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	Cowen and "Bishop's Party" Must Atone for Sins against State By John Drennan Irish Independent May 31, 2009 http://www.independent.ie/opinion/analysis/cowen-and-bishops-party-must-atone-for-sins-against-state-1756568.html John Drennan believes that Fianna Fail's reckless cosying up to interest groups has bankrupted the country One of the more delightful moments in Irish politics occurred in 1977 when the FG/Labour Coalition received the results of an opinion poll they had somewhat unwisely commissioned after they called the election. A mordant observer subsequently noted that as the figures which showed that a FF landslide was inevitable were read out all that was heard around the cabinet table was "the clattering of tea cups on saucers". The bad news for Mr Cowen is that it is now certain the next cabinet meeting will be conducted against a backdrop of rattling sabres. In spite of all the spin about these being local elections Mr Cowen and the cabinet know that after next Friday's 'Judgement Day' the only question which will be left is whether our unloved Government will have to suffer months or years of atonement. Fianna Fail may have once been the great escapologists of Irish politics. However, last Friday's opinion poll showed that the people have weighed, sifted measured and accorded them the status of the unforgiven ones. Their changed status was epitomised by last Monday's Questions and Answers where Noel Dempsey found out the hard way that even in Irish politics chickens can come home to roost. Ironically, the forensic destruction of Dempsey by child abuse survivor Michael O'Brien was a touch cruel as Dempsey has been one of the few proactive ministers on this issue. But sympathy should be stayed by Dempsey's status as an unapologetic representative of a party which is as responsible for the systemic abuse of Irish children as the Church. When it comes to the system of governance that allowed children to be abused for decades, even Mr Cowen's circumspect lawyerly apologies cannot disguise the fact that FF vigorously glorified the culture which facilitated this abuse. The former bishop's party is, however, now discovering the hard way that when the tide is out all the sewage rises to the surface. Unsurprisingly, so far Mr Cowen's desultory attempt to save the party from Armageddon has been focused on the need for us to look forwards. Though there may be an element of truth to Mr Cowen's panicky claims that "arguing over the failures of the past" will not create "a single job" his pragmatism has a cynical edge. When it comes to his desire to erase the past the truth of things is that Mr Cowen is rather like the doctor who tells a patient after a quadruple by-pass that now he is cured there's no need to be worrying about what caused the heart attack. But if the patient is an obese 10-pints-a-session man, unless he confronts his past behaviour no amount of surgery will prevent another heart attack. Mr Cowen may claim that anger over the past may well "get us nowhere" but a clear-eyed analysis of the past and how Fianna Fail have governed the country is necessary if we are to get to a better place than where we now are. This is all the more necessary because Fianna Fail appears to have no memory of how they have turned this State into a failed political entity. Nothing epitomised this collective amnesia more than Noel Dempsey's pious claim last week that the first lesson the State had to learn from the child abuse scandal was that we should "never hand responsibility to a powerful outside agency and then fail to supervise it". Seeing as this is a minister who sat idly by as the HSE was established and Ireland became the land of a thousand quangos, the most impressive feature of Mr Dempsey's statement was the absence of irony or self-awareness. Sadly, the wrecking of the health service is only the most high-profile example of how Fianna Fail has governed the country with the fecklessness of a rat-pack of partying adolescents. Their willingness to appease every vested interest in the country may have secured FF the envied status of being the most successful political party in Europe. However, we now know all too clearly Fianna Fail's "party before country"-fuelled courtship of barristers, auctioneers, vintners, farmers, trade unionists, bankers and bureaucrats has not been a victimless crime. Already Fianna Fail's fusion of their self-interest with the national interest has bankrupted the State twice in three decades. While they now claim the world is to blame for our present woes, by their own admission Fianna Fail's policy errors are responsible for ˆ10bn of the current ˆ25bn fiscal deficit. Like the economy, politics has also been corrupted and coarsened by the endemic sloppiness of their unique style of governance. Frank Dunlop may be the most high-profile flower on the dunghill of Irish political corruption, but it was FF who created the fetid conditions that allowed a parasite like Dunlop to blossom. FF has not merely corrupted the profession of politics with their amoral laughing-boy response to corruption which suggested such activities were as Irish as the harp and shamrock. Over the last decade the increasingly unhealthy relationship between Fianna Fail and the civil service has facilitated the collapse of public administration in Ireland. FAS have been the most vainglorious example of the decay of governance in Ireland, but the benchmarking and social partnership systems Bertie Ahern assiduously fostered has created a public sector whose attitude to the citizen would make the Indian caste system look like a pure democracy. Confidence has collapsed in the capacity of entire departments such as Finance, Health and Transport to operate effectively. Ultimately nothing epitomised the Bourbon-style incapacity of the "stupids" in FF to learn more than Mr Cowen's recent promise that Fianna Fail would not be "drawn offside by those who put politics first". In fact, what we now need is leaders who put "politics" before people. On one level one can hardly criticise FF for their insouciance over the collapse of the Celtic Tiger, for the party has never paid a real price for the way they have turned the country into a failed political entity. After Friday's opinion poll that too has changed. The electorate has decided there is no way that we can risk another fool's pardon to the crew that has wrecked the State for the second time in three decades. Of course, after they experience the inevitable drubbing, Mr Cowen and Fianna Fail will claim that their mandate is still good until 2012. However, unless these dinosaurs are even more stupid than we think, one look at the state our Greens will be in next week should tell them that in a democracy even the strongest mandate is conditional.
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