as planned is to miss the point.
Additional detail of what was put beyond use should not be impossible to provide in order to give David Trimble and the rest of us sufficient cover and confidence to rest easy in our democratic beds.
As if we didn't have drama enough, electrical storms added to the atmosphere of tempest. Speaking of which, dark clouds are again gathering over Aer Lingus, adding to the Government's woes.
The week ended with the publication of the regulations to ban smoking in the workplace under the Public Health (Tobacco) Act, which will come into effect on January 26th. The law covers all enclosed places of work other than a private dwelling.
There is a view that homes with professional carers should be included. On this Drapier is resolute. We have spent decades trying to get church and State out of our homes and bedrooms. It would be misdirected political correctness to have such a law apply to homes.
These measures are to be debated in the Dáil, but curiously there will be no vote. So, no way of testing the courage of the Noel Davern-led rump in Fianna Fáil, who took the side of the publicans against the public.
Will Jackie Healy Rae, leading the independent republic of Kerry, be the next Dáil prisoner of conscience?
Roll on January 26th.