The minister of foreign affairs has surfaced briefly. He issued a statement last week telling Paisley that how the Colombia Three were dealt with was a matter for the judiciary and the gardai.
Maybe he should give his colleague, Michael McDowell, a copy of his statement.
In case you don't know and there's no reason why you should, the minister in question is Dermot Ahern.
Changed times indeed. It used to be that the minister of foreign affairs had quite a lot to say about the north and the treatment of nationalists here but beginning with Brian Cowen, interest in the north by the holder of that post seemed to diminish.
Cowen was an enormous disappointment after being billed as a 'heavyweight' who would drive forward the Irish government's policy on the north. He didn't. He was content to trot out civil service briefs and trot back to Iveagh House.
Dermot Ahern's contribution since Christmas has been to criticise Sinn Féin.
It's true he did do a bit of electioneering in South Down on behalf of Eddie McGrady but then that amounts to the same thing. He also appeared in Belfast at the end of June and discussed policing and met members of the SDLP. So there's no doubt which party he supports. OK.
There are two points here, both connected.
First, Ahern is a government minister, not just a Fianna Fail TD, and as a government minister he has a responsibility to address the concerns of all nationalists in the north.
And please don't let us have any claptrap about him speaking for all Irish people in the north. Unionists couldn't care less if he evaporated in the morning and would be outraged if he presumed to speak on their behalf.
Secondly, instead of just electioneering and glad-handing in June, why as minister of foreign affairs has Ahern had nothing to say about the loyalist campaign of sectarian violence against isolated Catholics which has been going on since the spring?
Why has no TD for that matter, let alone the minister responsible for relations with the British, visited Ahoghill or Rasharkin or the Short Strand? Why has he not even expressed disquiet about the failure of the British administration in the north to deal with the campaign?
The Irish government may have spoken privately through the British-Irish Intergovernmental Secretariat but some political input is required and it has not been forthcoming from Ahern.
In this respect the Irish government's input into the north has been going backwards.
In the years after the Anglo-Irish Agreement in 1985 Peter Barry, then minister of foreign affairs, regularly issued statements about events in the north and made visits to places like west Belfast and Derry.
Ah, comes the objection, but that was before the Good Friday Agreement, which set up structures in the north to which the majority in both communities give their consent. Of course the only problem is that the structures have all collapsed and most unionists support the DUP, which opposes the GFA.
Besides, niceties about the GFA don't keep Michael McDowell from his weekly verbal attacks on republicans while he studiously ignores daily physical attacks on Catholics by loyalists as does Dermot Ahern.
The critical point is that the Irish government, by virtue of the GFA and the British-Irish Intergovernmental Council, has a right to present its views and proposals about the British administration's failure to provide security for Catholics in the north.
Why did Ahern not call a meeting of the council? Why did he not even make a speech about the summer's events?
Perhaps he's not up to the job, perhaps he can't manage dealing with his UN role and his EU role as well as the north? Unlikely, because he's got enough civil servants in the Department of Foreign Affairs to write speeches for him on any topic.
Perhaps the answer is much simpler. Ahern is a 26-county politician for whom politics stops at the border of his Louth constituency. He will only intervene in the north if he thinks it affects southern politics, which Sinn Féin's electoral advance certainly does.
Until the British administration's failure to protect its Catholic citizens does, he will continue to ignore it.
