Talk of election ends insurrection

Politics is about survival and power. And something of a ritual dance took place at Leinster House yesterday as the major players marked out and secured their limited objectives.

It wasn't blood-on-the-carpet stuff. The threat of an immediate, terrible and unwanted general election had worked its magic on John Bruton and Ruairi Quinn. They were so restrained and reasoned in their approach that Mr Ahern was prompted, at the end, to thank them for the "non-acrimonious tone of the debate". Mary Harney, who sat stony-faced beside the Taoiseach as the session opened, and declined to applaud his set-piece speech, was able to pick up the burden of working with Fianna Fail and limp on. But the party's conditional support for the Government remained.

The Taoiseach had buried the Opposition in fresh detail of meetings involving other Fianna Fail ministers and officials with the British-based builder, Mr Tom Gilmartin, in the late 1980s. At the same time, he further qualified his view on whether Mr Gilmartin had mentioned Padraig Flynn's reported £50,000 to him in 1989.

Faulty memory had been elevated into a plus factor by the time Mr Ahern sat down, on the basis that subsequent clarifications were the sign of patent honesty and political transparency.

The man who, last Sunday, went on record as remembering a single meeting with Mr Gilmartin and was certain there had been no mention of money (either a request for a donation or mention of Mr Flynn's reported windfall) was now prepared to admit that, perhaps, Mr Gilmartin had told him about the £50,000. And one meeting had become three.

And there was some circumstantial evidence to back up the Taoiseach's claim to an impersonal, reluctant approach. After all, he had never directly asked Ray Burke whether he had taken money from developers. And, even when Fianna Fail head office had written on his instruction to Mr Flynn, asking him to clarify whether he had retained money intended for the party, Mr Ahern failed to ask what John Bruton described as "the hard question" of the Irish Commissioner.

But if Mr Ahern is a reluctant fund-raiser and dislikes confrontation, he is no slouch at assessing political situations.

Long before the Dail met yesterday, he had identified the attitude of the Progressive Democrats as the greatest threat to his Government. Trust between the parties had to be shored up and fences mended. They had to be satisfied the Taoiseach was "clean" on this issue and that he was prepared to offer up Padraig Flynn as a necessary sacrificial victim.

By reading the letter from Fianna Fail's general secretary to Mr Flynn into the Dail record, the Commissioner was hung out to dry. Having done that, the Taoiseach recognised his former colleague might choose to deal with the matter at the Flood tribunal. But he felt it would be much healthier if he cleared the air at once.

It wasn't enough to mollify the PDs. The details of the Flynn matter had been kept from them by Mr Ahern, as had the Rennicks payment some months earlier. And they were hurting politically. The Taoiseach was very much on probation. His skilled Dail performance might have seen off a less-than-bloodthirsty Opposition. But Mr Flynn was still Ireland's Commissioner and there was more political dirt coming down the tracks.

There could be further disclosures in the media, a PD spokesman predicted, and they would be stupid to regard the matter as closed because it was being examined by one, if not two, tribunals. The final line rang like a bell: "As of now, we have no reason to disbelieve the Taoiseach."

Earlier, the frighteners were put on the Opposition parties at a meeting of the party whips. Seamus Brennan had attended as Government Whip and advised Fine Gael and Labour that a general election could be on the way. It was the most serious situation yet faced by the Cabinet, he said in lugubrious tones.

It was the worst possible news. Fine Gael and Labour were both banking on a long run-in to an election. They envisaged making gains in the local and European elections next June and then establishing a platform, based on tribunal findings, from which to attack the Coalition Government.

As part of a softening-up process, the credibility and stature of Mr Ahern had to be undermined. So long as Fianna Fail's star performer shone brightly and continued to clock up historically high satisfaction ratings, there was no chance of displacing his party in government.

So while they didn't exactly pull their punches, the Opposition were terrified something might happen to bring the edifice of government tumbling down about them.

They probed and questioned and found gaps still existed between the version presented by Mr Gilmartin and that uncovered (in a preliminary search) by the Taoiseach. There was no record or recollection of a meeting which Mr Charlie Haughey, Mr Ahern, the late Brian Lenihan, Mr Liam Lawlor and others were supposed to have attended. And records of Mr Ahern's ministerial meetings with Mr Gilmartin had not been discovered.

During the day, the names of former ministers Ray MacSharry and John Wilson, along with Seamus Brennan, came in for mention. And the developer few in Fianna Fail knew before the weekend was suddenly well connected.

But the Opposition parties were plotting a future course, establishing the ground for coming assaults. Before the curtain came down on the Dail debate, Ruairi Quinn spoke comfortably of now allowing the tribunals to get on with their work and establish the facts.

And the Taoiseach referred happily to the non-acrimonious tone. They were professionals. They knew the way these things worked. But the election clock was ticking, and Mr Flynn was still in Brussels.