The scene in a refurbished print factory at Dublin Castle last Thursday and Friday was impressive. Not just the red drapes, the blue carpet, the four lines of desks for lawyers, the hundreds in attendance, the slow (painfully slow), meticulous, interrogation of Des O'Neill, counsel for the tribunal, writes Vincent Browne.
More so, that the event was happening at all. That any member of the public could walk in off Dame Street and witness the leader of the country being examined about his personal finances and having to answer. It would not happen in Zimbabwe or Russia or China or the United States of America or France, or Iran.
It is a pity though it did not happen before the election and a pity that the media and the opposition parties did not press relentlessly for answers to obvious questions about Bertie's finances. For the public was entitled to know before deciding on whom to vote for whether the taoiseach of the day had got money from dubious sources for dubious purposes while he was minister for finance.
It was blindingly obvious then that Bertie needed to explain how he could possibly have saved £50,000 from 1987 to 1993, while paying a sizeable sum in maintenance to his wife and family - he would have needed to save almost the entire residue of his net earnings during that time to have achieved such savings. And that Manchester money seemed so odd as did that second afterthought dig-out from friends in October 1994 (the combination of such funds coming to exactly £25,000 sterling).
And then those extraordinary shenanigans about the house at Beresford. Why would Michael Wall have brought over £30,000 sterling in cash from Manchester for the renovation of a house he was not going to acquire for several months and was then gong to rent?
And why would Bertie put £50,000 (punts) in a bank account of Celia Larkin for the refurbishment of a house he was merely going to rent, but not for some six months, and then withdraw that money in cash a few weeks later? There was then and there is now another matter, however.
Which matters most: whether on the one hand Bertie got, say for argument sake, £150,000 sterling from a group of business people interested in setting up a venture here which was later abandoned, or whether on the other hand he and his government failed to make adequate provision for cancer care? Or allowed deep injustices to infect society and the political system as reflected in cancer statistics?
Last year the National Cancer Forum published Strategy for Cancer Control in Ireland. Some of the key findings were:
One Irish person in three will develop invasive cancer, while one in four will die from it.
At present about 20,000 Irish people develop cancer and 7,500 die of the disease each year.
About 60 per cent of cancer patients die of the disease within five years.
Although cancer incidence is falling, the ageing of the population will lead to large increases in the number of people who develop cancer. The number of new cases by 2020 will represent an increase of 107 per cent on the number dealt with in 2000.
With some exceptions, such as paediatric cancer, Ireland performs poorly by international standards in relation to cancer risks, incidence and survival.
There is inequity in the provision, availability and performance of cancer services when examined by region, social class, age and sex.
That latter point in relation to the inequity in the provision, availability and performance of cancer services by social class goes some way towards explaining the astonishing inequalities in mortalities in relation to cancer as revealed in the seminal report Inequities in Mortality.
The incidence of mortality from malignant neoplasm for people in the lowest occupational class was more than twice (110 per cent) the mortality for people in the highest occupational class.
For oesophagus cancer it was 230 per cent higher, for stomach cancer 110 per cent higher, for colon cancer 50 per cent higher, for lung cancer 280 per cent higher.
Isn't there something deeply unjust in a society where such dramatic inequalities persist? All the more so when there are the resources available to deal with these inequities? And yet, our culture is such that we attach more significance to the probity of a taoiseach than we do to the probity of our society.
My argument is not that it doesn't matter whether Bertie got a stash of cash back in 1994, it certainly does matter and did matter before the election and should have been an election issue.
My point is rather that there are more startling instances of corruption in Irish society than anything to do with individual politicians. It is the corruption of a society that allows such deep inequities and injustices in a time of plenty.