Drapier - An Insider's Guide to Politics: The decision of Labour's Administrative Council may prove to be a watershed in the life of this Dáil.
By a vote of more than two to one, it approved a motion to conference designed to give Pat Rabbitte a mandate to start negotiation with Fine Gael and the Greens to create an alternative.
The build-up to this decision has been unsettling within Labour and affected their Dáil performance. Pat Rabbitte must have been pleased to see both Ruairí Quinn and Brendan Howlin showing signs of their old sparkle this week. Ruairí unearthed the €5.5 million bill for Government spin-doctors, and Brendan was actively rucking for loose balls across a range of issues from Gama to the hospital crisis.
Political mating ritual is complex. Like other species it will be interspersed with stamping and rutting, preening and showy display, fretting and huffing before it hopefully ends in contented cooing. Mary Harney has been fanning some feathers in the direction of Enda Kenny and Pat Rabbitte. Is this the seven-year itch? Are we seeing signs of a "Terminal" break up? Drapier thinks not.
Mary's flirtation is creating a bit of leverage for herself. She also dropped the message that suitable boys should not be seen hanging around with the Greens. Their open-toed sandals, concerns about fur-farming and quaint notions that finite resources might run out would not go down well with the PDs' wedding guests.
With Bertie converting to socialism, the Red Scare has been replaced by the Green Scare. So far Trevor Sargent is happy to stay aloof, but don't mistake this coldness for lack of interest.
The week opened up some promising lines of attack for the Opposition. The attacks were well prepared, and penetrated the defences. Jim O'Keeffe launched the week by turning his Skibbereen Eagle eye on the alcohol-fuelled mayhem on our streets after dark. It was well choreographed. This was always good territory for the Blueshirts, but it also struck a chord with what Joe Costello and Pat Rabbitte had been saying in recent days.
Liz McManus or Lady Wicklow, as Willie O'Dea has taken to calling her, sustained a concerted attack on the A&E crisis. The travelling road show organised by the Irish Nurses' Organisation across the country has ensured high-profile coverage in both the local and national media.
No Taoiseach feels comfortable when nurses are on the street. Bertie Ahern sees the risk. While he did not rise to the INO bait of taking personal control of the situation, he quietly let it be known that he is receiving daily figures on the number on trolleys in every hospital in the country.
As he bemoaned the lack of GPs after 6pm, Michael Ring suggested: "Put the spin doctors on duty after hours."
The long-time cosy relationship of the Bertie Ahern Government with the public service is showing other signs of cracks. Brian Cowen unnecessarily provoked angst by suggesting that promotion opportunities would be denied to persons who opted to stay in Dublin under decentralisation. Politician of the year Michael McDowell warned prison officers not to tangle with him. You can't fight City Hall.
Even the cosy relationship between the INTO and Mary Hanafin has been disturbed by demands to know what happened to the promise on class size.
Thursday is usually a slack day in the Dáil. This Thursday promised to be no different. In place of a train of Ministers trooping in behind the Taoiseach, the Minister for Finance ambled in all alone. The irrepressible Minister for Defence scurried in late. But appearances can be misleading.
In a combative display, Brian Cowen showed why he has seen off all the contenders in the leadership succession race. Four years' absence from the Health brief seems to have given him a clearer vision.
He dealt out a kick to unco-operative consultants. A lash was given to Garda management for failing to give Marie Cassidy, the State Pathologist, a driver. He was in good humour on a sunny third day of Punchestown and showed he can be the "Kicking King" of the Dáil.
His one-time main rival Micheál Martin did not have such a happy week. The Minister continues to wriggle uncomfortably as the Health Committee asks who knew what and when about the illegal charges in public nursing homes.
His briefing from his secretary general was too fleeting. He was too busy to read the briefs. The concerns of his Ministers of State and his advisers, who attended the meeting, never reached his ears.
His plea of ignorance is chipping away under forensic examination by Fintan O'Toole and Vincent Browne. The days when Ministers were responsible for everything are thankfully gone. Many in the public service feel Ministers now take responsibility for nothing, at least when things go wrong.
A bit more sheltered from the public eye, the work of Denis O'Donovan's Constitution Review Committee on the family continued its marathon hearings.
The present Constitution sees the rights of children coming through their parents and largely recognises families only in the context of marriage. The committee is taking on the tricky task of defining rights and responsibilities in a very changed environment for children and families in Ireland today.