IT IS probably as bad as people fear. The culture of inside tracks, tax evasion and political pull has been transposed from a largely impoverished agricultural society into the fastest-growing economy in Europe.
In a modern society information is money. Advance knowledge of when things are going to happen and of the criteria used for various contracts is all a wealthy person requires to make money. But to make a great deal of money demands, in addition, intelligence, ambition and an inside track.
There are all sorts of inside tracks, in banking, business, insurance, agriculture and the professions. And, at some point or other, they all intersect with the political system.
In the past, political parties relied for funding on church gate collections and the generosity of their members. And then, in the first flush of Sean Lemass's industrialisation programme in the mid-l960s, Fianna Fail connected with the corporate sector through TACA and Pounds 100-a- plate dinners. The rest is history.
By the early l980s Fianna Fail was spending more than Pounds 1 million on a general election campaign, and church gate collections were providing the petty cash. Fine Gael tried to match its bigger rival in corporate fund- raising and election spending. By the end of the decade, both parties were heavily in debt (Pounds 3.5 million for Fianna Fail and Pounds 1.5 million for Fine Gael) and gravely dependent on the corporate sector.
Of course, the political parties insisted that donations were voluntary and were accepted on the basis that no favours would be sought and none given. The inquiries into political payments from Dunnes Stores and, some years ago, into funding from the beef sector have emphasised that point.
And yet. And yet. Even politicians accept there is a public perception to the contrary. The truth is that a symbiotic relationship has been established between business and politics which threatens to subvert the democratic process.
Business and some wealthy individuals provided the pressure which gave us the first tax amnesty in 1988. It was the first Budget of Mr Charles Haughey's minority Fianna Fail government. And, hand in glove with that amnesty went a brand new self-assessment tax system for the self-employed. It was based on the US model, but without its jail penalties for fraud and abuse.
Public outrage over the amnesty sputtered and died when it raised an amazing Pounds 500 million at a time of fiscal drought, when the then government was backing back on public employment, and social expenditure. A view emerged that you should not argue with success.
FOUR years later Albert Reynolds proposed that a Pounds 10 million ceiling be imposed on the amount of capital acquisitions tax an individual would have to pay if great wealth was repatriated.
But Dick Spring refused to countenance the scheme which, he said, had been promoted by "a small number of wealthy individuals in Ireland". With the survival of the government at issue, the proposal was dropped.
A year later Mr Reynolds had his way in regard to a second, general, tax amnesty. Individuals were granted tax clearance certificates if they paid 15 per cent of their due taxes. Nearly 40,000 individuals coughed up Pounds 200 million. And the State wrote off more than Pounds 1.3 billion in properly due taxes.
A number of legal conditions were laid down by the Dail before citizens could avail of the second amnesty: (l) they should not have benefited from the first amnesty; (2) the money involved should not be tainted by criminal activity; and (3) tax arrears being dealt with through enforcement by the Revenue Commissioners should not be included in the amnesty.
These conditions could not be enforced because of a secrecy clause in the legislation. The Revenue Commissioners introduced a "Chinese screens" system whereby a separate collectors office operated a process which was confidential even within Revenue itself.
P.L. McDonnell, the then Comptroller and Auditor General, found the system so open to abuse that he publicly challenged the Revenue Commissioners' operation of the tax amnesty in his annual reports of 1993 and 1994 and demanded a proper audit.
The Revenue refused to open their books or to facilitate an audit by this statutorily independent public watchdog on the grounds of client secrecy. The case was appealed to the High Court by Mr McDonnell on constitutional and legal grounds. But, last January, Judge Mary Le Foy found in favour of secrecy and the
Revenue Commissioners.
The judgment hardly rated a mention in the press, even though major criminals in Dublin's underworld had availed of the provisions of the tax amnesty. And the newly-established Seizure of Criminal Assets Bureau was only then getting its show on the road.
The present climate of public dismay should surprise nobody. Michael Lowry's pathetic attempts at self-justification before the Dunnes payments tribunal marks the nadir of what may be a brief political career. And the new defence offered by Charles Haughey in connection with his receipt of Pounds 1.3 million from Ben Dunne during his years as Taoiseach of this country is risible.
But the disclosure that a number of prominent Irish citizens held secret offshore accounts amounting to Pounds 30-Pounds 40 million in one relatively small Irish bank, at a time of legally-binding exchange controls, adds a new ingredient to the stew.
THE public has a right to ask just how aggressive or efficient the Revenue is in pursuing those captains of industry and all others who evade their due taxes. The wall of secrecy which prevents any independent assessment of the Revenues functions should be breached. And politicians should stop behaving like messengers.
The disclosure of the Pounds 30-Pounds 40 million account generated a knee-jerk response within the political system. These were matters for the Revenue, the reaction ran, rather than for the tribunal. It would seem that politicians and public servants were fair game for tribunal investigation, but a veil was being drawn over the business sector.
Why should politicians demean themselves and public servants in this way? If high standards are to be championed in the public service, surely they should apply universally in order to build public confidence in our democratic system?
There is an element of corruption in public life. People are well aware of deals involving land rezoning, planning permissions and tax status arrangements for designated urban areas. The unacceptable interface between politics and big business was exposed in recent years in connection with Irish Sugar/Greencore, Telecom, the beef industry and various "golden circles".
These matters generally come to light when things go wrong, when erstwhile partners, family members or conspirators fall out, rather than through the vigilance of the State's detection apparatus.
In that context, our new Fianna Fail/Progressive Democrats Government has an obligation to introduce higher anti-fraud standards of monitoring, enforcement and transparency. If it fails to do so, its promise of "zero tolerance" will be dismissed as a sick joke.