Ethics legislation was supposed to buttress the public's confidence in politics. It is not working, writes Mark Hennessy, Political Correspondent
Moving the legislation to set up the Standards in Public Office Commission in May 2001, the minister for the environment at the time, who happened be Mr Martin Cullen, said the country's political and administration institutions had to be "supported and trusted" by the people.
The Standards in Public Office Commission was unveiled in December 2001 with balloons and whistles by the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, to replace the Public Offices Commission, as he struggled to tackle the public's concerns about corruption in the body politic.
The new body, headed by a High Court judge and populated by some of the great and the good of Irish public life, was supposed to bring back confidence in the system. Weighed down by increasingly complicated legislation that is difficult, if not impossible to implement, it is failing, through little fault of its own.
The latest example has been the handling of the inquiry into Mr Cullen's own involvement, or otherwise, with the awarding of PR contracts to Waterford-based public relations executive, Ms Monica Leech.
It could have used Section 4 of the Standards in Public Office Act, which allows for probes if there is evidence that office-holders may have done something which is "inconsistent with the performance" of their duties.
While Mr Cullen will, understandably, insist that the commission's decision not to launch a full inquiry completely exonerates him, the reality is less clear-cut.
Having examined the Ethics in Public Office Act and the Standards in Public Office Act, the commission decided, instead, that the terms of the legislation did not allow them to investigate further.
The investigation by former Revenue chairman, Mr Dermot Quigley into the Cullen/Leech case found that whilst nothing wrong was done the Minister had left himself open to "a perception of impropriety" charge.
Unlike the standards commission, Mr Quigley could make judgment calls. Where he did choose to make such calls, Mr Quigley chose to be cautious, even timid.
Short of finding Mr Cullen guilty on all counts, Mr Quigley was probably on a hiding to nothing, given that the Cabinet had appointed him only after it accepted that the irritating controversy would not go away without being pushed. Following a meeting that lasted for less than two hours on Monday night, the standards commission said that a prima facie case did not exist that would allow them to launch a full inquiry. The logic of this is that the commission will never get fully to investigate the conduct of a full Cabinet minister.
If enough evidence to form a prima facie case ever does exist against a Cabinet minister then one can be sure that that individual will be gone out of office, voluntarily or by being ejected by the Taoiseach of the day, long before the commission gets to throw its eye over the files.
A speedy political execution and burial may suit the government of the day, of whatever hue, but the public interest is best served by the disclosure of the events behind the controversy.
Following its investigation into ex-Fianna Fáil minister of state, Mr Ned O'Keeffe, the commission told the Government that it needed a change in its founding legislation so that it could launch preliminary inquiries before deciding to go "nuclear" with a full probe.
The inquiry into Mr O'Keeffe, which eventually found that he had not abused his office even though he had failed inadvertently to disclose a conflict of interest to the Dáil before a key vote, took a year.
Faced with the commission's request, the Government changed the law so that it could begin preliminary inquiries, followed by full inquiries, if they proved to be necessary.
A full inquiry into Mr Cullen, had the commission called one, would probably have taken the same length of time, because Mr Cullen would have been entitled to bring in legal representation.
However justified, an ethics system that is forced to run like a court is not going to be an ethics system that works. That is not in the interests of politics, or the public.