For an experienced Minister to stand up in the Dail, as Mr Noonan did yesterday, and deliver prepared remarks on a subject of deep sensitivity, and then, having caused predictable offence, to issue an abject and grovelling apology - that is the stuff of a far less sophisticated political society than ours normally is. Mr Noonan showed a deplorable lack of judgment in castigating Mrs McCole's legal advisers, but that will surprise nobody who has watched his maladroit handling of the Hepatitis C issues since he came to office.
If the words he spoke were written by his advisers, he should sack them, or at least move them out of reach. If, as is more likely - the language he used reflected his combative and rather chilly approach to politics - he wrote them himself, he needs a crash course in realities. He has attempted to manipulate the victims of what he concedes is a scandal. He has presided over a grudging and evasive effort to minimise the true import of a sequence of events which is (his words) "nothing less than a public health disaster". Slowly, a tribunal of inquiry into that scandal and that disaster was wrung out of him, and yet his initial statement yesterday appeared to indicate that he has no real grasp of the political dimensions of the whole sad fiasco.
Having questioned the decision of Mrs McCole's advisers to go through the courts instead of seeking compensation from the tribunal, it is disingenuous of him, to say the least, to argue in apology that he had not questioned their "right" to do so. If he had, he would have been doing something no Minister is entitled to do. But in suggesting that they acted against her best interests, he did the next worst thing, and added unnecessary and patronising advice on other aspects of their role in representing her.
The public has a locus standi in the matter. It, as taxpayers, will pick up the bill for yet another case of official blundering and ineptness. The full story has yet to emerge, and there is little confidence that when it does - as a result of the inquiry - any action will be taken against those found responsible for neglect or other failure. But Mr Noonan misreads the mood of Irish society if he believes that there is any wish to be parsimonious with the victims who suffered from the actions of the Blood Bank. There are two separate questions involved, and the Minister has not won honour or public support by the foot dragging of officialdom which has been carried on under his supervision. On the other hand, there is justifiable ire at the growing list of foolish and appalling errors that must be paid for.
When it came to office, the present coalition promised open government. Its record is no less shameful in this respect than that of its predecessors. Politicians who see no reason why their terms of service should not be aligned to European norms are less eager to adopt freedom of information rights that are common in other jurisdictions. If these were introduced, they would help to lay the basis for a standard of accountability that patently does not exist now. When things go wrong as they have at the Blood Bank, at the Attorney General's office, in the chain of happenings that led to the Beef Tribunal, in the arrogant and stubborn refusal to grant social welfare equality, in the less costly but still troubling matters revealed by the Comptroller and Auditor General - the reaction too often is delay and obfuscation.