The Taoiseach had never spoken a truer word. "I'm constrained in what I can say," he told Enda Kenny during Leaders' Questions, an admission that was met by silent agreement all around the house. Mr Ahern's difficulties with language are well known, but there was a certain sympathy with him for at least owning up to the problem.
In fact, it emerged, the Taoiseach was not talking about his English. Mr Kenny had asked him about Monday's huge cigarette heist at the Border, of which the Provisional IRA is suspected, and about whether proceeds from such operations could be funding Sinn Féin. It became clear that Mr Ahern's constraints were not so much vocabulary as constabulary. There had been Garda briefings, he indicated, but all he could say was that he had no evidence of parties being illegally funded.
There's no smoke without fire, however, and three million cigarettes is a lot of smoke. So when it was Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin's turn to speak, he berated the Taoiseach for not defending Sinn Féin against a "disgraceful slur". With indignation bordering on the savage, he also railed against the Minister for Justice and his recent "scurrilous slight" against the party. Was the Taoiseach aware of the "hurt" such allegations caused?
For once, the Taoiseach did not appear to feel his questioner's pain, and his response was a masterpiece of ambivalence. Urging the Sinn Féin man not to get "upset", he said he himself had spent years defending Fianna Fáil against allegations.
If Mr Ó Caoláin said Sinn Féin was squeaky clean, Bertie believed him, even if "you don't believe much of what I say." And summing up, he repeated he had no evidence against them: "But I'm not the Garda Commissioner, or the CAB."
Mr Ó Caoláin was less than satisfied. Sounding even more hurt, he offered to furnish the Sinn Féin accounts for the Taoiseach's scrutiny. And as he continued his impassioned defence, his speech took on a rising intonation: so much so that he almost reached the pitch of the bell with which the Ceann Comhairle eventually silenced him. By then, Dr O'Hanlon was on his feet, gavel in hand, as if he had a drastic cure in mind for his fellow Monaghan man's hurt.
Amid all this excitement, the Taoiseach rose again, still constrained, yet clearly enjoying himself. With a pocket around one hand and a ballpoint pen in the other, he politely declined the Sinn Féin audit, and restated his acceptance of the party's protestations of propriety. He also accepted the Garda Commissioner's statement that "certain activities of people who may have connections with the Provisional IRA" were under investigation. "That's all I'm saying," he said, and sat down.