So, Minister of State Tony Killeen will no longer be lobbying on behalf of prisoners or their families. Nor, presumably, will any of his assistants. Many a TD, or prospective TD, will be pruning back the list of deserving causes on behalf of whom they make representations lest a Freedom of Information fishing trawl throws up some uncomfortable associations.
The Minister of State for Labour Affairs no doubt hopes now to put this sorry affair behind him, and has promised to contact relatives of victims of 10 other prisoners on whose behalf he has written letters. Mr Killeen has apologised to the Taoiseach, a man who understands such predicaments. That's all right then?
Mr Killeen's defence case that the letter was signed by a constituency aide and never seen by him, one of 200,000 such letters in his political career, is not an adequate response from a member of the Government. How many other letters were written by the Minister of State offering commitments of which he was unaware?
The mother of murderer Chris Cooney's victim, Mrs Nora Lynch, put it well: "If you have an office, and it's your office, what comes out of that office is your responsibility, and you should be held accountable for everything that comes out of that office, signed or unsigned." Not least because Mr Killeen would no doubt be enthusiastic to claim personal credit when such representations prove, or, more usually, appear to prove, successful.
In truth, it is difficult to believe that the tens of thousands of letters fired off by public representatives, at huge cost both to TDs and the bureaucracy which receives them, can possibly have any significant effect. If a file is moved up a few places in the pending tray because a TD is taking interest, is that a right and proper way to do business?
There is of course a sad truth to the claim that everyone is at it. That does not make defensible an apparent willingness to represent any cause no matter how unworthy, any constituent no matter how villainous.While the single transferable vote system has many admirable features in terms of voter choice and proportionality, the downside is that it has cursed the political system with a pernicious clientelism. It rewards those who write the most letters, attend the most funerals, sponsor the most football shirts, those for whom service in the Dáil is largely a permanent campaign for re-election. It punishes those who see their role primarily as legislator and who don't keep ahead of party colleagues snapping at their heels, as many a former TD will attest.
Is this what we really want of our political system? Many TDs will argue that it has the merit of ensuring a closeness to the lives of constituents that makes for a unique bond not evident elsewhere. But it is at a price. Far better that the €5 million spent last year on the 145 support staff for Ministers for constituency work be directed to establishing a national community-based advice service.