Áras adviser van Lieshout row sheds light on the shadowy world of political power

Advisers live in the half-light between the public mandate of the elected office holders they serve and the permanent government of the civil service who eschew and usually escape the strobe lights, relentlessly searching and bleaching the political process

CONTROVERSY this week of who is out and who is up in the pecking order of advisers at Áras an Uachtaráin is a warning to all in that trade. Political intimacy should not be confused with any other sort. It is intense only in the pursuit of shared goals and then it disappears instantly. The ultimate art in advising politicians is indifference to whether your advice is accepted and organising your exit before their end.

Indifference is necessary because you are not there to pursue your own agenda. An eye for the exit is needed because nearly all in politics stay beyond the point of their useful lifespan. The advising class are the flotsam of political life and usually the first to become its debris.