Only Kafka could do justice to castle trial

YOU didn't have to ask to know that something was afoot. The opening of the session had been postponed for half an hour and the atmosphere in Dublin Castle was thick.

Lawyers lurked in corners looking like cardinals in the Vatican after the suspicious death of a pope. There had been a "sensational" development, it was murmured. A new document had emerged, and a dramatic application was expected.

The work of the tribunal could be taking a different direction, we were told. One legal source, asked to mark the development on a scale of one to 10, said "10". Another teased: "Just be there at 11 a.m."

We were there at 11 and we were there at half past, and still there was no hearing. By then, fevered speculation had narrowed down the: likely development to three plausible theories: (1) that Mr Haughey had been abducted by space aliens; (2) that a senior banker had been found hanging under O'Connell Bridge; (3) that the chairman of the tribunal had won the lottery and was taking early retirement.

Finally, at 11.46 a.m., the tip-staff uttered the words "please rise", and the tribunal was in session. But not for long. Counsel for Mr Haughey, Eoin McGonigal SC, was on his feet requesting a 24-hour adjournment to take instructions from his client on new information. And before we were given any hint of the information's nature, the chairman had reluctantly agreed. It had taken 2 1/2 minutes.

Mr Haughey's legal team spent the rest of the morning holed up in a part of the castle known as "Charlie's Rooms", since the days when the former Taoiseach used them on official business. All the other lawyers, meanwhile, had taken a vow of omerta.

Traditionally, the legal profession's reputation for singing is second only to that of the Vienna Boys' Choir. After yesterday's adjournment, they were more like a Trappist monks' choir, deaf to all questions.

Journalist: "Lovely day, isn't it?"

Lawyer: "I'm afraid I couldn't comment."

But the press was not so easily deterred and by lunchtime had built up a picture of the proceedings that answered every major question; with the exception of what the new document was, where it had come from, and what it all meant.

Only Franz Kafka could have done justice to the situation. The author of The Trial and The Castle would probably enjoy the trial at the castle, with its quintessentially Kafkaesque plot; all questions and - yesterday, at least - no answers. The rest of us could only wait in frustration in the hope of enlightenment today.