Drama is one thing but there’s no smoke without a free cigar

IT APPEARS there’s a Government politician who has used a state company to supply Christmas gifts for his friends.

There's another who is trawling around to try to find a private entrepreneur who will build a new national theatre for Ireland without, of course, compromising its national status. What both of these politicians have in common, it seems, is that they don't want to pay their bills.

In the case of the politician who had the brandy and cigars delivered to his office, the bill is a personal one. So it's urgent very urgent. The politician who doesn't want to fund a new national theatre is trying to avoid paying a political bill. And that's very important. Let's have a look at each of them in turn.

Who is this politician who apparently ordered Aer Rianta to have a load of goodies gift-wrapped and delivered to his office, thereby incurring a bill for several thousand pounds which he has ignored ever since? More to the point, how is it possible that any politician can assume he (it does appear to be a male politician) has the right to issue such an order to a semi-state company?

I worked for a number of governments. I cannot ever recall any minister in any of those governments having the kind of relationship with a semi-state company under his or her control where they would issue orders to the companies in respect of their personal requirements.

I do remember a row in the 1980s involving a member of Garret FitzGerald's government who was involved in an altercation with a member of Aer Rianta's ground staff, but I simply cannot imagine any of them ordering Aer Rianta to make up parcels and have them sent around to the office.

If this story is true even if the bill involved is ultimately paid it involves a gross abuse of office. Semi-state companies are a particular responsibility for the minister who has responsibility for them. It is the minister's job to develop policy for the company, to ensure that the company follows the policy, and to be certain that the company is following the best principles and practices of good governance and management.

By any definition, when a semi-state company finds itself delivering any kind of personal service for a minister, something has gone seriously wrong. When they are doing it at the minister's behest, that represents a step on the road to political corruption.

I note that the Minister for Transport, Seamus Brennan, has now ordered an internal inquiry into the affair, and will publish the result in about a fortnight. This is adding absurdity to the situation, and, if it is allowed to continue, will result in the finger of suspicion being pointed at all sorts of innocent people, when one phone call will produce copies of the three invoices that have apparently been sent to the politician concerned by Aer Rianta.

Furthermore, an issue like this is not appropriate to be handled by the line minister involved, because it goes to the heart of Government. It is the Taoiseach who insists, when he is appointing his ministers, that they follow certain rules of good behaviour.

It is the Taoiseach who must take charge of, and responsibility for, any investigation necessary into the behaviour of "government politicians". And it is the Taoiseach who must be in a position to reassure Dáil Eireann, when it meets this afternoon, that any government politician involved in dangerous and serious impropriety of this kind will be removed from government (if they are a member of the Government in any capacity).

The announcement that an inquiry is to take place sounded to me suspiciously like an exercise in buying time. I would fully expect Bertie Ahern to be questioned in the Dáil about this business this afternoon.

What I suspect nobody wants to hear is the same tired old platitudes about natural justice and events taking their course. We can be absolutely certain now that the Taoiseach already knows who the politician is to whom these invoices are addressed. If he hasn't begun the process of knowing the story behind it by the time the Dáil meets, he isn't doing his job.

THE other politician who apparently doesn't want to pay his bills is the Minister for the Arts, John O'Donoghue, who is looking for private sector good fairies to build both a national stadium and a national theatre. He is prepared to compensate them, but is adamant he doesn't want to compromise the national status of the theatre (whatever about the stadium).

It's another step on the road to selling off everything that matters, isn't it? I was at the Plough and the Stars in the Abbey the other night, watching a production that is as relevant to the Ireland of today as it was at any time in the past.

Apart from the play itself, with its achingly beautiful and yet totally down-to-earth language, the acting was of a uniformly high standard, the sets were magnificent, the occasion was one to be proud of. Except, of course, that our national theatre is so tatty and uncomfortable. If ever a national institution both needed and deserved a home of its own, it is surely the Abbey, which acts as a showcase for Ireland and Irish talent all around the world.

But even assuming that a benefactor appears on the horizon willing to put up the 200 million that a proper national theatre would require, and even assuming that he or she doesn't want their name over the door (The Ronald McDonald Abbey Theatre?) and is willing to relinquish all control over the content of the theatre's productions, still the least they would expect is a return on their money.

And the consequence of that would be that the Abbey Theatre, from that moment on, would be saddled with a debt that it would never be able to manage. It would be run on a crisis management basis from day one, forced to spend more and more of its time on fund-raising.

But there's a more fundamental issue involved even than that. We are a country that has produced some of the greatest playwrights in literature.

Shaw, O'Casey, Beckett, Wilde, Synge have all written works that will stand the test of the centuries. Their plays inform and entertain the world, offering a level of truth and value that has the power to shape minds and attitudes. We are also a country in transition ourselves.

Theatre is essential to us in all its forms as we explore a whole set of new realities associated with prosperity, with change, with being a confident part of a wider world.

But at the heart of that has to be the proposition that we should own our national theatre, not anyone else, but us. It should never be beholden to anyone but us. And the way it should pay its debt to us should be by enlightening, scandalising, stimulating and challenging us, as well as entertaining us. It must be free of the kind of debt that cripples creativity. Ministers who don't understand that, who can only think of short-term money solutions, just don't get it.