THINK Cabinet. That's what the seasoned politicians are thinking, and by the way, have you noticed how very seasoned most of them are? Rave you ever seen an older lot of new, Independent representatives than the ones that have just been elected? It isn't, as in other countries, that thrusting Young Turks make a brilliant first arrival on the scene from outside the parties. Jackie Realy Rae, Caoimhghin O Caolain, Rarry Blaney and Thomas Gildea (elected to the national legislature on the issue of access to British television channels) - they're not young men.
This is not a point I make at random. At first, watching the election results, I did think that what I was witnessing was a return to the core values of a deeply conservative electorate - that women and liberals were out, the old reliable Fianna Fail mixum gatherum was back in, nationalism was back in and the patriarchy in general was resurgent.
I don't now think that is quite what happened. But an influx of youthful vigour we did not see, no more than we'll see it in a Fianna Fail Cabinet. That party was never more ludicrous than when it presented Bertie Ahern and Fianna Fail as young during this campaign. It was like calling a television programme that starts at 9.30 p.m.
the Late Late Show I, mean, has anyone noticed what really young Irish people are like these days? The age thing is pertinent to a contemplation of the next Cabinet. Especially if it is a Cabinet without a Labour Party input.
Let us face it, the Irish people do not elect a party. They elect locals for intensely local reasons (and this is true even of Sinn Fein, who you wouldn't expect to get in anywhere else except on the Border) and they elect a front bench. The people judge the parties exclusively on their front benches - 95 per cent on the manner, body language and personalities of Ministers as seen on television and 5 per cent on their policies.
It is hard to believe that there anything particularly intentional about the parliaments we end up with when you're listening to a count that might result in John Gormley, of the Greens, getting in or, alternatively, might result in his polar opposite, Michael McDowell, of the PDs, getting in.
There's a huge streak of accident in the electoral process. All the same, you have to notice that there's, a particular animus against women with some ideas and a bit of power such as the outgoing Government contains.
There's loads of sentimental sympathy for every bumbling old party hack when the electorate at last turfs him out. But there's raucous "That'll teach her," grunting satisfaction when a woman loses out.
So I can see many, women in a Fianna Fail led coalition either. Mary O'Rourke, of course, Sile de Valera, Mary Harney in something small to medium sized. But the proportion of men to women is going to be even more antediluvian. No wonder a couple I know have just chosen to live in the US rather than bring up their daughters in the insidious misogyny of this place.
THE women aspect brings one back to the formation of a Cabinet. The absolute loss that not getting a seat means to a politician is often remarked on. But the personal loss is just one thing. What about the intellectual waste and loss intrinsic to a change of government? Take the soon to be forgotten women Ministers Niamh Bhreathnach, Joan Burton and Eithne Fitzgerald. They have been on the steepest of learning curves in the State. Through application and immense hard work, they mastered extraordinarily complicated briefs.
They've operated at European and international, as well as domestic, level. They've devoted themselves and absorbed their sectors of the civil service in preparing and bringing forward cherished projects. Now all that goes. They're out. And what they stood for dies with them. The whole idea of giving untried women the same chances as untried men takes a battering.
And portfolios like overseas development and ethics in government have about as much chance as Mervyn Taylor's equality and law reform of making it into the concerns of an insecure Fianna Fail administration.
Just as they've learnt how to do their jobs, they go and a new lot comes in and starts learning all over again. It's a hell of a system. But let us hope, all the same, that there will be something new about the incoming executive.
The "young" in Bertie Ahern's "young leader for a young party" slogan was, on one level, a codeword for "new". This isn't Charlie Haughey's Fianna Fail, was the hint we were meant to pick up. But there's nothing new about the likes of Ray Burke, or Mary O'Rourke or David Andrews or Michael O'Kennedy or Michael Woods. They were around - they were running the State - when policies about the beef industry were being implemented and at a time when questions about the funding of the party must have arisen.
I know that some younger people of great ability would figure in a Fianna Fail parliamentary party. McDaid, Dempsey, Ahern, Cowen, Martin and one or two more.
But there was a feeling some of the Ministers in the outgoing Government gave of personal, considered, deeply felt commitment to their areas of work. They wouldn't have been equally at home in any ministry. They weren't there because they'd brought in a running partner or because they came from a part of the State where a ministerial Merc might bring in a second seat next time or because they'd voted the right way in a leadership election.
Fianna Fail isn't the biggest party in the State because it is so beautiful. It is the biggest party because it sacrifices much else to electoral dominance. Among the things it sometimes sacrifices, it seems to me to its own interests, is the development of its best and brightest Cabinet material.
There are good things about the immediate future. I'm glad Sinn Fein is in the Dail. Where else would it better be? I'm very glad that the years of work for ordinary people has paid off at last for Joe Higgins. I think it will not do some of the outgoing high fliers one bit of harm to have to earn new spurs in a tough and resourceful opposition.
Above all, I fully accept in principle that the most popular party in the State should provide the government of the State. It is only when I think of the actual people who are likely to be in an actual Cabinet that I groan - oh no, not the same old thing back again. I'm not asking for a government with as many women as men in it, or one that's inculcating a brilliant young cadre of future leaders or one that has no need of transparency because it hides nothing. But I would like, from Fianna Fail, a bit of a change.