Crooked politicians destroy faith in democracy

The issue about crooked politicians is not how few or how many they are. It is that they destroy faith in democracy, writes Gerard Howlin

Politicians are seldom crooked but they are mostly complicit. No, it is not by and large that they turn a blind eye to the corruption of others.

A learning from the tribunals and from Monday’s RTÉ Investigates programme is that those who shake down the system are instinctively furtive.