TRIBUNAL SKETCH:"COLM! COLM!" Bertie Ahern had finished another long day in the tribunal witness box and was making his way from the chamber. He seemed happy enough, chatting easily to his solicitor. He passed the press section beside the door, and saw reporter Colm Keena.
He stopped, then went towards the journalist who initially broke the story of his cash dig-outs, and who floated a suggestion in yesterday's Irish Timesthat one explanation for the sterling lodgements into his accounts might be the existence of "a mother lode of sterling somewhere". Now that he isn't running the country any more, it seems Bertie has time to read the newspapers.
"Colm!" he called again, to the startled hack. The remaining reporters sidled closer, daring to hope that Bertie was about to let fly. It had been a tedious day in Dublin Castle.
A smiling Bertie leaned in close to the reporter, like he was talking to an old pal. Not the demeanour of a man who must have been inwardly seething after his latest going over at the hands of lawyer Des O'Neill.
"I never had a sterling account. Word of honour," he said affably to the speechless Keena, and then he tootled off.
It was so true to type for the man who falls out with nobody.
Where the public Bertie is concerned, everybody has a job to do. He understands that and so he endures. Reasonable to the end.
After three days on the stand, under intense questioning, he maintained his familiar manner of outward calm, while projecting the image of someone who is weary, put upon and much misunderstood. Ahern the witness is self-deprecating and amenable, patiently putting up with the endless questions of lawyer Des O'Neill.
He makes little jokey asides about it sometimes, channelling his clear irritation at Deathly Des's relentless drive for some straight answers in the nicest possible way.
He has voiced his frustration at the tribunal's inability to understand his explanations, and shared his feelings of hurt and disappointment at its unwillingness to accept his words at face value. But he has rarely raised his voice, and has never lost his rag. It all adds up to produce a picture of a reasonable man. And if Bertie Ahern can do that, he can plant doubts about the Mahon tribunal: Which one of them is being unreasonable? Were he still taoiseach, the answer would be provided in jig time by his loyal Fianna Fáil Ministers - it's the tribunal, of course.
O'Neill, who should conduct his legal examination wearing surgical gloves, slowly and methodically slices through the multi-layered replies of Ahern the witness. He has the time and patience to do it, a luxury never enjoyed by the Dáil opponents of Ahern the politician. They could never break through Bertie's Wall of Sound. It's a head-wrecker. It's why Labour and Fine Gael are offering up thanks for the arrival of Brian Cowen.
Yesterday, reasonable Bertie wondered what more was expected of him. He had given them everything. (Apart from an honest answer on how he helped Celia Larkin pay back a loan she was given from a Fianna Fáil account to buy a house.) He even commissioned reports from independent experts, such as forensic tax consultant Des Peelo, and the company PriceWaterhouse Cooper (PWC). On top of that, hadn't he rolled out a David Byrne, senior counsel, former attorney general and former EU commissioner.
As he said on Thursday: "You're a hard bunch to please." But they aren't, really.
Take his PWC report. That sounds impressive, although past history tells a different story. One criticism of Bertie's governments was their penchant for commissioning consultants to do reports on contentious issues, then quietly shelving them.
Deathly Des took a scalpel to his PWC report, which purported to shed light on the former taoiseach's accounts. There was just one problem. The consultants wrote that they based their findings on some information available from banks, but mostly on oral information supplied by Bertie. "There was little third-party documentary evidence."
In other words, Bertie said he spoke to people in Fianna Fáil who told him stuff, much of which they had gleaned from him in the first place. He wrote this down in a notebook, and read it to the consultants.
The whereabouts of his notebook is not clear, but it isn't with the tribunal.
We were transported to the halcyon days of the Flood tribunal, when the Bailey brothers were alleging they made large payments to the late James Gogarty, he who begat the last 11 years in Dublin Castle.
Their proof was contained in what Mick Bailey continually referred to as "de pussy buke". This was a small spiral notebook with a picture of a kitten on the cover.
"The Kitten Book," as it was delicately referred to in the media, merited its own place in Justice Flood's interim report. He concluded it was a ready-up.
What about the Bertie Book? He believes the contents, but there's no proof to back it up.
The Bailey brothers, back at the turn of the century, had similar problems finding documentary evidence. Due to a most unfortunate turn of events, the notes were destroyed in a fire.
There hasn't been any fire in St Luke's. Records there are excellent, and go back as far as invoices for rounds of sandwiches in 1989, marvels Bertie. Sadly, the records the tribunal wants to see don't appear to exist. If only the trustees had let St Luke's slide into the Tolka, instead of spending money shoring up the premises, Bertie's troubles might be over.
