Last Tuesday, the Minister for Justice passed down his latest tablet of wisdom.

Fine Gael is flummoxed, says he. Fianna Fail will win the next election. The only question is who will govern with them.

Care is needed lest the electorate "sleepwalk" into a government it doesn't really want. In other words, vote Progressive Democrats. Three per cent of people can't be wrong all the time.

While the spiel was broadcast for general consumption, its real target was Fine Gael voters. If McDowell can drum it into their heads that the party is bound for the scrapheap, then their natural refuge is the PDs. Both parties fish in the same pond.

Three per cent might transmogrify into four, or even five.

Last time out, he succeeded in wooing the Blueshirt vote with his 'Single Party Government, No Thanks' poster. He used the prospect of Fianna Fail governing alone to put the fear of God into Fine Gaelers. Vote PD and save the country!

This time, he requires a different tack because the Soldiers of Destiny have little hope of an overall majority. So on Tuesday, he told Blueshirt voters: "With Fianna Fail at about 40% in the polls and with Sinn Fein just short of 10%, a Fine Gael-led government is rapidly becoming a computational impossibility."

Hold that statement up to the terrified eyes of a Fine Gaeler and it can look like Sinn Fein is heading for government. The horror, the horror. Vote PD and save the country!

Last time out, it worked.

This time, Mac has a major handicap . . . his record since the last time out. While he talks a great game, playing it is another matter entirely.

There are two tenets that the old Fine Gaeler holds dear. He or she believes strongly in a particular brand of law and order. And he, walking his prosperous farm, perceives his integrity to be of a far greater quality than that of the scuts in Fianna Fail.

On both counts, our hero has made a hames of his time in office. In terms of integrity, he really took the proverbial. He hardly had his feet under the ministerial desk when senior-level talks, to which he was privy, began with Fine Gael with a view to a merger of the two parties.

Had the talks succeeded, the PDs would in all likelihood have had to depart government, leaving the country to the clutches of wildeyed Fianna Fail.

Then, earlier this year, he was called on to invoke high standards when Taoiseach Bertie Ahern unspooled his yarn about dinners and dig-outs, whiparounds and a mysterious 50 grand. Instead of eliciting full answers, McDowell held Bertie's hand, helped him make it through the night, and reassured him: "We survived that." Blind-eye affliction is now official PD policy.

Law and order has been a joke. In a functioning democracy, the minister would have had his collar felt by the constabulary over the Frank Connolly business. He might also have been investigated for the suspected leaking of Phil Flynn's garda file, and his stated intention to leak such files as he saw fit. Even if Blueshirt sensibilities weren't offended by that carry-on, basic standards of public office must attain.

Gangland crime has mushroomed under his watch. A prison costing the price of a palace is his monument to management of public money.

At a time of unprecedented resources, he failed to add 2,000 new gardai to the force as promised.

To be fair to him, he can talk the talk. Listen as he repeatedly references the needs and wants of "the Irish people." from his vantage atop three per cent of the vote.

He is particularly prone to the Bush doctrinal spin of constant repetition being all you need to manufacture fact.

Keep saying it and it becomes true. Repeat after me. Fine Gael is flummoxed, vote PD and save the country. Three out of a hundred cats prefer that option.

Great man to talk the talk.

Too busy to walk the walk.