Sir, - When the Government established the Moriarty, Flood and McCracken Tribunals everyone was happy that allegations of corruption should be investigated. What was uncovered was beyond what anyone suspected. It is right that the guilty, of whatever status, be brought to book.
The corrosive downside of tribunals is that they take so long and risk becoming permanent features of Irish life. Protracted public hearings, sensationalised by the media, instead of lancing the abscess, allow it to ooze into the public bloodstream over months and years. This demoralises, shakes confidence in politics and public servants, and even destabilises the State. All politicians and public servants are smeared and held up to public odium.
Up to the recent past, all monies for elections came from private donors. Few candidates can afford to fund their own election campaigns and if politics were confined to those who could, only the wealthy could stand for office. Donors were an essential part of the political process.
The tribunals and their sensationalised reporting have sown such fears among the public and political parties that we now have a witch-hunt out of control. Anyone who accepted donations for legitimate electoral purposes years ago is almost instantly judged guilty of something. Anyone unable to explain a donation of years ago is exposed to trial by media. All this damages basic principles of justice and fair play, rights of due process and the principle that everyone is innocent until proven guilty? Natural justice is a victim of this lynch-mob atmosphere.
Members of all parties have suffered, and no politician has yet been convicted of anything by a court of law. Some may rightly face the courts. But they should not be victimised on the basis of unproven charges, rumour and hearsay. There is much talk about equality these days, but if the fundamental principle of being presumed innocent until proven guilty, is jettisoned, God knows where the road will end. - Yours, etc.,
Des Hanafin, Seanad Eireann, Baile Atha Cliath 2.