Expenses showdown - A defining moment for Irish politics

IF Ivor Callely is expelled from the Fianna Fáil parliamentary party, why should he be allowed to continue to be a member of the Seanad?

If Fianna Fáil find his behaviour is unacceptable, why should we accept that he continues to enjoy the honour, privileges and rewards of being a senator?

After all, he has a seat in the upper house more in defiance of democracy than in its implementation.

He failed to retain a Dáil seat and, for a former junior minister, got an ignominious 13 votes when he stood for the Seanad. These rejections did not have the conclusion that the two groups of voters sought as Bertie Ahern nominated him to the Seanad.

This defiance of our electoral process is cronyism of the most poisonous kind and must make anyone who cares for our democratic process cringe with embarrassment.

Sadly, this entire soap opera has been characterised by spectacular shamelessness and a barely disguised contempt for the realities faced by the great majority of Irish people.

Taoiseach Brian Cowen has been firm in his demand for explanations from Mr Callely, and his colleague Senator Larry Butler who finds himself in similar difficulties, but the fiasco has been kicked to touch by deferring to the Committee for Members’ Interests in Seanad Éireann and the timescale that involves.

The committee concluded that there is sufficient evidence before it to sustain a complaint under the Ethics in Public Office Act. However, it will not be able to consider the matter until the week after next. This kind of leisurely investigation is no longer appropriate.

The committee has engaged the legal advisors to the Dáil and Seanad to assist it in its investigation. The issues in question are not so complicated as to require such high powered, taxpayer-funded, legal intervention. This may be necessary, or just habitual, but it is another strong argument against self regulation and another argument for deep reform of our political process.

Labour leader Eamon Gilmore reflected the mood of the country yesterday when he called for Mr Callely’s removal from the Seanad.

This mood has been created by the revelation of how wonderful life on the gravy train, private or public, is for a tiny percentage of our population who routinely exploit their position. It has been bolstered by a series of “retirements” feather-bedded by spectacular packages despite the fact that many of those involved should have been fired rather than ushered towards affluent retirements. In other, more assertive, jurisdictions they might well have faced charges for wasting public resources.

Mr Cowen must know that this is about much more than a relatively trivial expenses wheeze. He must know that this is a litmus test moment for the Irish political class and our political culture. And he must know too that it is at moments like these that the moral authority needed to govern is strengthened or squandered.