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THE CALL by Minister for Health Mary Harney and Minister for the Environment John Gormley for the Taoiseach to make a statement clarifying his position on the most recent revelations at the Mahon tribunal is the first public signal that all is not so comfortable inside this three or four-pronged Coalition Government. Ms Harney and Mr Gormley speak of public concern and the need to dispel public disquiet. But, it is well past the point of calling for another statement now.

There have been too many explanatory statements from the Taoiseach since this newspaper first published Colm Keena's story 18 months ago revealing that the Mahon tribunal was investigating payments of between €50,000-€100,000 by businessmen to Mr Ahern while he was minister for finance in the early 1990s. Some have been short; others have been long. Some have been in written affidavits; others verbally on oath. Some have been sound bites; others have been long articles. The seminal statement was made on the Bryan Dobson interview on RTÉ when the payments were presented as a dig-out from friends at a sad time in his personal life. There have been three or four other versions of that story ever since.