In politics all gifts have strings attached

It must be very bothersome for Mary Harney to be disturbed at her Cote d'Azur villa by the domestic whingeing about her holiday arrangements. After all, aren't she, Charlie McCreevy and their accompanying holidaymakers entitled to accept hospitality from a friend, without Ruairi Quinn and the Dublin media making a fuss over it? In any event, doesn't Ruairi Quinn have some nerve complaining about corporate hospitality?

If that is how she feels about Ruairi Quinn's nerve, she would be dead right.

Ruairi Quinn owes his current position as leader of the Labour Party in part to a gift from one of the most powerful corporate interests in the State: Independent News and Media. That gift came about in the following circumstances: Dick Spring resigned as leader of the Labour Party in late 1997. Ruairi Quinn and Brendan Howlin declared themselves candidates for the vacant leadership. Ten days before the leadership election was to take place, there was a feeling that Howlin might win the leadership against the initial odds.

Precisely at that time, Ruairi Quinn made a telephone call to a friend, John Meagher, deputy chairman of the Independent group. According to his own version of that conversation, Quinn told Meagher that he (Quinn) was in trouble in the leadership campaign. He went on to say, according to himself, that it would be very much in his interests if a newspaper was to commission and publish a market research survey on which of the two contenders for the Labour leadership was the more popular with the electorate. Quinn had reason to believe the survey would show he was the more popular and that this could well sway the leadership election his way.

This was followed by the publication of a survey which, as expected, was hugely favourable to Quinn, on the front page of the Irish Independent on the Monday before the leadership election, plus a supportive editorial inside.

Ruairi Quinn was duly elected as leader of the Labour Party and within minutes of the victory, he was joined for celebrations in the Dail bar by his friend, John Meagher.

There were reasons independent of the results of that poll why the Labour electorate might have preferred Ruairi Quinn as leader. He is able and articulate, is very widely read in politics and is serious about it, although manifestly he is no socialist. There was an additional reason for voting for him: he was no Brendan Howlin, whose handling of the hepatitis C debacle was controversial.

The opinion poll was a massive favour to Ruairi Quinn, given by the Independent group controlled by the most powerful corporate baron in the country, Dr Tony O'Reilly.

By comparison, the favour given by Ulick McEvaddy in providing his villa in the Cote d'Azur for the use of Mary Harney, Charlie McCreevy and their chums is small fry - but it is small fry only in comparison with the favour done for Ruairi Quinn.

Mary Harney and Charlie McCreevy are clearly in breach of their own Government guidelines on the conduct of ministers. These stipulate quite categorically: "All office holders are expected to adhere to the fundamental principle that an offer of gifts, hospitality or services should not be accepted where it would, or might appear to, place him or her under an obligation."

No matter what good friends Mary Harney is with the McEvaddys, the offer of hospitality on the scale of the use of a villa near Nice for a week or more at the height of the holiday season represents a substantial gift and very considerable hospitality. And, at the very least, this appears to place her and Charlie McCreevy under an obligation to the McEvaddys, who at the present time are seeking favours from the Government of which these are powerful members.

Mary Harney, according to her contribution to Morning Ireland yesterday, is of the view that the acceptance of gifts and hospitality is OK if it comes from people who can be categorised as friends. She said valiantly that if politics requires her to give up her friends, then she will give up politics.

This is such blatant blather that one must suspect she is deliberately avoiding the point by indulging in it. What is required is not that one gives up one's friends while in politics or while holding public office. What is required is that one avoids situations whereby one could become beholden, or appear to become beholden, to powerful people seeking favours, irrespective of whether these people are friends or not.

Anyway, if Mary Harney is of the view that the acceptance of gifts and hospitality from friends is permissible in any circumstances, why did she agree to a guideline for the conduct of ministers which clearly makes it impermissible in circumstances such as have now arisen?

All this raises another point which is really more relevant: how can any gifts or hospitality be received by politicians either on their own behalf or on behalf of their party without them being placed under an obligation to the donor?

For instance, why should John Bruton be any less beholden to the McEvaddys if they gave his party a substantial political donation, than Mary Harney and Charlie McCreevy are beholden by the hospitality in the Cote d'Azur. (By the way, I do not know whether the McEvaddys have contributed to Fine Gael or any political party and, anyway, if they did, I am sure they did so without the expectation of influencing the political process.)

The fact is that the political system is hopelessly compromised in favour of vested interests because vested interests finance the system. Political corruption is not just the acceptance of money in brown paper bags by politicians from rich people looking for favours; equally (yes, equally) it is the acceptance of financial donations to political parties from rich people looking for favours. And rich people, in the main, do not give a lot of money to political parties without expecting that at least the political system will look favourably upon them and their interests.

Why is it wrong for rich people to buy an individual politician, when it is not wrong for them to buy a whole batch of politicians who form a political party?

Mary Harney and her ilk get very agitated when it is suggested that "politicians are all the same, the whole system is corrupt". The reality is that the whole system is corrupt and the only way of stopping it is to end all private finance in the political system.

And, by the way, no free holidays for freeloaders.