A special late sitting of the Parliamentary Labour Party gave Ruairi Quinn the benefit of the doubt over his contact with the Irish Independent and decided to put the messy business of a leadership poll behind it.

There was no question of him being beholden to Tony O'Reilly or to Independent Newspapers because of the opinion poll, Mr Quinn told his followers. He had not requested that a poll be held at the time. And he had never received any personal funding from Dr O'Reilly or from any of his companies.

It wasn't, however, quite as simple or as transparent as that. During the campaign for the party leadership last November, Mr Quinn had telephoned Mr John Meagher, the deputy chairman of Independent News papers and asked him if an opinion poll was being conducted. Mr Meagher, who is a friend of Mr Quinn, replied that he did not know.

According to Mr Quinn, he told Mr Meagher he had reason to believe that an opinion poll would favour him over Mr Brendan Howlin, because of earlier research that had measured the popularity of former coalition government ministers.

The editor of Magill magazine, Mr Vincent Browne, took up the story on RTE radio yesterday when he said Mr Meagher had made representations at the highest level to ensure the poll was held, but this was denied last night by both Dr O'Reilly and Mr Meagher in a solicitor's letter.

When the survey was finally conducted, it recorded 52 per cent support for Mr Quinn, 30 per cent in favour of Mr Howlin and 18 per cent undecided. Details were published three days before the general council of the party voted in the leadership contest.

It was a low-key campaign, based on an agreement between the two candidates that, in the interests of party unity, they would not campaign publicly, give interviews to the media or seek support outside the general council.

The appearance of the opinion poll convinced Howlin supporters that an effort was being made to influence the outcome of the vote. Not only that, they suspected Mr Quinn of breaking the agreed ground rules.

Supporters of Mr Dick Spring - who had a troubled relationship with Dr O'Reilly because of overtures on taxation made to governments he served in - had transferred their allegiance to Mr Howlin and were infuriated by the Independent's poll.

Six months earlier, the paper had called for a change of government in a front-page editorial. and in the ensuing election the Labour Party lost half its Dail seats.

Mr Quinn built his leadership campaign around the slogan "The name on the poster". There is no doubt that confirmation of Mr Quinn's popularity with the electorate via the opinion poll had an influence, but it was hardly conclusive. He had already won over the party's Dublin TDs to his side and the general council of the party did not need to be told the party's fortunes depended on an expanded Dublin vote.

In the leadership ballot, Mr Quinn received 37 votes compared to 27 for Mr Howlin. Immediately, he drafted Mr Howlin as deputy leader and sought to bind up the wounds inflicted by the campaign.

That party unity was unshaken last night, in spite of some reservations. Mr Howlin put the party first. As far as he was concerned, the election was over and he was not going to rerun it. Party members had to move forward together.

However, the deputy leader didn't change his view that the opinion poll had "a very strong effect at the time". Mr Howlin wasn't alleging sharp practice, but others were not quite so circumspect in their private comments. The very notion of influence being exerted by a paper once owned by William Martin Murphy was enough to bring them out in spots. Generally, however, it was regarded as no big deal. After all, this was politics.

And, of course, proof of Labour's independence could be found in the Private Member's Bill before the Dail that very day in which Michael D. Higgins sought to control crossover ownership in the media by Dr O'Reilly, Rupert Murdoch or any other such mogul.

When the parliamentary party met, nobody was going to make trouble for Mr Quinn. The wagons were circled. They had a Coalition Government plagued by tribunals; who wanted to start excavations within the Labour Party?

Mr Quinn had prepared well for the occasion. During the previous 24 hours he had contacted members of the parliamentary party and advised them that Magill magazine might publish material about him which was both false and untrue. He wanted to give them the correct version of what had happened, and he did.

For good measure, he dealt with a £5,000 payment from Fitzwilton to Mary Robinson's presidential campaign in 1990. No bogus invoices were sent for expenses which had not been incurred. The party was also carrying out a trawl of its files for all "pick-me-up" invoices and donations as a result of a letter received from the Revenue Commissioners last Monday.

They listened and gave him the nod. Mr Quinn was the party leader, the face on the poster and they had more fish to fry. Weren't they about to get into serious negotiations with Democratic Left about a possible merger?

Ruairi Quinn has always been viewed with a certain amount of suspicion by traditional Labour Party supporters. As an articulate, middle-class professional from Dublin 4, who dresses flamboyantly and enjoys the finer things in life, he represents a challenging image for both rural conservative and urban left-winger.

In government, as the first Labour Party minister for finance, he set out to prove that the party could be trusted with the national purse strings, and he succeeded admirably.

Last March he moved to change the party's outlook on Europe along with economic policy concerning State ownership of commercial semi-State companies. Not content with the status quo, he was determined to become a mover and shaker in government and, if that means links and contacts with the establishment, well, it's just part of pragmatic politics.

Mr Quinn's leadership may represent the Labour Party's final departure from a simpler, purer age, when it was an organisation of protest and opposition, rather than a party of government.