It was not a great week for John O'Donoghue, and Drapier is in two minds about it all. The cock-up was enormous, the consequences are serious and a great deal of careful, clever and expensive Garda work may have been jeopardised if not destroyed by the whole episode.
That's the scale of the problem and it should not be minimised. Drugs are an issue about which all of us feel very strongly, but Drapier knows full well that John O'Donoghue cannot be personally responsible for what went wrong. It beggars belief that judges, gardai and Department of Justice officials were not on top of the procedures, indeed did not have them at their fingertips.
That's what they are paid to do and that's what the public has a right to expect of them. Pat Upton made this point better than most during the week in his usual commonsense way. So is Drapier excusing John O'Donoghue? Absolutely not.
There was a general feeling during the week that O'Donoghue got no more than he deserved. During the time of Nora Owen's watch injustice, if a garda broke wind or a District Court clerk had an impure thought, John O'Donoghue would blame it on the minister.
No matter what the issue or the circumstances, O'Donoghue in those days was merciless in his fulminations, personalising each issue, calling weekly for the minister to resign. There was little generosity and no give in his performance, and there is little reason why he should expect to get other than he gave.
Yet that is what he seemed to expect. There was about him this week a sense of injured innocence, a sense that the opposition were playing party politics (of course they were) and an exasperation that people could not accept he personally was in no way to blame and that in some way by blaming him they were being unreasonable.
All Drapier can say is that Nora Owen was in no way to blame when the letter to Judge Dominic Lynch was not posted, but did John O'Donoghue accept that at that time, or indeed since?
John O'Donoghue's problem is that he has created a monster which may yet destroy him. His style of opposition was unrelenting in its totality. It was a type of total war - no hostages taken, no quarter given, every battle a fight to the finish. He can hardly complain now when he finds himself at the receiving end.
More significant, however, is that the opposition, after a chastening few weeks of post-presidential blues, have sniffed vulnerability in this Government. John O'Donoghue is, as this newspaper once called him, a lucky Minister.
He has inherited a significant amount of legislation which was near completion when the last government went out; he has a prison-building programme kick-started by Nora Owen and Hugh Coveney; and he has been doing very well up to now.
But he handled himself badly in the House, pathetically so on Thursday week and only marginally better on Tuesday last. He may argue that he was fighting with his hands tied behind his back. So what's new? The opposition scents blood.
Drapier thinks, however, that the most important event of the week was the establishment of the new committee system. It has taken time for it all to fit into place, but Drapier wants to applaud both Bertie Ahern and Seamus Brennan for the improvement which the new system represents.
Drapier always regarded the committee system of the last Dail as a bit of a dog's dinner with no real coherence and little sense of focus.
What Drapier finds significant is the potential of the new committees and he believes that through these committees this parliament may see the beginnings of real backbencher power.
Let Drapier explain. These committees will have not only the right to consider legislation but to examine policy, to do their own research, to call independent witnesses and before long to question civil servants.
More important, however, the committees will be in a position to question ministers in a way ministers don't like being questioned.
Let Drapier give a few examples. Had there been a select committee on health in the last Dail you can be quite sure many of those who later appeared before the Finlay tribunal could well have been summoned and answers given at a much earlier stage.
Nora Owen would have been a regular visitor to the justice committee, but so too would have been some of the anonymous people behind the decisions which landed her in such trouble.
The simple fact is that the committees, if properly used, will make ministers more accountable.
The televising of committees will take this accountability a step further and the fact that committees will develop a life and momentum of their own will ensure an independence of spirit. Not all committee chairpersons will rise to the challenge, but in Drapier's view enough will to ensure that some ministers at least - and their officials - will have no hiding place, should the need arise.
Drapier is a social animal and he could not resist Brian Lenihan's invitation to the party on Wednesday in the National Library to mark the re-establishment of the committee on the Constitution. Drapier accepted the invitation, in part because he likes Brian Lenihan and admires his brio which reminds him so much of his late father, but also because he was curious as to what the whole thing was all about.
In the event Drapier learned a lot. He was impressed by the fact that virtually the entire Supreme Court and High Court were present, not to mention the scattered parish priests and curates from the Circuit and District Courts.
Drapier decided to sit back and watch, and before long the penny dropped. Declan Costello, an honoured former member of this House, is taking early retirement as President of the High Court and, to put it bluntly, the lobbying was on. Drapier has always been a bit naive, believing that judges, like bishops, are appointed directly by the Holy Ghost without any human intervention whatsoever.
He could have been fooled on Wednesday as ears were bent, suggestions dropped and memories jogged. It was all great fun, though Drapier began to feel a bit of a novice in the midst of such high-level politicking and he thanked God he belonged to a more innocent branch of public life.
Anyway for what it is worth the smart money was on Fred Morris to become the next President of the High Court with Vivian Lavan to go to the Law Reform Commission. Drapier will be having a little bet with Paddy Power.
Finally, the prize this week for chutzpah goes to Tom Kitt no less, who led the charge, without a hair out of place, against Tommy Broughan's Sunday Trading Bill, the very Bill Tom himself had initiated in opposition.
Oh well, as Drapier always says, if you're going to sin, sin boldly.
Maire Geoghegan-Quinn is indisposed following a road accident