Behaviour amounts to rule of jungle over rule of law

“Even though it was illegal, I thought it was the right thing to do.”

Mick Wallace’s defence of his deliberate tax evasion is hardly the kind of comment expected from an elected lawmaker — especially as his actions as a willful law-breaker leave the citizens of this state some €2.1m worse off due to his antics as managing director of Wallace Construction.

Yet, the Wexford independent TD sees no reason to resign from the national parliament just because he deliberately acted illegally.

Indeed, his self-pitying defence of his actions exposes a man who is keenly aware of which laws he feels he can ignore, and which others he can conveniently shield himself.

Speaking of himself in the third person, Mr Wallace displayed an extraordinary leap of double-think which he desperately hopes will protect him from the gathering storm.

“Mick Wallace does have a tax clearance certificate and Wallace Construction doesn’t. Wallace Construction is a limited company of which I am managing director. Mick Wallace, private individual is a separate entity. That is the law. I didn’t make it up.”

Sadly, Mr Wallace did make up his Vat returns as MD of that company, and is now feeling somewhat smugly safe in the knowledge that a sitting deputy can only be forced out of the Dáil if they are declared bankrupt or serve six months in jail.

The very use of the phrase that Wallace has made a “settlement” with the Revenue over his illegality is deeply misleading, as he made clear “it’s very unlikely” the money will be paid back after he was found to have under-declared Vat liabilities on returns by €1,418,894, thus accruing interest debts of €289,146 and penalties amounting to €425,668.

“With hindsight, if I had realised the business was unsaveable, I wouldn’t have tried to save it. By filling in a false declaration, I was trying to save the company. I thought we would get the money. I thought I could see light at the end of the tunnel, but I was wrong.”

But surely that type of “ends justifies the means” mentality means we can all break the law if we subjectively decide the outcome of such illegality will be beneficial for society as a whole? The problem with such a mindset is that it amounts to the rule of the jungle, not the rule of law.

And how telling that the self-appointed guardians of the nation’s morals who make up Mr Wallace’s colleagues in the Technical Group of independent TDs were suddenly so silent on his illegality.

The rag-bag collection of lefties, right wingers and vanity merchants, usually throw themselves at any passing microphone, but strangely, largely went to ground rather than comment on their comrade.

Fine Gael — no doubt wanting revenge for the savaging they so rightfully received from the independents over their failure to fully accept the findings of the Moriarty Report which cast such an ugly light on their past dealings and associations with the disgraced Micheal Lowry — have been the most vocal in denouncing Wallace.

Fine Gael parliamentary party chairman Charlie Flanagan said the matter raised “serious questions about Deputy Wallace’s suitability to serve as an Oireachtas member”.

“It sets an alarming precedent when a member of the House admits to having knowingly filed an inaccurate VAT return. The idea that his company — of which he is the only director — is insolvent, but that he himself remains tax compliant, is playing ducks and drakes with the conventions of Leinster House.”

If Wallace managed to swap self-pity for self-awareness just for a moment, the following remark which emerged from his own lips would show even someone as evidently self-absorbed as he why he must now quit the Dáil.

“I’m going to get hammered anyway. This kind of thing is happening to builders every day of the week, but I’m different because I’m in the Dáil.

“Who’s fit to be a public representative? Let he who is without sin cast the first stone. I tried to be as honest as I could.”

Wallace is correct, he is different because he is in the Dáil, and if this really is as honest as he can manage then he is not honest enough to remain a law maker. Especially when he has such a cavalier attitude to which laws apply to him and which do not.