Corruption after Mahon

Reconstruction of a Dublin County Council meeting circa 1997

The Mahon Tribunal, originally set up in 1997 by the Fianna Fail Minister for the Environment Noel Dempsey has finally reported 15 years later. It was set up following an offer of a reward of £10,000 by the chairman of An Taisce Michael Smith for information relating to planning corruption. It is likely to end up costing us more than €250million.

Listening to some political journalists, commentators and politicians today describing the report as shocking is nothing short of a farce. Any serious person or organisation involved in public life who claims to find the report shocking is clearly doing it for dramatic effect because there is nothing particularly new or shocking in the report. This mock outrage itself is part of the problem.

After 15 years the planning system has not substantially changed nor will it, without a change of attitude by Irish people. At local authority level, dodgy rezonings are still taking place and rumours of bungs to councillors are still commonplace. In my experience, there are always some councillors who are inherently corrupt and others who are effectively corrupt. It is important to note that there are others who are neither.

To point the finger at former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern and Fianna Fail while correct at one level misses the point that it requires a majority of councillors on any local authority for corruption to succeed. Simple maths will show that there are others besides Fianna Fail involved. It also misses the point that all the watchdogs are failing to do their jobs properly. This particularly applies to the media, the judiciary and the police. An investigation into the properties bought and sold during the recent boom by media people, legal people and police people would prove to be extremely interesting.

The Mahon report said that corruption affected every level of Irish political life. Yes, we all know that and so do the dogs in the street. The important question from this very lengthy and very expensive report is; will anything change for the better as a result of it? It will of course. The level of awareness of corruption has increased. That in itself is a change. However, to what extent will corruption continue to be tolerated in Ireland? None of us can be sure of the answer to that.

Many people in Ireland put pressure on politicians to help them circumvent the rules. That is corruption. In some parts of Ireland, the first thing a young couple does when they want to set up a new home is to go and see a local politician to organise planning, rezoning or a social house for them. Just because everybody does it, does not mean it is anything other than corrupt.

In all probability there will always be a certain level of corruption in public life just as there will always be a certain level of crime in society. However, under no circumstances should corruption ever be tolerated or indeed become part of the system itself. The financial chaos that Ireland finds itself in today can be directly linked to planning corruption in public life. If, after the publication of the Mahon report our society continues to tolerate corruption then we are a truly myopic society. Therefore it is crucial that people stop voting for clearly corrupt politicians.