FF silence the voice of authority by pandering to vested interests

JANUS was a powerful god. He was almost as important as Jupiter, the king of all the Roman gods.

Whereas the bold Jupiter, ruler of the heavens, was inclined to hurl down bolts of thunder and lightning to frighten the rest of us, Janus was the god of doors and beginnings. (January, the first month of our year, is named after him.) All doors and gates were sacred to Janus, and his statue was always kept at the entry to a building, so that his blessing could be sought by everyone coming in and out.

By all accounts a decent fellow, Janus had one slight peculiarity (for a god, that is). He had two heads, the better to be able to look in both directions at the same time. His heads could look left and right. They could also look forward to the future and back to the past. As time went by, it came to be believed, rather unfairly where poor old Janus was concerned, that one head could argue one side of a case and the other the completely opposite one (a bit like a clever lawyer, though most of them have only one head). To this day, because of his two heads, Janus is remembered as a master of deceit.

It's just as well he's not still around. He'd be in great demand in Fianna Fáil.

They're at it again. Facing both directions at once, and this time it's over smoking. Fianna Fáil, as usual, is setting out to be all things to all people.

In the past couple of years, they have been up for reductions in spending but against cutbacks (adjustments are ok, even reductions in increases, but they'll never agree to call them cutbacks). They've allowed Shannon Airport to be used as a military stopover for a unilateral war against Iraq, but they're totally opposed to unilateralism and want the United Nations to be in charge. They've been at pains publicly to ensure that the Church pays its fair share of the redress compensation arising from clerical abuse of young people, but they privately concluded a deal which has so far cost the Church about two red cents. They've been trying hard to protect people's right to information about themselves, but busier still filleting the Freedom of Information Act.

When the farmers demonstrated throughout the country, we had Fianna Fáil for the consumers and Fianna Fáil for the farmers. The party website was full of statements from deputies waxing indignant on both sides of that debate.

This Janus approach may have originated on the day that Bertie Ahern showed Albert Reynolds his ballot paper, to prove that he (Bertie) had voted for Albert in the contest for the Fianna Fáil presidential nomination. But it became official government policy a couple of years ago, in the McCreevy budget that introduced individualisation. Remember the stream of FF backbenchers who went on television to say how shocked and horrified they were at the measure? It turned out afterwards that they were all organised by the FF press office.

And it also turned out that the measure went through, despite the outrage of the backbenchers.

But the message had been got out we might have to do it, but we're against it really. Ever since then, they've been working on perfecting what I call the Janus message. "We're on your side. Whatever that is." They're so bare-faced about it, it would make poor old Janus' heads spin.

That's really what this so-called smoking row is about. Everyone in Fianna Fáil knows that if Micheál Martin is forced to back down on his intention to eliminate smoking from the workplace, and especially pubs, he will be politically finished.

They also know the row has developed such a high profile, given that this is the silly season, that any significant dilution of the proposed ban will damage the credibility of the government as a whole.

So the outcome of this row is already pre-ordained. The ban will come into force. The regulations enacted will be whatever Micheál Martin publishes.

There will be some room in the wording of the regulations for compromise to deal with some of the less enforceable aspects of the ban (prisons, for instance). But the days of smoking in pubs are coming to an end.

The phoney row is all about enabling Fianna Fáil to maintain its relations with the vested interests involved especially publicans, who are a powerful and influential lobby group. Anyone who thinks there is any real debate going on in the party, or the government, about whether or not the ban should proceed is kidding themselves. It might make a nice juicy story when there isn't a lot else going on, but it has no substance.

YOU'LL note I haven't really expressed a view on whether this ban on smoking in pubs is a good idea. That's because, to be honest, I have found it hard to get worked about it. I have my doubts about the whole passive smoking thing. But on balance, places that don't have smoke in them are more pleasant, and safer, than places that do. And if a ban forces a few people to think again about the amount they smoke (and drink), that would surely be a good thing.

The political imperative here, however, is credibility. Colours have been nailed to the mast on this issue, to an extent where Micheál Martin has to win. Everyone involved in the row knows that.

None more so than Martin Cullen, Micheál Martin's cabinet colleague, who made a spectacularly fatuous intervention in the debate. Proclaiming himself as opposed to excessive regulation (although he is in charge of the entire physical planning process and the Environmental Protection Agency) and against anything that sounds remotely politically correct (although he is in charge of such issues as the rights of homeless people), Minister Cullen called for compromise. Then promptly revealed himself as a 40-a-day smoker.

Hello? Conflict of interest? What happened to the notion of some kind of objective approach to decision-making?

What happened, incidentally, to the idea of collective cabinet responsibility (that principle whereby once a cabinet has decided on something, the cabinet sticks together)? When I first heard this phoney row brewing up, my initial reaction was to suggest that the Taoiseach should get a grip on it. Leadership, I thought, was needed. Slap down the dissenters, demonstrate some firm authority on an important health issue.

But of course, the row serves the Fianna Fáil purpose. It might make a bit of a nonsense of most of the principles of government and authority as the rest of us might understand them, but Fianna Fáil like it that way. When this is over, they want to be able to say to whatever vested interest they deal with, "ah sure, didn't we do our best for ye, lads?"

That's the trouble with the Janus technique. At bottom, it's about pandering to the vested interests in society, about saying whatever will appease the loudest voice in the room. And conscience, the voice of good authority, always speaks in a whisper. That's why some politicians find it so hard to hear.