IN A week when the competition has beer heavy, the prize for political bad timing must go to the Department of Social Welfare. Yesterday the Star newspaper carried an advertisement announcing a crackdown on welfare fraudsters. "People who cheat the system" the Department intoned from a moral height "arc stealing from every taxpayer in Ireland."
Over the past few days, we've been told, Leinster House has been "awash with rumours" or names of TDs and others who figure in the Price Waterhouse report, and who may or may not have "cheated the system". But the fall out from the Lowry affair should extend far beyond the question of what names are to be found in the Price Waterhouse report.
The reaction of less privileged citizens will be to wonder how these people, as individuals or a group, have the nerve to believe that they are entitled to lecture the rest of us on our responsibilities. That will apply however far the individual politician is removed from venality. From now on it's going to be hard to take seriously any Minister who talks about the need for wage restraint, the importance of observing the planning regulations, or of paying one's car tax.
So far Mary Harney has been the only party leader who has made this explicit connection, spelt out the damage that this affair has done to the credibility of politicians as a group. She asked how the Dunnes Stores workers, who have been through a number of bruising strikes to extract minimal concessions from their employers, were expected to react to this week's revelations about the sums paid out to politicians.
She might have extended the analogy. If even a few of the rumours turn out to be true, the Lowry affair could have the same impact on the body politic which the spate of scandals that started with the Bishop Casey affair had on the authority of the Catholic Hierarchy.
AS with the cumulative effect of the scandals within the church, this crisis has been a long time in the making. It's not so long ago that people were prepared to accept that the laws on all these issues payment of income tax, the planning laws, even traffic regulations were largely "aspirational". They laid out guidelines for the way the State ought to be run, but everybody knew these were regularly breached. It was part of the way we were.
The tolerance extended to politicians, perhaps even started with them. It was seen in people's attitudes to the two men who dominated Irish politics in the 1980s Charles Haughey and Garret FitzGerald. Each man was capable of commanding enormous affection and respect among his own supporters. But outside these circles there was wide agreement in the popular view of their conduct of politics.
Roughly, Garret FitzGerald was seen as a decent man, too innocent for either his own or the national good, who never made a bob out of politics. Charles Haughey, on the other hand, was as rich as Croesus and had never explained how he made his money. If he'd done that well for himself, one was regularly told, he was probably cute enough to run the country.
Attitudes don't change overnight. As Vincent Browne pointed out yesterday, there has been a series of financial scandals involving low standards in high political places - Greencore, passports for sale, the beef tribunal (when only the journalist who had investigated the affairs of the Goodman empire was ever brought to court).
These began the process of eroding the trusting confidence that politicians are, by virtue of their calling or family associations, fit to decide what's best for the rest of us. People started to wonder whether they couldn't do better than vote the way their parents had before them. The election of Mary Robinson as President showed it was possible to defy the party machines and elect a relatively inexperienced candidate to high office.
My own view is that the divorce referendum marked a crucial stage in our political development. The voters were presented with a clear but difficult choice between sincerely held, traditional beliefs that were very precious to many people, and an alternative which would have a dramatic impact on Irish society, not necessarily for the better.
It took a lot of courage to face up to the fact that Ireland had to deal with the problem of marital breakdown in an honest and clearsighted way and to vote accordingly. It put an end, hopefully, to the notion of an Irish solution to an Irish problem.
There have been other expressions of growing political maturity. People voted for the present Coalition parties in the hope that they would deliver on the promise of more open, less scandal prone government. Perhaps the most dispiriting experience of the past few days has been to watch how all three party leaders, particularly Dick Spring, who would have been leading the attack on these goings on in the past, have rushed to draw the wagons round the Government campfire.
THAT may not be enough to satisfy the voters this time around. All the signs are that they want answers and, even more, want to know that the laws of the land will be enforced rigorously and fairly.
While the Dail has been "awash with rumours" this week, events on the streets of Dublin offer a rather more hopeful perspective. The introduction of tough new traffic regulations on the streets of the capital is, obviously, not a matter of major political importance compared with allegations of scandalously low standards in high places.
And yet, the way these new rules have been enforced is quite striking. Anyone who drives in Dublin regularly, including myself, knows that the traffic regulations are a joke.
I thought there would be real road rage when Operation Freeflow came into effect. Instead there appears to be widespread acceptance, even welcome for the change, not just among drivers of taxis and buses but from ordinary commuters. It may not last, of course, and it would be wrong to suggest that there are no illegally parked cars. But it does seem that, as long as people see that the rules are being efficiently and generally enforced, they are quite happy to abide by them.
The same thing happened when strict drink driving regulations were introduced two years ago. On that occasion there were vociferous protests that they would ruin the publicans, and destroy social intercourse as we know it. In their hearts though, people knew that the new rules made sense and, once it became clear that the Garda was seriously determined to put them to the test, they adapted their drinking habits accordingly.
We know what happened. Serious road accidents were dramatically reduced and public attitudes to driving and alcohol were changed.
If the public can change so, I suppose, can the politicians. But we have to make sure they know that this time we will tolerate nothing less than true contrition and a firm purpose of amendment.