THE timing was dreadful. Three days before the Fine Gael Ard fheis and Larry Goodman landed a nasty punch to the jaw of Ivan Yates. Their battling hero had been doing so well parading virtues and high standards and dumping on the hapless Mr Goodman as the Government faced into EU fines of £100 million. And then the Minister was accused of being motivated by "sour grapes". You could hear thousands of teeth being sucked in back rooms.

It was, of course, a side issue. Just as Mr Yates's assault on the probity of Mr Goodman carried elements of the anti Fianna Fail paranoia displayed by Michael Lowry last summer, so the detail of Fine Gael's fund raising activities was designed to distract from Mr Yates's central (thesis.

The devil is always in the detail. And if Mr Yates thought he had a push over in Mr Goodman, a bloody political nose told him differently. Not alone was the Minister portrayed as an opportunist who took advantage of Dail privilege, but Fine Gael was seen to run with the hare and hunt with the hound.

But the moment of supreme pleasure for Fianna Fail and the Progressive Democrats (and for not a few Fine Gael backbenchers) came when Eithne Fitzgerald rose to make a personal explanation of her, own find raising activities. The "Minister for Ethics" - as she was sneeringly described by Fianna Fail - had made herself vulnerable as she attempted to drum up support for a £100 a head fund raising lunch involving Ruairi Quinn.

It was not that party fund raising functions are banned. Far from it. It was the nature of the invitation that had Fianna Fail and the Progressive Democrats breaking out in a sweat. You see, Eithne's invitation carried a large harp above her name and her title, with the address of Government Buildings.

In return for £100, the Minister for Finance would be on hand to answer questions on the soon to be published Finance Bill, she offered.

And the invitation promised "a rare opportunity to gain access to the Minister in a semi formal environment". The money was to go to her own constituency organisation.

When the issue surfaced on the Order of Business Ruairi Quinn rent his clothes and threw ashes on his head. It was, he told the Dail, all his fault; it should not have happened; it would not recur and he apologised to the House. Labour; was desperately trying to retain credibility. And the Parliamentary Party left Ms Fitzgerald in no doubt about where her duty lay.

BY 3 p.m. the Minister of State was lining up to take her lumps. The invitation to the lunch, she said, had not been issued on official notepapers and it was absolutely clear that any money raised would go to her constituency organisation. She now realised that such invitations should have been issued on Labour Party notepaper and Ms Fitzgerald apologised to the Dail.

For the person who steered the Ethics Act through the Dail, it was a humbling experience. And Bobby Molloy put the boot in when he accused her of "selling private briefings to selected business people" and of neglecting ethical standards.

As the Minister of State sought to escape further entanglements, Fine Gael settled deeper into its feud with Mr Goodman over the party's fundraising efforts.

With the Electoral Bill - and its provisions for the disclosure of substantial private donations to political parties - due to become law before the next general election, all parties are engaging in a flurry of fund raising activities. Getting the money in before the cut off date is the name of the game.

And Fine Gael, in Government, has been particularly successful. Over the past year, the guts of a million pounds in debt has been cleared and the party hopes to be in surplus by the time the general election comes around.

It was in that context that Larry Goodman's allegation of "sour grapes" cut so deep. The beef baron suggested his refusal to pay into Fine Gael coffers had become a contributing factor in Mr Yates's trenchant criticisms of him. Not only was the Minister for Agriculture trying to divert attention from his Department's responsibility for EU fines, Mr Goodman alleged, but he was responding to a refusal of party funding.

Mr Yates was full of thundering indignation. For Mr Goodman to suggest there was a direct relationship between his own parsimony and the Minister's criticisms provided "a remarkable insight into thinking that there was a direct relationship between money he gave to parties and what politicians stand up and say in the Dail".

IT provided an interesting reflection on "the political stature of the Haughey and the Reynolds administrations", Mr Yates said, but that culture was dead and buried as far as he was concerned.

The issue gained in murkiness when Mr Goodman cited three attempts by Sean Murray, Fine Gael trustee and fund raiser, to extract a donation from his company. Jim Miley, the new secretary of Fine Gael, tried to ring fence the issue. Two fund raising calls had been made in 1994, he conceded. But a decision was taken at the beginning of July not to make any further approaches to Mr Goodman.

It then emerged that Mr Murray made a last call to Mr Goodman on July 19th, but had not got past the company secretary. The intended nature of that call remains in doubt.

And although Mr Miley spoke to Mr Murray yesterday about the matter, he was unable to shed light on the issue.

As days go, it was not one for transparency or ethics.