There was a time when all Fianna Fail had to do to know what the Irish people wanted was for Eamon de Va- lera to examine his own heart. Today Tom Kitt believes his party should undertake some "qualitative research" to find out why the people rejected the Nice Treaty. It's enough to make the founding father turn in his grave. It is difficult to envisage Mr de Valera being comfortable with, or influenced by, focus groups.
Alternatively, Tom Kitt could have recommended that Bertie Ahern talk to Eamon O Cuiv. Here is a man, who in the tradition of his grandfather, thinks he knows what the people want. But in the case of Dev Og knowledge comes only after the event. There goes the majority, I must follow. O Cuiv's convoluted and Jesuitical posturing has only exacerbated Ahern's embarrassment.
Goaded by Ruairi Quinn in particular, Ahern's thin-lipped angry demeanour suggested that he wished O Cuiv, like the Brahmin priest in Kathmandu, would go into self-imposed exile on the back of an elephant. Instead, O Cuiv argued that he only came out because "the establishment" was deriding the decision of the people. He seemed not to understand that his own Government is a major part of that establishment. His endless capacity for pettifogging detail causes colleagues to flee rather than engage.
The Taoiseach might have started to salvage something from the Nice shambles if he sacked O Cuiv. But Bertie can't sack anyone - ask Ray Burke or Ned O'Keeffe - and certainly not a de Valera. And so the man who claims he campaigned for Yes actually voted No and his Taoiseach acknowledges his loyalty to the Government!
The unpalatable truth, of course, is that the parties campaigned very little and none less so than Fianna Fail and its leader. The man who can't stop canvassing somehow failed to muster his troops for Nice. And whoever wrote his speeches denigrating the No lobby towards the end of the campaign, contributed to the size of the No victory.
The Government has now belatedly adopted Labour's idea for a Forum on Europe where the hope is that it will get the coalition parties to the other side of the election. However, Nice has left a lingering self-doubt at the heart of Government. How much of the reaction of the people was a desire to give the politicians a bloody nose or how much of the reaction was anti-Government and a harbinger of things to come? Tom Kitt may be right after all, but it is more likely the only qualitative research that will provide the truth is a general election.
Hot on the heels of the Nice debacle came the humiliating capitulation to what Eamon Gilmore calls "the four Fianna Fail Independents" on the dual mandate. This was to be the main plank of Noel Dempsey's already watered down local government reform. The Taoiseach's decision to ditch his Environment Minister means he is looking beyond the general election. Despite their age profile Bertie at least expects Jackie, Tom and Harry to be back in the next Dail. He is less certain that the PDs will return as many deputies. Throwing Dempsey overboard is an acceptable price to pay.
For Noel Dempsey it is the final cut. The man who positioned himself as the great reformer has time and again proved unable to deliver. Waste management, road safety, electoral reform, environmental clean-up and intervention in the housing marketplace have all come unstuck. Another Taoiseach would have recognised that his beleaguered Minister needed a win and stuck by him. Gilmore had pledged Labour support to carry the Bill. Bertie was having none of it. The Independents have four votes this side of the general election and maybe as many the other side. Local government reform can wait.
Mary O'Rourke is another Minister flailing about increasingly helplessly. Her announcement that Aer Lingus would be sold in a trade sale was repudiated in the House by her Taoiseach. Emmet Stagg had characterised the Minister's announcement as a car-boot sale. Bertie went close to saying she had never made such an announcement. The Government decision of last November, he said, stood. This would commit the Minister who handled the Telecom flop to another public flotation this time of the national airline. If Bertie thinks the Irish public will again buy shares from Mary O'Rourke, he is even more out of touch than his Nice performance suggests.
And then when Bertie is at his lowest who comes to the rescue but the Moriarty Tribunal. The sensational new allegations at the tribunal may have come with a stern health warning from the sole member, Mr Justice Moriarty. But the very least impact will be to divert attention away from the Government.
John Bruton may have sawed off Michael Lowry within hours of the Ben Dunne episode coming to light, but that won't guarantee insulation of Fine Gael if the latest allegations are found to have a basis in fact. The case against Michael Lowry up to this week related to tax evasion in his business life. These latest allegations centre on his role as a cabinet minister - or at least while a politician. This is a horse of an entirely different colour if any of the allegations should be established.
Drapier has listened to colleagues on all sides of the House for four years wonder aloud whether the tribunals would explode under Bertie Ahern's Government. Yet Bertie sailed through relatively unscathed; for example, the signing of books of blank cheques to keep his mentor in the style to which he had become accustomed.
Meanwhile, Michael Noonan must be wondering what he did to deserve the luck endured since becoming leader. Caught in the middle of a by-election he must win, the latest allegations are little short of disastrous. Bertie will be watching how they play in Tipperary South and, depending on the outcome, may be tempted to dust down his election plans for early autumn.
First, he must win in Tipperary.