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Watching the scintillating American drama series The Wireover the Christmas break, I heard a phrase I thought was peculiar to Irish politics. Royce, the corrupt mayor of Baltimore, where the series is set, runs a rigged poker game at which his friends can conveniently lose large sums to him, allowing them to make donations that stay off the books. Royce calls this cash "walk-around money", writes Fintan O'Toole.

If this rings a bell, it is because it very nearly chimes with a phrase that Ray Burke used at the planning tribunal in 2001 when he was asked to explain why so many cheques drawn on his bank account were made out to cash. Burke described this cash as "walking around money".