Political graft, phoney drug wars and greedy lawyers. Sounds familiar

SINCE finishing university in the United States in the mid-1970s I have been struck repeatedly by our failure to learn from their mistakes.

Eamon de Valera used to decry the pernicious influence of money on American politics. He must be spinning in his grave at the conduct of prominent members of Fianna Fáil over the past 15 years. But as of yet, only Ray Burke has gone to jail for such corruption.

We have made the same mistakes as the Americans in relation to drink and drugs. The kind of binge drinking seen here in recent years was the rage among young people in the US in the 1960s, and the drug culture took off in the 1970s as veterans returning from Vietnam popularised cannabis.