Catholics are told that heaven is a state of union with God and hell is separation from God. Politicians, until now, were told heaven is a separation from gold . . . and hell a state of union with filthy lucre taken for personal use while in office, high ranking or low.

Which is why, of course, when Bertie Ahern admitted borrowing IR£39,000 from friends and accepting the gift of stg£8,000 from businessmen, he had to move quickly and create an ethical limbo.

This meant, as the Taoiseach went to great pains to explain to the Dail last Tuesday, when you're being a private person, even if you are the minister for finance, you can accept money. And doing so, according to the rules of ethical limbo, does not in any way taint your decisions when you're in office.

Fianna Fail, including all its government ministers, believes there is an ethical limbo and that Bertie is saved by its rules. As a nation, according to the barometer of opinion polls, radio phone-ins and the opinions of chat-show audiences, a majority of us have embraced the concept too.

There have been some unbelievers . . . namely Enda Kenny, Pat Rabbitte, and Trevor Sargent. But their arguments are akin to the debates of philosophers counting angels on pinheads . . . irrelevant.

Then of course, there are the swingers, led by the agnostic Michael McDowell who, like limbo itself, are neither one thing nor the other, sometimes believing, sometimes not, but always looking for proof of the unproveable.

In order to sustain this state of flux, McDowell has had to create an interpersonal limbo . . . friends, but not friends . . . with Bertie Ahern, as well as a governmental limbo which means the PDs are sort of partners in government.

We could go on; we wish they wouldn't.