So, we are to hold our noses. The Fianna Fáil/Progressive Democrat Coalition Government is safe, the Opposition parties didn't quite come up to the wire and the semantics over the difference between the loans and gifts received by the Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, in the circumstances in which he received them while he was minister for finance in 1993 and 1994, won the day. Nothing that was done was wrong. But, warts and all, that is our democracy. This is looking at ourselves and, through our elected representatives in the Dáil, our political values.
The Dáil has spoken but what an uncomfortable, unseemly and, quite frankly, politically compromising result. Nobody is ready for the general election. Not Fianna Fáil, not Michael McDowell in his first couple of weeks as leader of the PDs, not the Fine Gael party which wants to agree policies for a programme of alternative government with the Labour Party.
The question to be answered is whether timing takes precedence over principles in politics? It would seem so on all sides of the House. Is this all just a political question to be decided at the next election at a time to be decided by the political parties when they are ready to go before the people.
So it would seem. In his prepared statement to the Dáil yesterday, Mr Ahern outlined how he had repaid each one of the 12 loans he had received from friends to help during a difficult personal and family time with compound interest at a cost of €90,867. The Manchester payment of £8,000 sterling had a similar purpose but, since Tom Kilroe of the Four Seasons Hotel was dead, it was not possible to remember any list of attendees or contributors at this remove 12 years later. But, if he gets any information or can remember further, he will report it all to the Mahon tribunal. It is important to state that he did not solicit these monies but he believes that Mr Kilroe, through friends, was aware of his personal circumstances "and that he may have told others".
It is important to emphasise that Mr Ahern broke no law. But, how many unworthy others have we heard, in the exposing of the political culture of recent years, saying that they broke no laws, no ethics, no tax code. Has every act to be governed by guidelines and legislation?
Mr Ahern is right, like any other individual in the limelight, to say that few of us, with the benefit of hindsight, would not change some of our past decisions. He characterised the whole episode as "an error". He suggested in the cut and thrust of questions in the Dáil yesterday that it would be done differently these days.
His error is that it shouldn't be done at all. It is wrong for a serving member of government to receive monies from personal friends for any purposes. The political situation would be more comfortable if Mary Harney could adjudicate on this set of circumstances. The new PD leader, Michael McDowell, has a hard call which will determine whether his party is radical or redundant.