August is a wicked month, it is said. There’s all those holiday misdemeanours for a start. Then there’s those miserable American athletes who can’t compete in Athens this August because of doping offences. Boo-hoo. For the press, it’s the silly season. You know what I mean. And for the senior Government party in Ireland? Well, these last weeks since the local and European elections have been torrid indeed for Fianna Fáil. Let us count the ways…
We could start with the former minister who faces up to five years in jail for tax offences. That’ll be Ray Burke. He pleaded guilty to lodging false tax accounts. While availing of the tax amnesty of 1993, he failed to mention £151,980. Also, he was revealed to have made a settlement of 600,000 with the Criminal Assets Bureau…
A second former minister – this’ll be Pee Flynn – has told the Mahon tribunal that there are things he can’t remember regarding money that came his way, as money did, in the 1980s. Sure, I suppose that with all the excitement and big decisions he had to make, £50,000 or whatever, might slip in and out of your life without you noticing. It might even buy a farm for you behind your back, so to speak.
And if your daughter was working in a bank it would muddy the waters if nothing else. And there she is – Bev Flynn, once a coming star tipped as a hot shot for first woman Taoiseach (and a major player in the world of banking, if not). But that was before the mudslides began…
So, these are the chickens come home to roost. Meanwhile, other eggs are laid that may prove decidedly off in their time, like decentralisation. Unveiled by Charlie McCreevy last November, it was hailed as a great stroke by Fianna Failers. It’s not working. Far from it. Some public service bodies will have a 100% turnover of staff if it goes ahead. Can you imagine?!? For example, none of the National Roads Authority’s staff has applied to move to its proposed new offices in Ballinasloe, None!! And only six FÁS people have agreed to move to Birr… there’s 382 jobs to be filled there!! Ridiculous!
Well, if it’s bad for the main Government party, it’s even worse for the forces of law and order – here comes the interim report of the Morris tribunal!
It’s incredible. Following the forthright example set by Justice Flood’s first report, Judge Morris pulls no punches. He reports that Gardaí offered the tribunal “a tissue of lies”. The first casualty is Chief Superintendent Denis Fitzpatrick who has resigned. He was said (by Morris) to be “gravely at fault” for not properly investigating various activities. But he won’t be the last.
The whole thing is a weird mix of The Shaughrán and The Sopranos. Yes, there was all that bizarre buffoonery involving fertiliser and suggestible women, but there was also false evidence and accusations that came within a whisker of destroying an innocent man.
The judge also came to the conclusion that “An Garda Síochána is losing its character as a disciplined force”. This may be news to Minister Michael McDowell, who described the report as one of the force’s “darkest days,” but it’s no surprise to many who have had first hand experience of high-handedness, ignorance and indifference at the hands of members of the police.
It’s not every Garda, of course, and far from it. But the operation as a whole is going off the rails. And it’s not me that’s saying that, it’s Justice Morris.
In part it’s a failure of management. The ideology has it that state services can be run like a business. But they can’t. That approach means that everyone is happy if the figures prove things are happening.
But figures lie, or can be made to. If you were to believe the Garda statistics, we’ve never had a more peaceful and better-policed society. It’s not true. You know it, I know it, even the Gardaí know it. Going by the ‘stats’ means that cowboys can be angels by cooking the books, as in Donegal…
There’s also the matter of priorities. The Government had no trouble in recruiting hundreds of workplace safety officers to persecute and prosecute. But what about serious law-breaking?
When you look at all this, hasn’t Charlie McCreevy made a smart move in going to Brussels? But will he, do you think, sell his house in Ireland and buy a mansion in Flanders? Well, that’s more or less what the Government decentralisers said Dublin-based civil servants should do, isn’t it?
Hmph!