Corruption isn't just a matter of breaking the law. It's also about breaking moral and ethical codes of personal responsibility, writes Elaine Byrne
I WAS 18 when Bertie Ahern became Taoiseach in June 1997. I had just finished my Leaving Certificate and was about to go to Limerick to study history and politics.
The talk that summer in our rural family pub was of this new taoiseach, ongoing developments in the North and the recently established McCracken tribunal.
I was terribly excited about it all and corrupted by curiosity.
For most of that summer I would thumb a lift to town, catch the bus to Dublin and sit at the McCracken tribunal. The bus would arrive in Dublin after Justice McCracken had opened proceedings. All the seats at the back taken, I would sit with Michael Lowry - there was always one spare beside him - and we would small talk as he waited to give his evidence.
Back in the pub, the customers wanted to know everything. At night I was the teenager, holding court inside the bar counter, relaying tribunal events to the local community. An envoy with copies of the tribunal agenda as souvenirs.
How much things have changed.
The customers were interested in the tribunals then. For the first time in their shared memories, institutional authority was being challenged. This was unheard of in rural Ireland. It was assumed those with power and influence were morally incorruptible. To suggest otherwise was to cast a slur on the character of that individual, on the institution in question and indeed on the Irish nation.
Until the mid-1990s Irish institutions regulated themselves. The Church, Garda, financial sector, hospitals, public service, professions, businesses and politics were a law unto themselves.
For example, the 1889 and 1916 British anti-corruption laws were not updated until the Prevention of Corruption Act 2001. The State's policing structures, first introduced in 1924, were not reformed until the Garda Síochána Act 2005. The list of legislation introduced as a consequence of Ireland's decade of self-examination is a long one.
The financial cost too has been striking. The Irish Times calculated in October 2006 that the State had spent at least €250 million since 1997 on more than 40 tribunals, independent inquiries and investigations. Even then that was a conservative figure. The final cost to the taxpayer, including third-party costs, will top €1 billion.
The legislative and financial cost for accountability, transparency and integrity in Irish public life has been enormous.
The Morris tribunal report, published yesterday, is a reaffirmation of the failure of self-regulation. The report concludes that there was "serious damage to the reputation of An Garda Síochána and its integrity and professionalism". It notes Garda wrongdoing has "cost the State dearly" in monetary terms.
The Garda Commissioner has apologised to the Quinn and McBrearty families and others mistreated by certain gardaí.
The vista of a Garda Commissioner issuing his "profound regret", on foot of tribunal findings was neither imagined nor anticipated when Irish institutions began the road of self-scrutiny in the mid-1990s.
Ahern's premiership almost precisely spanned the genesis and the revelations of the tribunal period. The presumption may exist that a new taoiseach and a revised cabinet now signals the closing of this extraordinary period of Irish public life. The quantity of legislation introduced and the cost to the exchequer may appear as sufficient retribution for these failings.
There may be calls now to "move on". The former taoiseach has already suggested that tribunals should be "scrapped".
This is premature and short-sighted. Now more than ever the challenge exists of restoring trust to our institutions. It is not a legislative challenge, but a moral one. And it requires leadership.
The word corruption, derived from the Latin verb rumpere, means to break. What are defined as broken are the law and ethics. The definition gives equal importance to both.
Our traditional reliance on self-regulation and the consequent absence of legislation has allowed us to assume that it was only our legal code that was "broken".
In the last 10 years we have travelled from one extreme of self-regulation to that of over-regulation. We have now legislated for our moral behaviour. In doing so we have abandoned our personal ethical responsibilities solely to legislation. This has allowed the defence to emerge that: "I have broken no law, therefore I have done no wrong."
In this scenario the law will always be playing catch up. Indeed, those charged with implementing the anti-corruption legislative framework find it cumbersome because of the quantity of amendments made to ethics legislation in recent years.
The Morris report recognised this balance between the legal and the ethical. One of its main concerns related to abuses within covert surveillance. The tribunal noted: "It became obvious during the course of the tribunal's hearings that there is little or no legal or ethical guidance given to An Garda Síochána."
It suggests Ireland should consider international best practice on interviewing procedures.
For my generation, tribunals are ordinary everyday occurrences. They are anomalous normalities. We have taken for granted that breaches of trust occur routinely. For the customers in the pub, back in 1997, it was the first time that authority had been so comprehensively and publicly questioned. We have a lot done, but more to do.