So far as Dr Garret FitzGerald is aware, the Irish summer school phenomenon is unique.
These events are organised by dedicated individuals, who raise the considerable funds required to finance their organisation and to provide hospitality for large numbers of speakers, including many people prominent in public life.
Each year they persuade them to travel to often distant parts of thc country to deliver, without financial reward, what are usually well-prepared papers on a wide range of subjects. Many of these are widely reported in the media and in some cases are later published as valuable collections of essays.
These events are well attended, both by people from the locality, but also from much further afield, who pay minimal fees for what is often a feast of learning, generally accompanied by cultural activities. In this way issues of importance relating to politics, economics, social and cultural life are aired each year, to the considerable benefit of the Irish public.
Last week I had the opportunity, before taking summer holidays, to attend and to greatly enjoy four days of Joe Mulholland's MacGill Summer School at Glenties in Donegal, which this year was dedicated to the theme of Politics and Democracy in Ireland.
Speakers there included Ministers and backbenchers, journalists and a member of the Supreme Court, all of whom subjected themselves to questioning by a well-informed audience after their addresses.
What emerged to me most clearly from this occasion was the depth of the commitment of both politicians and journalists to the public good, and their frustration with a lot of aspects of our present political system; and also with the partial and often distorted image of politics that is portrayed to the public.
No one sought to challenge or obscure the disturbing reality of clientelism and hypocrisy in our political system, but the importance, potential and actual, of the legislative role of TDs and senators emerged clearly.
There seemed, however, to be something like a consensus that the role of the Oireachtas has diminished in recent times, as successive governments have accorded it less attention.
It is clear that the Dáil and Seanad have ceased to be the forum within which policy decisions are announced and debated. Moreover, the drift of parties to the political centre has narrowed the scope for serious debate.
While all this certainly reflects the growing preoccupation of governments with public relations, I believe other factors have also been at work.
When I entered politics almost 40 years ago TDs, and to a lesser degree senators, believed - with some reason - that if they stood up and said something sensible there was a fair chance that it would be reported in the press.
But as the years passed they came to feel, first of all, that there was no point in speaking after about 6.30 p.m. because, for some reasons that never emerged, this hour seemed to have become a kind of deadline for the papers.
Moreover, politicians' experience also came to suggest to TDs and senators that fewer journalists than in the past had the capacity, or perhaps the will, to record their remarks unless they were given a "script".
Understandably, more and more speakers began to meet this apparent need by supplying such scripts, and, having prepared these, many politicians came to feel that they should stick to what they had written out, lest journalists, noting a difference between the written and spoken word, lose faith in the material thus furnished to them.
This was against the rules of the Houses, which, as I recall, used to accord the right to read from scripts only to ministers making an opening statement in a debate, but this rule soon ceased to be enforced.
For many members of the Oireachtas it thus became a routine practice to read scripts rather than actually to address the House, and it has been said that some members who were less equipped to prepare written texts also came to accept scripts furnished to them by party sources.
Thus did the Houses of the Oireachtas in some measure cease to be debating chambers, as a result of which fewer and fewer deputies felt any obligation to attend to hear these not very lively readings.
To me as deputy, that appeared to be one of the reasons the Oireachtas seemed to lose part of its raison d'être. But another reason was the gradual "dumbing down" even of the broadsheet newspapers, which largely ceased to report debates, except where there was a "row" in the Dáil.
In the case of The Irish Times it is clear that an effort has been made by the new editor to redress this trend.
A fundamental difficulty about reporting the proceedings of the Oireachtas is the fact that the serious work of legislation - the time when able TDs show their mettle as legislators - takes place at the committee and report stages of bills, which are often highly technical and, truth to tell, almost impossible to report in a manner that newsaper readers could absorb.
Yet it is there that the men in the Oireachtas are distinguished from the boys, the genuine legislators from the messengers, those happy to confine their activities to doing jobs for constituents.
In the absence of any coverage of what are the really important debates in parliament, it is almost impossible for the electorate to make an informed judgment on how members of the Oireachtas are performing the job for which they are now very well paid.
In an outstanding address to the MacGill Summer School, Mark Hennessy, this paper's Political Correspondent, addressed this issue in terms that showed a profound understanding of the roles of, and concern with, the problems facing both politicians and journalists.
He was right to stress the virtual impossibility of conveying to newpaper readers the ins and outs of committee-stage debates on legislation, but I think he would agree that greater attendance at some of these debates by parliamentary journalists might make it possible to convey to the public the quality of those TDs of all parties who take their legislative duties seriously, and who make a serious contribution to the quality of the legislation enacted by our parliament.
The experiences of many TDs at the hands of our electorate may incline them to express cynicism about the idea that there are any votes to be garnered by being seen to perform well in their legislative as distinct from messenger role, but I believe that there are enough serious voters to make it worthwhile for our journalists to pinpoint those who are actually doing efficiently the job they are now well paid to do.