It's a bummer for anybody not powerful enough to be at Dublin Castle for social partnership talks in which . . .

unlike the Dail, where the merely elected meet and debate the small beer . . . the really big questions are resolved by neo-feudal corporatist selectees.

It's also bad news for any business which, unlike National Toll Roads, can't force years of "consultations" before suffering economic harm, like eliminating monuments to stupidity like the M50 toll plaza, which each night drives countless motorists to more popular varieties of chemical consolation.

The only people for whom the way the mushroom ban was brought in is good news are the staff of RTE's Liveline, who with some justification could claim that the emotional chorus they conjured is what cajoled the government into such precipitous action.

It was indeed a tragedy that a 33-year-old Dun Laoghaire man, Colm Hodgkinson, fell from a balcony to his death after taking magic mushrooms last October. It is equally a tragedy when someone gets behind the wheel of a car after drinking 10 pints and drives off a bridge.

What should disturb us is how our political decisionmaking process, when there aren't powerful and moneyed vested interests involved, is made to seem in thrall to synthetic confections of emotion.

There were other reasons why a ban on the sale of magic mushrooms was probably inevitable. First, they had become more visible, and therefore embarrassing to government . . . thanks to the relatively recent development of a European market of fresh mushrooms.

Operating out of the Netherlands, where they are legal, mushroom importers were becoming more efficient.

Second, and what was probably even more decisive, was a ban on magic mushrooms that came into force last year in Britain.

Section 21 of the Drugs Act 2005 made illegal the possession or sale of fresh mushrooms containing psilocybe, which was passed in Westminster just prior to the UK election last spring.

It is hard to imagine that this fact escaped the notice of Mary Harney or Michael McDowell. Even if it did, it is hard to imagine that British officials hadn't raised the spectre of "Dublin Drug Tourist Yobs" tabloid headlines with their Irish counterparts.

But there is a qualitative difference in the way the two decisions were taken.

In the British case, the change in law required a bill to be introduced into the House of Commons and be debated . . . though pro-drugs campaigners (yes, there are some with enough courage to make the argument there) and some MPs argued that there wasn't nearly enough debate . . . then passed by the House of Lords before being given Royal Assent. Even rushed, the process took several months.

Here, Mary Harney claims that it was a meeting with the family of Colm Hodgkinson that determined her decision. "At that time it had become clear that the sale of 'magic' mushrooms was increasingly commonplace, " she said, "and I directed that legislation be prepared to clarify the law to ensure that the trade in these drugs could not continue." When the cabinet approved the decision, it went into immediate effect with Mary Harney's signature.

Surely we should applaud this example of excellent Irish efficiency? Or is it to call upon oneself the wrath of a string of Liveline callers (and Ireland's favourite professional anti-drug campaigner, Grainne Kenny) and risk being labelled pro-'shroom to question this decision and the capricious manner in which it was made?

The fact is that some 50 businesses that had, until last Tuesday, been involved in a legal trade, suffered economic harm with no warning and no consultation. What's more, the open decision-making process in the UK ensured that certain absurdities in banning something that grows naturally could be debated and dealt with. Farmers, and presumably golf course owners, could have been prosecuted for "possession" of the now illegal fungi by virtue of the fact that it grew on their land. An exemption was duly made for wild mushrooms on uncultivated land.

No such exemption . . .

which also opens the door for truly devoted users to quietly harvest them . . .

seems to exist under the decision here. Perhaps the IFA and the K Club will ensure we'll have consultations, now that their members will potentially be considered drug dealers by Liveline.

Now that the cabinet has demonstrated that it is possible for the government to act without the need for messy debate and consultation (against things unpopular with talk radio audiences), can we assume that Martin Cullen will dispense with the coddling of politically powerful National Toll Roads and order the M50 Westlink toll reduced to zero with the same alacrity?

You must be stoned.