Business Opinion:Imagine the following scenario: it emerges that the chief executive of a large corporation has compromised himself by taking money from third parties. He loses his job and a massive internal inquiry gets under way. In the course of the inquiry, it emerges that the individual who succeeded him as chief executive did not have entirely clean hands.
The individual in question had worked very closely with the disgraced chief executive and had in effect been his protege. It now emerges that at one stage, the disgraced chief executive had asked the younger executive to blank sign several company cheque books that required joint signatures.
The disgraced chief executive had then gone on to use these cheque books to defraud the company of significant amounts of money.
One would presume that most people in business would be of the view that the new chief executive's career was effectively over. If he did not resign, the board would have to sack him. If the affair had taken place in the US and the company big enough, the two men could be facing jail time.
One would also presume that most people in business would be of the view that this was the correct course of events. Or would they?
Sometime this week, or early in the new year, the Moriarty tribunal is due to report on its inquiries into payments to Charlie Haughey.
It will - if reports to date are anything to go by - highlight once again that Bertie Ahern blank signed Fianna Fáil party cheques that Haughey used for his personal purposes. The cheques were paid out a pool of funds into which taxpayers' money - in the form of leadership allowances - were paid.
We can take it as read that Ibec, the Dublin Chamber of Commerce, or any of the other bodies that claim to speak on behalf of business, will not have much to say on the matter. And we can presume that this is in turn a reflection of the collective view of their membership.
And there is really nothing very surprising in that. The tolerance shown by the general public for what could be charitably called Ahern's moments of weakness is replicated, if not amplified amongst the business community - and for much the same reasons.
Business has done well under Ahern (although Martin O'Rourke of Bupa might question this assertion). His two administrations have been relentlessly pro-business, particularly under the previous minister for finance Charlie McCreevy.
It can be assumed then that a combination of self interest and fear - or at best concern - about the competence of the opposition parties will ensure that Ahern's support amongst the business community will endure whatever slings and arrows come its way from Moriarty.
And there is a pleasing lack of hypocrisy in all this, as few who have succeeded in business have done so with out some bending of the rules, although they might have baulked at signing blank cheque books for the boss.
Indeed, the same tribunals that have shone a light on Ahern's attitudes to such things has cast a less than flattering light on some of the country's leading business and businessmen. The various peccadillos uncovered range from an unlicensed bank operating out of the CRH boardroom to almost endemic levels of bribery in the property development business.
Indeed, this moral ambivalence has almost become a source of pride for some. Much of the credit for Ireland's economic renaissance is being put down - in some circles at least - to the emergence of a new style of confident entrepreneurial culture. In particular a "can-do, what-ever-it takes-to-get-the-job-done" attitude that US multinationals in particular found attractive.
It is pretty much the attitude that one suspects was uppermost in Ahern's mind when he signed all of those cheques for Haughey.
Yes. Ahern has little need to worry about a backlash from Irish business. But unfortunately that does not mean he is an honest man.
