The Public Accounts Committee is a Toothless Tiger

First published in the Western People on Tuesday.

A member of the PAC yesterday

Mr John McGuinness TD, chairman of the Public Accounts Committee of Oireachtas Éireann, has been having a hot time of it lately in the pages of the Irish Independent. Why is neither here nor there at the moment, but a rumour has been floating around that there have been midnight meetings at crossroads by persons unknown who fear McGuinness and his Committee investigating the Bank Guarantee, and those same persons unknown are leaking to the Independent to stop him at any cost.

Most rumours are to be taken with a pinch of salt. We may need the full packet for this particular one.

There are two reasons for not giving this theory the time of day. The first is that Oireachtas Committees aren’t quite the Irish version of the Spanish Inquisition that they are often portrayed to be. This was brought home by Alan Dukes’s appearance before the Finance Committee during his time as chairman of the ghost ship that used to be known as Anglo-Irish bank.

Under strident questioning from then-Senator Shane Ross, Dukes made it clear that he knew very well that Ross and his committee were all bark and no bite, and underlined that by witheringly remarking  that he was “not here to write a column for the back page of the Sunday Independent.” Dukes had no intention of helping Ross make headlines, and there was nothing Ross could do about it except sit there, fuming. When Dukes puts you in your box, that’s where you stay.

The other reason that McGuinness and the PAC will never investigate the Bank Guarantee is that there no history of such accountability in the history of the state. A parade of the great and the good marching in and out of the committee, giving their version of what happened on the night of the bank guarantee? Not before Hell freezes over.

It would certainly be interesting to find out just how that deal happened. The late Brian Lenihan himself did his best to get his side of the story out before his sad and untimely death, and his family have been burnishing his legacy since. Against that, there are many conspiracy theories about fat cats and golden circles being protected at the expense of the poor eejit who is currently paying a €400k mortgage on an €80k house. That man would like some answers.

But, God help him, he’ll never get them. There is no culture of going on the record in Irish politics. It doesn’t suit our nature. It’s not what we do.

In recent times, we have had the tribunals. What was the function of the tribunals? It wasn’t to discover funny business. Even the least-informed of the dogs in the street could tell there was funny business going on during the boom. The purpose the tribunals served in going on for so very long was twofold.

Firstly, they made truckloads of money for legal profession in providing representation that witnesses didn’t need, those witnesses being immune from prosecution by anything said in the course of a tribunal.

The real legacy of the tribunals is that they were a slow release of highly toxic news that, if released in one go, could have been cataclysmic for the political system and caused a root and branch reform. But over seventeen long years, no one revelation has the power to cause that sort of upset. By the end, first-time voters were going to the polls who could not remember a time when there weren’t tribunals. They were just background noise at that stage, a faint buzzing in the distance that, while certainly annoying, were no reason to go rocking boats.

Not only does Irish political culture not do inquiries, neither does it do going on the record. This is illustrated in a telling story in Frank Dunlop’s memoir of his time as Government Press Secretary, Yes, Taoiseach. Dunlop is disgraced currently, but his memoir is a very interesting and seldom-told account of just what goes on in the corridors of power.

Dunlop was originally hired by Jack Lynch as press secretary. When Lynch resigned in 1979, Dunlop called in to see him as Lynch was clearing out his office. Dunlop found Lynch was filling great big plastic bags full of notes and documents from his time as Taoiseach.

“Will you use those in your memoirs Taoiseach?” asked Dunlop. Lynch laughed at him. Memoirs, indeed. Writing memoirs was the very last thing on Lynch’s mind. All those notes were going into the bin and from there to sweet oblivion.

It would have been nice if Jack Lynch thought differently about his time in office, and all the changes he had seen. He had such an interesting life, he was such an extraordinarily popular figure and he governed at a time of great crisis on the island.

But there is no history of going on the record in Irish politics. Deals are done when they are done and the details are kept firmly within the power triangle of Leinster House, the Shelbourne Hotel and Doheny and Nesbitt’s Public House.

And that is why there is no plot to silence John McGuinness and the Public Accounts Committee. Because even though the public would dearly like to know what happened on the night of the bank guarantee, the public really don’t have a say in it.

There is no tradition of openness in Irish public life. Why would a reliable and definitive account of the bank guarantee ever emerge if we still don’t know what happened in the Arms Trial, forty-three years ago? Behind the twinkle in the eye and the lovely, lilting voice, what exactly did the Taoiseach know about gunrunning to Northern Ireland? That’s accountability in Irish public life.

Two Rock Star Autobiographies - John McGuinness and Keith Richards

Two of the greatest rock stars of all time have published books in recent weeks, just in time for the Christmas market.

John McGuinness, TD for Carlow-Kilkenny, needs no introduction of course. Rebel. Rockstar. Maverick. Outsider. A piper at the gates of dawn, a moonlight shadow, a zephyr howling through the Curlew Mountains and on into the members’ bar of Dáil Éireann.

While the lesser known Keith Richards is an Englishman with the face of a prune and who is said to have more of different people’s blood sluicing through his system than Count Dracula.

Both men laugh in the face of doom, and spit in the eye of terror. Both walk with hellhounds on their trail. McGuinness calls his book The House Always Wins, thus showing that he dreams the impossible dream, and fights the ungovernable sea. Keith Richards – well, you only have to look at the head on him.

Funnily enough, in calling his book “The House Always Wins,” the reader would be forgiven for thinking that maybe McGuinness is anti-establishment or something. You’d think that maybe he wants to tear down the house.

The fact that McGuinness remains very firmly ensconced in Fianna Fáil despite have roasted the Government on several occasions would indicate that our hero is happy as a tick with the way things are, actually. He likes to blow off a little every now and again, like some great whale somewhere between Greenland and Tarwathie.

In rock and roll terms, John McGuinness is very much like the former American president: he smokes, but he does not, under any circumstances, inhale.

McGuinness’ credibility as providing an alternative is lessened also by the first photograph in his book which is, unless I’m mistaken, a picture of his dear old Da and his dear old Da before him, both dressed in chains. Not because they were on the prison ship to Van Diemen’s Land now; it’s that they were both politicians before John himself, and thus got to dress up like Knights of the Garter. After all, what has been more important throughout the history of the Republic than royal blood? McGuinness is an unusual revolutionary if he’s leading the charge from inside the castle, aiming out.

Poor Dessie O’Malley was on Marian Finucane’s radio show a few Sundays ago, talking about how difficult it is to set up a new political party now. But at least Dessie tried. We have to say that much for him.

As for the guitar-picker: there’s an interesting quote from the manager of The Grateful Dead, Rock Scully, in Nick Kent’s recently published autobiography Apathy for the Devil, about the Stones, the ‘sixties and peace and love: “Woodstock and Altamount are seen as polar opposites in a mass-media generated parable of light and darkness, but they were just two ends of the same mucky stick, the net result of the same disease: the bloating of mass bohemia in the late ‘sixties.”

Not only did Joan Didion say more or less the same thing, but she called it at the time in Slouching Towards Bethlehem. The sooner history swallows Keith Richards and his hopelessly narcissistic and utterly hypocritical generation the better. They’ll be no loss.

John McGuinness is Not John the Baptist. Irish Nation Please Copy.

An Spailpín Fánach is stunned by the reaction to John McGuinness’ whining during the week. McGuinness got the road during the junior minister reshuffle and isn’t happy about it. Nobody would be – some people have enough in to take it on the chin and move on, some throw rattles from prams. God didn’t make us all the same after all.

But what is stunning, and deeply depressing, is the way the man is being hailed as some sort of Messiah. Marian Finucane is reading out texts on her radio show this morning along the lines of “at last, someone with the guts to speak out.”

But that’s nonsense. An Spailpín wants to know if McGuiness is only “speaking out” because he lost his state car. John McGuinness was a junior minister for two years – why didn’t he do something then? Talk is cheap. McGuiness held the reins of power for two years – what did he do with them? If he hadn’t got the road, would he be doing half the talking?

John McGuinness is doing a lot of whining about Mary Coughlan, having carefully picked the softest target in the Government. Twenty years ago Mary Harney was a junior minister to Pádraig Flynn at Environment, and she managed to clear up the smog in Dublin. Mary Coughlan can hardly be trickier than Pee was in his pomp. Has John McGuinness done anything like that with his junior ministry? Or even close?

No, he has not. And yet you read on the front page of yesterday’s Mail about what a clever and talented fellow John McGuinness is. Clever and talented how? His website would suggest his IT skills are limited, for instance.

An Spailpín Fánach has a question for John McGuinness – if things are so golly-gosh bad with Brian Cowen, why doesn’t McGuinness resign the Fianna Fáil whip entirely? Joe Behan in Wicklow, at least, had the courage to do that just that – why doesn’t John McGuiness put his money where his mouth is and quit the party?

McGuinness can’t join Fine Gael. Not because of any ideological issues of course ... but because Phil Hogan is the sitting Fine Gael TD for the Marble City and There is No Way on God’s Green Earth Phillo and McGuinness are going hand in hand up the aisle. Phil has had quite enough trouble with one McGuinness as it is – he doesn’t need another, thanks very much.

John McGuinness could always run as an independent of course, and put his money where his mouth is.

Or maybe not. How about the Labour party? Séamus Patterson got elected for Kilkenny and Labour for forty years – there’s certainly a seat there. Why doesn’t McGuinness nail his colours to the mast and do that? Labour would certainly welcome him – they got hammered in the last election in Carlow/Kilkenny and are desperate for candidates all over the country – look at whom they’re running for the European elections, for instance. Why doesn’t John McGuinness join them if he finds the current Government so intolerable – as and from the moment of his sacking, and not so much before?

But even more to the point – why doesn’t someone in the national media ask him, instead of giving him a free ride? Have we given up entirely on joined-up thinking?





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