Any money he received in public office is a legitimate area of inquiry, writes Stephen Collins, Political Correspondent.
'We could not condone the practice of senior politicians seeking or receiving from a single large donor sums of money or services in kind," said Bertie Ahern in a speech during the Fianna Fáil ardfheis on April 19th, 1997.
"It is quite unacceptable that a member of Dáil Éireann, and in particular a cabinet minister and taoiseach, should be supported in his personal lifestyle by gifts made to him personally," said Mr Justice Brian McCracken in the Report of the Tribunal of Inquiry into the Dunnes payments, August 25th, 1997.
"It is particularly unacceptable that such gifts should emanate from prominent businessmen within the state," said Mr Justice McCracken.
"The tribunal stresses a point I have repeatedly emphasised, that public representatives must not be under a personal financial obligation to anyone," said Mr Ahern speaking in the Dáil on September 10th, 1997, in a debate on the McCracken Report.
The Taoiseach has reacted indignantly to the disclosure in The Irish Times that he received money from prominent businessmen, including his friend David McKenna, for his personal use, when he was minister for finance in 1993 but the revelation has again raised fundamental issues about the relationship between politics and business.
Going on his own previous utterances Mr Ahern accepts that it is simply not appropriate for a politician to accept significant sums of money from business people.
While he has disputed the scale of the figure quoted by The Irish Times of €50,000 to €100,000, he confirmed the essential fact of the story that he did receive money when he was minister for finance in 1993.
Mr Ahern emphasised yesterday that whatever money he had received in 1993 related to personal matters involving his legal separation and, as far as he was concerned, involved no wrongdoing of any kind and should not have been brought into the public domain.
"What I got personally in my life, to be frank with you is none of your business, if I got something from somebody as a present or something like that I can use it," he told reporters who questioned him during one of his typically busy constituency tours yesterday in Clare.
The Taoiseach's problem is that, going by his own words, and the remit of the various tribunals established by his Government, the money he received from people during his time in public life is a legitimate area of inquiry by the media, the Opposition parties and the tribunals.
The fact that some of it came from Mr McKenna, who was one of the most prominent business figures in the Dublin business world during the early years of the Celtic Tiger boom is highly relevant.
Mr McKenna was one of the wealthy Fianna Fáil supporters who graced the party tent at the Galway races last month.
The Bailey brothers, who had been exposed earlier in the year as the biggest tax fraudsters in the history of the State were also paying guests in the tent. They all rubbed shoulders with the Taoiseach and his Ministers without embarrassment.
Mr McKenna's recruitment company Marlborough Recruitment was flying high in the late 1990s. He was appointed to the board of Enterprise Ireland by Mr Ahern's government. He resigned from the board in late 2001 when his company got into difficulties.
Shortly afterwards the relationship between the Taoiseach and Mr McKenna came into the public eye when it emerged that Mr Ahern had travelled to Manchester United matches on the Marlborough chief executive's private jet. Fine Gael called for an explanation of why the Taoiseach had not declared the trips under the Ethics in Public Office Act but Mr Ahern maintained that he did not have to declare them because Mr McKenna was a personal friend.
"Mr Ahern went on these trips in his own private time at the invitation of David McKenna who is a personal friend - the invitation was not issued by the Marlborough Group," his spokeswoman said at the time.
Now that the relationship between Mr Ahern and Mr McKenna is also known to have involved the payment of money to the then minister for finance, to help him deal with his personal problems, it will inevitably become a political issue.
The question, though, is whether it will do any serious damage to the Taoiseach or his Government.
Labour's finance spokeswoman, Joan Burton, made the point that Michael Lowry had resigned from government 10 years ago following the disclosure that a multi-millionaire had paid for building work on his house.
"In this case the allegation appears to be that a multi-millionaire paid for legal bills incurred by Mr Ahern in the early 1990s," she said. More recently Dublin TD, Ivor Callely, was forced to resign as minister of state for transport, when it emerged that a builder had painted his house for nothing and he had not disclosed this to the Standards in Public Office Commission.
In the past the Taoiseach had his own problems about a failure to declare the value to him of the St Luke's constituency office in Drumcondra to the commission.
After explaining that he did not think he was required to declare the office, Mr Ahern subsequently included the value of St Luke's in his annual declaration and the issue was defused.
One of Mr Ahern's strengths as a politician has been his ability to escape from potentially damaging situations with his reputation intact.
Signing blank cheques from the Fianna Fáil leader's account, which Charles Haughey used for his personal advantage, did him no serious damage and only added to his reputation as the "Teflon Taoiseach".
Later the false allegations by "Starry" O'Brien that he had paid a bribe to the Taoiseach on behalf of businessman Owen O'Callaghan, generated a great deal of sympathy for Mr Ahern who subsequently won a libel action over the matter.
This affair also had the indirect effect of damaging the reputation of the tribunals.
Yesterday Mr Ahern again referred to those false allegations when questioned about the payments from Mr McKenna. He pointed out that it was during its attempt to establish if payments had been made to him by Mr O'Callaghan that he had given the tribunal all the details of his financial affairs which led to the revelation of the payment by Mr McKenna and others back in 1993.
There has been belief among most politicians for some time that tribunal revelations have had little or no impact on the political world.
The initial response to the latest disclosures from both the Taoiseach and Tánaiste Michael McDowell indicate that they believe the same will be true this time around. However, the preciseness of the information and the closeness of the general election could make this the most difficult tribunal episode with which the Taoiseach has yet had to deal.