After the Cullen controversy, it's time for a lesson on public duty

PLEASE jog my memory. What exactly did Martin Cullen not do wrong? Was it his suggestion to the Office of Public Works that they hire one of his political supporters, Monica Leech?

No, that was inappropriate. Was it his championing of Ms Leech because her services would be particularly useful in his own constituency, and the fact that nobody else was allowed to tender for her initial contract? No, that wasn't right either.

Was it that, once the minister moved to the Department of Environment, he again suggested Ms Leech for a contract, this time the work being of urgent national importance so that she was again not required to tender?

Or was it that he recommended Ms Leech's appointment to a civil servant in his press office, listed her credentials, and then held a meeting with both of them?

No and no.

Only the most partisan supporters of the minister or people in their dotage could conclude that any of the above constituted acceptable behaviour.

It is strange, then, how we have concluded that Mr Cullen, having done all this, is somehow 'in the clear' unless or until the Standards in Public Office Commission decides to investigate his actions.

We have arrived at this point thanks to a combination of circumstances.

First the media was fed unofficial reports that Mr Cullen was going to be cleared by former Revenue chairman, Dermot Quigley, in his report.

That was like the time Albert Reynolds holed himself up with the Beef Tribunal report and then emerged with the news that he had been 'vindicated' before anybody had a chance to make up their own mind.

The second factor was Mr Quigley himself both his selection for the task of conducting the investigation and his rather understated manner of expressing himself. Mr Quigley did not comment on the failure of senior civil servants to question Mr Cullen's championing of Ms Leech.

Writing about this, Garret FitzGerald wisely left open the possibility that the report's terms of reference may have precluded such comment.

But he also considered whether Mr Quigley "felt it invidious to comment on his former colleagues." Either way, perhaps somebody from outside the civil service network should have been chosen, given how the report's findings were likely to be used.

In fairness to Mr Quigley, he said enough for most people to get the picture. Mr Cullen had not broken any rules but left himself open to a 'perception of impropriety.'

Down in the Four Courts a perception of bias, even if unfounded, would be enough for a judge to step aside from a case. So what should a politician do when he has contributed to public unease over his conduct? Should he defend himself, as the minister has done, by insisting that "the public interest was not damaged in any way?"

Or is there another route grounded in a vision of politics as public service in the deepest sense?

Those of us who have not held political office need to be careful of judging Martin Cullen. For people who have made enormous sacrifices in politics the temptation to reward faithful friends and supporters must be enormous.

How easy to rationalise it on the basis that "so-and-so is the only one who understands the sensitivities of this situation," and to forget that access to the public purse confers responsibility.

Politicians from all sides succumb.

In government, both Fine Gael and Labour took the 'sure, it's not often we're here' approach and handed plum advisory roles and seats on public bodies to family members and political supporters. Some Labour ministers who got into government in 1992 were notorious for it.

It's not illegal. But it would be sad if the only thing we learned from the tribunals of inquiry was not to take money for political favours and not to break the law.

The view that politicians are only in politics for what they can get out of it is unfair to the majority. Is there any way to combat this prejudice? One way is to change laws and practices.

Already in the wake of the Cullen affair the Taoiseach has moved to prevent ministers from appointing external public relations consultants willy-nilly. That tells its own story. But, as Tacitus said, "the more corrupt the republic, the more numerous the laws."

Laws in themselves will not save us.

Perhaps it is time to make the concept of public duty more central in national life by making it a standard in primary and secondary curricula and employment training.

Why not induction courses for newly-elected politicians and newly-appointed civil servants in which they consider concepts like public trust and political responsibility?

In the end, though, school trains the mind, but doesn't necessarily reform the character. We need, at some deep cultural level, to imbue ourselves with the expectation that public service and virtuous behaviour can co-exist.

It helps that the concept of the good politician has been around for a long time. In ancient Greece you had Solon, King of Athens around 600 BC.

In his long poem about 'eunomia' (good law), Solon recounts how he got tired of people presuming he was a crook like all the other rulers. He left Athens in disgust and spent ten years in Egypt where, at that time anyway, there seems to have been less corruption in politics.

What is interesting about Solon is that he was no plaster saint. Like the rest of us he was tempted to use power in inappropriate ways. "Wealth I desire to possess," he wrote, "but I would not have it unjustly, for Justice always catches up."

We don't, of course, have to go back to ancient Greece. Our own state was founded by people whose politics may have been divided by civil war but who were united by sense of public service.

Selfish personal gain was not on the agenda. And though it might be unpopular to say it, this may have had something to do with a British tradition of upright public service then prevalent.

Even the founders of the European Union had something special. Whatever about the petty corruption of many of their successors, Monnet, Schumann, de Gasperi and Adenauer were principled people who put personal ambition aside for the sake of future peace in Europe.

What motivated all these politicians was patriotism, but also something higher. The old Greek king, in his poem, judged his own actions by an 'unseen measure.'

"It is very hard to know the unseen measure of right judgement," he wrote, "and yet it alone contains the right boundaries of all things."

Another word for that 'unseen measure' might be morality.