Sometimes a news story breaks, and you expect it to detonate right through Irish society: questions in the Dáil, angry marches and letters to the editor breaking the mailmen's backs, writes Kevin Myers.
Such was the case nearly three weeks ago, when the Taxing Master cut claimed tribunal fees for barristers by up to 70 per cent.
The tribunal in question was Lindsay, about which of course one may say little at present because of certain matters before the courts; but we may all agree that the subject, people having their lives ruined or cut short by the transmission of infected blood, was unbearably tragic.
Equally, we may all have our feelings about the subject-matter of other tribunals - planning in north Co Dublin, say, or payment to politicians - but the word "tragic" would not really apply to them. But it most emphatically does to Lindsay.
Yet we find that the Taxing Master confesses that he was, as this newspaper reported at the time, "worried about fees sought for non-sitting days. He saw no evidence of what work was done by counsel, how much time was spent and whether or not such work was germane to the case." Moreover, he noted that one barrister was claiming fees for work done on non-sitting days when the same barrister was making simultaneous claims for those same days on his office "on matters which were foreign to this taxation. I cannot allow those fees in this tribunal of inquiry." The report continued that non-sitting days were allowable for the time exclusively devoted to work directly affecting the tribunal. That is, you couldn't claim for work you didn't do.
In so saying, he then cut the fee demanded by the barrister Martin Hayden from €1,489,533 to €383,810. That is to say, he lopped €1,105,543 off the barrister's bill.
So what are we to judge from this extraordinary story? That the barrister, Martin Hayden, is not good at arithmetic?
That his interpretation of work is not the same as the taxing master's?
Or is there some other explanation why a lawyer appeared to be claiming from the Government inquiry into the greatest medical tragedy in the history of the State over €1 million more than was merited? And should we at least not have a public inquiry into this?
Might that inquiry not also consider the cases of Martin Giblin, whose bill of €1,452,183 was cut by over €1 million also? And let us not forget James McCullough, who sought €1,575,163 and received instead €397,158, a reduction of €1,178,005.
A tribunal of inquiry would not merely enable more barristers to make more money from the State, which is after all one the reasons for its existence, but it would give these splendid men the opportunity to explain how the Taxing Master had so wronged them and their mathematical acumen.
It is the least they deserve. Considering the matter under review was so painful, with such horrendous consequences for so many people, the last thing they would want is for people to think erroneously they had been benefiting unduly from it.
And surely, there must also be grounds for another inquiry into the outcome of the Appeal Inquiry into the Blayney Inquiry which had been looking into aspects of the McCracken Inquiry.
To be sure, this is about as complicated as a Chinese instruction manual for assembling an electron microscope, and one day I will invite one of our experts to explain it all to you in Tibetan, but central to it is the accountant, Noel Fox.
He was simultaneously partner in the accountancy company responsible for auditing the accounts of Dunnes Stores and also he was trustee for Dunnes Stores, attending board meetings.
In addition, Noel Fox had helped pass an illegal gift of £500,000 of Dunnes' money to Charles Haughey, then Taoiseach.
The whole matter has been thoroughly looked into by the various committees, tribunals and inquiries that grow in Ireland like fungus in rotting wood.
And as far as I can see, all the accountants responsible for processing false invoices in the Dunnes' company, who variously compromised their independence by attending board meetings of the company they were meant to independently auditing, who lied to colleagues about money paid to Charles Haughey and who illegally processed documents to enable Michael Lowry avoid tax: they will all be allowed to continue as accountants, if they wish.
Absolutely splendid, an outcome no reasonable person could fault: (as indeed we must all applaud the refusal of the courts to pursue any action against the man at the very heart of all this: Charles - I have done the State some service - Haughey).
This is the kind of vigorous policing which the professions specialise in, and which explains why they are so admired by the rest of us.
The various levels of the secret Blayney Inquiry - which left the situation largely as it was the day before it began - cost €3.2 million. A lot of money?
Not really - about as much as the Taxing Master saved when he deployed his fee-lopping machete against just three barristers' fees.
All in all, a timely reminder of what a great little country this is, and reason yet again to be grateful to our professions for enabling us to love it the way we do.