The recent all-female Oireachtas delegation to our UN troops at Camp Shamrock in Lebanon had a pretty rough time. They had to rise from their beds on several occasions and take shelter in the bunkers because of heavy shelling. Above, with Lieut Col Mark O'Brien of UNIFIL, are deputies Frances Fitzgerald, FG spokeswoman, Labour's Jan O'Sullivan and FF's Marian McGennis.
There are some in Fianna Fail who have long maintained, since the details of Charlie Haughey's and Ray Burke's financial affairs came to light, that Bertie Ahern's years of association with the former leader would eventually catch up with him. No one ever suggested the current Taoiseach had done anything wrong, indeed his lifestyle indicated a modest enough income, but there was a danger, they believed, that he would be damaged by the closeness of their working relationship. Now, it appears, their predictions are coming to pass.
The long line of allegations against his two former cabinet colleagues, from the Rennicks cheque, to Tom Gilmartin's lobbying, to the £25,000 blank cheque and his involvement with them, have been dealt with in a less than forthright manner by the Taoiseach. There either was more information, or there appeared to be more information than the Taoiseach initially divulged. The tactic of being economical with the truth may work occasionally, but it is wearing thin, not only as far as the Taoiseach's opponents are concerned, but to his own backbenches too.
Given his position at the top of FF since the early 1980s, it is inevitable that Ahern would be close to all that happened in the party, but his explanations are becoming thinner as the tribunals turn up more and more connections. The Terry Keane affair is damaging to the party, but at least Bertie, to date, is uninvolved in that.
The constant accusation-and-explanation process the Taoiseach faces week in week out is now undermining FF morale. Deputies are unsettled. While the Euro and local elections provide a welcome break from the tribunal shocks, there is a dread of what the end of the month will bring now that Ray Burke is due to appear. FF-ers fear a general election with so many sleazy allegations hanging and the weekly exposure of Haughey's profligacy. The Taoiseach's recent fall in the opinion polls has increased the jitters and while there is no talk whatsoever of a heave, a successor for Bertie is being discussed - and that's a new departure.
Things have got to the stage that opponents who used to refer to him as the Teflon Taoiseach, because nothing stuck, now call him Bostick Bertie.