DRAPIER: Michael Smith gave a fine impromptu speech in Leinster House on Wednesday morning. The audience loved it and applauded Michael all the way to the Dáil bar. Happily the recipients of the ministerial wisdom, all of them girls under 10, were blissfully unaware of Michael's rather more earthy, but no less impromptu, contribution to our parliamentary week the previous day.
Drapier cannot claim to have heard the ministerial expletive. That said, Drapier can certainly confirm that the use of the "f" word would be neither out of character nor out of context.
Pat Rabbitte once described Michael Smith as "the reverend mother" and the epithet has stuck. True he does drone on a bit and the tone occasionally takes on a righteous twang but beyond that there is very little that is prim and proper about the Minister for Defence. He is sociable, earthy and very much one of the lads. He enjoys spinning yarns usually in a fashion that is far from reverent.
His utterance on Tuesday was the nadir and the motif of a woeful week in the Dáil.
Pat Rabbitte was in full flow looking for details of Government spending on the ill-fated e-voting adventure. Smith got up to respond and was immediately engulfed by a crescendo of catcalls from the opposition benches. Try as he might Michael couldn't make himself heard and he eventually gave up - muttering the unmentionable word as he glared contemptuously at the Blueshirts opposite.
Drapier enjoys a good row. Heckling and barracking have their place - not least to puncture ministerial pomposity and to save us from the terminal boredom of the Government script factory.
But some of the antics in this place recently have been just plain stupid. The exchange of infantile abuse, which is neither relevant nor funny, between members, who can't hear each other and care less, does none of us any favours. Rory O'Hanlon intervened at one stage this week to remind colleagues that the Dáil is not a creche.
Drapier has no hesitation in identifying Fine Gael as the principal culprits. The lads have been in an enhanced state of excitement for the last fortnight. They may not be all that sure what they are in favour of these days but they are damned sure what they are against: Fianna Fáil. Not on grounds of policy, mind you, just on the grounds that Fianna Fáilers are intrinsically bad people.
Fianna Fáil has been doing its best to feed this view of the world. The stupidity of Frank Fahey and Noel Dempsey, the brass neck of Bev Flynn, the arrogance of Martin Cullen, the travails of Michael Collins, all of this has created a lightheadedness in Fine Gael which is rarely see outside of Cheltenham.
What seems to have pushed the Blueshirts over the top is the events at the Park last weekend. The sight of all those guards; the dastardly violence (allegedly) done to the cap of an unfortunate guard; the graphic presentation on our television screens of the imminent threat to the State from the hordes of Trots at the Ashtown gate. This kind of stuff brings out all that is terrible in what is left of Fine Gael. The unctuous righteousness, the giddy intolerance . . . Drapier just can't take this any more.
Mind you, Martin Cullen deserved every ounce of the grief he got this week. In fact, he can consider himself lucky to have survived the week at all.
There are basically two types of Ministers: those who are happy to run the system without creating waves and those who want to make a mark by doing bold, decisive things. Martin is of the latter variety. In fairness, Drapier has generally found Martin to be an approachable chap who is open to a half-decent argument. But he clearly lost the run of himself in his enthusiasm for his fancy machines.
True, the opposition was slow to gather momentum, both inside and outside the Dáil, but that is the way of things in politics. It doesn't matter how much notice you give that something is about to happen, people will only start to react at the very last minute. By then, of course, Martin was in full-steam-ahead mode.
As the weeks went on he became increasingly intolerant of all those who questioned the brave new future when pencil and paper would be a thing of the past. Both Eamon Gilmore and Bernard Allen put up arguments, which went beyond the usual "opposition for opposition's sake", stuff that is our daily diet. More importantly there were also plenty of independent computer buffs who were flashing amber lights.
Martin went straight through the lights and crashed. That he survived the crash is remarkable in itself and from his demeanour in the Dáil this week it is clear he knows as much. At one stage during the debate on the Electoral Bill, Eamon Gilmore questioned him repeatedly on whether the Bill was really necessary.
The Minister turned to him and said, more than a little plaintively, "Do you really think I would be here this week if it wasn't necessary?" No answer to that really.
It was a week when a lot of old friends moved on. Phoebe and Joey, Claudio the Tinkerman, Bev Flynn have all moved (or been moved) to pastures new. So too has Pat Cox, whose remarkable tenure in the European Parliament has come to an end. Pat is as self-important as they come. His repertoire of polysyllabic adjectives is beyond compare. He is suffocatingly long-winded. But he is also irritatingly able and a credit to the profession of politics.
The deft choreography of his departure is testament enough to his ability. He has left Bertie with little choice but to support him for the presidency of the Commission. The problem for Bertie is that he can hardly support Cox for president and then turn around and appoint someone else to the Commission if Pat doesn't get the top job.