A CHIRPY panellist on Today FM sensed no anger on the streets when an appeal commissioner reduced Charles Haughey's tax assessment from £2 million to nil.
The commissioner happened to be Bertie Ahern's brother-in-law, and the Taoiseach happened to have told Mary Harney he'd been appointed by Dick Spring.
But the panellist was convinced public reaction had been exaggerated by Pat Rabbitte and his ilk. No better pair: Rabbitte's ilk is always out and about stirring things up.
In this case he seems to have done his damnedest. And it worked. Fergus Finlay, who is more battle-hardened than chirpy, wrote here that the day the tax affair hit the headlines was the day the Government's slide began.
The trouble for Fianna Fail, as Seamus Brennan seemed to agree on Morning Ireland yesterday, was that there were too many days of which the same could be said.
The Irish Times/MRBI poll, taken and published this week, drove home the point.
A trail of blunders pockmarked the four months during which the coalition's satisfaction rating fell from 68 per cent to 52, an average of four percentage points a month, and Fianna Fail's support dropped from 56 per cent to 48, an average of two points a month.
Most of the blunders began with reminders of the party's past; some arose from botched attempts to be shut of it; others showed a reluctance to do anything more than hope and pray that it would go away.
It won't. And Fianna Fail's problem has now become a corrosive problem for politics - as well as for the tribunals which the Oireachtas set up to discover what the hell has been going on.
Two findings in particular send an ominous message to everyone engaged in public life: fewer than 40 per cent believe the behaviour now being exposed at Dublin Castle was limited to a few senior politicians; 60 per cent think it was common to most.
And while one in five thinks that behaviour is a thing of the past, four in five are convinced it still exists.
The corrosion this reveals is more important than the future of any administration. Sadly, it confirms suspicions of the populist cant of some commentators and the exculpatory bleating of some politicians. They're all at it.
ALL opinion polls come with a health warning. It's meant to discourage politicians and journalists from jumping to conclusions and taoisigh from running to the country before the team is togged out. Now and again it succeeds.
A political poll is a record of the state of play, not a forecast of the result, though the nearer we get to an election the closer to the outcome the polls are likely to be.
Polls in a series illustrate trends: viewed separately, it's well to look at the internal evidence for confirmation or contradiction of the main findings.
So, although yesterday's poll showed the Government, the Taoiseach and Fianna Fail losing support, Mr Ahern was still head and shoulders above the other party leaders.
His rating, 70 per cent, had fallen by 11 points since October while Mary Harney's, at 64 per cent, had risen two points; Ruairi Quinn, at 55 per cent, had gained four points and John Bruton, at 47, held his own.
The debate about the relationship between a party's standing and that of its leader continues.
Will Mr Ahern's popularity rescue Fianna Fail from continuing decline? (Its core vote, before the exclusion of 18 per cent undecided, now stands where it stood in the last general election, at 39 per cent.)
I think it may make some difference. But, unless the party comes out of its present spin, Mr Ahern himself recovers from growing suspicion and the Government shows a competent hand in domestic and European affairs, it will not be enough.
SUSPICION of Mr Ahern is reflected in replies to a question about his handling of the allegations first made by Tom Gilmartin after Padraig Flynn's notorious broadcast, and soon to be heard in greater detail at the Flood tribunal.
Thirty-seven per cent were satisfied with Mr Ahern's response; 40 per cent were not, among them a quarter of those who said they'd vote for Fianna Fail, and 23 per cent were undecided.
Leadership alone has never won a modern parliamentary election in this State, and the popularity of party leaders has often diverged widely from their parties' support.
Ms Harney's position illustrates the point. Her ratings are far higher than those of Mr Bruton and Mr Quinn; and her star, unlike Mr Ahern's, is currently rising.
But no one expects the Progressive Democrats to take over as the second or even the third party in the State.
Indeed, there is another source of concern here for Fianna Fail. Often in the past the party's losses have not been matched by gains for the opposition.
In this case, Fianna Fail's losses are more than matched by gains for the others - 5 per cent for Fine Gael, 2 per cent each for the PDs and Labour - even after an extra five per cent have joined those undecided.
But it's not good enough for the Opposition to criticise the Government and wait for developments.
The poll shows cynicism about politics has spread to the tribunals. And the week's events will have done nothing to change a growing view that lawyers have joined bankers, builders, clergy and politicians in the clubs of the discredited.
The tribunals have been set up to search for the truth. The lawyers we've seen in action of late are looking for victory for their clients. Lobbyists serve the same clients in the same interest, on another plane.
And, let there be no doubt, some journalists are going out of their way to add our own trade to the list.
Journalists and politicians are forever trying to convince the electorate that the last thing it wants is an election. This week's poll shows they're wrong about that too.
More than half of the respondents said if the allegations now being examined turn out to be true, a general election should be called.
Unfortunately, the survey was conducted before the collapse of the Government's miserable attempt at regional development with a policy for the new age summed up in three words: Jackie Healy-Rae.
It was a dreadful week in which Pat Upton, one of the liveliest, most hard-working and most honourable politicians, died without warning aged 54.
Pat was from west Clare, a part of the county whose Labour tradition is sometimes forgotten by outsiders, who think only of its music. He loved all of the county's wealth - music, games and folklore.
As a scientist and teacher, but most of all as a deputy of the left in a densely urban constituency, he recognised, sometimes with wry humour, the needs and vulnerability of those around him.