We are now in the hands of a Government which has so lost the run of itself that it can't tell the difference between a fit of pique and the defence of democracy.
The reasons for the pique are plain. First, the Government made a hash of the Nice referendum. Then, Fianna Fail's candidate in South Tipperary sank without trace, for the second time in a year. It was FF's sixth by-election defeat in a row.
So the Government turned on the media and, in spite of the caution of two attorneys general and an independent adviser, banned the conduct or publication of opinion polls in the week before an election. All of this without warning or debate but with some muttering offstage about the need to defend democracy.
The attack on RTE was a long time coming. Indeed, Sile de Valera's derisory increase in the licence fee, on the head of a report which was not so much released as smuggled into the Dail, merits the Ray Burke Memorial Award for services to commercial broadcasting. Burke, you may need to be reminded, was so attached to communications that he clung to the portfolio, which includes responsibility specifically for RTE, even when he served in the Department of Justice.
And he was so convinced that public service broadcasters would benefit from competition that he capped RTE's advertising revenue and went out of his way to help the opposition, an outfit called Century, from what RTE's critics like to describe as the real world. Sadly, this paragon of muscular capitalism didn't work. Its directors spent more time quarrelling about money than competing for audiences. And while Burke survived to fight another day, it was only to be appointed, defended and reluctantly abandoned by Bertie Ahern.
RTE, too, survived to apply for another licence increase; to make the case for public service broadcasting and the index-linked fees to pay for it. A modest increase of £50 a year - not modest enough for de Valera and the financial consultants to whom she looked for advice.
Was it coincidence that she chose this week to make her announcement, just as the Coalition snatched an opportunity presented by an ill-considered Fine Gael amendment to the Electoral Bill and Labour found itself at sixes and sevens on the issue of polls? Those who've worked with governments are astonished at the degree to which ministers are affected by media criticism and apt to suspect hidden motives, though not in the obvious places.
The complaints about polls are not directed at those conducted for the parties and leaked for effect. Not dodgy phone polls to top up some yarn for a Sunday paper. The polls targeted are those conducted by reputable companies using reliable methods to give people dependable information about fellow-citizens' opinions on issues of public interest and importance.
Critics say that polls interfere with democracy: they influence the way people vote. But where's the evidence? None was produced when the issue was last raised by Padraig Flynn in 1991 and dropped because of doubts about its constitutionality. And there is no evidence now.
This week the proposal wasn't even debated. So we have no clear idea as to what's included and what's not. Did Charlie McCreevy try to have the European Union's Eurobarometer banned? And what about the influence on voting patterns of leading articles on "payback time" which appeal to greed?
The Opposition tried to have the Electoral Bill discussed by an Oireachtas committee. And failed. Matters of greater importance are regularly refused a hearing on the grounds that they lack urgency. The Electoral Bill is not an urgent issue. It might have included a ban of real significance, on corporate donations to parties. The tribunals have shown what distortions they lead to.
If the Bill had been sent to a committee that issue, too, might have had another airing. But the Government is neither sufficiently confident of its own position, nor under enough pressure from the Opposition, to risk giving any controversial issue an airing. The prospects for communications are bleak.
Bob Collins, the director-general of RTE, said on Thursday that, with the £14.50 increase allowed by the government, it would be difficult even to maintain the existing level of output until there's a review in April 2003.
What we have is a public broadcaster bound hand and foot to an insecure and resentful Government; restrictions all round on the expression of public opinion; dominance of the newspaper industry by a group, closer to monopoly than Murdoch has ever been in Britain.
Collins was clearly worried by the fact that the Irish Independent, which has a growing interest in the broadcast media, had seen the consultants' report before he did. Here, too, there is cause for concern. Sir Anthony O'Reilly was once asked how he could be sure of getting some choice blocks for oil exploration. He replied with disarming frankness. When you controlled most of the country's newspapers there were things you could expect of the government.
That was in the 1970s. By the same token, if by now you own an even greater share of the country's newspapers you stand a better chance of winning control of Eircom and ending up, as near as dammit, in sole control of communications.
dwalsh@irish-times.ie