IN THE political novel, Primary Colours, the character based on Bill Clinton is described as being so attentive in conversation that he engaged in "aerobic listening". The real-life Democratic Left leader Proinsias De Rossa took a turn at this type of listening himself yesterday when, with hand cupped behind one ear, he strained to hear what the barristers were saying to the learned judge.
Like a car in the dead of winter, this case gets going then stops, halted by legal argument. The jury was absent for most of the morning while the lawyers teased out their arcane subtleties. Towards the end of the afternoon the jurors were sent out, then brought back after five minutes, then sent home because of the late hour.
Mr Patrick MacEntee, SC, acting for Independent Newspapers, again showed his talent for ending on a high note. This time it was the hotly contested Moscow letter, an alleged appeal for £1 million in the name of WP leaders to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1986.
Cross-examining Mr De Rossa on the subject, Mr MacEntee initially described it as "a letter you wrote". Mr Paul O'Higgins SC was instantly on his feet to object. Mr MacEntee rephrased the description to the "letter that bears your name". But Mr O'Higgins was in full flow, criticising "extreme misbehaviour by my friend, and, he well knows it".
The jury, which is getting plenty of aerobic exercise, was sent out then called back, to be assured by Mr MacEntee that Independent Newspapers was not suggesting Mr De Rossa had signed "what I would call the Russian letter".
Properties and their ownership had been at the heart of Mr MacEntee's inquisition. Repsol, already known to the jury as a printing and publishing company which shared a headquarters with the Workers' Party, now appeared to have substantial property holdings as well.
Mr MacEntee took Mr De Rossa through the list of premises used by the WP. They included the party's head office at Dublin's Gardiner Place, Thomas Ashe Hall in Cork, a small premises in Waterford and what Mr De Rossa described as a "site" at Mornington, Co Louth.
The former WP leader expressed surprise when Mr MacEntee told him that, according to public records, the premises in Dublin, Cork and Mornington were transferred from individual members of the party to Repsol in 1983. "I was not aware of that.
On the subject of the Official IRA, the witness repeatedly stated that, as far as he was concerned, it ceased to exist or have any role or function after it declared a ceasefire in 1972. "If you persistently ask, the same question," he told Mr MacEntee, "I'm afraid I'll have to persistently repeat my answer." Counsel gave a patrician sigh: "Yes, Mr De Rossa."
By Mr De Rossa's account, the WP's property holdings in Northern Ireland were modest. For example, the advice centre run by his colleague, Mr Seamus Lynch, was a second-hand caravan which, Wanderly Wagon-style, was towed from one estate to the next while Mr De Rossa was renting an office in Finglas for £8 per week. "It's a bit more expensive now."
Mr De Rossa revealed that, at Christmas 1992, he gathered most of the documentation from his years with the WP and its predecessors, put it into bags and burnt it in a "bonfire in my back garden". He wanted, he said, to "make a fresh start".