Political Analysis:Ahern may win the legal battle but could lose in court of public opinion, writes Mark Hennessy
The Constitution is clear. TDs are "not amenable to any court or authority" for "any utterance" made in the Dáil "except in the case of treason". Last night, The Taoiseach's supporters were extremely bullish that his High Court challenge will be won - that a judge, in fact, could not act otherwise.
However, Bertie Ahern has to play in the worlds of law and politics. In the latter, his action will, for now, cost him heavily.
Up to now, the majority of the public has gone from accepting that he may have some questions to answer, to believing that he has more to hide. Despite this, however, there has not been a groundswell for his immediate removal from office.
Yesterday's action may endanger this equilibrium. And it will rejuvenate Fine Gael's attacks - a rejuvenation very much needed after its recent overplaying of the Norman Turner passport application.
The constitutional challenge has not appeared out of thin air, although it was provoked by the expiration yesterday of the Mahon tribunal's deadline for sight of calculations used to reject the tribunal's implied accusation that he once accepted dollars.
Rather, the issue of what Ahern did, or did not say in the Dáil has been the subject of a forest of letters since September 2006, and relations worsened when the tribunal circulated copies of Ahern's Dáil statements on his personal affairs before he came before it in December.
Although Ahern has an arguable case, as the High Court found, it seems likely that he will lose the PR battle: that he will be seen as failing to answer questions. For years, the Taoiseach has insisted repeatedly that he would answer every question, deal with every issue once he took the stand. However, he has not done so.
Last night, his supporters were quick to insist that everything said inside the Dáil was said outside and therefore that the tribunal's work should not be disrupted.
However, the Dáil keeps a full record. A full record of everything said in a myriad of "doorstep interviews" - including questions, and offering contextualisation - would be much harder to put together, even if all of the raw audio files could be found and put back together. Although much of the attention yesterday focused on Ahern's refusal to hand over Paddy Stronge's calculations on the $45,000, the tribunal's own calculations, suggesting that he did receive such a sum, are of as much interest to the Ahern legal team. When the Stronge calculations were first produced last year they were generally judged to be less than conclusive. However, the Taoiseach's camp remains adamant that a similar verdict will be made by the public on the tribunal's own calculations if it is ever forced to declare its hand.
Long in coming, the issue could take months to process. If nothing else, it will buy Ahern time, but at a cost.