The mysterious ways of Dr McDowell and Mr Minister

WE all, dear reader, know the strange and mysterious tale of Dr McDowell and Mr Minister.

A good man, the doctor, perhaps a trifle self-important, perhaps over-bearing. But he has a secret that none of us can guess at.

He is unbearably tired of the image of perfection he sees in the mirror every time he gazes therein - the neatly trimmed hair, the once firm if now slightly slackening jaw, the commitment to truth and justice that radiates from his features.

Though others may feel this is indeed a natural leader, a lion among men, what we cannot know is that he secretly longs to experiment, to find new freedoms, to rid himself of the drudgery of propriety and, yes, progressive democracy.

Only lately he has had that fine visage of his on posters all over his city, warning the general populace (none as wise as he) of the dreadful creatures who roam the land at night, seeking to terrify and corrupt the politics of the country. The people believed his posters, and elected him to watch over the lesser beings, knowing that only he would have the wisdom, the incorruptibility, the courage to keep them hewn to ways of goodness and light.

Little did they know how he longed to be one of the creatures of the night himself, to cast away the shackles of convention. And unknown to all he has found a way. This potion he has perfected in the dead of night, that smells of the fumes of Mercedes fuel, that is strangely viscous and oily to drink.

One mouthful and he feels a terrible grinding in his bones, a pain so awful that it renders him momentarily unconscious. But when he awakes, it is as a new and different man - Mr Minister, as he calls himself. Where once he was committed only to the light, now he is born to govern. He can feel it in every fibre of his being.

There are drawbacks to this new station. Not so long ago he enjoyed his frequent glances in the mirror, but now he can no longer bear to look at his own image. There is a change there, something impossible to pin down and yet repulsive to look at. In the words of one of his servants (civil servants as they were pleased to call themselves) who saw the changed man frequently, “There is something wrong with his appearance; something displeasing, something downright detestable. I never saw a man I so disliked, and yet I scarce know why.”

But despite his terrible appearance, despite the awful things he begins to do, Dr McDowell is irresistibly drawn to this other side of himself. Mr Minister can do things Dr McDowell barely dares to dream about. As time goes by, it becomes harder and harder for Minister to revert, to become McDowell again. Listen, gentle reader, to these two speeches (one is quite short, the consequence of what they call in the media ‘a doorstep’).

They will help you to see at a glance the change that has been wrought in this man. They will convey as no words of mine can how the magic potion has produced this measure of hypocrisy.

“You journalists need to get a grip on yourselves. You are in a feeding frenzy at the moment and in fact mutual hysteria - one columnist reading what another columnist is writing - is creating an air of total unreality. Is it the media agenda that the PDs should now withdraw from Government in the year 2002 because Mr Burke lied to the Taoiseach in 1997? Is there any credibility to that or do we get on to discuss the real problems which confront this country at the moment, problems to do with the economy, problems to do with jobs, problems to do with Nice, the question we now have to face is who governs this country and what do we do with government, and the media are not going to force the Progressive Democrats into some kind of crisis over what happened at the beginning of the last government .”

But compare it to this one, made by the good Dr McDowell at the height of his powers, before he had discovered the heady brew that drives him ever onwards now. “If the newspapers cannot see there is something rotten and corrupt in the sequence of events I have described, I despair of them being able to form judgments on matters of public standards or ethics on any issue. Where are the critical faculties of the media? Where are the columnists and the investigative reporters?

“These people are nowhere to be found because collectively they seem to be afraid of the Taoiseach. Where are the newspaper’s critical faculties now? Are all these people suffering from the same moral dementia that seems to afflict the Tánaiste? Where are the investigative journalists? Will the media stand up for decent standards in public life and put to the Taoiseach and the Tánaiste the wrongdoing that was done, expose precisely what was wrong about it and demand that this be reversed and that those people either apologise to the Irish people or get out office? Where are their consciences? Are they afraid of the libel laws? Is it the case that our media have fallen on their face because they will not vindicate decent standards and they will not investigate corrupt abuse of public office by people in this country?

“For some reason they will not do it. That is to their collective shame. I know it is unwise to criticise the media. Facts are facts and they claim to be the moral and political watchdogs of democracy. They claim these rights and duties but when it comes to the crunch they have been behind the door on this issue. They have not stood up against the Taoiseach’s facile, cynical self-serving and deceptive rhetoric that there is nothing wrong .”

What a change is here! The second speech you have read, dear reader, is from a mere eight years ago, when the sensibilities of Dr McDowell were so outraged by the issuing of passports to a foreign (and very rich) family called Masri that he declared no investigation adequate. Those who thought they had examined the issue with the utmost scrupulousness (including, it must be said, friends of the present author) were pronounced as suffering from moral dementia by this great champion of the truth.

But now, alas, Mr Minister can see only a gross interference in his right to govern. What does the truth matter to him now? Why should he suffer inconvenience because vile things were done before he started taking the potion? It is a salutary tale, is it not? The comings and goings of Dr McDowell and his other nature appear destined to continue for some time yet, the struggle between the two selves becoming ever more distasteful to watch.

And yet we know already, gentle reader, that this can have no happy ending. The lust for power that does away with conscience, as we know, always destroys in the end.

(With apologies to Robert Louis Stevenson)