Confronting corruption - A darkening cloud over our future

We have long imagined or simply wanted to believe that the inherent goodness and honesty of the great majority of people is a robust enough buttress against the obvious and eternal corruption all around us.

Maybe it’s just coincidence of timing but our economic crisis and various domestic and international tribunals paint a far darker picture of the world we live in than we would readily acknowledge. The evidence is that straightforward corruption at every level of public life has played a huge part in the collapse of the Greek and Italian economies. Corruption is directly responsible for the dramatic downgrading in the standard of living for millions of Greeks and Italians. That they were, some at least, willing participants in a corrupt system may imply a kind of poetic justice but the hardship and absence of opportunity commonplace in these countries, and in Spain and Portugal, is sobering.

In Ireland we cannot be as explicit even if various tribunals — whose conclusions are findings of fact — have uncovered corruption. Our courts have as yet to even address the issue. That this remains the case nearly four years after the collapse of our banking system, and despite seemingly sincere expressions of dismay by cabinet members on the delays, is of course a form of corruption in itself.