A chara, – The directed expulsion of journalists from public court room proceedings – proceedings which are paid for out of public funds, is surely a new line in the sand by Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan and this Fianna Fáil/Green Government (“High Court approves AIB bailout”, Front page, December 24th).
This new departure is surely underscored by the fact that the said public court hearing was scheduled to deliberate not upon a private matter but upon the detail of the transfer of yet another vast tranch of public monies into Allied Irish Banks.
No one was brought to book for AIB’s widespread Dirt tax evasion in the 1980s and 1990s and now the begging bowl is out once again for thousands of millions of taxpayers’ money, due to AIB’s delinquent lending practices.
Mr Lenihan’s latest contribution via his new powers is to obtain secret court hearings to secure the transfer of our monies to this zombie institution.
The reality is that these hyper bank debts are being converted into public debt and will be paid back through radically reduced services and welfare, higher taxes, increased retirement age, etc.
It is difficult to envisage a situation more detrimental to the public interest and yet information on these matters will be given to us on a need to know basis, via redacted and effectively censored information from court hearings, which sanction such transfers.
The contrast with Sweden’s approach to its banking collapse could not be more instructive. There, the process was wholly transparent and it worked.
Here, Mr Lenihan and his technocrats have failed abysmally, but unlike Sweden which promulgates freedom of information as a core constitutional principle, Mr Lenihan has now moved to classify information concerning the conversion of bank debt into public debt. The contrast between Ireland and Sweden could not be more stark.
Scrutiny of public affairs by an untrammelled and independent media is a critical distinguishing feature which marks out a democratic state from a totalitarian regime. This Government by its actions is effectively assuming powers more consistent with the latter.
All of civic society, including the trade union movement, must take note and mark this moment as it is hugely transformative of the free flow of information which represents the lifeblood of a democratic society.
If any amendment to the Constitution is required, it is surely an amendment enshrining freedom of information in the Constitution as a fundamental tenet of the legal basis of the State and not a plaything of Ministers, as Charlie McCreevy demonstrated (when Minister for Finance) in his 2003 amendments to the Freedom of Information Act.
If the best disinfectant is the light, it logically follows that the darkness will cover up malignant realities. If we have learned anything from this crisis surely we have learned that much. – Is mise,