The week began with some sharp political analysis by an archdeacon and ended with the prospect of a new party, set up to campaign directly but not exclusively against sleaze.
Events since Sunday supported Archdeacon Gordon Linney's description of a political system in which the interests of party come first and last and the interests of the electorate are betrayed.
He spoke to his Church of Ireland congregation in Glenageary, Co Dublin, of the harsh truth that there had been "a contagion of corruption in this country fuelled by greed for money and power which has got to be acknowledged and dealt with". That could happen only if honest people in politics and other areas of life had the courage to make it happen. Ordinary people had been "betrayed and their proper interests neglected - by the very people elected or appointed to represent them - in order to satisfy the wishes of a privileged few with money and connections."
When vast sums of money were being given by property developers and others to politicians, "that tragic and courageous group of people, the haemophiliacs, were given little or nothing". Prison authorities pleaded for resources to improve the lot of wounded and broken people, with little effect. Judges appealing for facilities for damaged children received a grudging response; and yet, as a society, we remained unmoved and untouched by such things; and the politicians knew it.
It was very difficult to look at the Dail and detect "a common mind committed to establishing truth for its own sake", but by the time the archdeacon's words were reported, it was impossible to look at the Dail in any light: it had begun a recess which, with the exception of committee sittings, will last until October.
All that was left at the weekend were the whining echoes of ministers and their media friends trying to pin blame for the coalition's troubles on its opponents and critics. (No doubt Gordon Linney would have been included if he'd spoken in time.) But it's not at all difficult, in a review of the week's events, to fill in the picture he outlined with such angry feeling.
On Monday there was news of a specialist agency to combat white-collar crime and other breaches of company law. It will take on functions now performed by Mary Harney, who has more than a dozen inquiries into company affairs in her locker. Governments of all shades have taken a lackadaisical approach to white-collar crime.
We first heard about the need for new or improved company law when Justin Keating was minister in the 1970s. The subject has been buried and exhumed at irregular intervals in the past 20 years but with increasing frequency since the late 1980s. The report which gave rise to the present action was published 15 months ago.
On Tuesday there was good news for the Government - the Exchequer returns for the first half of the year showed a surplus of £2.9 billion - but confirmation of their worst suspicions for taxpayers, especially those who pay as they earn.
The surplus, 44 per cent over last year's first-half figure, is impressive but, while the increase in income tax, at 15 per cent, was more than three times the predicted rise, and VAT was up 20.5 per cent, corporation taxes returned just over half of the 16 per cent rise that had been expected.
This may not amount to sleaze in the usual sense; it clearly illustrates a skewed tax system, one of the reasons why this State is so attractive to rich and powerful corporations while citizens on low pay, fixed incomes or welfare find it hard to make ends meet. Rises agreed under the Programme for Prosperity and Fairness are being whittled away by inflation, but corporation tax, which has fallen from 32 to 28 per cent, will go on falling, to 24 per cent, this year. By midweek, however, the more recognisable forms of sleaze were thickening. Ray Burke returned to the Flood tribunal to drop yet another awkward question for Bertie Ahern.
Ahern, who has all the appearance of a singularly incurious leader who has found himself in an endless series of increasingly curious predicaments, famously said he'd been up every tree in north Dublin checking out rumours about Burke. Now Burke says that Ahern knew about the £30,000 donation that Burke had been given during the 1989 election campaign when James Gogarty and Michael Bailey visited him. What Ahern had asked, when they'd discussed his appointment to the Cabinet, was whether Burke had done anything for the money.
This raises questions about the Ahern-Harney-Dermot Ahern versions of the inquiries which have been given to the tribunal and/or the Dail. This puzzle, however, was given less attention than the sudden announcement on the same day that the Bank of Ireland had made the first settlement between a bank and the Revenue Commissioners as a result of the DIRT inquiry.
Not only was it the first settlement, the £30 million which the Bank of Ireland coughed up, in tax, interest and penalties, was more than 10 times the bank's own estimate of liability.
The chairman of the Public Accounts Committee which had carried out the inquiry, Jim Mitchell, was quick to point out that the yield had been 17 times the cost of the investigation. In the Irish Independent he wrote: "More, much more is yet to come. Even within the Bank of Ireland, the Revenue's job is far from complete . . . so the probability is that there is yet a rich harvest . . . bogus non-resident accounts."
Commentators estimated that the re turns from the other banks and financial institutions whose affairs had been examined could amount to £100 million or more. As Pat Rabbitte, one of Mitchell's most assiduous colleagues, reminded the public, this too is an explanation for high taxes and poorly financed services, especially for those whose need is greatest.
If Mitchell, Rabbitte and their colleagues can be well pleased with the results of their efforts, so too can Michael Smith and Colm MacEochaidh, the public-spirited barristers who took the initiative which eventually led to the establishment of the Flood tribunal.
MacEochaidh and supporters of his enterprise - he and Smith offered a reward for information about land rezoning corruption - believe the electorate is now so disgusted by corruption and disenchanted with the established parties that the time is right for a new departure.
They are obviously encouraged by opinion poll findings which show support for independent candidates standing higher than ever, at 10 per cent, and the resounding success of Seamus Healy in Tipperary South.
They are equally anxious not to raise expectations, though an authoritative report in this newspaper suggested they were preparing to field candidates in 15 constituencies in a general election. Their reported emphasis on housing as a policy on which to concentrate could hardly have been better timed or more urgently needed. Their judgment on sleaze was accurate and courageous. Their political ambitions should not be underestimated.
dwalsh@irish-times.ie