ALMOST a decade ago, when I was editor of a current affairs magazine, a situation arose in which a particular story required a journalist to be sent out of the country.
As money was tight, the story presented a fairly stark ultimatum - cover this story and forget three of four others.
In the end, I decided that we could not afford the expenses involved and rang the journalist to tell him of my decision. I explained to him that the reasons had to do with financial constraints. He laughed and said that I was worrying needlessly as the expenses involved would not be nearly as great as I imagined.
There would be no problem, he said, in getting free air tickets for the journey. How is that then? I asked. He explained that a particular airline had a policy of giving free flights to journalists on certain routes.
I asked him about the quid pro quo and he told me there was none. You mean, I inquired, that this airline gives out free tickets to journalists for no reason at all? Yes, he replied.
Although I had no intention of availing of such an offer, I rang the airline to establish whether Santa Claus existed after all. A very nice woman in the public affairs department informed me that, yes indeed, it was her company's policy to give free flights to journalists who requested them.
I asked her if she meant that she would give a journalist a free flight in return for, say, an editorial mention or advertising space. She replied that, no, there were no such conditions.
"And why would you want to do that?" I asked.
"We find," she replied, "that it works for us."
THIS phrase contains the missing part of the map of the emerging scandal of political donations. It betrays the disingenuousness of politicians who maintain that business people who give them money do not exert pressure to obtain a quid pro quo.
It is doubly dishonest of politicians who, having first obtained money in this way, then proceed to insult the intelligence of the public by insinuating that businessmen give money out of a profound commitment to the democratic process. It is similar, in ways, to the disingenuousness of journalists, working for wealthy proprietors who try to tell us that their employer takes no interest in what they write.
Of course, wealthy people don't attempt to dictate their wishes in an open and unequivocal manner. They don't have to because they operate within a culture of understanding. Just as wealthy media proprietors move in mysterious ways their wonders to perform, businessmen invest money in political parties which they believe may be of assistance to them in the future.
Business people do not any more give money to politicians out of some profound commitment to democracy than media magnates maintain vast media empires out of a belief in freedom of expression. In both instances they do so because they find it "works" for them. They do not give money away.
It is not necessary for the "understanding" that is established between such "donors" and politicians to be explicit or recorded. Nothing is ever said, never mind committed to writing. In this context, money doesn't have to talk - it nods and winks, nudges, taps ankles, pokes ribs, fingers its ear and raises its eyebrow. It whispers sweet nothings and plays footsie under the table. This is the way of the corporate world.
As a journalist I recall a couple of occasions when I was suddenly confronted by what appeared to be the generosity of particular manufacturers. Once, in the course of a general article, I made specific reference to a brand of drink. The following week, without warning, this company had several crates of its product delivered to my office.
I would have returned it, loo, m'lud, but, in my temporary absence, a number of my colleagues experienced severe thirsts, it being unseasonally warm at the time.
On another occasion, perhaps the only other time in my journalistic career that I made mention of a specific brand name, I received a call, from the public relations department of the firm in question offering me a hamper filled with its products. I swear to God I told him to send it to the Society of St Vincent de Paul, which he duly did. I should say that on neither occasion was Dunnes Stores the firm in question.
Such experiences tell me three things: (1) that the corporate world is acutely conscious of the most minor - even innocent and accidental - favouring of its product or business over its competitors; (2) that the business sector is clinically efficient in monitoring and rewarding such favours; and (3) that this policy has "worked" for business.
In such a climate, the protestations of politicians that they are not affected by the donations given either to themselves or their parties rings very hollow. If a business were to discover that a particular form of investment in politics was not "working" for it, I suspect the funds would dry up pretty sharpish. In my own ease, for example, I have been careful not to mention brand names in my articles and have not been further troubled by the bounty of big business.
SEEN from the perspective of these experiences, the current controversy takes on a slightly different shape and context. So far, we have concentrated on the list of names of politicians and public servants. But if we are to believe even half of what we read and hear, the list also contains many other names, including those of people in the media, and so far we have not witnessed any undue zeal in teasing out this, aspect.
One of the odd things to emerge from this affair is the hasty redefinition of the meaning of the term "public figure". It is strange that colleagues of mine who recently attempted to suggest that, as a journalist and, therefore, a public figure, I had no entitlement to personal privacy, have not been to the fore in pressing for the list of Ben Dunne's media beneficiaries to be made public. It appears that, where the pickings of corporate footsie are concerned, media people remain private citizens.
This goes much deeper than politics or Dunnes Stores. It goes to the core of Irish society and its beliefs, aspirations and modus operandi. For what is becoming clear is that business in this country has found it beneficial to put aside a certain amount of resources to reinvest in various aspects of what are ostensibly independent and objective repositories of the public interest, with a view to obtaining influence and favours at some lime in the future.
We live in a State ruled by dropsy, lubricated by freebies, in which nothing is as it seems. And judging by the way in which this recent affair has been tackled (which is to say, not tackled), that's just the way we want to keep it.
It would be a grave insult to banana-producing republics to make the most predictable observation about this state of affairs.