After another week of revelations, we have to adjust our understanding of contemporary Ireland to take account of two startling facts. One is that, at least from the early 1980s onwards, a large swathe of Ireland's ruling elite silently withdrew its allegiance from the State. The other is that organised crime in Ireland, which we used to imagine as the preserve of shifty working-class men with names like the General, the Penguin and the Monk, is also carried on by respectable, beautifully tailored members of the upper middle class.
A phrase used by the civil servant Paul Appleby in his High Court affidavit on the Ansbacher accounts, when he spoke of them being used to "convey a veneer of legitimacy" to unlawful practices, has a much wider resonance.
After this week we know that key parts of the establishment in Ireland have been covered by little more than a veneer of legitimacy.
Between them, Mr Appleby's affidavit and the continuing Public Accounts Committee investigation into the DIRT scandal make it clear that very major figures in the worlds of politics, banking and business either took part in a conspiracy to evade taxes or knew about such a conspiracy and did little to stop it.
The former Taoiseach and Fianna Fail leader, Charles Haughey, was, of course, a central participant in the Ansbacher scandal. One of the State's leading industrial companies, Cement Roadstone Holdings, housed within its own Dublin headquarters between 1987 and 1994 an unlicensed bank, Ansbacher (Cayman) Ltd, whose entire existence was, in the words of the Appleby affidavit, "designed to defraud . . . the Irish Revenue Commissioners". Ansbacher Cayman's Irish accounts were handled by CRH's chairman, Des Traynor. Eight of its 15 directors in 1987 had money with the bank.
We do not yet know who the eight directors in the fraud were, but we do know that the CRH board itself radiated outwards into the Irish public and private establishments. One member, Jim Culliton, was also at the time chairman of the RTE Authority. Another, Michael Dargan, who definitely held an Ansbacher account, was chief executive of Aer Lingus.
Both men, moreover, were important figures in two of the banks whose roles in the DIRT scandal were examined by the Public Accounts Committee this week, Bank of Ireland and Allied Irish Banks. Mr Dargan was a director of Bank of Ireland. Mr Culliton was not merely a director of AIB, but, as chairman of its audit committee, a key figure in deciding how the bank responded to the unfolding DIRT scandal.
The reports of the bank's group internal auditor, Tony Spollen, which first highlighted the problem in stark terms, were dealt with by Mr Culliton's committee. As Peter Sutherland told the PAC last evening, Mr Spollen "had a direct reporting authority" to Mr Culliton.
The Appleby affidavit suggests, moreover, that the Ansbacher fraud would not have been possible without the active collusion of a wider group of bankers, solicitors and accountants. It claims that, "with the complicity of certain Irish banks", the Ansbacher depositors could "borrow" their own money, using the secret deposits as security. These banks would agree not to mention the nature of the security on the relevant documentation.
The affidavit reveals, too, that it was "a senior member of the financial services community in Dublin" who came up with the scheme for using trusts in the Cayman Islands in 1983. Under the heading "Towards Minimising the Footprints", this financial strategist noted that although an Irish person holding undisclosed funds abroad "would be in breach of various Irish laws", it would be "much less likely that anybody would hear about the matter".
It is clear, too, that some members of the legal and accountancy professions were complicit in the Ansbacher scam. The 1987 audit report of Ansbacher Cayman notes that instructions from clients "are usually received by telex from solicitors or other trustees". These solicitors, obviously, would have had to know at least in broad outline what their clients were up to.
The Appleby affidavit points, too, to the failure of the auditors to some of the companies centrally involved in the Ansbacher dealings to record facts that would have disclosed what was going on.
One of the central vehicles for the scam, Lyndon Properties, was technically insolvent because all its assets were in the hidden deposits. Therefore its "audited accounts ought to have disclosed that it was dependent on the cash deposits . . . for its continued operation". They didn't.
There is a similar story with two other key companies, especially interesting because they feature very heavily in the financial affairs of Charles Haughey, Carlisle Trust and Endcamp Ltd. Under company law, the accounts of a limited company must show the nature of the security given in return for loans.
As the affidavit notes, "the audited accounts of Carlisle Trust Limited and Endcamp Limited contain no such disclosure" of specific securities and indemnities that were part of the Ansbacher operation.
As well as this apparently widespread collusion in the many unlawful activities of Ansbacher, the other striking aspect of the scandal is the sheer arrogance of those involved. For what the High Court affidavit suggests is that the bank's clients were not content merely to evade the taxes they ought to have paid.
They actually had the gall to claim tax relief on the money they were using to evade taxes. Because, in withdrawing money from the Ansbacher accounts, they were technically "borrowing" their own money, they were able to claim relief on the "interest" on these "loans".
And the affidavit hints that, in pushing their greed to this final extent, they may have enjoyed the collusion of Irish companies. The "borrowings", it says, were done "often through their Irish corporate vehicles".
Ansbacher on its own has startling implications, but it has to be seen in tandem with the DIRT scandal which was unfolding at the same time and which involved essentially the same elements of tax evasion and collusion.
Ansbacher was the luxury turbo-charged model of the bogus non-resident accounts operated by most Irish financial institutions for their customers. Both schemes involved versions of the same fiction; in one that money held in Ireland was really abroad, in the other that money lodged by Irish residents really came from abroad.
In both Ireland itself became a kind of fiction. The State was no more than a flag of convenience.
There is, in both scandals, little evidence that the business elite that ought to have stopped them feels greatly chastened by its failure to do so.
At the PAC on Wednesday, for example, another senior member of the Irish business community, Howard Kilroy, governor of the Bank of Ireland since 1991, was given the opportunity to express some regret for the failure of his board to take a more active role in ensuring that the bank was complying with the tax laws.
He had suggested that the board knew very little about the DIRT problem. Sean Doherty TD asked him whether, "in hindsight, would the board have any interest in knowing that there was £13 million in non-resident bogus accounts between 1986 and 1993?"
Mr Kilroy replied that, even in the light of everything that has been revealed since, the matter was "not material in terms of the board's consideration. £13 million was a very small proportion of the deposit base of the bank . . . I would still take the view today that there would be no great reason for the board to sit up and pay attention to this, which was quite a small matter".
AS for those directly involved in the Ansbacher scandal, it is clear from the Appleby affidavit that they remain defiant. The affidavit refers to their "complete refusal . . . to countenance any obligations under Irish company law" or to "co-operate with the examination of its books and documents by the Minister's Authorised Officer".
Having withdrawn their allegiance from the State they seem to see no reason to recognise its authority now.
Nor does CRH seem willing to accept responsibility for its apparently central role in the Ansbacher affair. On Thursday the company denied that its board had ever "knowingly permitted or facilitated any illegal activities to be conducted by any director or employee from any of its premises".
Yet the High Court was told the fact that a majority of the board members in 1987 were Ansbacher clients "strongly suggests that a substantial number of the directors knew that an unlicensed bank was operating from its registered office. It also suggests that some of the directors may have been aware that [Ansbacher] was assisting Irish individuals or companies evade tax."
While there is much to be discovered about the precise nature of CRH's role, we already know enough to be sure that no account of Charles Haughey's golden circle will be complete if it does not look at CRH.
Yet, as things stand, CRH is the only company specifically excluded from the remit of the Moriarty tribunal, and the most obvious State action in its favour - the sale of Glen Ding wood in Co Wicklow - is not being investigated by the tribunal.
As the scandal unfolds, pressure to remove those limitations will surely increase.