Penalty points fiasco just a symptom of our national disease

The penalty points controversy has regained a momentum that those defending the status quo, those deeply entrenched traditionalists, probably thought unlikely or at the very least manageable.

Individuals, specifically Justice Minister Alan Shatter and Garda Commissioner Martin Callinan, find themselves challenged in a way that they may not consider appropriate or tolerable as individuals or as office holders.

They are at the centre of a controversy, a kind of then-and-now culture war, that reaches far beyond anything either man has done or said in the penalty points controversy. Their position, and the deeply ingrained, destructive culture that has brought them to that point, is under fire even more than they are. That, however, may offer them little enough comfort this spring morning.

Mr Callinan’s position seems particularly onerous — and growing more so by the day — as Labour Cabinet minister after Cabinet minister expresses their discomfort with his testimony to the Dáil Public Accounts Committee.

Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore is the most senior minister to encourage Mr Callinan to reconsider his testimony to the PAC during which he described the behaviour of Garda whistleblowers Sgt Maurice McCabe and John Wilson as “disgusting”, not once but twice. Social Protection Minister Joan Burton and Energy and Communications Minister Pat Rabbitte have expressed the same view.

It must be remembered that Fine Gael Transport Minister Leo Varadkar was the first Cabinet member to break Government omerta and have the courage, the clarity and sense of civic responsibility to reflect the predominant public view on the controversy. It was the gentlest suggestion, but one that carried real weight and had real steel in the velvet.

It is unfortunate — though entirely and tragically predictable — that Taoiseach Enda Kenny has tried to run with the hare and hunt with the hounds by suggesting that ministers should not express these views in public but rather in the confines of the Cabinet rooms. This hardly suggests the kind of appetite for fundamental change that was once promised. The idea that this controversy is a symptom rather than the disease seems to have completely eluded him. Mr Kenny’s trenchant defence yesterday of the things as they are cannot be seen as anything other than confirming deep division at Cabinet level. How this issue is resolved will define this country’s future as much as any other issue current in public debate. These are, so far, the nuts and bolts of the controversy but the underlying issue is accountability and our deep cultural aversion to that idea and the great benefits it can bring to society.

Mr Callinan is expected to retire within two years and it is likely — hopefully — that his successor will be appointed under an entirely different structure of accountability and the kind of social partnership that seems to be so very alien to the instincts of some senior gardaí, instincts admittedly found in nearly every area of society. This change may offer itself as an Irish solution to an Irish problem, but it is just putting off the inevitable day of reckoning. Far better if things are brought to a head over the issues at hand and Government is forced to choose between the comfort of age-old collegiality and the transparency and mutual esteem that defines a modern society where the common good prevails over any sectional interests.