What this country really needs is full transparency in public affairs

IT’S GETTING so it’s difficult to keep up. Since Christmas, we’ve had to work hard to keep abreast of all the unfolding scandals, while simultaneously maintaining our healthy sense of national moral indignation.

We’ve just put down another extraordinary week in terms of revelations and political reaction. The Government and Justice Minister Alan Shatter are dangerously on the back foot at this stage. But when you add all the controversies together, they come back to one particular word which our politicians love to sprout but are oh so slow to act upon.

Transparency — we seek it here, we seek it there, whether it be from the gardaí, in the salaries paid to the heads of charities and hospitals, or in how many millions we are spending to set up a water utility.