Absurd account points to cosy inner circle
MINISTER Denis Naughten’s explanation of his conversation with lobbyist Eoghan Ó Neachtain about the proposed takeover of Celtic Media by INM is absurd – ministers do not get to share ‘personal opinions’ about anything they are there to oversee.
What it does show, however, is the cosiness of the connections in Ireland’s inner circle – between big business, politics, the Civil Service, the Garda, lobbyists, special interest groups and, yes, journalists too.
Mr Ó Neachtain served in the government press office under three taoisigh but that should not distract from the fact he now works in a commercial environment in which information is a valuable commercial commodity. Perhaps disarmed by his rugby friendship with Mr Ó Neachtain, he voiced an opinion he felt unable to enunciate under questioning in the Dáil weeks later, even though, at that stage, the information was sitting in the inbox of businessmen Denis O’Brien.
Nor would we even have known about this but for the Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement’s decision to investigate INM over its ‘interrogation’ of staff emails. How much more information has been shared elsewhere and between whom? We should, of course, know, because there are rules about registering contact between politicians and lobbyists. If the people who made those laws disregard them, where does that leave us?
Even more dispiriting is the timidity of the response. Fianna Fáil won’t kick up a fuss – it has too many skeletons in its own cupboard to take the high moral ground. Sinn Féin is ducking for cover behind the abortion referendum, when its poll numbers suggest fear of a snap election might be exercising it just a little bit more.
Where that leaves us is with a particularly Irish scandal, one where everyone repeats defences of the minister’s actions that clearly are falsehoods and hopes it all will go away, which it will. This drives a culture of neglect where accountability seems a distant and unattainable dream, with an upper echelon of society that circles the wagons to protect itself.