John O'Donoghue, who acknowledged that the Prime Time programme on the Arms Crisis raised significant questions, has promised a considered statement when the Dail resumes, presumably including the action which the Government plans to take.
At least three steps need to be taken if the crisis of 1969 and 1970 is to be made relevant to a modern audience and brought to a conclusion which does justice to the participants.
The first of these steps is to examine how and by whom a statement of the director of intelligence, Col Michael Hefferon, was changed in the book of evidence so as to minimise the role in the affair of the minister for defence, Jim Gibbons.
The changes may not have been reflected in Hefferon's evidence to the High Court; that there was an attempt to interfere with its presentation seems beyond doubt.
There have been several suggestions as to how this might be investigated, the most sensible of which favours the form of a British inquiry into arms sales to Iraq: Mr Justice Scott's investigation had the merits of speed, simplicity and an absence of unduly complicated legal procedures.
But, even if a simple and speedy inquiry were to be held, two questions central to the Arms Crisis would remain: who authorised the attempt to import arms into the State and who paid for the weapons (which, in the event, were not delivered)?
So the evidence given to the Public Accounts Committee in 1970 and 1971, and the committee's reports up to the middle of 1972, should be published in full.
The committee's main task was to investigate the spending of a £100,000 grant-in-aid voted by the Dail for the relief of distress in Northern Ireland, following attacks on nationalist areas of Belfast in August 1969.
But the 12-man committee of senior Fianna Fail, Fine Gael and Labour deputies not only covered the spending of public funds - more than £1 million at today's rates - it retraced the ground covered by the two arms trials, often in greater depth and detail.
Legal complications and partisan disagreements clouded the final sessions, and the key questions were left, with the whiff of sulphur, in the air.
Neither the evidence nor the reports have been published in full.
There are, however, some intriguing hints of more detailed argument, as in the extracts from Charles Haughey's views quoted by T. Ryle Dwyer in Fallen Idol, published by Mercier Press in 1997:
"Charlie said it was impossible to give a full and proper accounting for the expenditures. `None of us ever envisaged that any such accountability would be required,' he explained. `We administered this money more or less along the same lines as we would administer the Secret Service Vote' . . .
"The money was intended for the relief of distress in Northern Ireland. A valid case could be made for arguing that certain propaganda activities or providing arms were indeed means of relieving mental distress, but Charlie did not argue along these lines.
"Instead, he accepted that using money for such purposes was `absolutely' out of order and irregular. `Public funds were misappropriated,' he declared. `That is a criminal offence.' "
In addition to discovering who ordered the importation and who paid for the weapons, the political context of the Arms Crisis needs to be more clearly understood.
The State and Army papers released under the 30-year rule in Dublin, London and Belfast have already contributed greatly to our understanding of policies, decisions and events.
This week we've had an account of Jack Lynch's dissatisfaction with Gibbons, as shared with one British ambassador. Two years ago there was a report of Haughey's approach to another on the subject of possible negotiations on the Border.
Two misunderstandings of political events in this State persist. One is that doubt cast on the prosecution in 1970 amounts to a declaration of Haughey's innocence, not only on the charge of arms importation (of which he was acquitted, anyway) but of any political accusation made against him before or since.
The other misunderstanding has to do with the divisions in Fianna Fail: they did not begin in August 1969 and were not confined to Northern policy.
The divisions came to light during the leadership contest in 1966 and, ironically, were heightened by its unexpected success in the 1969 general election when his opponents realised that Lynch had the potential for a longer, more secure term.
But the internal disagreement which may have had most effect in the long run was between supporters and opponents of the fund-raising organisation Taca and its ostentatious displays of the connection between business and politics.
The Arms Crisis could be seen as the last hurrah of the old party, and Taca - with its showy dinners - the harbinger of the new.
dwalsh@irish-times.ie