OPINION/Medb Ruane: The society to which Liam Lawlor returned on Wednesday had not changed in his absence. While in prison, Lawlor the politician won special privileges: the right to wear his own clothes, not to associate with "common criminals", and a carefully stage-managed exit. Political prisoners died for the like.
Lawlor's offence was contempt for a court and tribunal. He paid his fines promptly, if to the wrong address, and is not being investigated by the Garda Síochána for any criminal allegations or charges. But during the week when a picture of him in or leaving prison would have made a beggar rich, a different picture of Ireland arrived without fanfare.
It is a picture of Ireland bent on fooling itself. The snapshot shows a country whose officials are in denial about corruption as it was, is and may be. This Ireland, they say, is a country with no corruption. Its "close-knit community" identifies and "flushes out" corruption before it becomes a problem. Only eight cases were prosecuted over the last few years and, uniquely, international trends linking corrupt officials to organised crime are assumed not to apply.
This Ireland is so sure of its innate integrity and the value of self-policing that it doesn't plan to change. Some concerns have prompted new legislation, but otherwise things are humming along. Official Ireland said as much to the investigating team set up by Greco, the Council of Europe's anti-corruption agency, which has now politely and diplomatically expressed grave doubts.
Officials representing Government Departments, banks, lawyers and the media told Greco's team - a specialist anti-corruption detective, prosecutor and MEP - that what corruption existed did so only at very low levels. The public was getting worried because of publicity about the tribunals, but the tribunals were separate affairs which may or may not not lead to police investigations.
But with a former prime minister and foreign minister, as well as some politicians and officials, under scrutiny Greco argues that, far from being isolated cases, the potential could represent the tip of the iceberg. Why, it wonders, are the most serious cases before the tribunals not investigated in parallel by gardaí? Greco believes they should be, in the public interest and to safeguard evidential materials in these cases. Yet denial is only one of the factors inhibiting such investigations.
The faith in self-policing shown by Irish officials looks blind. Despite concerns about possible political interference in Garda investigations, there were no plans to secure legal independence from political concerns. Despite some corruption in planning at local authority level, officials would not make mandatory reporting of suspected corruption obligatory for all public servants.
Despite the McBrearty case, John Carthy's killing by gardaí in Abbeylara and some very expensive Garda tyres discussed recently by Tim Dalton, secretary-general of the Department of Justice, officials perceive no need to set up an independent complaints board, procurement procedure or other change in Garda structures.
That perception means detailed statistics and research on corruption in Ireland aren't considered necessary, so they aren't kept. Officials deny links between Irish criminals and international organised crime, and deny links between corrupt officials and any organised crime, even though, as Greco notes, organised crime can't flourish without corrupt officials.
The only way Greco could assess the situation was to take official Ireland's word for it - Greco's report notes that "the absence of an accurate [independent] intelligence picture could raise doubts as to the reliability of this claim", and goes on to say how.
The gardaí aren't trained in anti-corruption, have no data bank, don't apparently believe there is anything wrong with either lack and, anyway, have neither a legal guarantee to protect their own investigations nor are accountable to an independent agency about their own activities. They, too, are characterised by the self-policing ethos Official Ireland claims as a virtue of the close-knit community and as the reason why corruption does not exist.
"Whilst the close-knit community can exercise [self-policing], it can equally be interpreted as a community that is able to be discreet about [corrupt or criminal activity], with the community choosing not to highlight or report any criminality," Greco reports.
The systemic nature of Official Ireland's denial stretches to relationships between corrupt officials and organised crime, an allegation firmly rejected on the Irish side.
"This flies in the face of international trends," Greco says. "As a matter of fact it is generally recognised that organised crime requires corrupt links to exist. In fact throughout the visit [the investigating team] identified indications that there may be a link between organised crime and corruption." Yet even within the Garda, Greco noted apparent contradictions about its own anti-corruption measures. Cases of financial fraud within the force were not detected by the Garda's own systems, but in other ways. They existed far longer than was necessary and lessons were not learned. The same procedures continued after the frauds as before.
Is there a problem only when people worry about it, or only when the system can detect it? As the tribunals crank back into gear for another year of business, the picture of Irish society is frozen. No corruption, no problem. Why change?