Ethics only for the FF crowd in Swinging State

THERE IS a psychological test known as the "swinging room experiment", used to demonstrate the importance of the visual in enabling…

THERE IS a psychological test known as the "swinging room experiment", used to demonstrate the importance of the visual in enabling a human being to stand up straight. As with Chinese boxes, a "false" second room consisting of three walls, a floor and a ceiling is constructed within another, suspended from the "true" ceiling, with two inches or so clearance of the "true" floor.

The subject stands within the false room, which is then rocked gently. It has been observed that the subject, because his visual sense is defined by the walls of the false room, is not aware of the movement and that, moreover, in order to "conceal" the movement from himself, he actually sways in perfect harmony with the false room, thus keeping a constant distance between himself and the false walls.

All the while, he is under the impression that he is standing still, unaware not just of the room's movement but of his own. The illusion of the room within the room is sufficiently persuasive to nullify the evidence of his own body. Only from outside is it possible to perceive the movement.

Irish politics becomes more and more reminiscent of this swinging room, except that the illusion in question is moral rather than visual. I was away from our swinging State when the Michael Lowry story broke. The first I knew was when I saw on a London newsstand the headline on Sam Smyth's story in the Irish Independent.

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MY FIRST response was that, unless Mr Lowry came up with a good story, and sharpish, the implications were enormous. It occurred to me that, because I would be spending the weekend in London, I was likely to miss the fall of the Government, and was overcome by a brief panic attack on this account. But then I remembered I was reading this in London, where its meaning was bound to seem utterly different to the view from inside the Swinging State.

In that brief moment, I was tapping into two seams of perception: One, the belief that ethics/laws/morals are immutable; the other, the vast stockpile of remembered rhetoric from Irish politicians on the immutability of such. Viewed from outside, such rhetoric would seem to have made the collapse of the Government inevitable.

But then I realised it is impossible to judge the reverberations of a given crisis in Irish politics while rooted in external reality. It is safe to apply morality to politics only when the alleged offender is a member of Fianna Fail and, whatever else, Michael Lowry did not stand accused of this. I imagined myself standing in the Swinging State and immediately knew, with absolute certainty, that the Government was not going to fall.

I decided to take advantage of being abroad to observe what was happening from such a perspective. I decided not to call anybody back home but to follow developments from London as best I could. I returned to my quarters and tuned my radio to RTE Radio One. The signal was erratic but it was possible to make out most of what was going on. It reminded me of the many times when I did it the other way round tuning into John Peel and Whispering Bob on BBC Radio I and trying to decide whether what I was hearing was static or Tangerine Dream.

I listened to every news bulletin in both English and Irish on Friday and Saturday. I noticed that, although the Lowry story was always the lead in the Irish language bulletins, it had a tendency to slide into second or third place in the news in English. It struck me that someone coming cold to this story might think it was not at all serious.

The Taoiseach was reported as saying that different standards should be applied to Mr Lowry's activities up to the time he became a minister, but I put that down to the static. On Saturday I bought the newspapers and was deeply touched by the efforts of some of my colleagues to get Mr Lowry off the hook.

My Radio One reception had deteriorated markedly but I gathered through the day that the RTE news in English was carrying news of Mr Lowry's defiance.

Only the news in Irish bore out my initial feeling that this was a grave matter. On Saturday afternoon, the Irish news headlines informed us that Mr Proinsias De Rossa had described the situation in precisely those terms. At 6.30 p.m. a breathless Charlie Bird told us that Mr Lowry had resigned.

On Sunday I could make out very little, but gathered that nothing much had occurred since the night before. On Monday morning, the reception had improved and I was able to listen to the first half of Morning Ireland. Again, I gave way to some of my more literal expectations in thinking that the tone of the programme would be sombre and momentous, that such a crisis would provoke deep soul searching. Instead, the first item was a report on the welcome home party for Mr Lowry in Thurles.

I KNEW by now that there was not the slightest chance of the Government being toppled. On my way to buy a newspaper I idly ran through the likely scenario if the minister in question had been a member of Fianna Fail but I soon snapped out of such pointless rumination.

I read in the Irish Times that, following his resignation, press photographers had been invited to take photographs of Mr Lowry with his old mucker, the Taoiseach. The street started to spin and I sat down for a moment to allow my mind to boggle.

By the time I returned to Dublin, the focus had shifted to the Fianna Fail figure who had supposedly been given £1.1 million. The public appetite seemed to move up a notch. I thought how interesting it was that the news of Mr Lowry's £208,000 had emerged first, only to be trumped at just the right moment by rumours of the £1.1 million.

I idly speculated on what might have happened if it had come out the other way round. Would the government parties have launched into their usual fulminations, only to be hoist on their own petard when the news of Mr Lowry emerged? We shall never know.

Stepping back inside the Swinging State, I stopped imagining that this "crisis" had to mean anything in particular. It would mean what those who control meaning might ordain it to mean.

Mr Lowry might or might not give an explanation. The Price Waterhouse report might or might not be made public. One thing was sure: the Government would not fall, not because the crisis was of insufficient gravity, but because none of the three parties in Government had any desire to bring their dream house tumbling down. Likewise the media.

The public was said to be "disquieted", but this would require only a little judicious massage. Because everyone was moving in tandem with the Swinging State, nobody could be sure there was anything strange going on. The room was not moving, because everyone within it agreed that this was the case.