Ms Beverley Cooper-Flynn has had a comprehensive answer. The President of the High Court, Mr Justice Frederick Morris, denied her even a fig-leaf yesterday when he ordered her to pay the entire costs of the longest libel trial in the history of the State. He also ruled, in his judgment, that the jury's conclusion that she did not induce Mr James Howard to evade paying his lawful taxes was "valueless" coupled with the finding that she had in fact advised and encouraged four other named persons to evade tax.
In a legal system where money is the only measure of damage, the determination of costs against Ms Cooper-Flynn must make it clear to anyone who might have doubted it that she lost the case. And on a political level, the future for the Fianna Fail TD must be very uncertain.
On any interpretation, it is difficult to see how the outcome of the libel case will not have serious political consequences for her down the road. She has run up a bill of some £2 million in the costs awarded against her. It cannot realistically be paid out of the £45,200 salary of a backbench TD. A jury of eight men and four women has decided that her reputation suffered no material injury from the reports broadcast by Mr Charlie Bird and RTE. She has been compelled already to resign her position on the Dail's Public Accounts Committee, an action which the Taoiseach deemed "the appropriate action" in the circumstances.
Now there are indications that that will not suffice. The Opposition parties are calling on the Taoiseach to decide whether Ms Cooper-Flynn is a suitable person to be a member of the Fianna Fail parliamentary party. There is no way, they say, that Mr Ahern can ignore the consequences of the case. For his part, the Taoiseach is playing for time. It is still inappropriate to comment on the outcome of proceedings, he claims, given that it could still be the subject of an appeal to the Supreme Court.
He stands over his comments on the day of the verdict, however, that tax evasion is wrong and encouraging others to engage in tax evasion is equally wrong. Does the new Fianna Fail Code of Conduct have anything to say on that? While the party for the umpteenth time preaches the mantra of "due process", the Progressive Democrats say that it needs to be established now if Ms Cooper-Flynn can pay the costs. If she can't, they say, then there are clear political implications.
Knowing what she did about the reality of her work as a financial adviser in National Irish Bank, Ms Cooper-Flynn must be adjudicated as foolish - arrogant perhaps - to have taken the case in the first instance. On the other hand, the national broadcaster was courageous to fight the action rather than cave in to the threat from a TD from a prominent family. Had it gone against RTE, no doubt, quite a few senior figures in the station would be on the thinnest of career ice at this stage. In the last analysis the whole affair - the broadcasting of RTE's case against NIB, coupled with the outcome of the Cooper-Flynn libel suit - has yielded to the media a considerable bonus by way of legal endorsement for investigative journalism. The public interest, the Supreme Court has ruled in this context, can over-ride private or personal interests. Ms Cooper-Flynn has unwittingly given a valuable boost to what she would undoubtedly regard as a hostile media.