Corruption hasn't gone away, you know. It's still out there, despite the tribunals and should be an election issue, argues Colm Mac Eochaidh.We do not have the luxury of time on our side before responding to what we know about the way this State is run.
Could anyone have been surprised by reports of a study commissioned by the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust (Irish Times, April 4th) which found that corruption is a central theme of Irish life and that politics and human rights standards are below internationally acceptable levels?
In 1995 Michael Smith (now chairman of An Taisce) and I co-sponsored a £10,000 reward for information on corruption because we believed that land rezoning decisions generally, and one in particular, resulted from bribes paid to politicians. Our suspicions were shared by the Garda, journalists and other politicians. By the time we offered the reward, attempted investigations had failed. James Gogarty contacted us, saying he had bribed Ray Burke. By the time the Taoiseach appointed Ray Burke to the Cabinet, he knew that James Gogarty was telling anybody who would listen that he had bribed Mr Burke.
He appointed him none the less, defending the decision saying he had been "up every tree in north Dublin" investigating the allegation but without success. The one tree he did not climb was the tree where James Gogarty was to be found.
Funny that.
It is in the interest of the corrupt that we tire of the Flood tribunal, complain about its complexity and cost and mutter about the historic nature of its investigations. Judge Flood can hardly be blamed if the stone he was asked to lift revealed tangled webs of relationships between politicians and the business community well beyond what may have been feared.
As to its vast expense, every penny is value for money - though it is unseemly that barristers investigating corruption become millionaires in the process. I hope that those who have lied to or obstructed the tribunal will have to pay its costs.
In the meantime, the State coffers have been swollen by tax settlements made following investigations by the Revenue Commissioners on foot of evidence given to the tribunal. One such settlement of which I am aware was significantly in excess of £15 million.
Judge Flood, and his belatedly appointed new colleagues, will take years to finish their work. We, however, do not have the luxury of time on our side before responding to what we know about the way this State is run. It is trite to say that land rezonings were, are and shall be associated with corruption.
The solution is simple. All land rezoning decisions should be taken by a national land use commission, established and appointed along the lines of An Bord Pleanála. I suggest that it be headed by a High Court judge - at least in its first few years of operation.
Facing 10 more years of significant economic expansion, we will build about 500,000 new homes - from a base of about 1.3 million - in that period. The idea that rezonings necessary for these new houses might proceed in the manner of the past is chilling.
It is astonishing that the Government has not moved to deal with the debased currency of rezoning and instead tells us that nothing can be done while the tribunal sits.
The other issue unearthed by the McCracken, Flood and Moriarty tribunals relates to the way politics is funded. Money given to politicians is quickly explained as contributions to election expenses. The cap on election spending now in place is meaningless as it does not apply until the date the election is called. All of us standing for election are free in this long pre-election period to spend as much as we want and thereby justify the need to seek contributions from supporters - some of whom may be keen to see us soon after the election results are known.
One of the most extraordinary features of our national political scene is that there has been virtually no political fallout from the era of tribunals into the activities of politicians.
Fianna Fáil has succeeded in turning the shattered idol of Charles J. Haughey into an actual asset, a kind of secret weapon. Bertie Ahern's Fianna Fáil points to the remains of Mr Haughey's ambitions as a kind of archaeological ruin which has no bearing on the contemporary political scene. Mr Haughey is swathed in a lost cult of grandiosity, a subject of myth and anecdote, for the present a friendless figure of his personal Elba.
The new Fianna Fáil position on corruption, never expressly or clearly articulated, appears to run as follows. Corruption (a concept which has something to do with political correctness), if it ever existed, came into Irish politics and Fianna Fáil with Charles Haughey. The new Fianna Fáil has not the least connection with this. It belonged to another time. The two tribunals in Dublin Castle are addressing issues of historical curiosity.
And so Fianna Fáil is born again, clean. Mr Ahern does not have to, nor has he ever, in clear and explicit terms, condemned the actions of Charles Haughey as Taoiseach or accounted for his own role in those actions. Just as he has never explained the appointments he bestowed on Mr Burke and Mr Lawlor. Maybe there's something in the air in north Dublin.
Many people, including some journalists, react to any raising of the issue of corruption as old hat, weary old stuff belonging to another era, a residue in the case of Fine Gael of civil war grudgery, and in the case of Labour a dutiful expression of political correctness.
Only this week I was told how an attempt to rezone a tiny plot of land in an urban area was met with a request for £20,000 to be divided between two politicians, one from Fine Gael, the other from Fianna Fáil. My informant will not reveal this information to Judge Flood for a variety of reasons, not least his distaste for the inevitable media scrum which would follow.
I havecalled for an anti-corruption commission which would conduct its business behind closed doors. Informants could offer information and investigations would be conducted privately, with the powers of the High Court available to compel witnesses, seek discovery of documents and bank accounts.
Ongoing corruption requires to be tackled in a systematic way, beyond ad-hoc responses to particular issues determined when some unanticipated stumble precipitates a specific issue into a newspaper headline.
Colm Mac Eochaidh is a barrister and Fine Gael general election candidate in the constituency of Dublin South East