THE current crisis of confidence in the political system has not come about just because of the recent revelations concerning Michael Lowry and the unnamed former Fianna Fail minister who allegedly obtained £1.1 million from Ben Dunne.
It has come about because politicians and others have failed over decades to address obvious questions that have arisen in the public mind concerning low standards in high places.
And if any contemporary event deserves to cause such a crisis of confidence, it is the revelation that the Department of Finance has recently entertained representations from the Dunne Stores family about changes in the Finance Act which would enable it to avoid a possible tax liability of £80 million.
The report that such representations have not been successful "at present" because there was no "quid pro quo" do nothing to diminish a sense of outrage that such representational facility should be provided to an already privileged family.
John Bruton himself has added his bit to the crisis of confidence by his remarks last Friday. Just after the Lowry story had broken, he said the issues raised in the story pre-dated Lowry's appointment as a minister. "Obviously, private business or personal matters affecting what they do previous to their ministerial career are in a different category."
If that were all he said, he could avail of the explanation he has since offered: that the issues involved would obviously be far more serious if it were alleged that Michael Lowry had been compromised in his role as minister. Unhappily for John Bruton, he went on to say: "If any comments or explanations are necessary, I am quite sure he [Michael Lowry will be able to provide them." The clear insinuation was that perhaps no comments or explanations might be necessary, because the allegations concerned Michael Lowry's private business dealings.
Manifestly, John Bruton's view on Friday was that public representatives, including ministers, have no accountability for actions undertaken by them in their business dealings, even concerning allegations of grave illegality. If his views were otherwise, how, conceivably, could he contemplate that it might not be necessary for Michael Lowry to make any statement? That conveyed an extraordinary toleration of impropriety by the State's leading political office-holder.
BUT back to the questions and issues that were not pursued over the last several decades. The most obvious of such issues concerned the most prominent political figure in the State in the last two decades, Charles Haughey. Charles Haughey accumulated ostentatious wealth while holding public office, without there being any apparent-source of income other than his salary from politics.
How is it the Dail and Fianna Fail allowed decades to go by without insisting on answers to that simple question: how did the lead in figure of his day acquire such considerable wealth while holding public office? Obviously, those most culpable in failing to pursue this question were Mr Haughey's Fianna Fail colleagues, many of them now among the most vociferous over Michael Lowry's alleged wrong-doings. Of course the media are also to blame for failing to pursue this issue and they share the culpability for the current crisis of confidence.
One almost has to be apologetic for raising another major issue that arose in the last few years. It concerns the beef tribunal report. The groan of boredom that arises with the mere mention of this is testimony to the trivialisation of politics and indifference to political standards.
Take just one single issue - by no means the most significant - to arise from that report and investigation. On September 8th, 1987, Albert Reynolds allocated export credit insurance cover of £10 million each to Hibernia Meats and Master. Meats, on terms in direct breach of what had been agreed at cabinet a few hours earlier. He went on to award export credit insurance cover to the Goodman organisation also in breach of that September 8th, 1987, cabinet decision.
One implication of that breach of the government decision was to benefit the Goodman organisation to the extent of £2.3 million. The government had decided that the premium on the insurance should be 4 per cent, but Mr Reynolds awarded it at 1 per cent.
Yes, these issues arose in the Dail debate in early September 1994, but were then forgotten. Indeed, at the time, in the course of that debate those Fianna Fail people now so indignant over the Lowry affair, far from themselves examining the evidence presented by the beef tribunal report, tried to shout down the best three speeches made in the Dail in a long time, those by John Bruton, Desmond O'Malley and Pat Rabbitte.
And after the Dail debate was over, nothing. Nothing from Fianna Fail, of course, nothing from the then opposition and nothing from the media. The beef tribunal is remembered only for what it cost in legal fees, not for the mountain of evidence it threw up about impropriety in our political system.
WE have allowed money to infiltrate the political system and, inevitably, to compromise it. Take a few examples far down the scale of seriousness than the issues raised above:
In 1987 Alan Dukes made representations to the then Minister for Industry and Commerce, Michael Noonan, to have export credit insurance cover granted to a beef exporter to Iraq, although the government had then decided to suspend cover for Iraq. That beef exporter contributed to Alan Dukes's election finances.
In the summer of 1995 Denis O'Brien of Esat contributed at least £15,000 to Fine Gael's expenses in the Wicklow by-election. Mr O'Brien's company was subsequently awarded the second mobile phone licence. This is not to assert that there was a necessary connection between the two, but such coincidences contribute to the public crisis of confidence.
That same summer Fergus Finlay, perhaps the most influential Labour adviser, took part in a private conversation with Conor Quinn, the brother of the Minister for Finance, on how Quinn's advertising agency could best secure a government contract: the advertising campaign for the divorce referendum. Again, this is not to claim that the contract was improperly awarded but that the appearance of a conflict of interest has added to the crisis of confidence.
The present Ethics in Office Act and the proposed legislation on the funding of political parties go nowhere near meeting the demands of full accountability.