THE bench in Court Six in the Four Courts complex was pretty crowded last week. Three High Court judges, including the president of the court Richard Johnson, were sitting atop it.

Usually, the bench is only big enough for one wig.

The presence of three implied that something of grave public interest was transpiring in the court, which required three times the learned attention usually afforded your average garden-fence High Court case.

Far from it.

The case involves the Mahon tribunal ostensibly attempting to compel The Irish Times to reveal who spilt the beans on Bertie Ahern's cash-rich lifestyle. On 21 September last, a story authored by Colm Keena revealed that Ahern had hoovered up between 50,000 and 100,000 in the mid1990s. The story was based on an ongoing investigation by the tribunal.

All hell broke loose. Ahern explained his gifts from strangers and loans from friends. He threw his family history at the public by way of explanation. Keena and his editor Geraldine Kennedy were hauled before the tribunal.

Kennedy said she destroyed the document on which the story was based . . . a copy of a letter sent by the tribunal to one of Bertie's sugar daddies, businessman David McKenna.

Neither Kennedy nor Keena would assist the tribunal in identifying who might have leaked the document. Mahon packed them off to the High Court.

This is where everything goes a bit wonky. Life has moved on since last September. In March of this year, the Supreme Court refused an appeal by the tribunal against a High Court ruling that the tribunal could not ban the publication of documents it deemed confidential. This case, taken against the Sunday Business Post, was seen in media circles as a major victory for freedom of speech. It also deprived the tribunal of one of its main plans of attack against The Irish Times.

Last week, as the case got underway, it emerged that the tribunal's purpose in pursuing the Times has greatly narrowed.

Now, as its counsel Denis McDonald told the three wise men, it merely wants Kennedy or Keena to say that the leak didn't come from the inquiry itself.

This largely boils down to whether or not there was a harp insignia on the copy seen by the journalists. If there was, then the job is done. The tribunal is not to blame for the leak. Public confidence can be restored and the three judges can disperse to deal with more pressing matters.

An observer from Mars rather than Dublin Castle might ask why three judges are assigned to hear a case that has its roots in politics rather than the law. McDonald correctly pointed out to the court last week that confidence in the tribunal did suffer in the wake of the leak last September. But the drain of confidence wasn't down to publication of the story, but the reaction of the government to the publication.

A procession of ministers was wheeled out to infer that the tribunal was responsible for the leak. Last Tuesday, McDonald referred to comments in this vein by Ahern and the then tanaiste Michael McDowell. He could have added the names of Mary Hanafin, Dermot Ahern, Noel Dempsey and Willie O'Dea, all of whom . . . along with others . . .inferred in media appearances at the time that the tribunal bore responsibility for the leak.

All were careful to avoid apportioning specific blame and none of them produced one shred of evidence to suggest they knew what they were talking about.

That's classic spin territory.

A sceptical observer might think there was a concerted campaign in the government to make "the leak" the story and the tribunal the villain, and poor Bertie Ahern the martyr. But a government would never attempt to cripple an instrument of the Oireachtas in this manner, would it?

In response, the tribunal dragged in junior minister Noel Treacy when he lined up his potshot. Unwilling to take on the big fish, they satisfied themselves chewing on a minion.

Relations between government and tribunal haven't improved since. Tom Gilmartin, once a valuable eye into corruption in the rare old times, is throwing mud all over the shop. In the witness box, he has been permitted to air allegations of corruption against Micheal Martin, Mary Harney and Dermot Ahern on effectively no basis whatsoever.

At this stage, government and tribunal appear to deserve each other, slugging it out in the gutter.

Meanwhile somebody must be made accountable for the mess.

The tribunal, on its deathbed, thinks it appropriate to throw more taxpayers' money away in pursuing the messenger. All that is now at issue is a demand from the tribunal that Kennedy and Keena declare that the leak wasn't sprung in Dublin Castle.

Or, if you like: "Say it wasn't us, and the public will have confidence in us again." This is a matter of grave public importance?

It's one thing for the tribunal to be acting the maggot. The real wonder is that the High Court deemed it a rare and important matter requiring the appointment of a provisional court of three judges.