During Communist times, members of the Soviet elite used to drive in special lanes around Moscow in their Zil limousines, disdainfully looking upon the serfs in the cold outside through darkened glass. Mark Hennessy writes.
Listening to the arrogant performance of Minister of State, Mr Noel Treacy on RTÉ's Morning Ireland on Tuesday, I began to believe that he and other Fianna Fáil colleagues now look upon Irish roads in the same way.
Last September, his driver was stopped at a Garda checkpoint doing 95 m.p.h. as he rushed the ever-so-important Minister of State to the Dáil for a speech on the Bill setting up the Nice Treaty referendum. "No doubt the huddled masses yearning to breathe free" in central and eastern Europe will be forever grateful to the Galway East TD for tolerating the breaking of a law so that he could get to the Dáil on time.
Having paid absolutely no attention to Mr Treacy's contribution on the future of the European Union the first time out, I went back to read his stirring call to arms on the House of the Oireachtas website. Such an orator! Such a visionary! "We have enjoyed the benefit of enormous economic and social progress from our membership of the European Union in the past 30 years," he declared. Bowled over by the fertile mind of the Minister of State for Agriculture, I ploughed on. "Our agri-food industry has been completely transformed since our accession to the EEC in 1973," he said. Clearly, this had been a defining moment in the Nice Treaty referendum, the fulcrum on which the whole campaign turned, the instant when he, and he alone, had brought rural Ireland behind EU enlargement.
Now, few of us can put our hand on our heart and swear that we have never gone over the speed limit. Last year, there were 272,228 fines handed out for such offences - a sharp rise on the 224,264 doled out the year before. If given such a penalty, the rest of us ordinary mortals will grumble; feel hard done by or more likely, worry about the size of next year's insurance premium in the wake of the arrival of penalty points.
However, the ordinary rules do not apply if you are Noel Treacy, who had to have the vaguest notion of an apology dragged out of him during his superior, haughty Morning Ireland appearance. His driver had been "driving a very good car". "He was on a very high quality road and I believe that he was in charge of the vehicle that was very, very roadworthy and that he was in full faculties and capacity to do a professional job.
"I regret very much that we had to exert ourselves on that day. That is the requirement of office, you know, that you must do your best to be available to the people," Mr Treacy told the programme's gravel-tone presenter, David Hanly. His clear belief that the traffic laws are for "the little people" is shared by more than a few others in Government today. Step forward, please, An Taoiseach, Mr Bertie Ahern. During the last general election campaign, journalists "clocked" Mr Ahern's Fianna Fáil cavalcade doing 95 m.p.h. outside Wexford, along with numerous other breaches along the way.
Questioned about it, Mr Ahern not only did not apologise. He denied that it ever happened. "I haven't been monitoring but I do not think so. What we are doing is trying to keep everyone together.
"I have all the travelling press with me and because of that we have slowed to ridiculously slow levels and what I have done walked, possibly faster than I have motored," he told a party press conference.
A few, regrettably feeble, attempts by the assembled press corps to probe further ran into the sand as Mr Ahern and his assembled lieutenants barely tried to hide their contempt. On the following day, an Irish Times reporter attempted to keep up with Mr Ahern's election machine in Co Meath, but dropped out when the convoy started doing 85 m.p.h. on back country lanes. All of this is happening at a time when the Minister for Transport, Mr Brennan, is ordering the rest of us plebeians to heed speed limits or face life without a driving licence. Speeding is not a joke. Our past toleration of it, and our own past sins, are no excuse for tolerating serious breaches of the law now, or in the future. And the law applies to everybody.
Nobody in Government has publicly, or even privately, raised any question over Mr Treacy's position following his radio performance - which in itself says much about the tone of the present administration. His nonsensical defence that he works a 120-hour week is no excuse. Firstly, if he cannot organise his own time, why should we trust his ability to run any element of any department?
Secondly, is he seriously trying to argue that being busy is an excuse? Frankly, it is now necessary for the Taoiseach to issue a diktat to all Ministers, senior and junior that they stay inside the speed limit, unless they have the services of Garda motorcyclist outriders for emergencies.
While none of his colleagues have questioned his position following the interview, a few have questioned his good sense. "Why did he not just apologise in a two-line press statement," queried one. Treacy, you see, has broken the cardinal rule of politics: if one feels contempt for the public, then one should at least hide it. Sack him Bertie. Not for speeding but for stupidity.