Duck - it's hurricane season

IN hurricane season, you track the storm as it moves on. The place that was devastated yesterday is becalmed today. Some place further up the line is now bearing the brunt of its fury.

As it was with the big blow-out that happened in the Mahon Tribunal between Bertie Ahern and the inquiry team. Yesterday, the storm had moved on, to newspapers, to the radio, and to television. Now it was the likes of Willie O’Dea and Dick Roche who were providing the furies. O’Dea stole a line from Michael McDowell to claim that Fine Gael’s senator Eugene Regan made Joseph Goebbels seem like an altar boy. Roche actually accused the tribunal of “bias” yesterday on Morning Ireland, which to my mind was a step too far.

A shower of Fianna Fáil ministers coming out to shield the Anorak isn’t a spontaneous event. Seven Fianna Fáil ministers didn’t suddenly wake up on Thursday and say to themselves: Enough is enough. This was a concerted and planned attack on the tribunal, designed to cash in on sympathy from members of the public who thought tribunal lawyers were going in too hard; and also to undermine the tribunal’s right to enquire into Ahern’s personal finance.