Graft about more than 'brown envelopes' of cash

POLITICAL CORRUPTION:POLITICAL CORRUPTION in Ireland was more than a matter of politicians accepting brown envelopes full of cash, a former Fine Gael official told the MacGill Summer School.

Frank Flannery, now chairman of the National Forum on Philanthropy and a former Fine Gael director of organisation and strategy, said politics was about the relationship between a governing elite and the governed. For that relationship to survive, a basic element of trust was required.

“Without basic trust the social contract that binds society and provides a means through which society functions begins to break down – and the perception of corruption in the system further corrodes that trust.”

He added: “Traditionally, political corruption in Ireland is invariably thought of as an activity indulged in solely by politicians and largely involving brown envelopes of one kind or another.

“But I would contend that the evidence of more recent years suggests that political corruption has infected parts of the wider public service – and remember, personal gain doesn’t always have to be delivered in brown envelopes.

“So, a better definition of political corruption is the inappropriate use of power and authority for purposes of individual or group gain at public expense.”

Both O’Connell and Parnell received large sums in national collections that would certainly raise eyebrows if it happened today.

“Questions certainly could be posed as well about Éamon de Valera’s funding of the Irish Press, where funds collected years earlier for the Republic were used by him to set up a newspaper, but then the ownership of the paper was vested in the de Valera family.”

He questioned the social partnership process of recent years. “This started out as a progressive and effective tool to manage and revitalise the Irish economy in the 1980s.

“However, it evolved into sectoral vested interest groups engaging in a secretive process of negotiations with politicians and public servants on issues – not just about pay for the public sector but pay levels for everyone, and other wider issues affecting the whole of Irish society.”

Noel Whelan, barrister and columnist with The Irish Times, said our politics operated in precisely the same way as before the economic crisis.

“Nothing significant has changed in our political system,” he said.

He was not against political reform, but was opposed to vague, generalised constitutional schemes that were never implemented. When they got into power, all politicians followed a well-worn path.

He was “fairly convinced” revelations of corruption by elements in Fianna Fáil had no electoral implications.

What had brought about the collapse of Fianna Fáil in last year’s general election was the economic crisis, not corruption revelations.

Pat Leahy, political editor of the Sunday Business Post, said the new politics promised by the former opposition parties had turned out, after the election, to be quite similar to the old politics.

He said that, despite its huge and manifest failure, the chances of changing our political culture were remote.