There I was, horsing into the fodder, when Dempsey comes over the airwaves declaring that the Irish Times was wrong to publish its story about Bertie Ahern's money mysteries. Dempsey is a relatively sensible chap, but for hard neck his fusillade was something else.

Maybe the poor man has issues.

Maybe he has turned his guns on the media because he can't bring himself to lean across the cabinet table and ask Ahern a simple question:

"Bertie, my oul flower, did you keep the 50 grand in a biscuit tin or a sock?"

As revealed in his confession to the nation, Ahern made a deposit of £50,000 to his account in 1994, in between the deposits relating to dig outs and whiparounds. He says the 50 big ones were saved over six years, presumably in cash, when he didn't have an account. Then it was deposited in a nice round figure.

When Charlie Haughey was running the show, questions about how he came across money evoked blank faces among his cabinet colleagues. They just lowered heads and turned the other way. Bertie Ahern even signed blank cheques and moved along at pace.

Today, questions surround Ahern and that 50 grand.

The same blank faces are to be seen around the cabinet table, none blanker than that of Michael 'Flip Flop' McDowell. But with the spin battle apparently won, Dempsey has seen fit to come out fighting. If the cabinet won't ask Ahern awkward questions, then it appears they don't want anybody else doing so either.

Let's for a moment put Dempsey in Ahern's shoes, or, even better, let's go with an unpopular politician, the hapless Martin Cullen. Let's say it emerged that Cullen's bank account showed a deposit of around 100,000, and his explanation was that it was money he had saved at home over six years when he didn't have a bank account, and then he deposited it in a nice round figure, when the time was right.

Would Cullen, in this fictional scenario, get away with that? Would the opposition, the media, the public, allow a government minister off the hook if he spouted that stuff?

Yet that is what has happened with Ahern. He has sailed past awkward questions because he is a nice man, at least on the superficial basis that most of us know each other. Nice men aren't accountable in Irish politics.

The 50 grand he says he saved over six years, in a biscuit tin, a sock, whatever, was accumulated at a time when he was under such financial strain he required a few whip arounds to give him a dig out, including one in Manchester on an unspecified date, the benefactors of which remain unknown.

It's just as well he's a nice man, or some minds might be suspicious at the hoarding of money beyond the reach of financial institutions at a time when he was obliged to declare his full assets for a High Court family law case.

Any government minister who wasn't really nice would have to give a more detailed account of how 50 grand came to be deposited in a bank account at a time when developers were shovelling money at politicians. Owen O'Callaghan, for instance, paid Frank Dunlop over £1m in fees in the early '90s, and we know what Dunlop got up to on his own initiative.

There is no evidence that Ahern got 50 grand from anybody. But his account of saving up money, and depositing a nice round figure, demands a proper explanation, whether or not he is a nice man. The surprising thing is that he has not given one, in order to clear the air. Maybe he himself feels he's too nice for accountability.

The opposition are afraid of Ahern's niceness. His Fianna Fail colleagues certainly won't ask any questions. As for Flip Flop McDowell, he seems to be in awe of Ahern's ability to spin his way out of trouble.

In such an atmosphere, is it any wonder that Dempsey comes out gunning. The job is oxo. Let them know who's boss. Fifty grand? What 50 grand?