Anyone unfortunate enough to know what it is like to live with an alcoholic might see a parallel between coping with the insanity of addiction and the dysfunctional Irish political system. In an alcoholic household, the alcoholic is often the last person to admit there is a problem. He or she engages in grandiose thinking. They fail to listen. They act unreasonably. Their behaviour affects the entire household. They fool themselves. They bully. They are unaccountable. They are remarkably self-forgiving. While I am explicitly not stating nor suggesting nor implying that any member of Government is an alcoholic, the parallels are striking. The family is thrown into dysfunction and nobody knows from day to day what will happen next. The only predictable thing is that nothing can be predicted. Eventually, something like sanity is restored when healthy (non-addicted) family members say ‘Enough is enough. We’re not taking this anymore.’  They detach from the alcoholic and sanity can be restored.