A tradition maybe, but it is theft

The senator was stunned, shocked, outraged. The incident was, he thundered, "a most serious occurrence and one which sets a very dangerous precedent . . . We should be warned. It shows that one of the fundamentals of democratic Government, that of free speech and the right to have your case expressed, is being violated."

The cause of his concern was the issuing of a party political document using free Oireachtas postage and Civil Service time. "So now we reach the stage in democracy where a document that is purely a party political document, containing as it does only one side of the case and making very vicious attacks on opponents, is paid for by the taxpayers' money so that one party may gain a political advantage . . . I must protest at this general misuse of Government funds and I must protest more especially when the political manoeuvre in which it is used is evident."

I came across this debate about the abuse for electoral purposes by political parties of taxpayers' money in the records of the Seanad for August 5th, 1959. I'm sure, if life were not so short and the rhetoric were not so tedious, I could go back even further and find earlier examples. But this one is enough to make the essential point. For a very long time now politicians of all parties have known that stealing public money in the form of prepaid Oireachtas postage and/or Civil Service wages is not just wrong but a distortion of the electoral process. And for a very long time, they've gone on doing it while the Garda Síochána has looked the other way.

Each of the 166 TDs and 60 senators gets an allocation of 1,750 prepaid Oireachtas envelopes a month, adding up to a total of 21,000 envelopes each a year. This costs real money: somewhere between €2 million and €2.5 million a year. That money is spent by us as taxpayers for a very clear purpose: to allow members of the Oireachtas to communicate with the public on business connected with their parliamentary functions.

It is not a perk. It is not a freebie. And it's not a private plaything. Taking money given to you for one purpose and using it for another is not just unethical, it's illegal. If a secretary in a private company is caught, time and again, using the office franking machine to send out private letters, the company will eventually call in the guards and the secretary will go to court.

TDs and senators have been warned, again and again, that they can't steal Oireachtas envelopes and give them to their mates. They've been told in particular since the Des Kelly court case in 2002 that using the resources of office to distort the electoral process isn't just wrong, it's unconstitutional. Yet dozens of candidates in the recent local elections, mostly but not exclusively from Government parties, went ahead and did it anyway. The Lorcan Allen case in Wexford may have been especially egregious, but his misappropriation of public resources was was not at all unusual.

To take just one small example, the Mayo News, in the run-up to the election, ran a story about how one bright young Fianna Fáil candidate for Westport Town Council was using Oireachtas envelopes in his campaign. What did the candidate have to say when his behaviour was exposed? Sorry? I didn't know it was wrong? I'm ashamed? No, he said: "This is something that is done in every political party. Members of the Oireachtas, both TDs and senators, often make a limited number of Oireachtas envelopes available to local organisations for postage purposes. This is really nitpicking in the extreme to make an issue of something so trivial and I feel there are much more important issues to be addressed in the run-up to the Westport Town Council elections."

The young man was not mistaken. Asked about this whole business in the Dáil last week, the Tánaiste, leader of a party founded by those who were sickened by the levels of corruption in Irish public life, said rather matter-of-factly that: "I believe Oireachtas envelopes were used widely by a number of sides in this House in the recent local elections campaign. I have in my possession some letters sent out by deputies seeking support, not all from the Government side."

She did not say what she intends to do with these incriminating documents in her possession, but there was no indication that she intends to do the decent thing and ask her colleague the Minister for Justice to refer them to the Garda for an urgent investigation.

This attitude makes an ass of the law. Shoplifters and petty thieves should try it sometime: yeah, I robbed the handbag, but people expect a certain number of handbags to be stolen every year and I wasn't the only one who was out robbing and anyway this is just nitpicking 'cause there's much more serious crimes to be getting excited about. They should also ask for their cases to be dealt with by the puny Standards in Public Office Commission, which found that the "use of official resources for electoral purposes" by Frank Fahey and Noel Dempsey didn't even warrant an investigation.

The Ministers just had to be good boys and give back the public money they misappropriated. I'm sure the lads down in the District Courts would love to be included in that kind of justice.