So far this August has lived up to its silly-season status. It has been dull and Drapier thanks God for that. We have had our surfeit of excitement this year so far. A little peace and quiet goes a long way. Silly, however, the season has been, with much of the silliness coming from our presidential predicament, and Drapier has to say that much of the nonsense has come from pundits hungry to meet deadlines and with empty columns to fill. Drapier will return to that topic presently.

And as for Jim McDaid. Right in substance, but wrong time, wrong person, wrong place. Classic silly-season stuff.

Drapier's message to his colleagues this weekend is to squeeze the last bit of enjoyment out of the peace and quiet. It is not going to last. The months ahead are going to be as bumpy as any we have had in recent years.

The only two certainties are that the McCracken report will be on our desks early next week and that it will have the capacity to do a lot of damage. The only other certainty, or probability, is that it will leave some people with no place left to run and it will pose huge problems for the rest of us - not personal, but how to complete the task and tackle the issues involved.

We have no option but to do both to the best of our ability.

As Drapier understands it we should be back to debate McCracken about September 9th, and there will be strong Opposition pressure for a full, no-holds-barred debate.

Drapier hears a whisper that the Government has gone cool on the idea of a second tribunal to follow the McCracken report. The word is that such a tribunal would have impossibly wide terms of reference, that like Liam Hamilton's beef tribunal it will get hopelessly bogged down, would cost the earth, last for ever and leave us little the wiser.

Before Drapier knocks this completely on the head the alternative being put forward is the immediate establishment of some kind of permanent ethics commission, chaired by a High Court judge, a retired judge, or some such worthy, with power to investigate complaints on an ongoing basis against any member of either House.

Drapier will hold his silence until he sees what Judge McCracken has to say, but the one thing which struck him about the revelations at the Castle was that the scale of possible wrongdoing over a very long period was so enormous and possibly so pervasive that only a full judicial inquiry has any chance of getting near the truth. And that this truth, whatever it is and whoever it hurts, is of enormous importance to all of us and to our political system. He doubts that anything less that a judicial inquiry will satisfy the public.

Now back to the silly season, and most of it centres on the Presidency. Drapier has rarely heard so much guff as he has had to listen to these past few weeks. And incidentally, Drapier can reassure his readers that his dismissal of Dustin as a serious contender was in no way personal. It is just that he fails under Article 12 of the Constitution on age grounds. He is not yet 35, or so Drapier is told.

The first guff has been that John Hume should not be President, is not fit to be President, would be a bad or unsuitable choice for the job. All Drapier can say is that there are few in Leinster House who doubt that Hume would make a good President, or that he would not fill the office with distinction.

In Drapier's view that is what most of the public think as well; something Drapier had confirmed to him by his local bookie, who gave him odds of 4 to 1 on, should Hume be a candidate.

The second bit of guff is that we politicians have locked up the Presidency through the restrictiveness of the nominating procedure, Drapier disagrees. It is not the politicians who have done that. Most of us would be delighted to see it widened. It is the people themselves, or rather our grandparents, who voted for just that proviso back in 1937.

Drapier always regarded this particular proviso as a typical piece of de Valera small print - give a popular election on the one hand, but restrict the nominating procedure on the other. In other words an open race, but only open to the people we let run.

It was quintessential de Valera, even if Vincent Browne in an article of blinding erudition in this paper last Wednesday tells us it really was all the fault of Hugo Preiss and Otto von Gierke and the Weimar Constitution. After that Drapier's appetite is really whetted for the new Magill. Honestly. And good luck to it, even if its reappearance is already making some people a little uneasy.

Anyway Drapier's point is that the people should be given a chance to change the Constitution and allow for easier nomination. Drapier for one would have had no problem and he doubts if many others in here would either. The political parties would still have the strongest candidates and it would be nice to see a few bluffs being called, because that is what would happen.

And remember the office we are filling has no real power. Symbolism yes, moral influence maybe, representational functions yes, but don't let's lose the run of ourselves.

The Constitution defines the Presidency and it defines it as essentially an office without power, so let's have some perspective on the matter.

In that context most of the candidates who have declared so far would do a good job. Fine Gael's Avril Doyle and Mary Banotti are excellent candidates, experienced, honest and each capable of being inspirational.

Michael O'Kennedy has many admirers who value his constitutional expertise and respect his long honest contribution over many portfolios. Albert Reynolds, as they say, needs no introduction and already has the backing of the new millionaires in the Sunday Business Post who endorsed him last Sunday.

Drapier has mentioned only those who are seeking a party nomination. There will be others, and Drapier knows that the estimable Mary McAleese is being mentioned in dispatches, as is Derek Nally. As for Rose- mary Brown, Drapier would like to know a little more about her and about her backers before rushing to judgment. And so, he suspects, would the voters.

Drapier knows many of his colleagues would prefer to talk about the Presidency rather than McCracken over the coming months. That, however, is not how it is going to be. We had all better brace ourselves, before we get stuck in, then do what we have to do, do it thoroughly and openly and move on.

More than anybody else it is in the interests of the vast majority in here that there be no equivocation, no cute-hoor attempts to sideline our responsibilities. Drapier hates cliches, but it will be a defining moment for all of us.