This may have been Champagne Charlie's swansong

DRAPIER: There were two main events this week in Leinster House

DRAPIER: There were two main events this week in Leinster House. The first was the pathetic collapse of the fighting 40 revolt led by junior Minister Frank Fahey. The second was the flat fizz in the seventh budget of Champagne Charlie.

Drapier is aware of the widespread respect, on the Opposition benches, for the way Labour pushed in an opportunistic way its motion, in private member's time, to restore the Government cuts to the community employment scheme. Phil Hogan in Fine Gael, Dan Boyle of the Greens and even Arthur Morgan, Sinn Féin, were, at least in public, offering praise.

More important, in private, they admired the way in which a procession of Labour deputies landed political blows on the Fianna Fáil Parliamentary Party. Frank Fahey, who had stupidly led his colleagues up the political hill the week before, was left naked and politically isolated in the Dáil chamber where he made a fool of himself. His incoherent rant, against, of all people, his constituency colleague Michael D. was made all the worse when he revealed, under questioning, that he had no prepared script but merely a sheet of scribbled hand-written notes.

Even Charlie O'Connor, who can accept most things, did not stick around. May Sexton, the would-be rebel of the PDs, stormed out of the chamber in anger on Tuesday night only to return the following morning and publicly deny her own quoted words published in the Irish Independent.

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Drapier concedes it may have been a good hit for Labour but they still have a long way to go before they inflict real damage on the discipline on the Soldiers of Destiny.

Ruairí Quinn must have taken some small pleasure on the unanimous praise that was given to the contribution of the CE schemes that he devised and introduced back in 1985.

Drapier is sure that the Rabbitte is pleased that Quinn is standing again for the Dáil.

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Drapier's concern for his old friend Charlie McCreevy was heightened, not by his tired appearance when he entered the Chamber, but by the sheer weariness with which he delivered his 40-minute Budget speech. He made it sound like an effort and, if it was not for the surprise announcement of decentralisation, none of the deputies on his side of the House would have cheered at all.

Do Finance Ministers get the seven-year itch and was this his swansong? To be lucky in politics is one thing, but to run out of steam, both in energy and ideas, is something else. The Budget analysis has been done elsewhere and Drapier will let the discerning punters draw their own conclusions. One thing is sure, the real fizz, that Drapier used once admire, has gone from Champagne Charlie.

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Drapier is delighted with how his personal bit of lobbying will bring much-needed development to the hometown with decentralisation. There was a lot of anger when the National Spatial Strategy ignored the needs and political loyalty of his constituents. He is pleased that practical political reality has prevailed and some jobs are coming to the constituency. Never mind the detail, the announcement will be enough to get everyone through the local elections and even the Greens will not oppose it.

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President Cox swept into town last week making a great impression. Drapier's Seanad colleagues were left in no doubt of his availability for the upcoming job of commissioner. He will stand for re-election to the European Parliament, as he does not have to show his hand until after June 13th when the results will be known. However, Drapier advises all to scrutinise the political loyalties of his substitute candidates to see if he has put a deposit on the commissioner's job. This assumes that Bertie has the bottle to nominate him, just as the Boss ignored party considerations and put Éamon de Buitléar, George Eogan and Brian Friel into the Seanad in 1987. But let's not hold our breath, David Byrne can rest easy for the time being, as he is most likely to be renominated to the job.

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Drapier has a regard for the dedication of the Sinn Féin electoral machine. It is not all money, even though they are the richest party on these islands. They also have a level of intense commitment that is lacking among the other parties. This is because they have yet to experience the realities of democratic power and the limitations of government. The first sign of their vulnerability was the success of Dr Kieran Deeney, the independent hospital candidate in West Tyrone. Sinn Féin's Bairbre De Brún will not want to return to the Department of Health if, and when, a new Executive is formed. Sinn Féin failed the people of West Tyrone.

At the end of the day, the Northern Ireland election was not a great surprise to anyone who watched the way Ahern and Blair were played with by Gerry Adams. The incessant demands by Trimble on Sinn Féin/IRA kept both men centre stage. The supporting role of the Taoiseach and Prime Minister, underlined the strength of Sinn Féin, and also, paradoxically, the anti-agreement unionists. The marginalisation of the SDLP was quite deliberate. Fianna Fáil are positioning themselves for a new coalition partner in the South when the PDs no longer make up the numbers.

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Enda Kenny had a good day last Saturday in Galway. His confidence is growing and his control, both inside and outside the House, has strengthened. It was a fine speech, designed for the delegates, and it gave them heart. Seamus Mallon famously referred to Kenny as the young Taoiseach-to-be. He might yet be proven right. It gives Drapier no comfort to say this, but even his own Fianna Fáil colleagues know that they have lost the next general election; what is not yet clear is who will win it. That is why Rabbitte's exclusion of Fianna Fáil and Kenny's reference to his fellow county man lay the basis for some pre-election programme and pact, but it is early days yet.

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Drapier was heartened to see George Redmond being marched off to jail, after the jury found him guilty of corruption. The action of the Criminal Assets Bureau in going after prominent politicians suspected of having received corrupt payments is also to be welcomed. Drapier, like so many of his colleagues, in both Houses, did not find the jocular references to brown envelopes, when they were at the supermarket check-out or their local pub, to be at all funny. A few bad apples in Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have tarred the majority of public representatives. The full rigours of the law is what they deserve, including fines, confiscation and imprisonment, after, of course, due process.