If the continuing developments in the Dunnes Stores saga have confirmed anything in the past 24 hours, it is the correctness of Fianna Fail's position in demanding, from the beginning, that the Price Waterhouse report be published in full.
Yesterday saw a fresh wave of rumour feeding upon rumour and a continuation of the distinctly reticent approach which has characterised the Government's attitude to date. The Tanaiste, Mr Spring, came up with the idea that the parties in Leinster House should send a round robin to Dunnes Stores asking if those parts of the report which are of legitimate public interest could be released in order to lay them before the House. Who exactly would decide what might constitute the public interest, he did not indicate Price Waterhouse? Dunnes Stores? The party leaders?
The Progressive Democrats leader, Ms Mary Harney, was not for the Tanaiste's softly softly approach at all. Send in inspectors under the terms of the 1990 Companies Act, she urged. Failing that, a judge should be appointed to inquire into the whole affair. The Tanaiste responded by saying that the Government was taking legal advice. It is a week today since Mr Michael Lowry advised the Taoiseach that details of his arrangements with Dunnes Stores were about to break in the press. How long does it take to look up the powers available by statute?
In the eve At, Dunnes Stores have taken some of the heat out of the situation by handing over the Price Waterhouse report to the Revenue Commissioners. The company's legal advisers moving more swiftly than the Government's would have recognised that if they did not hand over the report itself, the Revenue had an abundance of powers under which they could secure all documents relevant to its subject matter.
With the report in the hands of the Revenue Commissioners, the proximate issue in this affair is addressed. If commercial firms have been making unorthodox payments far and wide on the scale reported, the immediate priority is to secure details of these in order to ensure that the taxation requirements are fully met. If they have not been, the evaders must be prosecuted and penalised.
But this is only the beginning. The most disturbing questions arise on the relationship between politicians and big business and on the integrity of the system. The rumour mill has it that individuals from other walks of public life are also in the frame, including paid officials and media figures. It must be stressed, however, that insofar as this newspaper is concerned, its reportage has so far confirmed only its published details relating to Mr Lowry and a senior Fianna Fail figure.
No conclusions can or should be reached without full information. And that necessitates publishing the Price Waterhouse report for public scrutiny. If it should turn out that there is a canker at the heart of our public life - or if there has been in the past - it must be brought into the light of day and dealt with. Perhaps the greatest sadness of the past week has been the inability of those currently in office to articulate that principle with conviction. In last night's reports that civil servants have been sent to Dunnes to ask for a copy of the report for the Government there may be the signs of a dawning sense of urgency.