Confronting corruption - A darkening cloud over our future

We have long imagined or simply wanted to believe that the inherent goodness and honesty of the great majority of people is a robust enough buttress against the obvious and eternal corruption all around us.

Maybe it’s just coincidence of timing but our economic crisis and various domestic and international tribunals paint a far darker picture of the world we live in than we would readily acknowledge. The evidence is that straightforward corruption at every level of public life has played a huge part in the collapse of the Greek and Italian economies. Corruption is directly responsible for the dramatic downgrading in the standard of living for millions of Greeks and Italians. That they were, some at least, willing participants in a corrupt system may imply a kind of poetic justice but the hardship and absence of opportunity commonplace in these countries, and in Spain and Portugal, is sobering.

In Ireland we cannot be as explicit even if various tribunals — whose conclusions are findings of fact — have uncovered corruption. Our courts have as yet to even address the issue. That this remains the case nearly four years after the collapse of our banking system, and despite seemingly sincere expressions of dismay by cabinet members on the delays, is of course a form of corruption in itself.

Just yesterday in London a House of Commons committee ruled that Rupert Murdoch, one of the most powerful men in the world, is “unfit to run a major international company and should take responsibility for illegal phone hacking in News Corp companies”. Murdoch is one of the world’s great power brokers and his influence, once he agreed to tailor news coverage, extends even into China. His Fox News in America is as shameful as it is exploitative. It sadly abuses the great privilege of free speech to promote ignorance and the worst kind of insularity and fundamentalism.

Murdoch’s reach can be felt at every level of media. For instance, two Irish teams — Ulster and Leinster — will meet in the final of the Northern Hemisphere’s premier rugby competition yet Ireland’s national broadcaster — RTÉ — does not have the right to broadcast the game live but Murdoch’s Sky Sports does.

In the same 24-hour cycle, the corruption at the heart of the Catholic Church in Ireland was revisited when a BBC Northern Ireland programme last night revealed how Cardinal Sean Brady, the Primate of All Ireland, did not ensure that children preyed on by the satanic Fr Brendan Smyth had the protection needed to put them beyond the reach of one of the most notorious paedophiles of recent times.

The latest episode in this never-ending tragedy underlines again the fact — or sweeping generalisation if you so prefer — that the European countries most affected by corruption and the ensuing economic collapse are the Catholic ones — Italy, Spain, Ireland and Portugal. This may just be coincidental but it is just possible that it points to something much deeper in our moral formation and how we apply the basic principles of Christian belief and discipline in our daily lives.

As Elaine Byrne’s new book Corruption in Ireland 1922-2010 reminds us (opposite page), corruption in Irish public life is nothing new. Neither is the outrage expressed in response to it but that it persists, and seems to become evermore influential, might suggest that we should question our commitment to confronting, much less eradicating it. Or maybe we’re just too corrupt.