Drapier well remembers the first time abortion was on the agenda in here. It was not a pleasant place to be. We had the fundamentalists, loud and intolerant; we had the small and lonely group of card-carrying liberals, and in between were the rest of us, feeling the pressure, seeking some compromise and getting very little space to manoeuvre. The voices outside, especially those of the bishops, made sure of that.
We have come a long way since then. Now the debate is calm, better informed and less fearful. The voices outside are no less shrill, but are fewer in number and for the most part have lost the capacity to instil fear. In addition, the approach to the current debate has been more structured, infinitely painstaking in its preparation, and everybody has had a chance to be heard.
In the early stages Ministers, especially Brian Cowen, were accused of kicking to touch when they referred the abortion question to the All-Party Committee on the Constitution. Maybe they were, but it has turned out to be a very wise decision. That committee took its brief very seriously, meeting throughout the summer, and is now about to produce its report.
The whole process has had a calming effect. Brian Lenihan and Jim O'Keeffe have shown great skill and subtlety in the handling of the issue. In addition, each has played a blinder in calming some of the nervous Nellies in their own parties and enabling complicated issues to be discussed in as rational a way as anybody ever can discuss this question.
It is in great part due to them that there is none of the hysteria or the personal nastiness which so disfigured the debate in the early 1980s.
There is, however, one lesson from the earlier episode which needs recalling. The antiabortion people succeeded then in making abortion a party issue and an election issue. Both major parties were afraid of being "out-abortioned". Garret FitzGerald, in particular, felt vulnerable; he gave Charles Haughey an opening. The opportunity was taken and from that point on any possibility of rational debate was gone. The referendum wording, which many knew at the time to be defective and which the courts subsequently found to be so, was foisted upon us and the rest is history.
Drapier recalls this, not to revive old memories but because there is a lesson for today. Any attempt to play politics with the issue will backfire and will be seen for what it is. If there is to be a referendum, then let it be held strictly because it is the right thing to do, and for no other reason.
Holding a referendum simply to placate the Independents and keep the Government together, as some commentators are now suggesting, would be obscene and would place the Progressive Democrats in an impossible position.
Likewise, holding a referendum in the hope of embarrassing or dividing the opposition parties will not work.
As Drapier sees it, nerves are steady, heads are longer and the public mood is different. For once, Drapier is looking forward to the debate. He feels he reflects the majority view in here and in the country, which feels a referendum is too crude an instrument, that no satisfactory wording has yet emerged or is likely to, and that a referendum would leave the overall situation worse than before. In other words, he feels we should legislate and do so on the basis of regulating the status quo.
No matter what happens there will be no rerun of 1983. We live in a different world, one that is very much sharper in its perception of political strokes and much less forgiving of those who indulge in them. There were no winners in the 1983 debacle. Everybody lost. Lessons should be clear, but Drapier wonders if they are.
Meanwhile, let Drapier pay tribute once again to the fine work done by Brian Lenihan and Jim O'Keeffe and their colleagues on the Constitutional Review Committee. Already a number of important reports have been published. Drapier thinks it's about time the rest of us started to take them seriously.
Some of the issues, such as a constitutional role for the Ombudsman, are straightforward enough, but others, such as the perennial issue of Seanad reform, are trickier. One way or another, the reports are of high quality and deserve to be taken seriously.
The question of parliamentary reform is surfacing once again. We got a taste of Seamus Brennan's proposals this week, with hints of longer sitting hours, fewer opportunities to question the Taoiseach and the introduction of electronic voting.
Drapier suspends judgment until he sees the document in its entirety, but he noted that Charlie Flanagan was quick off the block to attack any diminution in time available to question the Taoiseach. Tony Blair has already tried and got away with this one in Westminster and, as Drapier mentioned last week, it fits in well with the general bypassing of parliament so beloved of New Labour.
It won't work here, however. The increasing opportunity to question the Taoiseach and Ministers - and, by the way, Micheal Martin is beginning to show the strains Health brings with it, especially under the tough questioning of Gay Mitchell - has been one of the better developments of recent years. It fits in well with the new culture of openness and while it may be uncomfortable for the government of the day, it makes the Dail more effective and more relevant.
The suggestion that we may have electronic voting surfaces just as we see the shambles in Florida, which raises some questions at least about such voting.
Drapier is a traditionalist and sees nothing wrong with the current system of walking through the lobbies, tedious as that may be to some of his colleagues.
Indeed as a backbencher the fact that all of us must turn up gives a good chance to get at a Minister away from the protection of his civil servants. We are all equal for those periods on the floor and it often gives an opportunity to ask questions Ministers prefer to avoid or to catch up on the latest rumour.
Drapier spoke last week about our committee system. He thinks that for the first time since the system was expanded in the 1980s we are starting to get it right. Two committees in particular performed well this week. Sean Doherty's committee laid bare the shambles that is CIE and the buck-passing that passes for management.
Bernard Durkan's European Affairs Committee heard a very good report from a British Labour MP, Paul Flynn, on the European aspect of our drugs problem, but it was the local experts who stole that show. Drapier would like to see parliamentary reform back on the agenda, but for the moment he believes the committee system is starting to work. For that at least we should be grateful.