Well, it's official. The two-year sulk by Charlie McCreevy is nearly over. Not quite mind you, but nearly. While the Minister for Finance himself has not quite buried the hatchet, his party leader and Taoiseach Bertie Ahern and the Tanaiste Mary Harney got together with the Irish League of Credit Unions this week.

The unseemly row goes back to the 1998 Finance Bill and Mr McCreevy's decision, with the support of the credit union movement, to introduce DIRT on credit union savings. However, the Minister pointedly chose not to exempt tax on savings at the lower end of the scale, despite promptings by the credit unions.

If you thought the budgetary U-turn over the last Budget's individualisation proposals was a record, cast your mind back to the furore that broke over the credit union savings DIRT plan. It took all of 15 hours for the Minister to withdraw the plan.

In a fit of political pique, however, the man charged with overseeing the State's coffers in this boom times froze out the largest savings group in the State. Believing it had betrayed him, despite subsequent support for its position by a working group appointed by the Minister himself, he has refused to meet the credit unions for two years. No surprise then that the smiles all round at this week's meeting were born of relief rather than vindication.