BEING rather more used to tinned bangers and teabags at Mrs Murphy's residence for paying guests, I was as dumbstruck by Larry Goodman's hotel bill as anybody, not least; because I was paying for it.
I, like you, have been paying; for many things recently: it is curious, is it not, how villainy, attaches only to certain areas of perceived impropriety, and not to others?
The condition of the beef industry no doubt was a scandal; but was not the depth of scandalousness not increased by the fact that the perceived major player was private enterprise, and there is nothing the bienpensants love half so much as knocking private industry? No doubt the beef industry deserved a few hard knocks; though I remain unconvinced that it was worth the Golconda of gold involved.
Devastating indictment
But that was nothing, the merest scrapings of tobacco from the workshop floor, compared to the findings of the Comptroller and Auditor General, whose report last month was the most devastating indictment of the conduct in which our public moneys are handled.
This was scandal which should have dwarfed the Beef Tribunal, and coming on top of the separate and astounding revelation that possibly £1 billion or more was being paid annually in dole to people who did not exist, were untraceable, were too bone idle to work or already had jobs, the PAYE sector should have been in uproar.
The result - silence. Had private industry squandered public money on such a scale, the heavens would have fallen in, and pious sermons about the evils of capitalism would have been read from every liberal left pulpit. But because the primary culprit here is the State, after the day long shock induced by the figures, we returned to normal service.
Lay the blame
I do not blame the public service. The people who staff the Revenue Commissioners, and who are taxed like you or me, must be daily gibbering with rage and plucking their hair as they learn of the scores of thousands of people claiming their dole and then dawdling off to their untaxed jobs. Who should we blame then? Blame us. We encourage this lunacy by not demanding action, and in the meantime are happy to get in a painter or a builder on the cheap, silently watching as these cheerful chappies vanish on a Tuesday morning To Get Some More Paint, Ho Ho Ho.
We have not the political will to confront public squandering of money, particularly in regard to dole fraud, and are content to justify our negligence with politically correct claptrap on the lines of, Look what the Good mans and the Smurfits and the O'Reillys are up to.
Smart chaps
Sorry. Not good enough. Firstly, those men are far too clever to break the tax laws. They do what we all would do if we could and minimise their tax liabilities legally. Sensible fellows. But even if they were defrauding the State - which, I repeat for the sake of their lawyers, I am sure they are not, so lay off me, fellows, OK? - is that a reason to ignore other fraud? Do you ignore the chemical pollution upriver of your home, which is merely turning your skin purple, because of the far more serious problem presented by Sizewell B, which is causing you to sprout antlers and a dorsal fin?
Much of the dishonesty and fecklessness revealed by the Comptroller and indeed involve the business sector; perhaps the culprits there enjoy the protective colouration of being in such; good company as the Department of Justice, which spent £2.8 million on a kitchen in Mountjoy Jail which it didn't use. The refurbishment of Dublin Castle cost 25 per cent - £2.38 million - more than planned. Failure to keep EU rules cost us another £9 million. More than 200 civil servants were paid overtime for which they did no work. Shannon Airport's budget overran by 50 per cent to nearly £1 million.
Yet even when delinquency demands action, it achieves nothing. One "taxpayer" - as he is described in the report; it is the one thing he is not - owed £490,000 in VAT and PAYE/PRSI, and the Revenue referred the matter to the Garda Siochana.
Enter the tax evader's friend; criminal prosecution. No attempt was made to recover the money while the Fraud Squad investigated. But the Fraud Squad decided it was too busy and handed the job over to a Garda superintendent, who two years later passed his file to the DPP's office, which decided that so much time had elapsed that no prosecution would be successful.
In the meantime, a bank seized the "taxpayer's" assets against an unpaid loan, leaving the "taxpayer" in no position to become a taxpayer.
So the matter rests today. "Taxpayer" pockets £490,000, plus loan. Bank pockets TP's assets. We get nothing, meanwhile, with spectacular unsuccess employing Revenue Commissioners, fraud squad, a Garda superintendent and the DPP's office to extract precisely nothing from our dear old TP. I suspect the bank got its money more easily and economically.
This does not even bring us close to the greatest scandal in the history of the State, the affair of the hepatitis C, which, had it involved private industry, would have caused bloodshed in Dail Eireann. And do you know what? I bet the next report of the Comptroller and Auditor General's Report will be every bit as terrifying as the last one, and with precisely the same outcome, which is no outcome at all.