Penalty points crisis - A day of reckoning for Kenny

Today’s cabinet meeting has assumed an importance that the participants could not have anticipated even a few days ago.

It is uncertain if all of those involved have accepted what is at stake or, if they have, that they will confront the issues or protect the principles at issue.

The meeting’s conclusions will show if our political system and its most senior participants are capable of embracing new ideals or if the old, musty curtains drawn around far too much society-defining debate or decision making remain firmly closed, blocking out even the gentlest breezes of change or transparency. Once again, and at another important moment, we may have to read the phrase “cabinet meeting” as shorthand for closing down debate, silencing dissent, taking important, difficult issues off the public agenda and facilitating the kind of stymieing secrecy we rightly condemn when we see it elsewhere.

In many respects, and even against the background of economic challenges and the progress made towards resolving them, today’s meeting can be seen as a defining moment for this coalition Government. The immediate issue — the battle — is Commissioner Martin Callinan’s intimidating use of language at the Dáil’s Public Accounts Committee and his, so far, steadfast refusal to modify his testimony. It is important to recognise he has been encouraged to modify his vocabulary but not withdraw from his core position. This seems a small, humiliation-free concession if set against the destabilising consequences of a split coalition.

But the real issue — the war — is transparency and accountability in public affairs. There is also the issue politicians seem to forget once power is secured — the clearly expressed wishes of the electorate for an end to the culture of secrecy and behind-doors, off-the-record, out-of-reach, deniable governance that contributed so much to the loss of our economic independence and justifies the cynicism eating at the integrity of our democracy. This was, after all, a cornerstone policy offered by Fine Gael and Labour before the election even if today they find it inconvenient.

The worst conclusion for today’s meeting would be a fudge — the kind of waffle described in what already seems like another time as Bertiespeak.

Another very unfortunate and revealing conclusion would be the marginalisation, or attempted marginalisation, of Transport Minister Leo Varadkar, the only Fine Gael minister to have the courage to reflect what Labour’s Pat Rabbitte accurately described as the “public’s settled view” on this matter. This would be particularly unfortunate if it was done to protect or appease Justice Minister Alan Shatter. Any senior Fine Gael figure contemplating such a response should remember — but change just one word — Lady Bracknell’s admonishment: “To lose one parent, Mr Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.”

They have already lost one of their brighter stars — Lucinda Creighton — and to put Mr Varadkar in a similarly untenable position would be foolish, vindictive and very much counter to the public mood. But most of all it would show how very insincere and cynical all of the grandstanding about reform and transparency really is.

This is, especially for Taoiseach Enda Kenny, make your mind up time — overly centralised, star chamber governance or the openness and accountability demanded, and deserved, by the electorate.