Politics does not corrupt — corruption corrupts

I don’t suppose it occurred to Barry Walsh (Nov 22) that the very least we should expect from an elected representative is the ability to say ‘no’ if offered inducements from developers wanting to influence planning decisions, and to make their efforts to do so public.

Like Trevor Sargent tried to do and let’s not forget, it wasn’t the public who attacked, it was other councillors. Why is it developers offered money to some people and not to others? In the 1970s and 1980s not every councillor was on the take. Even if we take all the rumours about certain people at face value, they still only make up a tiny percentage of those who have held office and they were from the two main parties and afforded the full weight of political machines.

So to claim, as Mr Walsh does, that it was a need to obtain finance to pay for campaigns that started the rot of cronyism, is a myth. Corrupt people brought in cronyism. Corrupt people who were elected time and time again by people who claimed not to want corrupt politics and who, to this day, when presented with the evidence of corruption, go out and re-elect that person with an even higher vote.

There’s no great mystery as to why cronyism took an even tighter grip on Irish politics from the 1970s onwards. First, the blame rests with Jack Lynch and Garret FitzGerald, who both failed to stamp it out because of their 19th century mindset about a gentleman’s honour in politics, at a time when there were few gentlemen in Irish politics and it was almost the end of the 20th century.

Secondly and more worrying, their successors were either too weak to tackle it, or had no desire to, and preferred to turn a blind eye. The reason any unemployed person or anyone who doesn’t have means will not be barred from being a councillor is because it is a part time job. And by all means pay for costs incurred but the receipts should be published so the public can verify the claims.

Desmond FitzGerald

Canary Wharf

London

England