Fergus Finlay: Three simple rules for politicians to avoid having to resign

 Charles Haughey genuinely believed that rules are for little people.

My colleague Terry Prone listed nine brilliant ways to resign properly yesterday. I have three simple rules to follow if you want to avoid having to resign at all.

But let me tell you, the older I get, the more I wonder at the stupidity of some politicians. They remind me sometimes of a teenager I once knew. She “borrowed” her father’s rib, a really powerful little boat that could zip through water. It was, incidentally, his pride and joy — he had saved for years to buy it. The last thing he expected to see was his rib flying around the nearby lake, the throttle wide open, his daughter at the wheel.

Until it struck something in the water. She lost control and was lucky the boat ran aground, smashing a couple of trees at the water’s edge and doing irreparable damage to the hull. She, fortunately, was shaken but unhurt. When her father got to her, once he was satisfied that his beloved boat was the only casualty, he demanded to know how she was feeling now. “Dad,” she said tearfully, “I felt invincible. But not anymore.” They all do, these politicians who come a cropper. They all end up feeling invincible. And that’s what does them in.

Before I say another word, I should declare an interest. I got to know Robert Troy when he was opposition spokesperson on children. I was impressed by his commitment and hard work, and his determination to master his brief. During the children’s rights referendum he (together with another Opposition deputy, Caoimhghín O’Caoláin of Sinn Féin), worked harder than the vast majority of government deputies to get that referendum over the line. And there was nothing in it for them except it was the right thing to do.

So on a personal level, I’ve always had respect for Robert Troy. All the more so when he became one of the first members of the Dáil to speak openly about mental health challenges he had faced, including a long-term struggle with anxiety.

 Robert Troy: His reluctance to come clean, in the way that all public representatives are obliged to do, has now destroyed a reasonably promising political career.

So you could have knocked me down with a feather when all these property secrets began tumbling out. His reluctance to come clean, in the way that all public representatives are obliged to do, has now destroyed a reasonably promising political career, at least in the short to medium term. There can be no doubt he had ample opportunity to clear the matter up — my colleagues in this paper have already given a detailed timeline — but essentially chose to make the matter worse by endless obfuscation. Perhaps he felt invincible.

Journey from gratitude to arrogance

There is something that clicks in the heads of some people when 6,000 of their fellow citizens (or more) vote them into office. It always starts off with a strong feeling of gratitude and a determination to do well by the electorate. Over time, in some, it morphs into something different. It can happen that the feeling of “I owe everything to the people who voted for me” can be replaced by a feeling of “they’d be lost without me”.

And sometimes worse than that. I’ve known politicians who have ended up despising the people who voted for them, and who genuinely believe their lives have been one long sacrifice in the interests of an ungrateful people

And actually worse than that, even. Over the years I got to know with a high degree of certainty when Charlie Haughey was telling porkies. The more sincere he was on his feet, the more outraged he professed to be about allegations made against him, the more categoric he was that those accusing him were in the wrong, the more certain I was that he was lying. And it always, always, turned out that way.

I remember sitting in the public gallery one day in 1997 when Ray Burke, who was then Ireland’s Minister for Foreign Affairs, stood up to defend himself against suggestions of financial corruption. He acknowledged that he’d had a political donation of £30,000, admitted that it had been delivered by three lads in raincoats who had come to visit him, and accepted that the money was stuffed in notes into three envelopes. (He had counted it when they left.) He did accept that day that he’d been guilty of one thing. Naïveté. I should have realised, he told an astonished parliament, that such a donation might leave me open to scurrilous and unfounded allegations.

With every breath in my body, I knew, watching him that day, that there was a lie going on. It did subsequently transpire that he had phrased some of his answers very carefully. When he said, for example, that he’d never had a larger donation than the £30,000 being discussed, he was trying to protect himself against the later revelation that he’d had an identical amount — £30,000 must have been his going rate — from a different source.

It was a classic example — a quarter of a century ago — of a politician feeling invincible. Invincible enough to try brazenness and obfuscation where the simple truth was demanded (and would have served him much better)

Someone on Twitter the other day quoted Robert Troy saying “I own 11 houses” and added the phrase “you should try it sometime”. It was a very funny reference to the famous night that Padraig Flynn went on The Late Late Show and spent a few glorious minutes hacking his political reputation to death. He was invincible at the start of that interview. But he was a target by the end of it.

Of course there are some politicians — Haughey was one of them — who genuinely believe that rules are for little people. And there are others whose genetic makeup renders them incapable of the truth.

Basic behaviours

But for the great majority of people in public life, there are three simple rules that have to be followed. These aren’t the rules for greatness, and they’re not the way to get to the top. They’re not “best practice” — they’re the simple core of basic practice.

Rule 1 is the simplest. So simple you’d wonder how it’s forgotten so often. It needs to be written in capital letters and hammered into their office walls.

If you don’t want to get caught doing it, don’t do it. Full stop. It doesn’t just have the beauty of simplicity, it also provides a very high degree of certainty. You have to be really, really unlucky to be caught doing something you didn’t do.

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Rule 2 is the one that might have saved Robert Troy. If you did do it, it might have been by accident. Omission or commission, it doesn’t matter. The only way to deal with it is full, complete, total disclosure. No matter how embarrassing, get it out there. If you’re still answering questions of fact a week later you’re toast. And like it or not you deserve to be.

The third rule derives from the lesson my friend’s daughter learned. You’re never more vulnerable than when you tell yourself you’re invincible. Politicians stumble when they’re on top more often than not. And it’s actually never “the little things that trip you up”, to quote Albert Reynolds. It’s always the wounds they inflict on themselves.