When it comes to scandal in this country, there is an interesting phenomenon of reluctance: reluctance to believe, to proceed, to finish, to go for the jugular. We saw versions of it with Bishop
Casey, Father Michael Cleary and Michael Lowry. Even now, within an ace of total exposure of the Haughey saga, it is possible to detect something of that final disinclination.
This syndrome appears to have afflicted even the McCracken tribunal itself, which, after several months of monumental detective work, appeared to baulk slightly at the final fence when Mr Haughey gave his evidence.
It is disappointing that we did not learn more of Mr Haughey's encounters with Ben Dunne, Noel Smyth and Des Traynor. Given the exhaustive questioning of other witnesses, and given also that there was a high degree of public scepticism about whether Mr Haughey would be called to account at all, it is disappointing that, when he did finally make it to Dublin Castle, he was excused within two hours.
Of course, it is entirely possible, as some observers surmise, that this will in no way affect the trenchancy of the tribunal's final report. Since the investigation had already established the central facts, it may have been decided that there was nothing useful to be gained from pursuing Mr Haughey to the point of outright humiliation.
If this is indeed the explanation, it suggests a degree of humanity which is in some ways admirable. But I'm not sure it is the explanation.
Neither is the explanation related to the all-too-familiar experience of tribal reluctance such as we have witnessed with so many recent political scandals. In this phenomenon, the degree of moral indignation in any given situation is predicated not on objective criteria but on the political allegiance of the alleged perpetrator, and the volume of such outrage is inversely proportional to the accuser's own capacity for objectivity.
The Lowry case is a fine example. It will be recalled that, while
Ireland awaited Mr Lowry's version following Sam Smyth's revelations last November, the then Taoiseach, John Bruton, who has recently been heard calling for all forms of investigations into Fianna Fail governments, said he was "confident" his minister could explain fully.
He stressed that the events in question appeared to have occurred before Mr Lowry became a minister. "Obviously," he said, "private business or personal matters affecting what they do previous to their ministerial career are in a different category." (In a certain light,
"obviously", this logic might suggest Mr Haughey has done nothing wrong either.)
At that time, Mr Bruton displayed no great zeal to uncover the truth of alleged wrongdoing on his own watch. Michael Lowry, he said, was entitled to time to "look into the matter and to say whatever he needs to say from his personal point of view, in appropriate time, having had an opportunity to reflect on it".
When it became clear to all that Mr Lowry would have to resign, he was allowed to without offering a substantial explanation. There followed a bizarre train of events in which he posed for photographs with the Taoiseach, whom he called his "best friend forever", before being received as a conquering hero in his constituency.
IT took three weeks for the pane of glass to be put in place to allow Mr Lowry to explain himself from behind it, and when he did so, his statement to the Dail was infected with what he himself would subsequently describe as "weasel words".
This provides an anatomy of tribal reluctance, which invariably ensures that the pursuit of truth is short-circuited by political allegiance. This syndrome has deeply distorted and undermined the
State's capacity to deal with scandal, because those who have been loudest in their denunciations have clearly been motivated more by tribalism than truth-seeking. This has corrupted public language and rendered the general public increasingly cynical about the public commitments to reform which follow each new round of revelations.
There is a sense that the pursuit by politicians of wrongdoing by other politicians has to do only or primarily with their own desire for power, and that the truth will only emerge to the extent that it serves this process. Indeed, it is arguable that, just as the Haughey business would not have come up had it not been for the Lowry revelations, it is also likely that the Lowry affair would not have been pursued much beyond his resignation from government had not the prospect of a major league Fianna Fail scalp provided the impetus for a tribunal.
But this syndrome does not suggest itself in the present instance.
The McCracken tribunal could be said to be the first genuinely post-tribal investigation, in the sense that, from the moment it was established, its instinct appears to have been to investigate facts and circumstances regardless of either personalities or the consequences for them. For the first time, an agency was seen to expose all tribes to the same unrelenting scrutiny. And this makes that final flinch in the face of Mr Haughey all the more puzzling.
Partly, I believe, the explanation has to do with the sustaining power of the mystique which Charles Haughey has created over the past
40 years, and from which few were immune. There is a profound irony here in that the money he used to create this mystique was the very reason he was being called to account, but it is interesting that this does not appear to have been enough to entirely diminish that mystique.
This is related to another, more interesting syndrome. The concept of the family as miniature of the nation gives us access to a kind of reluctance which may be part of the explanation for the absence of killer instinct. Just as families which have been dominated by a single individual - usually a parent - frequently show reluctance to admit that this person has been false, wicked or abusive, societies may have the same instinct when it comes to uncovering the true extent of the venality of their leaders. Even in the midst of scandal, the mystique of domination, with its undertones of collusion, inhibits the former subject's freedom of action in challenging the erstwhile patriarch.
It is as though we were happier mouthing uninformed suspicions than taking remedial action based on full knowledge of the truth.
Even as we stagger about, drunk on the almost limitless nature of the possibilities, we hesitate before the breath-taking scale of the opportunity that presents itself.