"It was the Sunday after the election. We were all down and the last thing I had expected was a call from the then Taoiseach. Brian Cowen rang me, as did Mary Cowen, and I had long conversations with both of them. In Brian Cowen's case, as I would understand it, he took absolutely responsibility for what had happened.
He told me very clearly, that it wasn't my fault, that the people hadn't punished me. I shouldn't take it personnally. That they had clearly set out to punish him.
In Mary Cowen's case, it was also a very good conversation and she absolutely told me that she wanted to apologise for what had happened to me. She was sorry, that as she saw it, the loyalty that I had shown to Brian Cowen, the personal loyalty to Brian Cowen, had cost me".
Charlie O'Connor, Former Fianna Fail TD. Speaking on
'The Rise and Fall of Fianna Fail', part three of a three part series, entitled
'Downfall', which was aired on TV3 Irish national television.
"I would like to take my family on a holiday to Australia. But I think it would be a tough sell to get away with it, to say that it was a legitimate expense from my company's tax point of view.
Listening to the interview with Aoife [on the Vincent Browne show, on TV3 Irish television station], she is finding it difficult to differentiate herself from the business. They are too separate entities.
There is this dreadful confusion and it comes across.
The Quinns may need to talk to James again . . .
[James Morrissey, ex. PR consultant of the Quinn family]
. . . to get the division between the business's interests and their own interests separate".
Dr. Paul Mooney of Tandem consulting, speaking on RTE Sunday morning radio on 19th August 2012.
The Wire
In the HBO TV series 'The Wire', the provocation of a past Baltimore city mayor was woven into the plot line. The provocation by the mayor was that the illegals drugs problem ought be to tackled as a public health problem, as opposed to a law enforcement problem.
In reality, the Mayor of Baltimore city never got far with his policy change suggestion.
In the HBO TV series, the possibility of 'what might have happened' was explored over the third season of episodes.
In the TV drama, a Baltimore city police major, delivered a speech to his staff officers, at a time in which he was struggling with the idea to legalize drugs within specific zones in the city.
That is, to push the illegal trade off of the public street corners, and into designated areas which could be contained and managed day-to-day, by his police force.
The police major discussed an old idea, of putting the bottle (of alcohol) into a paper bag.
It allowed the poor man to have a drink at the corner (the corner being the poor man's lounge). It allowed the police force to go about their business. There has never been a paper bag invented for the drugs trade, proclaimed the police major.
Taking back the corner
By pushing the illegal drugs trade into specific 'free zones', it enabled the social services to concentrate on the problem and study it properly.
It enabled them to accelerate efforts to assist in solving the problem.
That is, one could unleash the considerable resources of the 'public health policy' experts, to define and solve the problem.
The police service for the city of Baltimore, could go back to being real policemen and women again.
At another level in the American society and economic, Doctor Doom, Nuriel Roubini, speaks about the characteristic of the present financial crisis - that of, the federal government in the United States - being unable to do its job, separately from that of trying to control the market.
At many levels in modern society and economics, the public service is being drawn into a turmoil, which it is ill-equipped to deal with.
Losing the war
We are losing the war in Ireland also. But we invent numbers, which allow us to pretend we are able to manage.
One of the recurring themes explored by David Simon and his co-writers in 'The Wire' TV series, was that the greatest of the 'war on drugs', was the loss of 'real' police work.
The police force, as an institution of social administration has suffered as a result of it's mobilisation to wage a war on every street corner in American.
Whole generations of new police men and women have grown up, without ever knowing what it was like to do 'real' police work, to learn a trade and to develop skill.
The key thing about the 'paper bag' for the bottle with the corner boy, is that one about balance.
It is about finding a correct and sensible balance, in relation to a social problem of public consumption of alcohol, that can avoid a further problem of the resources of a social service getting sucked into a 'no-win' combat situation.
Statistical analysis
One of the themes of season four of 'The Wire' TV series, is the idea of the problems present in one institution, are reflected in many others.
'Duke-ing the stats', is one of the recurring themes in 'The Wire'.
The behaviour of consistently trying to
'duke the stats', is found in the city police service, and in the city education system.
It is found everywhere.
It is this imbalance in the definition of the relationship between the Baltimore police force, and the corner boys and their activities - which has led the entire city and its institutions - down a path, where they are only working to make the statistics appear right.
To what extent has this same problem taken root in the Irish system in 2012?
Mike Ansley on radio
When one listens to chief executive officer, Mike Ansley, of the
Irish Bank Resolution Corporation (formerly
Anglo Irish Bank and
Irish Nationwide Building Society), on national radio in the mornings of August 2012, one is very much reminded of 'The Wire', TV drama series.
We brought in this great Australian man, in order to make the numbers appear better.
But who did we import, in order to tackle our problems at a root cause?
Or does that matter?
One is very much reminded of the war on crime, the war on illegal drugs trade, and of coming up with some kind of numbers - that one hopes, the Irish public will feel reassured by - but which in reality, still leaves us with the same problems, on the same streets and on the same corners.
Mike Ansley begins to resemble one of those Baltimore city police majors, who is expected to find away to massage the picture, to make it look good for the elected mayor.
It becomes a war about numbers.
The war on credit
Another classic example of the new war about numbers, currently raging on the island of Ireland, is that about banking credit supply to businesses.
The representatives of Irish banking system (the Baltimore city police force as it were), are providing statistics from such lofty research institutions as Mazars - to inform the citizenry - that indeed, the banking system is hitting its numbers targets.
They are indeed, dragging those youths off of the street corners and putting them into Paddy wagons.
We should all feel very reassured by that.
For every banking system spokesperson, there is another newspaper journalist, be that Mr. Dan O' Brien or whomever, fighting the good fight to try and expose the numbers game.
The citizen
At the root of the entire Irish problem, is an imbalance, at some very basic and fundamental level.
That is, the definition of the 'citizen' - within the constitution as framed by founding father, Eamon DeValera.
What DeValera failed to do, and the failure for Ireland has been almost total, is to achieve a sensible balance in the relationship between the institutions of society and the corner boy.
In his attempt to define what constitutes the 'citizen', DeValera overshot the mark of what should be considered prudent.
So many other problems flow from that basic one.
The planning system
The most obvious problem is the planning permission grant system in Ireland.
That is where one can witness today, the full implication of DeValera's choice.
The planning is a legal system, that in turn, must fit into a broader one.
One cannot consider the planning system in any state, without placing that system in the context, of how the definition of the individual citizen was created, to begin with.
The over-empowerment of the individual citizen within the Irish constitution, led to a situation where it made it too profitable for developers to go around the obstacle of public consultation entirely - and to effectively encourage those in public office - to
'duke the stats', on their behalf.
It is akin to the situation created in the United States in the 1920s, following the ban against consumption of alcohol.
It created an economic context, where trade of the banned substance began too profitable, not to attract organized crime.
Only report on process
If DeValera in his framing of the Irish constitution, had prevented himself from going so far to empower the citizen in his legal definition - things in Ireland in recent decades certainly would not have slid so far down on the back end.
In anything to do with reporting of the planning and politics relationship in Ireland, there has been an obsession on the process (of how envelopes were processed and moved about), and failure to identify anything as an underlying cause.
Welfare, Health and Safety
One can witness the same over-shooting of the mark, as recently as the 2000s in the arena of 'Welfare, Health and Safety' legislation in Ireland.
Like in the example of the paper bag and the bottle, the balance was damaged in our health and safety legislation.
There had existed for a long, long time, something called SFAIRP (so far as is reasonably practicable).
Again, the Irish legislators in their enthusiasm, managed to overshoot that mark.
We are left with a situation where public services are dragged into an impossible war, in order to make the statistics look right - and it prevents the same, from doing a real job - of assisting in the creation of good practice in the country.
Our feeling of inadequacy
Following the acquisition of partial independence of the state in Ireland in the 1920s, the feeling of inadequacy demonstrated itself in too many aspects of rule making and policy.
In order to draw attention away from the fact, that the new republic had 'lost' its six counties in the northern part of the island - the new republic proceeded to do everything - in a way, that proclaimed, this is an all-twenty six county effort, and nothing short of a twenty six county effort, would be given consideration.
Everything in the twenty six counties, had to be done on the large scale, or not at all.
But many decades later, the northern Ireland part of the island, has proven itself able to mange by itself.
The southern portion, of the island, has not.
We live with this 1920's perception, that we have to over-compensate in everything we do, for the fact that we could not create a single nation, out of a single island.
In this area also, we have overshot the mark.
An island of separate regions
The over-emphasis and over-reliance on centralisation, has been devastatingly bad from a policy making perspective, and has led to a string of wasted mis-allocations and central mis-plan-ing's down through the decades.
The policy of de-centralisation, of a centralized governmental system (in the absence of an attempt at greater regional-isation), has fared no better.
We have not endeavoured acknowledge the reality of the island of Ireland, as a multiplicity of different regions, with unique and individual problems.
We endeavoured to try to portray ourselves as one strong, central administration - because we have always felt ourselves to be neutered from the beginning - because of the northern issue.
When it did come to framing of regional policy and administration on the island of Ireland, we chose much too fine grain (building on our legacy of 'Gaelic athletic association' boundaries), and losing any cheap economies of scale we may have benefited from, by a more broad definition of 'a region'.
I wrote on the subject earlier, in a blog entry which I entitled,
'Connected to the power' and also more recently, in
'An island of regions'.
DeValera's Political Legacy
DeValera defined the citizen in a manner, that prevented the social services within the Irish state to intervene at the appropriate moment, at the appropriate level.
There is no place this is more evidence, than in relation to those who hold a position of public office in government in Ireland.
It is not acceptable that an individual who commands a post within a legislative body such as the national parliament in Ireland, is permitted to carry with them, the baggage of the 'citizen' as it was enshrined in the constitution by Eamon DeValera.
But that is exactly, what the constitution has enabled public representatives to do.
In other words, there can be no discovery of fact. There can be no justice.
The definition of oneself as a citizen, is seen as inseparable from that as the individual, who also happens to be prime minister of the nation.
Positions of office
Those who happen to hold office on behalf of the Irish citizen, to carry out the duties of an overall leader in a parliament, in Ireland, view it as violation of their personal citizenship, if requested to disclose details of such actions, as they were required to carry out in their position, as a representative of the nation.
So in political office positions - we find the exact same type of problem - which Dr. Paul Mooney refers to Irish morning radio on 19th August 2012.
The individuals who hold position in political office, find it impossible to distinguish them self as an individual citizen, from the position held in that office.
Those who are in government, mis-diagnose an attempt to find fact in relation to actions of government - as an attempt to find fact, in relation to themselves as individual citizens.
And so, government ceases to be accountable, because the individual will not be.
Mirror image
It is ironic that problems which have become embedded into the Irish system - have replicated in the actions and outlook of those accused by the system - the Quinn business and family.
Dysfunction of a certain quality and type, in one institution, is replicated across many others.
A level of dysfunction in the state, starts to replicate, in the institution of private enterprise.
And what hasn't been made public as of 2012, is the extent to which the state relied upon that private enterprise to discharge of the duties, that ought to have been carried out by the person in the office.
The Irish banking system and private enterprise had to become implicated as an agency of the state, for the office holders of the state, to become sufficiently placated.
This is the inability of the office holder in the Irish system, to stand removed on their own terms, on their own ground.
This is the un-willingness, and inability, of the office holder to separate the office, from them self as individual citizen.
This of course, in due course, will become public knowledge and understanding.
An un-resolved question
Having framed and published his constitutional documents in the 1930s, Eamon DeValera was struggling with the question of what to do with the corner boy, still in the 1940s.
The solution was to push the them into camps for the duration of WWII, to keep a lid on it.
It was the issue neglected by DeValera, in later years.
It was the issue that was not settled, the work left undone.
It is the issue that needs to be re-visited.
Brian O' Hanlon
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