Tribunal sketch:How did Fianna Fáil manage to win three general elections on the trot? The party, according to its leader, couldn't organise its way out of a paper bag. He paints the officer corps of the legendary political machine as a bunch of incompetents who conduct their business through a fug of confusion and ignorance, writes Miriam Lord.
If people only knew how disorganised the party is at local level, they would never again question the strange meanderings and coincidences involving Bertie Ahern and the accounts of his local organisation.
It's the business of the "elected officers" he maintained, and they hardly read agendas, never mind legal and financial documents. Honest to God, but the books of cumainn around the country are littered with accounts in the name of dead people.
It didn't seem to register with him that most of the people he entrusted to deal with his St Luke's operation weren't even members of the party.
There is a thread running through all the Taoiseach's appearances before the Mahon tribunal, and the public statements he has made as a result. It's always someone else's fault, not his. It's someone else's responsibility, not his.
While he continues going about his good work - decent, hardworking servant of the people - events happen around him. He has a marriage break-up. Money he never looked for magically comes his way. A man gives him a suitcase full of cash. He wants to give it back, eventually, but the man falls ill.
People give him money. He tries to give it back. They won't take it. He can't really prove this, because a lot of them are dead.
He is the victim of a sinister plot. The media is against him. He wants to clear his name. The tribunal won't let him. He wants to assist them with documents, but he can't furnish them. They are trying to stitch him up. He wants to settle with the taxman. Revenue stands in his way.
He is the heart and soul of a legendary constituency machine, tightly controlled by a few fiercely loyal friends. They are dedicated to Bertie Ahern. Everything they do, they do for him. They run unusual bank accounts from which he appears to benefit. It's all for Fianna Fáil. But the accounts say otherwise. No matter, for it is nothing to do with Bertie.
Yesterday, in an explosive day at the tribunal, the Blame Anyone But Ahern game continued.
This time, as damaging details emerged about the murky relationship the Taoiseach has had with his local organisation's accounts, he brazenly shovelled the blame on Fianna Fáil.
This is not good.
The real shocker came just before lunchtime. As always with Bertie Ahern, it came shrouded in a hard luck story involving impoverished old ladies who had to be saved from having their beloved home sold out from under them in their twilight years.
He started spinning the heart-rending tale the day before, which concerned a bank account the tribunal had unearthed. Bertie never told them about it. Wasn't his fault, he didn't think he had to.
This is the B/T account. It was set up in the name of a close associate and was supposedly a contingency fund, to be used if expenditure was needed on St Luke's, Bertie's constituency nerve centre.
It was set up in the early 1990s, and until last month, when the name of the account was changed, there was nothing to indicate that the account had anything whatsoever to do with Fianna Fáil, or St Luke's.
In the intervening years, hundreds of thousands of pounds were spent on the upkeep of St Luke's. But it came from other constituency accounts, and never from the supposedly dedicated fund to pay for such work.
But one big payment went out of it - £30,000. This was the mercy money Bertie spoke of so movingly on Thursday. Money to assist an unnamed FF "staff member" to help her aged relatives in their hour of need.
Only a person with the hardest of hearts would begrudge them. Particularly as the "loan" would be paid back, although no documents support this. Unfortunately, the solicitor who acted for the aged and "frightened" ladies is now dead.
Unfortunately, this solicitor was also Bertie's solicitor, and his good friend, and the man who organised a whip-round for Bertie to help him pay legal fees after his marriage break-up, although the solicitor knew Bertie had enough cash stashed in safes to easily pay the bill.
Unfortunately, this solicitor was also a trustee of the contingency account set up to maintain St Luke's. This is another example of the bad twist in life that Bertie Ahern always seems to get. The late Gerry Brennan isn't around to explain.
Anyway, the aged ladies are looked after by the "staff member". No mention by Bertie on Thursday as to this person's identity.
Lawyer Des O'Neill asked the question straight out yesterday. Who was it? Bertie paused in the witness box and said quietly: "Celia Larkin." It was just before lunch. Concentration was flagging in the packed chamber.
There was an audible intake of breath from the public gallery. Radio reporters dashed outside to make the one o'clock news.
Suddenly, the anger of Bertie's lawyers earlier, when, to the untutored eye, it looked like they might be shaping up for a dramatic walkout, appeared to make a bit more sense.
Suddenly, the presence all day on Thursday of a man in the back row of the lawyer's tables made sense. It was Hugh Millar, legal representative of Celia Larkin. He quickly asserted his client's constitutional right to privacy.
Ms Larkin was Ahern's "life partner" at the time she was given £30,000 from the B/T account, controlled by Bertie's friend Tim Collins. But it wasn't until after the cheque was handed over, and Celia was given 75 per cent of the purchase price of this house, which she now owns, that he found out.
The plight of her aged relative, which so moved the trustees of the St Luke's account to write out a cheque, mustn't have moved the ward boss as much. At the time, he had the guts of £100,000 burning a hole in his hip pocket.
But then, Bertie was trying to scrape together enough money to buy himself a house. As a struggling minister for finance, he had his own worries, and had opened up a building society account in the hope of getting a mortgage. And of course, he was spending in the region of £500 every weekend on raffle tickets, which would be a drain on the most well-paid minister for finance.
Was the 30 grand repaid, inquired Des O'Neill? Oh, definitely, said Bertie. A few weeks ago, a journalist called to the house Celia owns and questioned the old lady, who is now in her 90s. You could see Bertie didn't think that was right, and he has a point there.
But the transaction was nothing whatsoever to do with him. That Celia was his partner was nothing to do with it either.
"I hope we're not getting into relationships again," sighed put-upon Bertie. "Well, yes, we are," murmured Deathly Des.
The Taoiseach stuck to his guns on the B/T account, administered by his friend Tim Collins. (One of the few who is still on the land of the living. "Mr Collins is alive and well, even though he's in poor health," said Bertie.) He palmed off any involvement in Celia Larkin's cheque.
This is not good. Not good at all.