Bertie kow-tows to Americans but treats Irish citizens with contempt

WHEN Bertie Ahern eventually appeared in the Dáil after the political/legal tornado which hit the country in the past two weeks, it would have been appropriate if he had declared Ireland to be the 52nd US state.

The reason is simple. The Government is more afraid of offending Condoleezza Rice, US Secretary of State, and her boss, George Dubya Bush, than the Irish people.

The matter of rendition flights through Shannon is more important than the crisis precipitated by the Government.

It accepts, unequivocally, assurances from the Yanks that the airport is not used to transfer terror suspects to secret prisons, despite an EU report that this country is one of 14 that does so.

It would in any case be easy either to prove or disprove that those planes were inspected, but Foreign Minister Dermot Ahern said on RTÉ radio yesterday morning that to do so would be to upset poor Condoleezza, and he certainly doesn’t want to do that.

With convoluted logic, his spokesperson was quoted in the papers as to why the EU report was dismissed: “There is no evidence of any flights carrying prisoners through Irish territory”.

Of course, there’s no evidence. The Americans instructed the Government not to look for it and, like puppets, they obeyed.

On the other hand, they have no problem insulting, trampling and making a mockery of the integrity of the people upon whom they inflicted such a major crisis in the past two weeks.

Bertie Ahern is more worried about American sensibilities than those of the ordinary people of this country. Essentially, he believes that he can ride roughshod over the truth of that debacle as to the Government’s responsibility. This is totally unacceptable because he does not have the right to deny citizens the truth.

People have a right to know, and serial denials of responsibility merely expose the ineptitude of his Government and are a gross insult to the integrity of those it purports to represent.

This was a crisis of national proportions, grave enough to warrant emergency legislation to be rushed through the Oireachtas so that, among other things, the defence of honest mistake about the age of the victim of rape could be allowed. It was so critical that the Dáil cancelled its holidays, and we are only too well aware how jealously they guard their short working year.

What the Taoiseach announced in the Dáil was expected to try to remedy the crisis which his Government visited on the country. The Supreme Court gave plenty of notice that it was willing to consider the constitutionality of the 1935 Act, and the Government ignored it.

Let’s be straight about one thing. Despite efforts by the entire Government from Bertie Ahern down, and some political pundits with their own agenda, there has been a sustained PR attempt to ground that crisis from the day of the Supreme Court decision to strike down the provision.

That is a complete corruption of the truth because the court acted on a point that was festering for years. The Government knew this, but chose to ignore it.

It was a classic case of not fixing something that was definitely broken. Nothing short of what the Opposition demands will be good enough, and that’s a full independent inquiry into the Government’s and the Attorney General’s handling of what turned out to be a national emergency.

What Mr Ahern has done is abysmally inadequate. An official from the Department of Finance is to review what went wrong in the AG’s office, as if it had over-run its budget. A sheer waste of time for the official because nobody will believe the end result.

Equally inadequate and unsatisfactory is his decision to appoint a legal expert with the fancy title of “special rapporteur” to carry out an annual audit of all national and international laws which may affect children.

On the evidence of the last fortnight, entire departments were unable, or incompetent, to perform this task in relation to national law alone, despite the fact that it was signalled by the Supreme Court.

The only sensible thing to emerge is the new all-party Oireachtas committee to examine child protection issues — these are considered so important that the committee won’t meet before the autumn.

Yet, Bertie Ahern ignores — indeed is in a blinding denial — that ultimate liability is clearly with the Government for utterly failing in its duty and obligation to the country.

In view of his refusal to accept that his Government was at fault, nothing short of what the opposition demands will meet the case — a fully independent inquiry.

It is extraordinary that he steadfastly insists on keeping his head in the sand, like some political ostrich determined to ignore the truth. The simple and unvarnished fact is that the entire country knows he is totally wrong.

THE Taoiseach cannot be allowed merely to shrug his shoulders on this one just as he did with other problems which incensed people like the e-voting disaster, PPARs, the nursing home scandal and, of course, the crisis in A&E units, to name but very few instances.

All of them pale in comparison to any threat to the safety of young people, but they are good examples of the culture of arrogance that he presides over. And there is absolutely no doubt about it... this is arrogance on a staggering scale.

The very point on which the Supreme Court struck down the statutory rape law as unconstitutional was that it did not permit the defence of honest mistake. Yet Dermot Ahern would appear to want to remove it by his call for a referendum, after consulting one of the actors in the drama, our illustrious Attorney General.

Now it has been suggested that the minister made the suggestion because Finance Minister Brian Cowen made most of the running as deputy leader of Fianna Fáil. The referendum suggestion was seen by many as Dermot Ahern’s way of letting it be known that he should not be discounted as a successor to Bertie Ahern.

I don’t know whether he has any ambitions in that direction, but the leadership of that party is absolutely insignificant compared to what’s at stake here.

That is how best to protect young people, and I doubt very much if a referendum would provide a realistic answer on a number of fronts.

In a wide-ranging and embarrassing submission, the Irish Human Rights Commission (IHRC) has set out exactly how children are treated in this country and will meet with the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child later this month.

A number of key areas are stressed where the record is downright disgraceful: the Government’s failure properly to enforce the UN convention; what is described as regressive legislation, and the high level of child poverty.

Another form of abuse is poverty, and in the EU this country has the shameful distinction of having one of the highest rates of relative child poverty. According to the IHRC, the Government target to reduce consistent child poverty to less than 2% by 2007 was “far from being fulfilled”.

Mind you, the target is not to eliminate consistent child poverty, just reduce it to less than 2%. That’s proving impossible in one of the richest countries in Europe, if not the richest — or so we’re told persistently by the Government.

Put it down to human error, as Bertie Ahern would say.