Friday morning at the planning tribunal, and we were dipping into an old theme with a new twist full of questions. When is a conflict of interest not a conflict of interest? What is it with politicians and their parties that they never have enough money?

Who are they trying to fool?

Anne Devitt was under the kosh. She is a councillor of long standing, a stalwart of Fine Gael in local government. Four years ago, when she was chair of the Eastern Health Board, she acted as a "consultant" for a landowner who was negotiating with the board. Have you got that? On the board, she represented the people. In negotiating with the board's executive, she represented a wealthy client. She didn't say so, but one presumes she had a different hat for the respective representations, and changed accordingly. When it was all over, the client paid her 20 grand. Nice work if you can get it, particularly as her consulting didn't require as much as putting a pen to paper.

Businessman Joe Moran had a plot of land in Lissenhall, near Swords, in north Co Dublin. He needed access through EHB lands. A deal was struck. He got his access, and in return he provided ambulances and daycare facilities. Enter Devitt, tribune of the people. She acted in her capacity as a consultant, offering advice on legal, planning and related matters. She didn't make any decisions, just hurried things along with the board for "her client."

There is no suggestion that she took a bribe, but the modus operandi of a politician being paid a consultancy fee by somebody in negotiation with a public body was the stuff Lawlor thrived on.

What did she do for the wedge? "I mediated between the client and the health board to get something that was a benefit for the client and the health board, " she told the inquiry. The board's executive were aware she was acting as a consultant, she said, although that awareness is not recorded anywhere on paper.

Neither is her advice to Moran. In fact, apart from an invoice, there is not one scrap of paper recording her consulting in the matter. It must have been the easiest money she ever made.

What did Moran think about handing over that amount to pay for consultancy that went completely unrecorded.

"He said: 'send me an invoice and if I fall off the chair, we'll discuss it', " Devitt said on Friday. Joe's posterior remained rooted to the chair when he got the invoice. No problemo. Money well spent Devitt pointed out that she didn't break any ethics law. Correct, but would Moran have sought out her consulting skills if she hadn't been representing the people as a member of the EHB? Is she not showing contempt for those who voted for her by using her position to lever work that could be in conflict with her elected role?

Last week also threw light on another politician who isn't shy about taking money wherever he can snaffle it. Ivor Callely received 69,600 from donors in 2005, according to the latest figures from the Public Offices Commission. That amount represents nearly half the total money received by all national politicians.

The next highest donation was 18,000 to the Taoiseach, but that is the value attached to his use of a property rather than actual cash. What did Callely collect it for?

There was no election last year, and in any event, he could legally only spend less than a quarter of that on a campaign.

He got the money at a time when he was serving in government as a junior minister.

Does he regard a conflict of interest as a little war somewhere in the third world on which he keeps an eye?

Not that he is unique. Most political parties, and all the major ones, believe in the Chinese walls through which business interests hand over money, and, ahem, expect nothing in return. Duck as the pigs fly by.

So it was a rare blow for integrity in politics that the Green Party decided at its annual conference last weekend to continue its policy of refusing corporate donations. The party is aware that in doing so it is placing itself at a competitive disadvantage, but as its president John Gormley pointed out, it disabuses anyone of the notion that they're in the pocket of vested interests.

"We hope that in the run up to the election, the voters will remember that we are the only party who do not accept corporate donations, " he said last Thursday. "This is an important policy difference which we will repeatedly highlight over the coming year."

They may well find they are tapping into a rich seam, as the stench of money in politics is still around, despite the digging done through eight years of inquiries.