The boys are back in town, writes Fintan O'Toole. Among the revellers celebrating the Fianna Fáil successes at the RDS on Saturday was the builder Michael Bailey.
The same Michael Bailey who was helping Fianna Fáil with its inquiries into Ray Burke after the last election. Whose letter offering to "procure" planning permission for 700 acres of land in north Dublin sparked the formation of the Flood tribunal. Who admitted at that tribunal that he had given an "under-the-table" payment of £50,000 to James Gogarty, who in turn, was giving a large sum to Burke.
The same Michael Bailey whose financial records were unfortunately destroyed in a fire on the very day that the Supreme Court was deciding the validity of a tribunal order to hand them over. Whose company, Bovale Developments, was putting far more money into its directors' personal bank accounts than were ever notified to the Revenue Commissioners. Who reached a settlement with the Revenue in December 2000, reported to be more than £5 million.
And why should his political friends be embarrassed to be seen with Michael Bailey at the election count centre?
For the election itself has delivered a definitive judgment on the question of ethics in public life.
Shortly after the last election Mr Justice Brian McCracken published a tribunal report which noted, in relation to Michael Lowry, the damaging perception that "a member of the Cabinet was able to ignore, and indeed cynically evade, both the taxation and exchange control laws of the State with impunity . . . If such a person can behave in this way without serious sanctions being imposed, it becomes very difficult to condemn others who similarly flout the law."
Since then the Moriarty tribunal has unearthed even more damaging evidence against Michael Lowry. The sanction imposed by the electorate last week was to elect him comfortably on the first count with over a quarter of the entire vote in Tipperary North.
A jury of her peers found that Beverley Cooper-Flynn colluded in tax evasion when she was a banker. She was re-elected in Mayo as an official Fianna Fáil candidate.
John Ellis was given £12,000 in cash by Charles Haughey in 1989, public money drawn from the party leader's account, and £13,600 in the same circumstances the following year.
The money was apparently drawn from AIB using cheques co-signed by Bertie Ahern.
John Ellis was comfortably re-elected in Sligo-Leitrim.
Martin Ferris was caught in September 1984, trying to bring seven tonnes of arms and ammunition for the IRA into Ireland on the Marita Ann. In the previous nine months the IRA had killed 22 Irish Protestant members of the RUC and UDR, six British soldiers, one Catholic ex-UDR man, a magistrate's daughter, an assistant prison governor, two alleged informers and one alleged criminal. Martin Ferris topped the poll in North Kerry.
Dessie Ellis, who by his own admission was one of the IRA's leading bomb-makers, very nearly took a seat in Dublin North West.
Nicky Kehoe, who was arrested as part of an armed gang that was staking out the Wicklow home of Galen Weston, a businessman whom they were planning to kidnap, missed the fourth seat in Dublin Central by a handful of votes after a recount.
The message is very clear, even to those hopeless romantics who imagined that the revelation of the truth would make a difference.
We Irish, on the whole, don't give a damn about ethics in public life. I have always thought and argued otherwise, but I'm obviously wrong.
The people have spoken and, where public morality is concerned, what they are saying is a silent shrug of the shoulders.
If Ansbacher man Denis Foley hadn't retired, he would probably have held his seat.
Even Liam Lawlor must be regretting his decision not to stand.
The public mood in this time of rapid change seems to be that the past, even the very recent past, is another country. They did things differently there. We are willing to forget everything and learn nothing. Our collective message to politicians is: never apologise, never explain, just move on to the next job.
So what is the point of carrying on with expensive and tedious tribunals and inquiries? Another five years of the Flood tribunal may fill in the details of how the development of a European capital city was purchased by a small group of developers, but we knew the big picture before the election and it made no difference.
The Moriarty tribunal may have hard things to say about Michael Lowry and Charles Haughey when it finally reports, but who cares? The Ansbacher inquiry may produce another list of names, but Cayman Ireland is already a familiar, and it seems rather cosy, place.
Maybe, just maybe, if someone was caught with their hands in the till right now, we might get upset. But there is a natural time lag in these things. Whatever is going on at the moment will be revealed in five or 10 years' time.
And by then it will belong to that state of grace known as the past in which all sins are forgiven by an astonishingly tolerant electorate.
fotoole@irish-times.ie