The fact that the two men knew each other, indeed had warriored together against more than one building-society board, didn't seduce the interviewer into using a simple first name. Instead, Dunphy poured Ross's title over him the way you'd drizzle warm chocolate sauce over an icecream. Sensually. Repeatedly.

Of course, it's a great title. I wouldn't give you a euro for the other political titles, starting with deputy (which always sounds as if the owner is filling in for someone more important) moving through minister and topping out with president. But I'd love to own the title senator. It has such historic resonance. It almost comes with its own toga attached, since, according to legend, it was one of those wolf-nursed twins who founded Rome who first founded a senate with a hundred old and wise ("senex") members to advise the ruler.

It plays well internationally, too. According to former minister Gemma Hussey, whenever she was in the US, red-carpetitis broke out on all sides the minute her (then) senatorship was announced. Admittedly, most of the reverential American fans started to shake hands with her husband, on the assumption that senatorial status was a guy thing, but that was in the bad old days.

The title of senator is so prestigious it comes as a shock to find out just how small the Seanad is. You could buy a jacuzzi that's bigger than our Upper House. To be honest, you could buy a jacuzzi that would earn more public interest than does the Seanad.

In any eye-glazing competition, 'Reform of the Seanad' as a topic beats all comers, even 'Planning Reform'. When politics as we know it rolled over and went to buy sunscreen lotion this week, nobody cared that another election was in progress. Except the unfortunates campaigning for that lovely title and totally thankless job.

Some of them are campaigning because they narrowly missed out in the general election. (A Seanad election must be held within 90 days of the dissolution of the Dail. ) In theory, when people like Fine Gael's Frances Fitzgerald, exhausted by that first campaign, dusted themselves off and started all over again, wooing votes countrywide, they had the party machine behind them. The reality is that party machines are largely irrelevant when it comes to the Seanad.

Media's not much help, either. Print media finds the Seanad boring, so editors sigh resignedly when, during a senatorial election, candidates submit features for publication as a method of selfpublicity. Those who are senators already stand some chance of seeing their essays in print. Those who are regular newspaper contributors already are sitting pretty. But the odds are heavily against the publication of the thoughts of newcomers.

When it comes to radio and television, it's even worse. Candidates can join one of those broadcast competitions where they get drowned out by the assertive verbiage of the more experienced, or get handed 90 ring-fenced seconds in which to present, uninterrupted, their visions, dreams and plans.

Thwarted when it comes to achieving free publicity, Seanad candidates instead dragoon friends and colleagues into unpaid service, sink their savings into leaflets, learn to mail-merge begging letters and meet as many of their particular voting group as possible within the limited time available to them. Dogged at every turn by those friends and colleagues asking, "Why the hell would you want to be in the Seanad?" Damned by media people who regard the Seanad as an irrelevant waste of space, no matter how many official websites warble on about the important work done by senators.

One of those sites solemnly points out that the existence of senators prevents legislation being passed too quickly. The inescapable inference is that this, in turn, obviates the possibility of passing laws riddled with loopholes. Which begs the question: why did Micheal Martin have to devote his last day in Leinster House to passing legislation to remove precisely those loopholes from the law which put PIAB in charge of compensation cases arising from accidents?

Yet they will power ahead, the senate candidates, during the next two weeks, unsung, unpublicised. Even though some of them . . . like prison reformer Valerie Bresnihan . . . have a track record a mile long of substantive international contribution.

Even though some of them . . . like Rosaleen McDonagh . . . could, by getting elected, make a major point about the potential locked up in marginalised groups.

Rosaleen McDonagh has all the academic qualifications to justify her election by a university panel: a BA in Biblical and Theological studies and a M Phil in Ethnic and Racial Studies from Trinity College. Of more importance, however, is the fact that she's a Traveller . . . one of the first of the Travelling community to have graduated from TCD. She also has a disability, which allows her to deploy a vast motorised wheelchair as something between a personal transport vehicle and an electiondevice, catching up with possible voters in it and trapping them with it while she makes her smiling pitch.

Senator is a job without direct hope of preferment, power or riches. It draws a unique assortment of intellectually oddball independent idealistic candidates.

For whom the next fortnight will be hell.

Shane Coleman is on leave