Drapier does not favour the way we do our business as the end of this session approaches. It's the same every year, and it is no different this year as the Ministers and Departments who have been dragging their feet for months suddenly produce legislation which they insist is the most important ever and must be through both Houses in two days.
The reasons for the legislation, we are breathlessly assured, are always compelling, and the pressure on the whips to get legislation through is heavy, with the result that both Houses this week dealt with far too much in far too short a time.
The Government will argue that it was not responsible for the High Court case which made the Firearms Bill necessary and that the Release of Prisoners Bill was an integral part of the Belfast Agreement. Maybe. But we were in the ludicrous situation of being asked to schedule and process legislation which we had not seen and had no way of assessing in any reflective way.
In Drapier's view doing business like this is one sure way of having our legislation ending up in the Four Courts. Remember the rod licences and what happened there, and that's only one example. In Drapier's view both Houses should adopt a much sterner attitude to Ministers and ministerial officials who treat them as mere rubber stamps.
There was the ludicrous situation in the Seanad on Thursday morning when Government amendments to the Traveller Accommodation Bill were published only an hour or so before the House was asked to consider them. Drapier may sound cranky, and in truth he is. There have been many major improvements in the way we do our business over the past decade, but the deliberate delaying by some Departments until the last minute remains a blot on our landscape, though Drapier does not hold out much hope of change and knows, too, that other parliaments tend to be little different in this regard.
Charlie McCreevy, meanwhile, continues to luxuriate in unprecedented financial returns. It should be roses all the way: the first budget surplus in 50 years, the economy growing at 10 per cent, new jobs to beat all records. And, yes, it is good news, great news, but Charlie is long enough around to know that it does not necessarily translate into electoral success or public gratitude.
The reality is that success brings its own problems. Expectations once raised are not easily damped down. The spectacle of conspicuous consumption, now such a feature of our society, has its own unsettling effects, and the real problems of housing, health and traffic are little influenced by the new prosperity.
The next election will be won and lost on whether the expectations now so high can be even partly fulfilled. Today's electorate has a short memory. Eaten bread is yesterday's business. It's today and tomorrow that count.
Nobody knows that better than Charlie McCreevy, and he knows, too, that he has lost the Garda pay battle and that he, more than anybody else, knows the full knock-on consequences of that cave-in. There will be many more problems in the months ahead, all of them requiring large sums of money and all with electoral consequences.
Meanwhile the thunder clouds of tribunals and rumours continue to engulf the place. Sean Fleming took everybody, including his own party, by surprise when he "outed" himself in the debate on the terms of the Flood tribunal on Wednesday night. The most general explanation is that he was getting his retaliation in first. Knowing he would be called to the tribunal, he is putting his side of the story firmly on the record.
He obviously did what he thought right, but it all added a further element of unpredictability to an already volatile situation. And one thing governments don't like is being surprised. They like to be prepared, to plan ahead. But Fleming's action was another indication that there will be no fall-guys in the coming months. Already too many people close to events are only too happy to get their version into the open. It's all too close for comfort, at least for some people's comfort, and even though the Houses rose yesterday we can expect a long hot summer as others will doubtless follow Sean Fleming's example.
The general feeling is that once the court cases are out of the way - and Drapier does not want to anticipate the Supreme Court - the tribunals will waste little time in getting down to business. From what Drapier can divine, the lawyers are champing at the bit, most of the preliminary work is done and the respective shows are set to roll. But, as Drapier said already, it's the element of surprise and the feeling that Mary Harney among others may know more than they are saying which is sending the jitters of instability around the place.
Hotting up this week, too, is the Charlie Bird/Beverley Cooper- Flynn saga. At the outset let Drapier declare his interest. He likes Beverley Cooper-Flynn. He has always found her straightforward and honourable in his dealings with her. With Bev, what you see is what you get.
When Charlie Bird broadcast the charges against Beverley based on an anonymous accuser Drapier was outraged. Surely the most basic element of fair play dictates the right of a person to know the identity of the person making the charges. Beverley was only one of the many people working for NIB.
Now that Charlie Bird's informants have been smoked out of their anonymity, things are different. It is now down to a question of credibility and documentary evidence, and somebody eventually will have to decide. For what it is worth, Drapier's money is on Bev.
Meanwhile, there was considerable satisfaction on all sides at the election of Seamus Mallon as the Deputy First Minister in the North. Drapier knows of no Northern politician better liked in Leinster House, and it is good to see his integrity, decency and persistence being recognised. Drapier has no doubt that Seamus is the right man for the job. He is a skilled negotiator, a genuine consensus-builder, a wily poker-player. There is also great satisfaction at seeing all political groupings within the parliamentary system. It is going to be rough, and the bitterness and hatred will not disappear soon, maybe never. But at least it will be a change to have Northern politicians talking about roads, drains, schools, traffic and all the day-to-day issues that are the stuff of real politics.
Let's hope some sort of normality, even if it is a dull normality, descends on the North. Finally this week, it's goodbye - officially at least - to Jean Kennedy Smith, certainly the best US ambassador in Drapier's time and, unusually for an ambassador, one who also made a very real difference. Drapier suspects we are not saying goodbye, merely au revoir.