Brazenness of Flynn is staggering

The phrase that comes to mind is "house of lies". It was used in the High Court in 2001 in relation to Beverley Flynn TD. It did not, as you might imagine, refer to her employers from 1989 to 1997, National Irish Bank, although it would make a pretty good corporate slogan: Put Your Money to Sleep in the House of Lies.

No, the house of lies, as Beverley's barrister told a jury of her peers on her behalf, was constructed by RTÉ. The unlawful incarceration of the Mayo TD in this great abode of pernicious falsehood called, as he put it and as his client demanded, for "swingeing compensation".

Reading last week's report of the High Court inspectors, it's the brazenness, the sheer diamond-hard neck of it all, that presents the only really remarkable aspect. Though it's very important that an official legal document confirms the truth, we already knew most of it. We have become inured to large-scale organised white-collar crime. We know that behind the facade of respectability, corporate corruption has been allowed to thrive. We know that in the go-getting culture of the new Ireland, ethics are for wimps. The scale of shamelessness, though, is still staggering.

Since 1983, it had been a criminal offence for any person to knowingly aid, abet, assist, incite or induce another person to make or deliver, knowingly or wilfully, incorrect tax returns. Even when morality is left aside - and, by God, were these people good at leaving morality aside - you might expect some small element of guilt about flagrantly and repeatedly conspiring to break this law. Or, at the very least, some little tinge of anxiety about the consequences of getting caught and facing public opprobrium. Yet you will search in vain for any evidence of the fear of getting caught.

The one note of honesty in the whole saga is that NIB's schemes to defraud the honest taxpayer were completely upfront. The sales brochure for one of the scams, the Emerald International Portfolio, stated that there would be "no probate requirement". Or, as Beverley Flynn put it to her clients: "This facility removes any risk involved in distributing [the customer's] money on death." The risk being eliminated, of course, was that the Revenue Commissioners would find out about the money through the probate process. The CMI Personal Portfolio that Ms Flynn also sold likewise came with its advantages highlighted: no client names on the account; no probate requirements; no tax paid.

But if there was an honest statement to the customers that the bank would help them break the law, that was about as far as the honesty went. The subsequent brazenness is breathtaking. When the story was broken by RTÉ, NIB sent letters to all of its clients saying that it was all lies. When it emerged that a letter accompanying an internal NIB investment bulletin had referred to "the people who have money invested offshore already or whose money is 'Hot'," we got straight-faced denials that hot money meant hot money. Beverley Flynn told the High Court, on oath, that "hot" in this context might have meant "a person who was 'hot' for an investment or pension, somebody about to do business". One of her colleagues told the inspectors that "hot money" meant "hot prospects".

The complete shamelessness continued. Beverley Flynn, knowing that she had helped to cheat the honest citizens of Ireland, continued to see herself as a fit person for high offices of State, and went all the way to the Supreme Court in an attempt to vindicate the good name she believed she deserved. NIB effectively refused to co-operate with the inspectors appointed by the High Court for a full year. It still hasn't paid back all the money that it stole from its customers. Almost unbelievably, even by the standards of the barefaced behaviour that characterises this whole saga, when it did recompense customers it deducted charges for the overdrafts that some of them had been forced into because the bank was stealing their money.

And through all of this, until a few whistleblowers talked to RTÉ, no one did anything. No ordinary bank officials went to their union to complain that they were being forced to engage in a criminal conspiracy. No professional auditor or accountant went to the Garda. No director resigned in protest at the prospect of being paid in dirty money. This is what is truly frightening. All societies have crooks and scam-merchants, but when organised crime is regarded as normal, and those who perpetrate it are elected to parliament, you're looking at a society that is morally brain-dead.

The disease has spread from the top, and while surgical incisions such as the NIB report show us a rotten limb, they do not create a cure. Time and again, we've seen and smelt the corruption. Time and again, we've heard the yelps of outrage and the promises that, this time, a stand will be made. Time and again, the perpetrators get away with it. The whole process is based on the misconception that, for these pillars of society, exposure brings shame and humiliation. Only when we learn that the nakedly corrupt feel no shame at all and follow exposure with real punishment will anything change.