Drapier An Insider's Guide To PoliticsNot for the first time Leinster House seemed out of step with events as the week kicked off with expressions of sympathy on the death of the Pope. Drapier wondered what could possibly be left to say after such blanket public reflection and mourning.
Yet members of all creeds and none paid tributes, some bordering on the confessional.
Taoiseach Bertie Ahern, fresh from Rome, was downbeat, even sad. A devout Catholic, it was a rare opportunity for him to address the "liberating power of religious belief and practice" and the "hunger for spirituality among young and old".
Others recalled the Pope's constant advocacy for global justice and peace. All remembered his visit to Ireland in l979, and his "words of passionate pleading" to the men of violence.
Some called for his canonisation. But, as former aid minister Liz O'Donnell remarked, tributes, however deserving, only go so far, and a better way to honour his legacy would be for the rich world to double its aid budget and lift 800 million people who go to bed hungry every night out of abject poverty.
After all that religion over Easter, it was a relief to get back to normal political activity. You can't beat a good old street protest; this time accompanied by Turkish music and chanting.
Joe Higgins has played a blinder on the Gama issue, stealing a march on what remains of the left. In fairness, this case has exposed a disgraceful abuse of migrant workers, and the Government needed a wake-up call.
Employment Minister Micheál Martin still has the look of a fugitive from health. So, dealing with a group of disgruntled Turkish workers is plain sailing compared to what he has escaped from.
The nursing home fiasco still casts a shadow on the golden boy. The general view is that Martin got off lightly this week when John Travers testified before the Health committee.
The PDs had a good conference by all accounts. Apparently McDowell had them rocking in the aisles with the usual anti-Shinner rant.
But Drapier and pals cannot help but wonder why the Soldiers of Destiny who, after all, have more to fear electorally from Sinn Féin, continue to shoulder their arms while the PD Minister hews and slashes all about him.
The Taoiseach was tight lipped in response to Gerry Adams's Easter statement, which in previous times would have been eulogised. Adams's statement, in Drapier's view, will be seen as significant in historical terms, phrased as it was in heroic and overblown language reminiscent of Pearse.
The problem is that Adams's credibility is on the floor, and like the boy who cried wolf too often, he is simply disbelieved. The fact that there will be a ferocious battle for the hearts and minds of nationalists in Northern Ireland in the general election on May 5th doesn't help matters. Can Mark Durkan hold the precious Hume seat for the SDLP? The view in here is that if he can't win it when the Shinners are on the ropes, as they are now, he will never do it.
There was a lot of talk of discrimination against women in the west of Ireland in the context of cancer-screening services. The mortality rates for breast cancer in Ireland are appalling, and there is no justification for the non-availability of early diagnostic services to women outside the eastern region.
Health Minister Mary Harney responded to these matters in the Dáil in a three-hour debate tabled by Fine Gael's Dr Liam Twomey, and pledged that the services would be rolled out nationwide over the next two years.
David Staunton TD spoke movingly about a funeral he had attended last week of a 4l-year-old mother of three who had died from breast cancer, deprived of the chance of early diagnosis.
In a small country people will not accept that such life-saving services are being postponed, or indeed are available on the basis of location. Deputies Michael Ring and Dinny McGinley spoke of many nights visiting constituents in St Luke's, far away from home, having endured harrowing journeys to receive treatment in Dublin.
Harney has her work cut out. On Thursday, under fire on all fronts about the trolley crisis and what Liz McManus alleged was a "drift" in promised health legislation, she conceded that the nursing home charges issue has consumed huge time and manpower resources.
The task of complying with the Supreme Court judgment by repaying those entitled and protecting the taxpayer from open-ended exposure is awesome.
There will have to be a supplementary estimate, not for hospitals but to meet the budget shortfall caused by an inability to charge for nursing home care because of the judgment.
Whatever about health services, there was good news for rural Ireland on the planning front when the Cabinet approved new guidelines to allow one-off houses for rural communities.
Discontent on this has been brewing for some time. And it's high time that some sensible changes were made.
Many rural areas are depopulated. Yet very restrictive planning regulations have outraged locals stopped from building houses next to their kith and kin.
Currently An Bord Pleanála overturns 76 per cent of planning permissions for one-off houses, and the aim is to reduce this to 10 per cent. The Greens and sniffy Dubliners will have their noses out of joint, but Drapier knows a popular move when he sees one.
By the week's end deputies were showing signs of coasting into electoral mode. The mild-mannered FG whip, Paul Kehoe, was thrown out for disorder about conditions in Wexford General Hospital. Tempers were frayed as deputies vied for notice.
Dublin airport was in the news for an embarrassing lapse of security, but it is on people's minds for other more strategic reasons. The big issue of who will develop and run the new terminal is bubbling beneath the surface.
The PDs are throwing shapes with their insistence it must be independent to ensure competition. It will be fascinating to see if Bertie's deal with Siptu's Jack O'Connor can be squared with keeping the PDs happy. Not for the first time Bertie finds himself torn between two lovers - metaphorically speaking, of course.