SOMETHING ROTTEN IN THE STATE

Bought and sold for English gold, what a parcel of rogues in a nation'. So the old song goes. Or words to that effect. And it's clear that little has changed. The tales of corruption unfolding by the day are gobsmacking. Amazing, but not incredible.

Well, at least they should put paid to the recent rustic ranting from the Kingdom about immigrants and asylum seekers. You know the line there's people coming here to abuse our system, to fatten off our hard-won social welfare, to take the easy handouts. Jaysus, what about the senior politicians and public servants who have fattened off the land?
The various tribunals are revealing a core truth about the Ireland that emerged from the 1960s. It's a salutary lesson. That period is usually held up for our admiration as the birth of modern Ireland. Commentators and economic historians write glowingly of Sean Lemass' government, the work of TK Whittaker and various other icons of industrialisation.
Now. I'm not disagreeing about the substance of it there was no way we could have continued in the old introspective style of the thirties, forties or fifties. It marked the beginning of the end of the reign of the mullahs. And thank goodness for that.
But at the same time and for all the good it did, it introduced an evil to Irish society, a snake in the grass. The shackles were thrown off, a new entrepreneurial spirit was unleashed. And with it came a swashbuckling style of politics that overlapped with business and property development in a way previously unknown in this peasant backwater.
Great gas. But bad news. It introduced a new and amoral note that it was okay to cut corners, to take the fast track, to use the inside track. And at its core was what is often called a golden circle.
Of course, it didn't start that way. It probably began as the impatience of young men with out-dated systems and old-fashioned people. They probably saw it as the triumph of the resurgent Irish citizenry over old money and old values. Maybe they thought that this risk-taker political style broke the mould and set the switches for the new Ireland, I don't know.
They certainly weren't helped by the idolatrous commentaries of the day, for example those of John Healy in the Irish Times. The basic message was that this swashbuckling adventurism ushered in the modern era. These were the great men of the second half of the 20th century. These were the electrical engineers of Ireland, bringing light and heat to the farthest flung quarters of the island.
Well, that august journal has changed its tune. For months now, the editorial writers have been fulminating about low standards in high places. And rightly. I agree. But this is horse and carriage. One came with the other. We got modernity. And we got corruption.
Writing in the Irish Times about Frank Dunlop's extraordinary day of truth and expiation, Paul Cullen described his revelations as the most shocking depiction of graft and palm-greasing ever seen in Irish politics . Which about sums it up.
I won't go into the details. Neither will I get into the various characters he brought into the open, like the 'powerful individual' or the 'fairly insatiable councillor'. Mr Big, Mr Greedy, Mr Insatiable Up to 30 Dublin politicians and 14 landowners were implicated in his evidence. How'll ya call it? A chain of corruption?
Not only that, but Dunlop reported that three of the politicians he paid tried to contact him after he gave his evidence.
Now I accept that some of those who got money only got small sums, and probably used them for legitimate electoral expenses. And I'm sure they can demonstrate that and clear their names. It's unfortunate that they have been implicated in this, but that's life.
But put together with the revelations of George Redmond, they create a richer and more foul-smelling stew. The tribunal was told the former assistant Dublin City and County manager had amassed over #1 million in assets Much of it was in cash, stashed in various places around the house. I mean, it's just bizarre.
Meanwhile, over in the Moriarty tribunal, we were hearing that sums in excess of #8.6 million were used to Charles Haughey s benefit over a 17-year period. This was between 1979 and 1996. The money came from banks, stockbrokers and businessmen. The stuff that emerged on May 24th in particular was simply mind-boggling. Apart from the scale of benefactors' benevolence towards Haughey, we had Ben Dunne admitting that it was extraordinary that he had no recollection of having paid more than #1 million more than what he originally intended paying to Haughey!!
I mean !!!!!
Okay, it is probable that #8.6 million is a bit of an overestimate, but most observers reckon it's pretty close. For the period 1985 to 1991, the bills paid on his behalf by his former company Haughey Boland would have equalled #22,750 a month.
So, where does all this leave us? Submerged in a trough with swilling swine?
Well, Moriarty is close to the end. Haughey will be brought to testify. And things will take their course. Flood will take longer, but that will conclude as well. However, their reports will just reveal part of the truth, not all. There will have been other corruptions, other slacknesses, other misbehaviours. There will have been other parts of the country where nods and winks were exchanged, where planning permissions were helped by campaign payments. Nobody believes that it was only County Dublin.
I don't know. Somewhere along the line, we're going to have to look at the balance again, between what we thought we gained and what we think we lost in the Gadarene rush to capitalist nirvana in the sixties. There's no going back, of course. As James Brown sang, 'it is what it is'. But looking forward, it might give us a new standpoint for the future.
Cold comfort, I know. But it's all we got.