As a culture we permit alcoholics the luxury of euphemisms. We are delighted to indulge our leaders the same way, writes ELAINE BYRNE
ALCOHOLISM IS a deeply engrained cultural phenomenon that we celebrate in Ireland with euphemisms that mask its black destruction.
The alcoholism grows into the white elephant in the small room that everybody walks around and kneels under while at the same time pretending that everything is perfectly normal. It is easier to avoid than to acknowledge. To ignore than to confront.
This psychological disease has an embedded defence mechanism called denial which instinctively punishes those who seek to challenge such behaviour. The alcoholic enters into a cycle of blaming and rationalising which induces impaired judgment and an inability to admit addiction.
The drinking becomes so standard that friends and family involuntarily become facilitators and enablers. Their obedient deference makes them helpless. Excuses for the alcoholic’s behaviour are made out of a misguided concern driven by the natural desire to protect a loved one’s reputation. This loyalty is abused over and over again by emotional declarations and heartfelt promises that it will not happen again. It always does.
There are never any consequences. Because the enablers and facilitators subconsciously accept this behaviour, they inevitably become responsible for it. They are part of the problem that hurts them every day.
When something so utterly wrong is deliberately prolonged, it rots away at the very core of a person’s spirit. The absolute refusal to recognise the rudimentary difference between right and wrong ultimately poisons every life infected by the disease that begins each time with a choice.
Euphemisms disguise the truth. They are polite methods of deliberately refusing to discuss reality. The characteristics of alcoholism and euphemisms marry well.
We will meet both of them today when Brian Lenihan meets the Opposition spokespersons for finance to discuss the terms of reference for the proposed commission of investigation into the banking crisis.
There will be talk of "bronze medals" because the Government is not as "blameworthy" as the reckless lending policies of the banks and the abject regulatory failure. Mary Harney described it on RTÉ television's Week in Politicsas a "hierarchy of blame".
The language of blame evokes a mentality of victimhood where the logic of arguments gets conveniently lost to the emotive game of perceived political point scoring. It ultimately means nobody takes responsibility. It is “systematic failure” rather than individuals that caused the worst banking crisis in the history of this State. One that costs at least three times more than the combined expense of rebuilding Haiti and the clean-up of the United States coastline after the BP oil spill.
One that has already seen 100,000 mostly young and highly educated people exported from Ireland in the past two years.
And what a bronze medal it was.
The “significant factors contributing to the unsustainable structure of spending in the Irish economy”, according to Patrick Honohan’s report, were due to the “Government’s procyclical fiscal policy stance, budgetary measures aimed at boosting the construction sector, and a relaxed approach to the growing reliance on construction-related and other insecure sources of tax revenue.”
Honohan lists some of those tax allowances, reliefs and income tax exemptions introduced by the 2002-2007 Fianna Fáil/Progressive Democrats government: “multistorey car parks, student accommodation, buildings used for third-level educational purposes, hotels and holiday camps, holiday cottages, rural and urban renewal, park-and-ride facilities, living over the shop, nursing homes, private hospitals and convalescent facilities, sports injury clinics and childcare facilities”.
The Regling and Watson report also noted these tax reliefs “directed to the property sector, often in particular regions of the country . . . contributed to a more general misallocation of resources as some of the tax concessions seem to have been granted on an ad-hoc basis in a not fully transparent way”.
But, as Lenihan told RTÉ Radio's Morning Irelandrecently: "Arguments about who did what in the political realm over the past 10 years are not arguments . . . that can be resolved by a commission of inquiry." Harney has described this process of policymaking as "decisions we made . . . in the context we found ourselves in".
So, according to the Government’s own interpretation of the reports, there is no need to extend the terms of reference to cover political decision-making. There are promises now that policy lessons have been learned. The political mistakes that bankrupt this country are “manageable”.
No. They were wrong. There are no excuses. Any deference to that constructed narrative created by those in power, then and now, enables and facilitates this to happen again and again and again.
The Financial Timesdid not hide behind euphemisms last week: "A profligate government in thrall to out-of-control property developers lavishes incentives on the construction industry to keep tax revenues flowing." This will happen again because there will be no inquiry into the undue influence by vested interests over regulation and policymaking. No examination of those elites who had access to insider information which they used for their private benefit.
The main source of funding for Fianna Fáil’s 1997, 2002 and 2007 elections came from property and construction interests. At least 34 per cent of their disclosed donations were sourced from those who directly benefited from the tax incentives. We will never know how much Fianna Fáil received in undisclosed donations. But nobody wants to talk about that elephant in the room.