It will be ironic indeed if Bertie comes tumbling down, not because of a failure to solve the housing crisis, or to reform the health service, but because of male inarticulacy, writes Breda O'Brien.
Not his own, you understand, although Bertie is not famous for his oratory, but the inarticulacy of the male species in general.
The whole mess is absolutely typical of men of a certain age. You can just picture his friends recoiling in horror from even the prospect of doing anything so sissy-ish as actually telling Bertie that they were sorry he was going through a rough time. Far better to bung him a few quid and then to tell him in robust terms to do something anatomically impossible to himself if he tried to pay it back.
So what if he is minister for finance? Doesn't that make it even worse if he is sleeping on a mattress in Drumcondra? Feck those begrudgers in the media who don't have a clue how the real world operates, anyway, and who wouldn't understand male bonding unless it entailed some unspeakable act involving superglue.
Yes, it will be ironic indeed if Bertie, who has made a career out of being one of the lads and a man of the people, is brought low by the fact that the lads apparently could not understand that being minister for finance is a bit different to, well, being a publican or a plasterer.
We have been told repeatedly in recent days that the minister for finance, like Caesar's wife, is supposed to be above reproach. Not that Caesar's wife is a particularly apt reference. The wife in question was Caesar's second, and he married her as a matter of political convenience. They were embroiled in one of the greatest social scandals of ancient Rome. Dressed as a woman, the madly erratic Publius Clodius Pulcher infiltrated a sacred ceremony that was strictly out of bounds to men, allegedly to have his wicked way with Caesar's wife, Pompeia. All Rome was in uproar.
However, Caesar, while proclaiming her innocence, calmly divorced Pompeia, declaring that Caesar's wife should be above suspicion. It was an early example of damage limitation. Meanwhile, Clodius escaped conviction on a charge of sacrilege, apparently by bribing the jury. Caesar proceeded to systematically conquer and destroy Gaul to enhance his personal wealth and glory. Makes Bertie seem rather pedestrian by comparison. Mind you, Caesar did end up being stabbed by his closest associates.
Granted, there are many, many people who see nothing droll about this at all. There are a lot of thirty-something mortgage slaves seething at the casual way someone who was supposed to be running the country's finances could be bailed out by friends to whom a couple of thousand was small change. The political danger for Fianna Fáil is that this casual attitude to money will ignite smouldering resentments in many people who are told regularly that the economy is booming, but who spend their days in gridlocked traffic, and transporting children to and from expensive childcare facilities.
Ultimately, the Manchester connection may prove to be the decisive factor.
People retain enough residual sympathy for those suffering marital breakdown to just about accept that he might have accepted the infamous "dig-out" without returning any favours. Yet what was he doing accepting a "whip-round" after a business dinner? A whip-round that any tax inspector would have difficulty categorising as anything except remuneration? Even still, there are political risks involved in rendering Bertie a latter-day Manchester Martyr.
As usual in cases like this, the motivation of the person or persons unknown who leaked this information disappears somewhere in the fog of moral indignation. The standard journalistic formula about leaks is that it does not matter what the motivation of the leaker is, because the real questions are whether or not it is true, and whether or not it is in the public interest to know. Yet there could be only one possible motivation for this leak, which was to influence the outcome of the next general election. It is a heady brew, not just for someone in a position to leak such crucial information, but for any journalist to have the potential to affect his or her country's history.
The aim of the leak was to damage Bertie fatally. Yet it is wise to remember Oscar Wilde's injunction to be careful what you wish for. "There are only two tragedies in life: one is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it."
Nothing galvanises the grassroots Fianna Fáil activist like the sense that some remote elite is trying to shaft their man. It is, of course, entirely different if the moment comes when it is necessary for the good of the party that he be shafted from within.
It remains a high risk strategy for the Opposition to go bald-headed for Bertie, and it is not just the marital breakdown factor that holds the risks. It may be inexplicable to many, but there are Fianna Fáil supporters who would lie down and die for Bertie. If Bertie survives, the heartland of Fianna Fáil will not forget or forgive, and will be doubly determined to secure a victory. If he does have to go, they will still be looking for revenge, but they might also have the advantage of a fresh face at the helm, one that may be more appealing to the elusive swing voter than Bertie's somewhat tired visage might have been.
Also, Bertie's pals are not alone in thinking that it is all no big deal.
There are many people out there, and by no means all of them are convinced Fianna Fáil voters, who believe that politics is being sanitised out of existence.
There are political junkies who mutter darkly that no one with a bit of colour need apply for political office in Ireland and that Irish politics is the poorer for it. As yet, there is no evidence that Bertie was in any way corrupt or taking bribes. That may or may not be enough for the electorate.
As the controversy rumbles on, one has to wonder if Bertie's generous pals ever wonder glumly to themselves whether it might not just have been better to break the masculine taboo, and just say it with words instead.