Inevitably this will become known as the Week of the Shirts. Every second Irish tourist to Paris will want to view 28 Place Vendome to see where the movers and shakers of the world dress themselves. They will have the added bonus down the street of the Ritz Hotel from where Dodi and Di started their ill-fated final journey. The curious and the prurient will certainly get great value in the Place Vendome. Around the corner is Kitty O'Shea's, if you need a pint to revive yourself after all the excitement.
Will the Department of Finance do anything to recover our money now that they find that some of it provided in 1989 as a leader's allowance for the running of the Fianna Fail parliamentary party was in fact spent by the great leader himself on his own shirts? How many other personal payments were made out of this account? Will the use of the allowance be audited by the Comptroller and Auditor General?
Other questions that spring to mind include why this very specific account, funded out of public monies for a specific public purpose, was used by Charlie Haughey as a kind of personal bank account with assorted and varied private lodgements and payments.
Were other monies paid into it in order to cloak what was really going on? Was John Ellis saved from bankruptcy by the payment of £26,000 out of this account or was it out of some other account? If so, what was that account and what was the source of the funds in it? Have all Ellis's creditors been paid off in full or was it only those who were threatening to make him bankrupt? Did Haughey make other payments to or for the benefit of other deputies? Were any payments made to deputies at the time of the leadership contest in 1979 after Jack Lynch retired or during any of the subsequent "heaves" in the early '80s? Were these various votes in relation to the leadership of Fianna Fail genuine democratic contests or were there financial or other inducements involved? Was this why Haughey was so keen on having open votes?
Serious and all as these matters are, many people will think that the most unpleasant aspect of the lot is the fact that monies collected for the medical expenses of the late Brian Lenihan were paid into and out of this leader's parliamentary allowance account.
So far the Moriarty tribunal has ascertained that the amount paid out in medical expenses is substantially less than the total paid in from private sources. The question that remains to be resolved is whether the total paid in from private sources all related to contributions to the Lenihan medical fund.
No doubt the tribunal will know this in a month or two and will be able to give us the relevant figures. If the amount paid in exceeded the amount paid out for Lenihan's needs, what happened to the balance?
There is a deep sense of shame in Fianna Fail throughout the State. They have been hit at grassroots level by so much in the last few years that they thought they were immune to further shocks, but this week has left them completely winded. Those who used to describe Haughey as the greatest Irishman of this century hardly know where to look.
And, worst of all, they know in their heart of hearts that this is probably not the end of it. Long before the Moriarty tribunal is over, Haughey will have to stand trial in the Dublin Circuit Criminal Court for obstructing the Mc Cracken tribunal. For the faithful soldiers of destiny, it will indeed be a trying time.
The Public Accounts Committee has resumed after Jim Mitchell's back operation and AIB especially is feeling more and more uncomfortable. It and CRH, two of the biggest companies in Ireland, would be very big news indeed had C.J.H. not come to their rescue by dominating the headlines once again. Many people are beginning to ask if two of the biggest companies in Ireland are run in the way that has recently been portrayed, what are other smaller companies run like.
It certainly does Irish business no good and must have a noticeable effect on the pay and other policies that can be implemented in the future. Not surprisingly, the unions have got restive in the light of all they are being told. The Labour Party has put down a motion to have CRH included in the Moriarty tribunal.
However badly AIB and certain other banks have come out of the DIRT inquiry, the ACC, which is State-owned, seems to have been worst of all. It showed very little regard indeed for the tax laws; it was, in effect, helping to defraud its owners and apparently the owners' agents did not do very much about it.
All the banks have been severely weakened by the disclosures that have come to light and Drapier would not be surprised if in this time of banking take-overs and mergers there were some major changes in the Irish banking scene over the next year or so.
The most damaging event of all may well be a nurses' strike if it happens. The Government feels its hands are tied. The nurses want their pound of flesh.
It could well be one of the bitterest and most harmful strikes in many years and would certainly signal the end of the partnership consensus that we have had for a good while now and which has contributed so much to economic growth and to increased employment.