While we make sport of Delaney, the real scandal is elsewhere

FAI boss John Delaney and media owner Denis O’Brien are the men we’re all supposed to love to hate, men who attract scandal-laden headlines whenever they do anything., writes Fergus Finlay

But I’m struggling to figure out where the scandal is with either of them right now.

But next week, in a hearing room in Geneva, Ireland will be asked to defend its position on real scandals, scandals that should be attracting lead headlines and taking up hours of Dáil debate. But these scandals arise from our treatment of people who have no power and no voice, so they won’t get nearly as much attention as the men we love to hate.

Let’s take John Delaney first. What we know is that the Football Association of Ireland got a little present from Sepp Blatter, the head of the world football organisation, FIFA — if you regard €5m as a little present. Apparently, Delaney went to Blatter after the Thierry Henry handball incident — and after Blatter had chuckled over the Irish protest — swore at him till the air turned blue, and came away with a wad of cash.

Now, to be honest, I’ve yet to meet anyone who believes that the FAI had a leg to stand on. Teams get beaten by refereeing mistakes all the time, and that’s that. The idea that we could threaten to sue someone because of it is outlandish.

Except that we now know that money meant nothing to Sepp Blatter and FIFA. This was an organisation rolling in money — an awful lot of it dirty money. When Blatter bought a little peace and quiet from the Irish, he probably thought of it as a good use for the petty cash. And as far as we can tell, the transaction was properly accounted for at the FAI end.

The incident tells us something we already knew — what a grubby, venal business professional soccer has become. The ‘beautiful game’ has become tarnished, at one level, by the incessant cheating of incredibly highly paid professional footballers, and, at another level, by corruption.

But where’s the scandal? John Delaney did a good deal for his organisation, in an otherwise impossible situation. If he hadn’t done it in secret — and there’s the real lesson, surely — he wouldn’t be in trouble at all.

And then there’s Denis O’Brien. Nothing seems to bring out the begrudger in all of us quite like the mention of his name. I have to declare an interest here — I know, from experience, that Denis O’Brien is willing to invest in, and support, things that other people won’t. For example, he has contributed to changing the lives of hundreds, probably thousands, of people with an intellectual disability and for the better. Not a lot of people can make that claim.

It’s not all he does, by any means. He doesn’t expect thanks for his philanthropy, as far as I know, and he certainly doesn’t get it. But there are at least two sides to the Denis O’Brien we all think we know.

We seem to think of Denis O’Brien as someone who’ll stop at nothing to get what he wants, and who’ll use his power and influence to advance his own ends. The latest is the suggestion that he got some kind of extraordinary sweetheart deal in respect of his borrowings from Anglo-Irish Bank, or IBRC as it came to be.

In order to believe that, you have to believe that both Alan Dukes, chairman of IBRC, and Mike Aynsley, its CEO, were either fools or knaves. I don’t believe that of either of them. I have no doubt Denis O’Brien drove the hardest bargain he could with IBRC, and equally no doubt that he was a highly-favoured customer of the old Anglo cabal. But scandal? I wonder.

The real issue with both these stories is the same. Whenever secrecy is chosen instead of disclosure, in any situation where there is a wider public interest, it will always backfire and do damage. If you don’t want the wrong perception to be created by your actions, the best possible way to serve your own interests is by reconciling them with the public interest. The only way to do that is with as much transparency as possible.

Now, can we talk about the real scandals? This week, the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission, under Emily Logan, will make its first ever submission to a UN committee. Their submission will be honest, forthright, and well-researched. They’ll present it transparently, in the full light of day. And, in the process, they will outline a succession of scandals.

The absence of any human rights or equality assessment of the likely impact of austerity cuts will be high on their agenda. They will be pointing out the injustice of zero-hour contracts and how Irish law (which allows the contracts to exist) is in breach of the Covenant on Economic Social and Cultural Rights.

Emily Logan has already highlighted the extent to which the treatment of people with disabilities since the onset of austerity — higher unemployment rates, deeper cuts in financial support, and more crises in essential services than for any other group of people, and broken promises in respect of reforming legislation — is a genuine national scandal which will be dealt with this week.

So, too, will the huge increase in conditionality of support payments, for people like lone parents. As the Commission points out, women who are the sole carers of young children will be treated under the social protection rules as if they had no children — and this despite what the Commission calls the “clear absence of adequate and affordable childcare”.

The Un Committee will also be told about the way we treat people — adults and children — in direct provision in Ireland. The report of a working group, examining desperately needed reform in this area, is now overdue. In the meantime, our treatment of people awaiting a decision on asylum applications is something that is beyond scandalous. It’s shaming.

Many other areas will be dealt with in the Commission’s submission — the crisis in mental health services, especially for children and young people; the failure to adequately resource special needs education; the issue of traveller ethnicity; the crisis in support for people who have suffered, or are suffering, domestic violence.

All of these are scandals. All of these deserve the attention of the Dáil, maybe in some cases even commissions of enquiry, certainly a lot of sustained newspaper headlines and campaigns.

We can fix these things, just like we can demand attention for everything else we decide is a scandal. But will these issues, that tend to affect much less powerful people, get the intense scrutiny they need? I hope so. But I’m not holding my breath.

Whenever secrecy is chosen instead of disclosure, in any situation where there is a wider public interest, it will always backfire and do damage