Mum?" down the phone. Spooky.

Or maybe not. Maybe the mother doesn't like her daughter much. Maybe the mother is having an affair, and the daughter rang at an inopportune time.

Maybe the mother just feels like taking a little walk. But no. A concerned female voice says that forgetfulness is one of the first symptoms of Alzheimer's disease, and we go straight into the News At One shaking like leaves. Actually we don't go into the News At One. We go into some continuity announcements, crash the pips and arrive at the News At One a little flustered. Someone at RTE has forgotten their stopwatch.

I am not going to rehearse my usual rant about radio advertisements which are polluting our environment by scaring us to death. About how this country is full of wellpaid experts who are trying to make a problem out of normal daily life. About how they should mind their own bloody business and leave us in peace. I could but I won't.

Because I know that Alzheimer's disease is a terrifying problem in Irish society.

Alzheimer's has hit our politicians big time. Sean O'Rourke should start asking questions. It might be the lead pipes in the Dail. Look at poor Tom Kitt, such a nice and healthy-looking man.

One minute he has a thriving political career. Next thing, there he is gone.

Can't remember people giving him money. Had a conversation with Mary Harney about corruption. Can't remember a thing about it. The disks have been completely wiped.

Charles Haughey has it as well. One of the finest minds of his generation, a qualified accountant, and he can't remember much about his personal finances at all. Now Pat Rabbitte has it, poor thing. We're going to have to build a special nursing home for these guys.

It will cost a fortune. They'll all be running down the road in surgical gowns in the middle of the night, like Father Jack, pursued by a posse of underpaid foreign nurses. Horrible.

But we'll have to feed them. One of the most unpleasant things about dementia is that it destroys the circadian rhythm, day becomes night, and the next thing you know you have politicians calling for whiskey and soda at four o'clock in the morning. What do you mean, they do that already? Oh, I had forgotten.

The strange thing is that Irish politicians have always been remarkable for their memories. Walk through any shopping centre with an Irish politician, and if he is in his constituency, that politician will be able to name literally hundreds of people. He will be able to tell you where they live, how they vote and . . .

this is the best part . . . any relative of theirs who has died within the previous decade.

Every Irish politician has a map of his constituency burned into his brain. This is a miracle of both absorption and retrieval, because Irish constituencies are ragged and unwieldy entities with no unifying logic to them. Also, the boundaries of constituencies are frequently changed.

But don't worry, because any one of your local representatives would be able to lead you round his constituency blindfolded. He even knows the local dogs.

Indeed, after years of suffering, he is particularly strong on the local dogs. But on financial payments from buildersf absolutely nothing at all.

There are people abroad in this country who say that there were so many payments from builders, it is downright unfair to expect our politicians to remember any single one. There were simply too many of them. Our politicians are not so much forgetful as confused.

Of course, confusion is a sign of Alzheimer's as well. These charities have everything sewn up.