Politicians take foot off the pedal as joyriders get away with murder

CHARLIE McCreevy has been roundly condemned for the manner in which he deceived the electorate during the last election campaign.

But, Fianna Fáil did the same thing in the run up to the 1997 general election when John O'Donoghue promised zero tolerance in relation to crime. Those promises were as false as the assurance last May that there would be no cutbacks, secret or otherwise.

Of course, some might say that the electorate got what it deserves. If you are fooled by the same people twice, especially twice in a row, you should blame yourself. A great many people realised that the Fianna Fáil promises of no cuts were false, but those people were in an invidious position because they knew that the Fine Gael promises of even greater spending were more reckless.

If Fine Gael got into government we were going to have a re-run of 1981. Garret FitzGerald first came to power after a campaign in which all sides made lavish promises, but spending was already out of control.

The first thing the new government had to do was implement a stringent mini-budget under John Bruton.

When he tried to take further corrective measures in his first full budget seven months later, the government collapsed. And then we got the GUBUs.

Fianna Fáil certainly tried to deceive the electorate, but the people were not fooled. They picked the lesser of evils and strengthened the hand of the Progressive Democrats.

Now Michael McDowell has a chance to do what was promised in 1997, and the PDs have a real opportunity to demonstrate that they can make a difference.

Zero tolerance worked brilliantly in the urban setting of New York and other large American cities.

The principle behind it was to demonstrate that the police will implement all laws, especially the more minor laws, in order to generate respect for the system.

As this policy was first being implemented by the New York Police Department in 1995, Nancy Stein got a ticket for depositing "noxious liquid" in Central Park after her four-year-old grandson relieved himself behind a bush. It was hardly a proud moment for 'New York's Finest,' but it was a dramatic way of demonstrating their determination to enforce all laws.

Allowing some laws to be ignored brings the whole system in disrepute.

What happened in New York does seem particularly ludicrous to people in our permissive society.

If anybody paid any attention to little boys peeing behind the bushes in a public park, people here would be a lot more worried about the people paying the attention. Our authorities hardly pay any attention to men urinating in the streets.

Indeed, complaining about that seems absurd in relation to the other events in which people are being killed and the lives of countless innocent people are being put at risk nightly by so-called 'joyriders.'

The very name 'joyriders' conjures up image of frivolity in which our streets are being turned into public carnivals, with kids using cars like their parents used bumpers at a fairground. These children may be behaving like wayward adults, but they still have the immature minds of children. It is the authorities, especially the politicians, who have been behaving like imbeciles essentially by ignoring the problem. They have dismissed 'joyriding' as if it were just some harmless fun.

These kids deliberately ram Garda cars for fun. People work honestly for years to pay for a car, but some little gurrier can trash it in minutes, and endanger innocent lives in the process. Back in the 1980s the then Taoiseach, Charlie Haughey, gave an interview to Hot Press magazine in which he lamented having grown up before the advent of the permissive society.

"I don't think I could say that I approve of youngsters knocking off BMWs and so on, although, I must admit, I always had a hidden desire to do something like that!," Haughey told Hot Press.

There were no BMWs around during his teenage years, which coincided with World War II. Of course, I am not suggesting that Charlie was responsible for the world war, but he was responsible for trivialising the evil of car theft.

The gardaí have become understandably disillusioned at arresting 'joyriders' because our legal system then ignores the problem. The media cannot name the culprits or even publish their photographs.

Many have dozens of convictions, but they are left on the streets until they become adults and as often as not trained, hardened criminals. Some complain that these gurriers then graduate to greater crimes, but that is nonsense. There is no greater crime than murder, and that it how the deaths of people killed by 'joyriders' should be classified.

There has been plenty of hype about the role of the Criminal Assets Bureau in the jailing of John Gilligan and other drug barrons, but these are only cosmetic achievements. Nothing was done to tackle the real problem.

Some of the bigger players were taken out, but now we have a proliferation of smaller gangs of pushers, and the drug problem is worse than ever, which is evidenced by the fact that drugs are apparently more plentiful and cheaper.

We have been losing the fight against serious crime, but these problems don't exist in Cahirciveen yet. John O'Donoghue played politics with things like his appointments to the prison visiting committees (PVC). It is difficult to avoid Pat Rabbitte's recent conclusion that maximising of travel expenses was a major consideration in those appointments. Castlemaine taxi driver Denis Brosnan was appointed to visit Loughan House in Co Cavan, while the Independent Fianna Fáil councillor Danny Harkin from Lifford, Co.Donegal, was appointed to visit Cork Prison.

Up to November of last year, Denis clocked up 7,499.12 in expenses. Fianna Fáil councillor John O'Neill from Newbridge, Co Kildare, was appointed to Cork PVC, while Fianna Fáil councillor Michael Cahill makes the 360-mile return trip from Rossbeigh, Co Kerry, to Curragh Detention Centre. What was the real criterion for those appointments? Fine Gael once tried to attract Pat Spillane, but it lost interest at his response. "I told the party if they could do something for me, then I would owe them one," Pat wrote in his memoirs. "I asked about the possibility of being made a director of Aer Rianta. I reckoned there was plenty of perks in that job."

John O'Donoghue seems to have taken over his new role as Minister for Sport and Tourism where he left off in Justice. He appointed the Kerry football manager, Paudie O'Shea, to the board of Bord Fáilte.

Was that an effort to upstage Jackie Healy-Rae as the personification of the Kerry joke?

Would the Minister tell us who put pressure on him to make that appointment? And what's the real aim has the Celtic Tiger died laughing? It might be a Kerry joke, but it isn't funny.