Some 66 years ago Fianna Fáil could not take a stand on a moral issue either. On June 8th, 1937, Patrick Hogan, of the Labour Party (later Ceann Comhairle), on behalf of his colleague, Michael Keyes, asked the Minister for Local Government, Sean T. O'Kelly (later President) what answer he (the Minister) had had to a circular he had addressed to local authorities in which he requested them "to prevent public impropriety or indecency arising from the fact that sufficient number of (bathing) shelters had not been provided for the sexes".
Mr Keyes's question continued: "Further to ask the Minister will he request the said authorities to allocate separate bathing places (1) for women and children; (2) for men and boys; (3) for mixed bathing, and thereby help maintain public propriety and public decency and prevent the undesirable present conditions under which men and women dress and undress together in public".
The Fianna Fáil man fudged. It rested with the sanitary authorities to make by-laws regulating bathing places. Sean T. was right to fob off the silliness of Michael Keyes, who later became, God forgive us, Minister for Local Government and, later still, Minister for Posts and Telegraphs.
The same cannot be said for his party leader Eamon de Valera, six weeks earlier, when he was faced with the moral issue that overwhelmed the last century. On April 20th, 1937, the then leader of the Labour Party, William Norton, asked Eamon de Valera if his attention had been drawn to an interview given by the representative of the Irish State to a German newspaper in which he said that the German Reich and Herr Hitler had many admirers among the youth of Ireland.
In reply, Mr de Valera said the interview was not authorised but was very general in character.
He continued: "From inquiries I have made, I find that the statement quoted by the deputy had reference to the visit of some Irish school boys to Germany last year \ at the invitation of the Hitlerjugend [Hitler Youth]. In the circumstances I do not think that the statement could be regarded as more than an expression of courtesy and consequently I do not consider it necessary to take any steps in relations to the statement".
The leader of the Labour Party was indignant (it goes with the job) but his indignation was not over the massing of Jews in concentration camps. He was worried about the religious persecution of Catholics and he thought the remarks of the Irish representative suggested the Irish people approved of this. Mr de Valera did not think so.
Equivocation in the face of moral issues is reflexive for Fianna Fáil and Bertie Ahern and Brian Cowen stand firmly in that same vein of moral decadence. The world is now faced with a war on a country already devastated by war and sanctions. Several reputable world agencies have predicted that war will bring death to well over 100,000 people, whether as a direct result in terms of war fatalities or as a consequence of famine and disease.
IT MAY be that not all wars are unjust but if so, then surely the justification for war has got to run along the well-established lines: whether there is a just cause; whether all other measures have been exhausted in the pursuit of such cause; whether the harm of war is proportionate to the cause; whether there is a reasonable expectation of success; and whether just means are to be deployed, including every possible measure to avoid harm to innocent people.
For a start, let's agree the case for war on Iraq meets the success criterion, but does it meet the just cause criterion? The purported cause of war is not the removal of a despotic, murderous regime.
We are told the "regime change" objective is now off the table. The proximate cause of war now, we are told, is the alleged refusal of the regime of Saddam Hussein to comply with UN Security Council demands to dispose of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons. But the inspectors have said there is no evidence he has any of these weapons, although he has failed to account for the claimed destruction of stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons. Can it be seriously contended that a just cause for war and the horror it will bring to so many people is failure to account for the destruction of weapons?
The second test: whether all other means have been exhausted to achieve the declared objective? Manifestly, no. The continuance of the inspections process, especially backed up by the threat of war, is obviously producing results, so why shouldn't it continue? And why should it not continue indefinitely?
On proportionality: how is the disarming of Saddam Hussein, in circumstances where he is so comprehensively contained by sanctions, inspections and the threat of war, proportionate to the massacre of so many Iraqis, of US troops and of others and the devastation of the lives of millions?
And as for avoiding harm to innocent people, the Americans themselves tell us they plan to devastate "dual use" facilities, such as the electricity, water and sanitation infrastructure and they refuse to rule out the use of nuclear weapons.
The snarling dismissiveness of our Foreign Minister and Taoiseach to all of this underscores our enduring moral degeneracy.