Will the lawyers and their clients prevail again? Will the efforts of Mr Justices Flood and Moriarty to inquire into the activities of certain important and powerful people continue to be stymied? Why is it that nearly every current inquiry seems to be challenged, delayed or bogged down?
The Committee of Public Accounts inquiry into the AIB DIRT tax affair will now presumably have to be postponed until after the necessary legislation has been worked out by Michael McDowell's committee. That is due to report at the end of February. The legislation will obviously take at least a month or two after that. As we well know, it may take a lot longer. Mary Harney tells us she has about a dozen inquiries of one kind or another in hand, but no results have been published yet. Are they also bogged down by legal obstacles? Dunnes Stores is in the High Court, challenging the attempt to appoint inspectors.
Drapier has adverted before to the questionable value of allowing individual rights complete primacy over society's rights in virtually every case. If the Dail or its Ministers feel that inquiries are needed in the public interest, should not those inquiries be able to proceed without hindrance? Why is nearly every attempt to find out about certain surreptitious events or the doings of certain people successfully obstructed? Are we paying an extraordinarily high price to protect the rights of individuals? Is the price too high?
At least not every dispute takes years to resolve. There are some expeditious judges. Tom Doran, the popular racehorse owner, had his pride restored on Wednesday when he successfully defended an action taken against him by Mr Wong of Pings Restaurant for the price of the meal to which he treated his many friends after Dorans Pride's victory at Leopardstown last February. Mr Wong wanted over £3,000. Mr Doran offered £1,500, and then £1,800, but it was refused. Now Mr Wong ends up with nothing and has to pay Mr Doran's legal costs on top of that.
Drapier notices that the judge who made this decision after a brief hearing was named Michael O'Leary. Could this be our beloved former Tanaiste, late of the Labour and Fine Gael parties? Has Michael found his niche at last putting a price on bottles of Chablis Premier Cru, spare ribs and spring rolls?
Poor Judge O'Leary was confronted with an appalling conflict of evidence. Mr Doran invited 52 guests, but Mr Wong said 76 turned up. This is not an unknown phenomenon on the Irish social scene, but Judge O'Leary, with the wisdom of Solomon, solved the dilemma by letting the lot of them eat and drink for nothing. A real miracle of loaves and fishes.
Tom Doran had a delightful double by following up his victory in the Dublin District Court on Wednesday with a facile victory for Dorans Pride in Clonmel on Thursday. Did Mr Doran give a party in Clonmel on Thursday night? If so, how many attended and could we safely bet that it was not in a Chinese restaurant?
Pat Rabbitte raised on Thursday the strange Emerald Meats case. Pat used very strong language in describing the activities of the Department of Agriculture. Based on the researches of Fintan O'Toole published in this paper last Saturday, it seems that he was entitled to do so.
Pat accused the Department of fabricating documents and telling lies to Brussels. He accused it of wantonly becoming entangled in a conspiracy to ruin a small company to the benefit of giant competitors. He even accused it of conspiring with Goodman and others to steal from a rival company and conspiring to misrepresent the historical position to Brussels. He described it as ripping off the Exchequer by its deliberate action in unlawful collusion with companies in the beef processing sector which were the intended beneficiaries of the fraud.
These statements made under the privilege of the House are indeed very serious and they appear not to have been made lightly. Drapier cannot recall an Irish Department of State having been accused of such activities before. If Rabbitte's harsh words are justified, we have a real problem and one that we have not met before.
The system is supposed to be able to cope with the odd Minister going off the rails, but how do you cope if part of a large and important Department acts in the way described? Were there, in fact, any Ministers involved in this? Did they influence what happened or was it entirely a departmental matter?
Drapier's colleagues are always complaining about how tough the Department of Agriculture is on farmers who make mistakes in filling out forms, etc. On the other hand, the Department appears to go to extraordinary lengths to facilitate a small select band of beef processors. Is this just another example of the rich and powerful getting their way in this State? Is it any wonder we have rumbles of discontent and feelings of exclusion from the benefits of the Celtic Tiger?
In the run-up to the Budget, which is only three weeks away, we have all the usual jostling for position between the numerous lobbies and interest groups which now proliferate in our system, nearly all of whom have tunnel vision where their own interests are concerned. Liz O'Donnell appears to be on a winner when she looks for more money for the starving millions of the Third World. She must feel she is pushing an open door. But is a request for ever higher expenditure not somewhat strange coming from the Progressive Democrats, who have always preached the opposite?