AT 8 a.m. in Kinsale, Co Cork, yesterday Dick Spring was not getting involved in the Bruton Ahern bun fight. But by 3.30 p.m. when he held his press conference in Cork, things had changed.
He supported the Taoiseach's assessment of Mr Ahern because questions needed to be answered and the Opposition leader needed to come out of hiding. Mr Ahern, said Mr Spring, was having a soundbite campaign, bobbing around the State. But that was no substitute for substantive debate.
It appears that the Tanaiste and the Taoiseach agree Mr Ahern will be the target for the rest of this election campaign.
Earlier in the day, Mr Bernard Allen, the Minister of State for Sport, rang local radio in Cork to say that Mr Bruton's remarks on Mr Ahern's fitness for office were not personalised insults but an objective assessment.
Mr Spring had also come around to this view. "Urgent answers are needed to pressing questions. Bertie's campaign is beginning to be increasingly reminiscent of the style that President Reagan used to adopt when he didn't want to answer questions, pretending not to hear them ...
"I said last week, and I repeat, that any combination of his policies with those of the PDs would lead to a meltdown in public and community services. It will not be possible to retain a civilised approach to community life if all of Ireland's resources are to be devoted to huge tax reductions for people who are already better off."
The election campaign, Mr Spring added, had not been reduced to a slagging match between the Rainbow Coalition and the potential opposition government. But there were serious questions to be answered by both Mr Ahern and Ms Harney and there wasn't much time left for them to do it.
He wanted to know where Mr Ahern stood on the privatisation of the VHI and a host of other companies and services, as proposed by the PDs.
It was time, the Tanaiste said, "for Bertie to stop running". The Republic could not risk a return to the two tier Thatcherite society so favoured by the PDs and daily reassurances from Mr Ahern about how harmless Mary Harney really was ignored at least one other question of some importance.
That question was, he continued, the hiding place of Michael McDowell. Mr Spring wanted to know why the strident Mr McDowell had apparently disappeared from view during the campaign, whether he would be Mr Ahern's Minister for Finance in a Fianna Fail/PD coalition, and whether we would see him again before polling day.