Absurd and cynical abuse of powers

OPINION:LET'S GET this straight. It is not indecent to award yourself six-figure bonuses for destroying the banking system. Or to deliver lectures on public policy while moving heaven and earth to make sure that the taxman doesn't get hold of one red cent more than you can avoid. Or to expect children to learn in corridors and cloakrooms because their schools are so overcrowded.

It is not indecent to condemn cystic fibrosis sufferers to die seven or eight years earlier than they should.

But it is indecent to hang up paintings of a man naked from the waist up with, in one case, a toilet roll and, in the other, a pair of Y-fronts. Or at least it is if that man happens to be Taoiseach.

It is tempting to laugh off last week’s scandal over Conor Casby’s hanging of his unflattering portraits of Brian Cowen in the National and RHA galleries. It is much, much too serious for that – so serious that it demands an investigation by the Garda Ombudsman Commission.

If the circumstances in which Conor Casby came to be investigated for three potential crimes (incitement to hatred, indecency and criminal damage) are allowed to pass, we can also forget notions like free expression and accountability.

Let's wind back to the original Sunday Tribunestory on the portraits. Three very significant things are clear from this report.

Firstly, the portrait in the National Gallery did not cause serious offence to anyone. It hung on the wall for an hour while “hundreds of patrons of the gallery passed it believing it to be a genuine part of the collection”.

There are no reports of complaints and indeed it would be surprising if there were – images of semi-naked people are hardly unusual in a gallery, after all.

Bulges-and-all portraits of naked, fleshy people are actually rather in vogue at the moment: think of Lucien Freud’s portraits of Leigh Bowery and Sue Tilley or Daniel Mark Duffy’s portrait of Nell McCafferty in all her glory, which also hung at the RHA recently. If Casby was potentially guilty of “indecency”, why did Duffy not have his collar felt?

Secondly, the Tribunereport made it clear that the National Gallery did not regard itself as having been the victim of a crime of any import. A source at the gallery told the paper: "It wasn't a question of having vandalised or damaged any of the paintings, just adding another one to the collection."

Thirdly, and most importantly, it reported the gardaí who were looking into the incident as being in agreement with this view: “Bemused officers told [gallery] management, however, that it was unlikely the rogue artist had committed any type of criminal offence.”

What we need to know is this: how did that initial, and entirely sensible, view become a full-scale criminal investigation in which Conor Casby was questioned and his other work examined, a file was prepared for the DPP, and Today FM, which had been in touch with the artist, was visited by a detective demanding phone and e-mail records? We need to know this because the alleged offences are so patently absurd.

The charge of indecency is obvious nonsense – it is a matter of fact that in our culture it is not indecent to show an image of a naked upper body in an art gallery. The allegation of incitement to hatred is even worse.

It is a cynical abuse of a very important piece of legislation intended to protect vulnerable social groups from attack.

The paintings may be tasteless and they may have hurt the Taoiseach’s feelings. But, although some members of the Republican Party seem to think otherwise, we are not a monarchy and we do not have the crime of lèse majesté – hurting our ruler’s feelings is allowed.

Irish law recognises “vulgar abuse” as a protected form of speech, on the important grounds that grown-up citizens are well able to decide for themselves what they think of mere jibes that do not contain factual allegations.

That leaves the apparently abominable crime of causing criminal damage by hammering a nail into a wall to hang the picture. Can anyone in authority cite a single other case where detectives were employed to find out who put a nail in a wall?

Can anyone tell us why this alleged crime was so thoroughly investigated while it took years for any real investigation into Anglo Irish Bank to get under way?

Will Hanafin at Today FM says he was told by a garda that “the powers that be want action taken”.

If those powers are simply over-zealous officers within the force, a public apology is in order, not least to the unfortunate gardaí who were employed in such humiliating abuse of their professional skills. If they are at high levels within the Garda, there must be accountability for a gross misuse of power and resources. If they are at a governmental level, we are back in the days of Seán Doherty and political pressure on the Garda.

In that case, this is a matter serious enough for resignation.