The Seanad election has come and gone without encroaching at all on the lives of most people, writes Noel Whelan.
While members and aspirant members of the Upper House often complain about how little attention the Seanad election gets, the coverage of both the campaign and the counts has been proportionate to the number of people involved and to the relative unimportance of the House itself.
Much of the comment on this Seanad election focused, as previously, on the need for the House and its mandate to be reformed.
However, the volume of calls for Seanad reform is always loudest at election time, only to fade rapidly thereafter.
The newly-elected Seanad will, no doubt, soon have an earnest debate on the need for change. This is precisely what they did within weeks of the last Seanad election but ultimately nothing changed and this election proceeded on precisely the same basis as in 2002.
Since 1938, there have been 12 different published reports proposing changes in Seanad elections. The most recent was during the life of the last Seanad, when a cross-party committee chaired by Mary O'Rourke proposed some useful innovations.
That too, however, came to naught with no follow through. It is hard to listen to the Seanad bemoaning not being taken seriously by the media or the public when it doesn't take itself sufficiently seriously to insist on electoral reform. The five vocational panels on which 43 senators are elected by county and city councillors and outgoing TDs and senators produced some interesting results.
Among them was the election of the first ever Sinn Féin Senator, Pearse Doherty, a significant addition to the party's Oireachtas team.
Labour too was badly in need of the infusion of new blood which the election of Alex White, Dominic Hannigan and Philomena Prendergast will bring.
The vocational panel results have also seen new faces emerge for Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, with Mark Daly for the former and Paschal Donohoe for the latter likely to prove the most interesting.
One of the most peculiar aspects of the Seanad is the fact that six senators are still elected by university graduates - three by graduates of Trinity and associated colleges and three by graduates of the National University of Ireland.
Even though a 1979 referendum facilitated the extension of this franchise to all third level graduates, it was never implemented.
That said, the university constituencies have again elected a colourful line-up who are likely to punch above their mandate in the Seanad itself and in the wider public and media debate.
The campaign for the university seats is a peculiar one. It now has as much to do with database management as policy presentation. Incumbents enjoy a phenomenal advantage, not only because they have an existing profile but also because they enjoy secretarial and other facilities which can be devoted to nursing the database of likely voters for five years.
The campaign is all about identifying those entitled to vote, whether they are registered and at the correct address for postal votes and then communicating with them directly and/or through a network of associates or influencers. The successful candidates are those who can combine a range of personal or professional networks to deliver a sufficient quota to win a seat.
Long-term Senator Joe O'Toole has a strong base among teachers - who make up the largest single portion of graduates - and in the wider labour movement.
Fellow NUI Senator Feargal Quinn built his base on a national profile from his Superquinn days and is the instinctive candidate for voters of a centrist or right of centre disposition on economic issues.
The election of newcomer Rónán Mullen was the most dramatic development on the university panel in decades.
Not only did he win a seat on his first attempt, at the age of 36 years, he did so in circumstances where all three outgoing senators were re-contesting.
Mullen's network included an NUI Galway element where he was president of the student union. It would have included some aspect of a professional network; he is a barrister, and friends and former classmates at the Bar played a prominent part in his campaign.
As a former spokesman for the Dublin Archdiocese he would also have attracted a large section of what has been dubbed "the Maynooth vote" of Catholic clergy, many of whom have NUI degrees. They would have been part of a wider constituency of social conservatives who support Mullen's views.
His profile for the last five years or so as a newspaper columnist and commentator in the broadcast media will also have helped.
In the Trinity constituency Mary Henry's retirement opened a gap though which Ivana Bacik entered the Seanad. Henry's retirement and endorsement enabled Bacik to build on her strong 2002 vote.
Bacik's base includes a lawyer element, an academic and student element from lecturing in Trinity, together with the wider constituency of Labour Party and other left of centre graduates attracted to her work and commentary on social issues.
Given their diametrically opposing positions we can look forward to some interesting, well-articulated but fiery exchanges between Bacik and Mullen over the next five years. The extent to which they both arouse strong passions could be seen on blogs this week where they were subjected to a torrent of abuse and intolerant commentary from self-styled liberals about Mullen, and from so-called Christians about Bacik.
While I for one would find myself in disagreement with both of them on different issues, their election is welcome.
A strong debate in the Seanad between diverging visions of how to legislation for our society will be a welcome change from the cautious, bland, consensus on these issues which we usually get in the Dáil where a rigid party whip system stifles debate.
Even though the means of election to Seanad Éireann is still deficient, the new Seanad may be a forum for voices not heard too often in the Lower House.