OPINION:The malign influence of 'heedless self-interest' may be difficult to trace but its consequences lie all around us, writes Elaine Byrne
'WE HAVE always known that heedless self-interest was bad morals; we know now that it is bad economics . . . We are beginning to abandon our tolerance of the abuse of power by those who betray for profit the elementary decencies of life."
Franklin D Roosevelt pulled no punches in his second inaugural presidential address to the American people in 1937. The severity of the Great Depression, caused by the 1929 Wall Street Crash, demanded as much.
Brian Lenihan delivered his first budget yesterday, on Éamon de Valera's birthday. In response to the international economic crisis, the Minister for Finance introduced the most severe budgetary measures in two decades. Domestic factors had their place, too. Let us not forget them - the management of public finances on the assumption that a property-fuelled boom, and property-related taxes, would never end (for example).
Roosevelt believed that speculators and the banking sector were responsible for bad morals and bad economics. These "blindly selfish men" held extraordinary positions of influence in 1920s' American public life.
The extent to which influence is exerted is always difficult to determine, as is the identity and consequences of such influence. It may be implicit or explicit, reciprocal or partisan, but it is there.
The 1973 Kenny report, revived by the 2004 Oireachtas Committee on the Constitution report, has yet to be implemented. These innovative proposals, now 35 years old, would have allowed the State to purchase any building land it rezoned at its current use value plus 25 per cent.
In 2002, Part V of the Planning and Development Act 2000 was amended to allow developers to negotiate their way out of providing 20 per cent social and affordable housing in any development through a land swap, payment to the council or building equivalent social and affordable housing elsewhere.
In 2004, the chair of the Revenue Commissioners told the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) that not paying tax was seen as a way of gaining competitive advantage in the construction industry. In his 2005 report, the CAG found that compliance with the Relevant Contracts Tax scheme, introduced to counter tax evasion by subcontractors in construction, was just 57 per cent. Incidentally, this month's edition of the Construction Industry Federation magazine features a rather fetching photograph of Lenihan on its front cover with the caption: "Lobby Politics. The Construction Industry Federation makes its case."
There are lots of ways to make your case - for example, you can give donations to a political party.
Between 1997 and 2007, individual TDs, senators and MEPs from all parties disclosed €2,630,455 in donations to the Standards in Public Offices Commission. Political parties disclosed €2,725,143 between 1998 and 2007. (Subscriptions from the salaries of elected representatives to their parties are not included in this figure.)
To put it mildly, these are extremely incomplete figures, as most donations are deliberately given under the legal disclosure threshold. Fine Gael has made a nil return to the standards commission for the last seven years. That aside, the disclosed figures do indicate trends in political donations.
Fianna Fáil TDs, senators and MEPs received 62 per cent (€1,630,072) of all disclosed donations. The quantity of donations, 931, makes it difficult to provide a breakdown analysis of the sources of this money. In addition, the Fianna Fáil party accepted 55 per cent (€1,486,647) of all donations. Cursory analysis reveals that 40 per cent (€599,990) of this came from developers and construction-related donors.
Treasury Holdings, which also donated under Castlemarket Holdings and Spencer Dock Developments and in the name of two of its directors and the wife of a director, proved the most generous. In all, the property company donated €98,408 to Fianna Fáil and its representatives over the years. The Progressive Democrats were given €69,302.
A comprehensive inventory of developers who donated can be accessed on the standards commission website. It includes Seán Dunne, Durkan New Homes, Maplewood Developments, Ballymore Properties, P Elliot & Co and Dunloe Management Services, among others.
The banks and insurance companies were also charitable to Fianna Fáil and the PDs. American International Group (AIG) donated $20,000 (€14,630), AIB gave $10,000 and Anglo Irish Bank gave €6,475. Loretta Brennan Glucksman, wife of the late Lew Glucksman, former chair of the global investment group Lehman Brothers, gave $10,000.
Thomas J Moran, president and chief executive of life insurance group Mutual of America, donated $20,000. Moran was appointed Bank of Ireland director in 2001-2007. The Irish-American currently sits as non-executive director of Aer Lingus.
Ireland has enjoyed fictional character Jay Gatsby's extravagant company over the last decade. Let the good times roll and don't worry, the Celtic Tiger has been vaccinated against any inconvenient consequences, such as an over- reliance on the property sector and failure in banking regulation. Any suggestion otherwise was akin to treason.
We can see our reflection in F Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby,set in America's roaring twenties. "They were careless people, Tom and Daisy - they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made . . ."