When Des O'Malley said on Wednesday that this democracy may be "in more trouble than any of us realise", he wasn't just making a point for argument's sake.
He was expressing an unease which has spread and become deeper during the past year as the State reluctantly comes to recognise the extent and depth of corruption that has overshadowed public life.
Of course, Mr O'Malley was speaking for the Progressive Democrats, specifically of their belief that those in high office should abide by "normal and reasonable standards of honesty and decency in dealing with affairs of state".
"If we are to be criticised for holding that position," he said, "then this democracy is in more trouble than any of us realise."
But it wasn't simply a partisan position, nor was the threat implicit in the speech confined to the fate of the irreparably damaged Fianna Fail-Progressive Democrat coalition.
That threat was there, large as life. But there was a bigger challenge to parties and to politics: "All of us in this House can help to restore public confidence in the Irish political system, or we can abandon our responsibility ... "
And if that happened: "There is a political movement out there now, watching current developments very closely. That movement has recently put itself forward as the real anti-sleaze party in Irish politics. I refer to the so-called republican movement, the people who murdered Jerry McCabe."
Mr O'Malley's credibility has been earned over decades of unselfish service. It's helped by clear thinking and an ability to express concerns that often lurk below the surface of public life.
The public has understandable difficulty in coming to terms with the state of affairs uncovered by the series of tribunals that began, inauspiciously, with Hamilton and shows no sign of running out of issues to investigate.
What worries people is not just the scale of events, the huge sums carelessly changing hands, the cunning schemes, the absent-minded arrogance, the apparent indifference to anything that couldn't be counted as power, influence and profit; it's the mind-boggling meaning of it all.
And yes, they must conclude, we have had at the head of affairs in this State one of the most devious, ruthless and selfish politicians we've known. In politics and business, he kept (and was kept by) a circle of friends who knew that once they played the game, everything was up for grabs.
Some once fondly imagined that Charles Haughey was a bit of a rogue, liable to be feathering his own nest. So what if he was, they said, he was also roguish on our behalf - for the good of the oul' country.
It was a comforting thought in a way - the reason why John Healy, who once occupied these columns, referred to Honest Jack (Lynch) and Garret the Good (FitzGerald) and managed to make them sound like an insult to both.
The contrast was with Charlie, the chancer; the implication was that he was neither honest nor good, the assumption that, maybe, we were all the better for that.
Those who argued that we were not were dismissed as cranks, soreheads, not real men. Real men were sound on the national question and capable of running the State; they were at home with hardnosed businessmen, at ease in the company of their peers.
Natural leaders like Mr Haughey were full-blooded men who had no time for shilly-shallying, backsliding or disloyalty in the party, not to mention carping from the Opposition.
He needed to show a strong hand here if he was to hold his own in international company with fellow statesmen, Helmut Schmidt of Germany and Valery Giscard d'Estaing of France, or fellow guests in the George V in Paris.
But there was no public interest or, if there was, it came a poor second to the personal or corporate interests of his circle of friends. The fellow patriots who came to the aid of Celtic Helicopters, as you may read in Mark Brennock's report today, didn't have to wait too long for their rewards.
The currency was familiar: private investment for the benefit of the family firm in exchange for substantial benefit at the expense of the State.
Those who, even now, excuse the leader who stamped his inimitable style on the party, the government and the State still say that all of this could not have been achieved by one man. It wasn't. That's why the tribunals were set up. It's also why some old Haugheyites wait nervously for the call. And it's why the challenge to repair the damage done to public life extends not only to Bertie Ahern and Fianna Fail but to their Coalition partners and the parties in Opposition.
This, as well as the Government's tenuous grip on affairs, is what adds to the importance of the weekend's Fine Gael ardfheis. The party starts with a ready-made advantage: the fact that, in spite of some similarities, and the questions that hang over one erstwhile minister and probably some councillors, it's not Fianna Fail.
But it must find more to say for itself than that. Mr O'Malley expects that standards will be an issue in the general election. He's right.
The election will also be about the increasing divisions in our society, the poor state of public services, the crisis affecting small farmers - essentially about the redistribution of resources.
John Bruton was at his best as Taoiseach and, paradoxically, most persuasive when he struck a social democratic note in the final debate of the 1997 campaign.
The people of this State have had the present coalition's payback time: longer waits for hospital treatment; house prices, as an auctioneer observed this week, beyond the means of teachers and nurses; Garda cars on the streets chasing welfare fraudsters.
The jails are full of people who've never had a chance in life. The real chancers are to be found elsewhere.
Fianna Fail doesn't look as if it's up to the challenge it faces. Any party that sends Brian Cowen out to bat for it on an issue of public confidence and some sensitivity can't be thinking straight.
Mr Cowen's bluster and arrogance simply remind the public what a bloody awful job he's doing in the Department of Health.
Nor does the buck stop with politics. It's easy to sneer at politicians these days, equally easy and false to claim that "they're all the same".
Business is at least as seriously in need of reform. So are the media. And accountants claim to be able to regulate their own affairs - as if they belonged to some genteel club that never helped a fraudster across a line.
Des O'Malley put it up to colleagues of all parties in the Dail: either they could face up to the challenge to politics or they could resort to "cute hoorism".
The rest of us should recognise that, for cute hoors to survive, they need the support and connivance of a hell of a lot of village idiots.