"My life was seamless. I was a politician from morning to night," Mr Ray Burke declared towards the end of his third day before the Flood tribunal yesterday afternoon.
Too true. And nowhere was the join between personal and political in Mr Burke's life so invisible as in his financial affairs. Here was the man who told the Dail in September 1997 that he obtained a £35,000 overdraft in 1989 for "family reasons" - the refurbishment of his home, building a tennis court for his children and a change of car for his wife.
He raised the issue of the overdraft to demonstrate to TDs what he called this week his "financial straits". "Does this sound like somebody who was awash with cash?" he asked the Dail.
But at the time, we now know, Mr Burke had over £100,000 on deposit in building society accounts. And yesterday he indicated that the overdraft was paid back from political funds, largely those donated by Rennicks Manufacturing, received before the general election in 1989.
In 1997, he addressed the Dail on the £30,000 payment from JMSE. "The money received was expended," he told TDs and, later, "I received subscriptions which were spent on my campaign".
This simply isn't so. Even today, 10 years on from the events of June 1989, the money that was sloshing around Mr Burke's accounts at that time has not been dissipated.
Yesterday, he revealed that £118,000 was still lodged in a "political fund" which he said was the subject of legal and accountancy advice at present. Because he had retired from political life, Mr Burke stressed that he could no longer benefit from this money.
The trouble with this explanation is that no one in Fianna Fail headquarters knew of the existence of this "political fund".
The first anyone outside Dublin North knew of it was in 1998, when Mr Burke told the Taoiseach of its existence - though not its size - on the night of the by-election to replace him in Dublin North.
Mr Burke was asked in the Dail if he had lodged money in an overseas bank account since 1989 and he replied: "I have no overseas bank account".
Correct - as of 1997. But he did previously have an account in Jersey, we learned yesterday, between 1984 and 1994. Mr Burke said £95,000 in political donations from UK supporters was lodged in this account in 1984.
Having started his evidence as the cocksure and ebullient politician we knew from old, Mr Burke seemed to lose some of his vim through the week as the strain of being in the box started to show.
Things started to go wrong as the evidence came to deal with his 1997 Dail statement. This document contains too many errors and inconsistencies to be lightly explained away and the list of disparities got longer by the day.
We already knew the JMSE money didn't come entirely in cash, as he had claimed. Now we learned that £30,000 wasn't the largest sum he had received; Mr Burke was given £35,000 only a week before Mr James Gogarty came knocking on his door.
He never did give two drafts to his local organisation, as stated. He told TDs the developer Mr Michael Bailey was "well-known" to him; by this week, this relationship extended only to half a dozen meetings in almost a decade.
The week provided a fascinating insight into the murky world of political fundraising. Mr Burke claimed Fianna Fail cleared a debt of over £3 million between 1994 and 1997 and is now aiming to raise a further £4 million from the business community.
TDs' salaries were inadequate to cover campaign expenses, he claimed, and deputies were reluctant to declare funds raised locally to the party for fear that headquarters would demand a cut.
Mr Frank Connolly, the journalist who broke the Gogarty allegations, also gave evidence yesterday, but the expected clash with the Murphys' legal team never materialised. Instead, the transcripts of Mr Connolly's interviews with Mr Gogarty revealed further discrepancies in Mr Gogarty's version of events.
It was a long week for the tribunal, which was the subject of sustained criticism by Mr Burke's lawyer, Mr Joseph Finnegan SC. With his trademark mix of courtesy, understatement and doggedness, Mr Finnegan sought to limit the scope of the tribunal's examination of Mr Burke.
At first he succeeded but by yesterday afternoon he found himself apologising to Mr John Gallagher SC, for the tribunal, for making an accusation that turned out to be groundless.
While the Moriarty tribunal flies through its work, Flood is still wading in treacle. Its intention to call the Murphy witnesses next week has foundered on delays in sorting out the incredible figure of 30,000 documents submitted by JMSE.
For health reasons, Mr Joseph Murphy snr wants to give evidence in Jersey where he lives, and he is likely to be accommodated. There are doubts over whether Mr Tom Bailey will give evidence.
Mr Bertie Ahern's reputation as the Teflon Taoiseach was never in danger during Mr Burke's evidence. The direr predictions that he would seek revenge on Mr Ahern and/or Fianna Fail were shown to be nonsense.
Mr Burke's cross-examination, which begins on Monday, is unlikely to produce further shocks for the party. Still, Mr Burke's warning yesterday rings in the ears: "It's me today; it will be someone else in the future."