As the jokes about crass acts and brass necks abound, there is one aspect of the Beverley Flynn affair which is somewhat perverse. I refer to the occasionally savage attacks on RTÉ over the past week for agreeing to forgo €1.55 million in the settlement of its legal bills with Ms Flynn. It is a stark example of messenger shooting, writes Mary Raftery.
After all, what has RTÉ actually done in this case? Firstly, it invested considerable resources in a superb piece of investigative journalism which uncovered a complex web of tax evasion involving the banking sector, and the then Fianna Fáil TD Beverley Flynn in particular.
Secondly, it defended itself robustly against repeated legal assaults from the same B. Flynn as she attempted to use the highly punitive libel laws to coerce RTÉ into submission, retraction and apology for the story.
Certainly there was a cost associated with this for RTÉ, which was doubtless aware that any citizen (even Beverley Flynn) will reach a point where he or she will not be able to afford the enormous expenditure associated with the loss of such a case.
So what were RTÉ's choices? It could have submitted and, in the interests of limiting costs and saving the licence holders' fees, settled the case with Flynn before trial by paying her a sum of money. It might even have managed no admission of liability. Many cases are settled in this manner, not because or truth or right or justice, but because the costs of fighting them are too high.
There was a time when RTÉ used to think in this way, as I know only too well. Those who, like myself, worked there as journalists and producers during the 1980s and 1990s were frequently frustrated by what we perceived as a lack of will by the station to stand up for itself and its journalism in the legal arena.
RTÉ for its part certainly considered that it was carefully minding the fees paid by every licence holder in the country. Such prudence included refusing to squander public funds on court cases, all of which were by definition risky.
This attitude in turn inevitably resulted in RTÉ becoming more timid journalistically, shying away from stories which might land it in the courts in the first place.
This mentality was at its peak during the early 1990s, when one senior executive informed me that RTÉ was aiming for a position of "zero risk".
We were involved at the time in seemingly endless legal meetings concerning a current affairs exposé of the criminal dealings of prominent property speculator Patrick Gallagher.
The programme had uncovered the fact that money had been given by a Gallagher-owned merchant bank to the then taoiseach Charles Haughey. As no interest had ever been charged, the sum was considered by the liquidator of the bank to have been a gift.
Haughey, when we asked him to explain, had threatened to sue RTÉ if it broadcast any aspect of this.
Applying its "zero risk" policy, RTÉ decided that all references to the gift of money to a serving taoiseach from a major fraudster should be omitted from the final programme.
It subsequently transpired, albeit years later, through evidence presented to the Moriarty tribunal, that Haughey was indeed in receipt of huge sums from Gallagher (among others).
There is little doubt in my mind that in this case RTÉ served its audience poorly.
RTÉ has now, thankfully, rediscovered its duty to robust journalism and to the public's right to know, which commitment inevitably involves an element of risk to the organisation's resources. However, this is called public service and is what the licence holder pays for. It will, of necessity, involve fighting battles in court to uphold RTÉ's integrity against those who, like Beverley Flynn, seek to tear it down.
The fact that on occasion it will become clear that its opponents will not be able to pay their full legal bills should never deter RTÉ from defending itself. It does, of course, have an obligation to secure the maximum costs possible, which, according to its counsel in the High Court, is precisely what it did in the Flynn case.
The alternative to the settlement - namely the pursuit of a public representative into bankruptcy, thereby interfering with the democratic process by means of an archaic law, and culminating in even greater costs - does not appear on the face of it to have been any kind of a sensible option.
While there may have been a certain view that RTÉ would be doing the political system a favour by ridding it of the likes of Beverley Flynn, this is most certainly not the function of a public broadcaster or indeed of any media outlet.
The attacks on RTÉ for settling its costs against Flynn should instead be directed at those who are now falling over themselves to welcome back into the bosom of power someone who so brazenly refuses to apologise for cheating the taxpayers of Ireland.