Factfile:
Name: Beverley Cooper-Flynn Born: June 9th, 1964 in Tuam, Co Galway. Profession: Fianna Fail TD for Mayo. Home: Castlebar, Co Mayo. Why in the news: Embroiled in the NIB scandal, prompting threats of legal action against a Meath farmer and RTE
Beverley Cooper-Flynn's exceptional similarity to her father, Padraig, is not just uncanny, it's almost funny. She inherited his every distinctive characteristic - the same imposing cut, the same stunning self-assurance, the same ebullient style.
She is the first woman TD to be elected in Mayo and her ambition to become a senior Minister in a future Fianna Fail administration is not something she bothers to disguise.
But, after a bare year in national politics, she has confided to colleagues in Leinster House in recent days that it feels more like 20 years. Yet one of her parliamentary colleagues observed yesterday that, in spite of the dilemma facing her - or maybe because of it - you could spot the glint in her eyes at 50 paces.
In her expensive pale tailored suit - her hallmark - she greeted all comers in the same blase way. "How're you doing?" Her unpunctured sass leaves her audience breathless.
She was 32 years old on June 9th, 10 days before RTE broadcast claims by a retired Meath farmer, James Howard, that she encouraged him to dodge taxes through the purchase of the controversial NIB-CMI financial package.
Under continuous pressure since, she has issued four statements - three in the past week - trenchantly denying the allegations. On Wednesday night she announced she had instructed solicitors to institute proceedings against RTE and Mr Howard.
The stakes are high now for all the players involved. If RTE cannot prove that James Howard's allegations are correct, Ms Cooper-Flynn could become a rather rich woman. But if the station's story stands up, her political career and credibility could be in ruins.
A measure of her desire to become a politician the first day was reflected in the fact that she took a salary cut of at least 50 per cent when she left National Irish Bank to become a TD.
The second-eldest of four children (she has two sisters and one brother), her home in Castlebar was pervaded by politics from the time she was 11 and her father was elected to the Dail on the Fianna Fail tidal wave of 1977.
Before that he was a teacher and a stickler for homework so it was almost a relief to his offspring that he joined the body politic.
Padraig Flynn would become known as Pee Flynn and, later on, Scrap Saturday would inflict a devastating caricature on him, portraying him as the daffy Flintstone patriarch.
Observers say that, while the nation rocked with mirth, the family took the brunt of the public ribbing but never revealed any indignation. She certainly didn't seem to give a hoot, saying she never listened to a full show.
Anyway, sources close to her say, she seems to have an exceptional knack of "compartmentalising" issues; she can "put away problems in their separate areas and deal with them when she has do".
"She is not impulsive. When she makes a decision, she sticks to it", one source said.
At school, she was stellar at most things. Her ambitious streak was evident from the start. Very sporty and deeply competitive, she became involved in athletics. She was high jump and javelin champion for Connacht, contesting every all-Ireland in the sports from the age of 12 to 17. She won two gold medals in the high jump and excelled in volleyball, tennis, basketball . . . the lot.
The Mercy nuns at St Joseph's in Castlebar turned out a highcalibre student in Beverley. She moved naturally from secondary school to UCD. Her father had a house in Dublin where she stayed and joined Fianna Fail's Kevin Barry cumann in the college.
Contemporaries on that body included young bloods Mary Coughlan, Conor Lenihan and Feargal O'Rourke - son of the Minister for Public Enterprise, Mrs O'Rourke. All but Feargal O'Rourke would go on to become Fianna Fail TDs.
On Wednesdays, as hungry students, they would come in to dinner in the restaurant of Leinster House to be fed by their fathers. Cooper-Flynn's attachment to her own father never dwindled; he was the one she dined with the night Charlie Bird interviewed James Howard - still anonymous - on June 19th.
Before being head-hunted by NIB, and immediately after leaving UCD with a B.Comm, she did a graduate training programme with the Royal Insurance Company and was taken on by its British head office as a development underwriter. She stayed with the company until 1989.
Her store at NIB obviously increased rapidly after taking up the job as financial consultant in September of that year. Colleagues there heap her with praise. She was seen as hardworking, popular, committed, intelligent, confident, loyal.
Last week, after a series of high-level meetings, involving the parent Australian company, NIB provided her with written confirmation that Mr Howard's files contained no reference to her.
Within two years, her title at NIB had changed to manager but the job did not. She has stated that she sold "a wide and varied range of financial products of which the CMI products represented a small percentage".
Her remuneration package was said to be in the region of £70,000 a year.
In Mayo, now a huge five-seat constituency, she is either loved or hated, sources there say. This is a reference to the fact that she came from "outside" to take the nomination, a move that left resentment in the party at constituency level.
"They would die for her or kill her. She would have more enemies within Fianna Fail than outside. That is where her opposition comes from", one said.
Her entry to politics came suddenly, in July 1996. Councillor Dick Morrin died suddenly and Cooper-Flynn was co-opted to Mayo County Council. It provided her with a valuable insight into local politics.
Whatever about rivals within, her Fine Gael Dail colleague in Mayo, Michael Ring, rallies to her defence, saying "in a personal capacity I feel very sorry for her".
"She is being tried by the media. They should wait for due process," he adds.
Due process in the courts could take two years, if her case proceeds. In the meantime, retired Supreme Court Judge John Blayney and accountant Tom Grace, the inspectors appointed by the High Court to investigate the NIB-CMI scheme, will be speaking to Cooper-Flynn and other bank employees involved in selling the contentious life assurance scheme.
Unless she is cleared, a political career that began full of promise could well founder on what Harold Macmillan described as "events".