The people have had enough. Amid shattered election promises, the sharp blade of the Flood report is cutting deep. Now they want - and deserve - answers, writes Kathy Sheridan
The plain people of Ireland might have been anticipating a little honesty and humility from their elected servants this week. No one expects politicians to tell the unalloyed truth all the time, but it's horse sense surely to come out with your hands up when you've been rumbled - unless you believe that the people are fundamentally stupid?
This is the point that our leaders seem not to have grasped. People feel that they have been taken for fools.
One question has dominated recent days. If Albert Reynolds saw reason enough to exclude Ray Burke from Cabinet, why did Bertie Ahern, on first becoming taoiseach, insist on including him? It's a question that's still unanswered.
As far back as 1992, land rezoning around Dublin "was a bankrupt currency", in the words of a minister sent in to investigate; circumstantial evidence was crawling from the floorboards; one name was on the lips of everyone; Albert Reynolds warned the new taoiseach that "everything he knew" about Burke indicated that he was unsuitable for Cabinet.
No one is entitled to high office. They cannot sue for loss of money, prestige or reputation if omitted. Taoisigh are not obliged to explain their decisions, as some of this year's enraged aspirants have discovered for themselves. In the gathering smog, all Ahern had to do was to leave him out.
Instead, he handed him the third most important political office in the land.
Why? The question is as simple as that. With all due respect to the Minister for Justice, neither "feeding frenzy" nor "mutual hysteria" enter the equation for most people, not everybody gets terribly fussed about what the Dublin media say.
Fianna Fáil's pre-election focus groups found the public wasn't remotely stirred by the tribunals. By his own account, Minister for Finance Charlie McCreevy was asked about them once on the canvass: "And that man only wanted to know if, with all the money that's been spent, would there be any prosecutions in the end . . . I didn't like to mention that because of the immunity thing for witnesses, that all that evidence would have to be thrown in the bin and proceedings started again if people were to be prosecuted".
Clearly something has shifted. Some 20,000 copies of Mr Justice Flood's interim report have been hoovered up by the plain people, not to mention the many thousands who bought the CD-roms or hit websites, including ireland.com, to read the report. So they pricked up their ears when the simple question was put to Ahern. Had anything about Burke raised alarm bells before his appointment? "No, it didn't because I wouldn't have appointed him if it did". Now repeat after him: "These matters were all part of a five-year investigation . . . All of these issues have been discussed and debated. If we knew five years ago what we know now, it'd be a different position."
Therein lies the kernel of the public's fury. Not only does the question remain unanswered, it seems no one can make him answer. This is accountability, Irish-style.
Never mind the toe-curling coverage in the international media. Or how the perception of corruption is bound to affect international standing and investment. Or how that will impinge as deficits beckon, growth rates plummet from 10 per cent to three in a couple of years, 200 jobs a week are disappearing and inflation bites at twice the European average. Oh, don't annoy us with all that blather either. Get back to Nice.
Repeat the question 50 times if you like, but the man who failed to interview the key accuser before deciding that Burke was as pure as child Saint Maria Goretti (in an investigation that even Minister for Justice, Michael McDowell describes as "very inadequate") has moved on. All clean now. Clean people. Clean party. New era . . . Next business . . .
What made the week so disheartening was that in wise hands, these could have been cathartic days in the relationship between politicians and a chary public. Mr Justice Flood handed a gift to the nation in the form of his report, not only a model of clarity and authority, but a route to new beginnings.
Imagine if Bertie Ahern had seized the moment? Imagine if he had addressed the nation, explained his actions, conveyed genuine regret and apologies, promised to make a whole-hearted stab at getting it right this time? Imagine if he had apologised for misleading the people before the election, promised not to insult them with any more road-running stunts and determined to kennel the spinners? We can only imagine.
Instead, he gave several different versions of what he knew when he appointed Ray Burke. Far from being ashamed of misleading the people, soothing their angst and smoothing the way to the all-important Nice referendum, his Ministers (several of whom are undoubtedly bright and able) seemed intent on flying the most provocative kites, with talk of restored university fees, suspending the special savings scheme and taxing child benefit, behaviour which old opposition hands describe as "classic FF": make the threats, then when they don't materialise, accept the grateful plaudits of a relieved public.
The few Government backbenchers who rebelled then staged a retreat worthy of Dunkirk. Were inducements dangled for silence, such as the highly-prized 20 or so committee chairmanships (worth an extra €12,700 each, plus high profile), or vice-chairmanships (an extra €7,882) to be announced next week? In such a scenario, who in the corridors of power is left to argue the public's case?
The Opposition by all accounts has its work cut out just to be allowed to ask a few questions next week in the only forum that matters. The open-ended debate they sought, on Flood and the economy, was ruled out by Michael McDowell on grounds that there is much important work to be processed this term. So would the sky have fallen had the Dáil resumed a week earlier? Is it any wonder that for Joe Public, the most heart-sinking exchange of the week was when Mary Harney was asked if she had inquired into allegations that a serving Cabinet minister was under investigation over an £80,000 donation. "I have been told there is no truth whatever to the allegations", she said. And from whom had she obtained these assurances? From Bertie Ahern, she said. "And other Ministers".
It is hardly Mary Harney's fault that she has no higher court of resort, but she was surely aware that her response would trigger incredulous gasps throughout the country. Whether the allegations are baseless is not the point (although Frank Connolly, the Ireland on Sunday reporter, is adamant that Flood is investigating such a case). The point is that the Taoiseach and other Ministers got it spectacularly wrong before. And even worse, to this day, are still not admitting how or why.
And in the midst of it all, when the objective surely should be to defuse public anxiety and anger, the Minister for Justice - who personally doubled the PDs' representation by contending that FF couldn't be let out alone - has a lash at the media for indulging in a "feeding frenzy and mutual hysteria".
Hitherto, the public's notoriously short memory could be relied upon to knock stories off the media agenda. This one shows signs of sticking. Still licking its wounds over pre-election promises shattered in record time, the public is in no mood for further dissembling by its elected servants on the matter of high-end corruption.
The problem for those who would shoot the messenger, is that with or without the media, this show will run and run. It is not in Bertie Ahern's gift to draw a line and move on. Mr Justice Flood has not called full time; his report is an interim one.
A dazzling array of characters including Tom Gilmartin and Frank Dunlop has still to be considered. The Moriarty tribunal, concentrating on the activities of Charles Haughey, is due to report sometime soon.
Much lip-service is paid to the supposed intelligence and sophistication of the electorate: where is this reflected in the performance of any party or politician in recent months? Fine Gael and Labour have a case to answer for followingdumbly on the FF track of growth without end during the election. The excuse that it wasn't their job to hand the election to the Government on a plate is hardly worthy of any responsible politician.
Then again, does the blame lie entirely with the politicians? Isn't it true that we get the representatives that we deserve? Are we all not guilty of colluding with a system that turns a lot of decent men and women into neutered puppies, forced into obedience by all sides, unable to see beyond the imperative to shut up and mind the seat, whatever the cost? Many bright politicians would themselves contend that there is a far broader problem here to be addressed. Can they bestir themselves to start asking the questions?