Fás and O'Donoghue are the latest examples of unethical behaviour deeply entrenched within our system, writes ELAINE BYRNE
POLITICAL LANGUAGE is a curious animal. The Dáil record shows that debate on corruption was least when it was almost certainly happening the most.
Although the beef, McCracken, Mahon and Moriarty tribunals revealed the extraordinary extent of political favouritism, conflict of interest and corruption that took place during the 1970s and 1980s, Dáil discussion on such issues was less than previous or subsequent decades.
The cynical view would hold that this was because unethical behaviour had become so entrenched within the system that it was normal.
A less sceptical observation would hold that the clandestine nature of corruption is such that many within the political and media establishments did not believe the rumours.
In this context, when questions were asked, they were roundly ignored.
Four examples: Joe MacAnthony’s 1974 investigative exposes in the Sunday Independent into the £15,000 payment to Ray Burke from a company connected to property developers Tom Brennan and Joseph McGowan were largely dismissed.
So too was the 1974 Kenny report on building land which highlighted the vast profits to be made from land rezoning. In 1983, the journalist Des Crowley was issued with libel proceedings following an article into Charles Haughey’s AIB debt.
In 1987, the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG), Joe Meade, highlighted instances of beef export irregularities in his annual report.
MacAnthony, Kenny, Crowley and Meade pre-empted the matters under inquiry by the subsequent tribunals, in some cases by some 20 to 30 years.
These four individuals were absolutely right in their observations, but a culture of secrecy, deliberate obstruction, abuse of official discretion and arrogant authority dismissed their concerns.
Questions of accountability and transparency were disregarded as the typical Irish begrudgery of political opponents.
The Dáil, as a body responsible for government oversight, has been found wanting.
In the absence of reform by successive governments, it has allowed itself to become regarded as inconvenient, irrelevant and at times wilfully misled.
The Dáil returns tomorrow after its summer break and faces into what Brian Cowen has recently described as “the most crucial [100] days that this country has faced in a very, very, long time”.
What role will the Dáil play in holding the Government to account? Much depends on John O’Donoghue.
The role of Ceann Comhairle has traditionally interpreted the convoluted 173 standing orders as a means of preserving the status quo rather than rigidly enforcing the Dáil’s prerogative to act as a check on government.
For instance, the Ceann Comhairle decides before the order of business what questions of “urgent national importance” are allowed to be discussed on the floor of the Dáil.
It is disquieting then that the very integrity of the Ceann Comhairle has been placed under such scrutiny over the past two months. Some €126,000 in foreign travel bills over two years, which includes the €1,400-a-day chauffeur to ferry him around Cheltenham, have become lightning rods for an angry public on how utterly out of the touch the body politic has become.
O’Donoghue’s statement yesterday to members of the Dáil demonstrates what is wrong with Irish public life.
It is an example of how normal became to be defined.
The inuring of expenses are invariably described as a “standard and common feature of holding such offices”, “well-established procedures”, “standard practice”, “this has been the case for decades”, and as “legitimate and in accordance with the Department of Finance guidelines”.
O’Donoghue’s three-page statement was a justification of how normal the overindulgence in public money had become.
The very fact that he addressed the letter to members of the Dáil, and not the public, is a measure of just how removed and distant the political class has become.
He must win the public’s confidence, not just that of his peers, if he wishes to remain in office.
The extent of O’Donoghue’s unorthodox largesse at the taxpayer’s expense may indeed be no different than many of his ministerial colleagues at the height of the Celtic Tiger. But that does not make it right.
The CAG special report into Fás, published last week, also revealed how liberties with the public purse had become so normalised.
The CAG exotically describes the spending of €622,000 into nothing as “nugatory expenditure”.
A further €600,000 was spent on TV advertising which was never broadcast and €9,200 for a car which was never delivered.
Former Fás director general Rody Molloy was the only person to take responsibility for the gross mismanagement of public funds.
Admitting responsibility is such a rare thing in public life that it is rewarded.
In Molloy’s case, his early retirement on full pension rights, not resignation, was complemented with a pension top-up golden handshake.
Nonetheless, the same Rody Molloy is still chairman of the Institute of Public Administration, the “national centre for the development of best practice in public administration and public management”.
Peter McLoone, chairman of Fás, told RTÉ’s Radio One’s This Week programme that the agency’s board were told twice by the Government to stay on rather than resign, despite damning reports from the Dáil Public Accounts Committee on Fás expenditure.
McLoone’s confirmation that the board will now resign merely reflects a transfer to new Fás structures currently being put in place.
The controversies of the past and the recent O’Donoghue and Fás incidents have much in common.
Ethical irregularities became defined as normal because they were officially endorsed in the knowledge of an absence of consequences.