Sir, - Maire Geoghegan-Quinn (Opinion, May 8th) castigates Mary Harney and the PDs for using the political leverage they have in the present Government - in her words, their "pivotal position" - to force Bertie Ahern to put his interventions on behalf of Philip Sheedy into the public domain. Her argument is basically that the governmental tail is wagging the dog. She refers to the PDs' use of their pivotal power as irresponsible and immoral and damaging to democracy. As the Scottish Lord Tweedsmuir wrote, "politics is the art of the possible". Any political party worth its salt will use its position and influence to effect as many of its policies as possible and - something far more important than any policy - to uphold the standards of conduct in public life to which it has committed itself.
Maire Geoghegan-Quinn states that there was nothing untoward in Bertie Ahern's representations on behalf of Philip Sheedy and therefore no need for public disclosure on the matter. There is a distinction between everything being above board and being seen to be so. If the recent tribunals have anything to teach, it is that there should be no easy assumptions about the motives of those whose responsibility it is to make decisions in the public interest and no waiving of accountability and transparency when questions of influence-peddling are raised. The PDs have changed the course of electoral history in this country in the past decade and it is impossible to calculate precisely what debt our democracy owes them. However, there are surely some clues from the aforementioned tribunals.
One can understand Fianna Fail frustration with an electorate which determinedly, since the Haughey era, has denied it an overall mandate and which leaves it in the fettered position of being tied to "pivots" who wield power out of all proportion to their size. Multi-party governments are more the norm than the exception in Europe generally and, though they may be cumbersome, at least offer more balance and internal checks than single-party governments. Of course, it goes without saying that no party is forced to form an alliance which it feels will not be in the national interest or which will force it to compromise its own core values. Should it find itself unexpectedly compromised in mid-term it always has the option of seeking a new mandate from the electorate.
Given Maire Geoghegan-Quinn's experience in politics, she should know that moral questions are a matter for large parties as much as for "tiny" ones. In the first instance, they must ask themselves what price they are prepared to pay for shared power.
The most famous "pivoted" government of recent times was surely the Haughey-led "Gregory deal" government, of which Maire Geoghegan-Quinn was a member. She apparently had no reservations about being pivoted around by a single independent TD at that time. Many commentators, as well as political opponents, found this political arrangement both distasteful and undemocratic. Maire Geoghegan-Quinn and Fianna Fail apparently did not.
If Maire Goeghegan-Quinn wants a real "immorality play", perhaps she should shut her eyes and return to the halcyon days of single-party politics. (The palatable thing about this exercise for her is that it involves disinventing the PDs.) There, unfettered by small, overweening parties and coalition partners a large, "strong" political party can work its programme quite untramelled by the niceties of procedure and protocol and, dare we say it, principle. Now, that is what I call a real "immorality play". - Yours, etc.,
Margaret Hickey, Castleowen, Blarney, Co Cork.