Bertie Ahern is minister for finance. He wants to be taoiseach. Yet the sight of this not inconsiderable amount of foreign currency cash raises no alarm bells as to the appropriateness or otherwise of this transaction.

Ahern and Larkin accept the money. He puts it in the safe of his constiutency office.

This is obviously a sizeable safe . . . it was also, according to Ahern, being used to house the IR�50,000 he had saved over the past year.

The Micheal Wall donation is banked two days later into Larkin's account. So too is the �50,000 belonging to Ahern, but this is put into a separate account, again under Larkin's name. A month later, this money is returned . . . in cash . . . to Ahern. What any of it is for . . .

"stamp duty issues", house renovations, conservatories . . . really is irrelevant to some extent. The fact that Ahern saw nothing wrong with a Fianna Fail-supporting business friend . . . from whom he was arranging to rent and then buy his new house . . . giving a substantial amount of cash to his then partner raises huge questions of credibility.

If a businessman walked into Brian Cowen's office today with a suitcase full of sterling notes to fund renovations in Cowen's home . . . administered by his wife, of course . . . how would he react? How would Micheal Martin, Dermot Ahern, Mary Hanafin, Noel Dempsey . . . any of the ministers who have defended the Taoiseach over the past few days . . . react? Of course, they would never accept money in such a manner. So why, then, do they try to explain the actions of the Taoiseach?

The ever-stranger set of circumstances surrounding the renting and then purchase of Ahern's house has totally overshadowed the first week of the election campaign.

Ahern may argue that he would prefer to concentrate on the issues affecting the country, but it is he who chose a presidential style of campaign, with his picture on almost every poster. His credibility is a central issue and it is the opacity of his answers to legitimate questions about a cash-bearing businessman arriving at his constituency office 13 years ago that are causing the problems.

It is hard to say whether the sight of the Taoiseach being pursued by the media will again give him a personal bounce, as his Bryan Dobson interview did. It is true that people feel it happened a relatively long time ago, that the facts are almost impenetrably complicated and that, after all, the man needed somewhere to live and didn't flaunt it by buying a particularly extravagant house.

However, these are substantial amounts of cash. But the diversionary tactic that is the u-turn on stamp duty . . . and, worse still, the backdating of increases in mortgage interest relief for first-time buyers who bought their homes a full seven years ago . . . does nothing to enhance Fianna Fail's credibility.

If it was wrong to pursue this policy seven years ago, why backdate it now?

Equally cynical in all this have been "the alternative government" leaders Enda Kenny and Pat Rabbitte. If they believe Ahern has more questions to answer, they should say so. Refusing to comment and admitting they won't debate the issue because it damaged their popularity last October does not exactly smack of conviction politics.

8 May 1909