Like bickering brothers trying to keep up appearances, Charlie McCreevy and Tom Kitt sat quietly together yesterday beside the president of the European Central Bank, Mr Wim Duisenberg.
Mr D was in town to talk about E-day - when euro notes and coins are introduced on January 1st next - but he walked right into a Fianna Fail fracas. A buns 'n' all row in the presence of such a guest would be unseemly, so the fight was ideological in nature, the weapon straight talking.
A self-described "committed European", Mr McCreevy had arrived at the conference denying any difficulty over his comments last Friday when he welcomed the public's rejection of the Nice Treaty.
"Everybody knows I'm a great believer in democracy," he said. There was nothing surprising in the comments, he said, and no question whatever of embarrassment.
Yet Mr Kitt was worried. Siding with that wing of Fianna Fail which would sooner expire than practice Euroscepticism - a la the Tories in Britain - he pressed the enough-is-enough button.
Nice was regrettable, he said, and the Soldiers of Destiny were pro-Europe. "I'm not in the business of kicking the EU in the shins at the moment because it's not the time or the place," he said.
Were these comments aimed at his colleagues Eamon O Cuiv, Sile de Valera and Mr McCreevy? They surely were.
But Mr McCreevy didn't let on for a moment. Victim of an all-too-public rebuke by the European Commission over the Budget, his masterpiece of fiscal planning, he was not for backing down. Indeed, it was Mr Duisenberg who referred to his "fantastic" defence of the Budget before the Commission.
So when the Minister for Finance was asked how he felt about kicking the EU in the shins, he portrayed himself the hurt one in the relationship. Do you mean the EU was kicking me, he asked. "That's the only kicking I saw in the last six months." All this after both had listened to the Tanaiste, Ms Harney, talk of peace, harmony and prosperity in Europe. In the Government, meanwhile, peace and harmony there clearly ain't.
This must have been amusing for Mr Duisenberg. Sporting the grey wavy hair that has graced a million finance pages, he recounted fine statistics about billions of euro notes and coins that will soon be in circulation. It was, he said, an "unprecedented logistical challenge".
All very well. More pressing logistical challenges have emerged in Fianna Fail.
