POLICY-MAKING:THE OPPOSITION drove the Government to "even greater heights of extreme" during the economic boom, a leading academic told the Desmond Greaves School in Dublin at the weekend.
Niamh Brennan, professor of management and academic director at the centre for corporate governance in UCD, also said we as individuals had to challenge the notion that “cute hoor” was a term of endearment.
Ms Brennan was speaking on the topic Corporate Influence and Lobbying: Who Really Makes Policy in Ireland and the EU?
Referring to an advert for the Licensed Vintners’ Association, Ms Brennan said she found it offensive that it described “cute hoor” as a term of endearment.
“We as individuals have to challenge these kinds of notions and look for something better than cute hoor,” she said.
She spoke about an “endemic culture” in Ireland and said she was also offended when a taxi driver offered to write out an additional receipt for her. If she had accepted, it would have lead to her defrauding the taxpayer, she said.
“This goes on so often that it is endemic in our culture and we as individuals have to ask ourselves questions about that kind of behaviour,” she said.
Ms Brennan, who is married to former tánaiste Michael McDowell, said the Irish political system, though one of the most democratic in the world, was “about the messenger boy”.
“If you aren’t clientelist, you will not get elected.” She said politicians learned that the last thing you said to the people was “No”. She said that that was why the country was where it was.
During the Celtic Tiger years Ms Brennan said she never heard any politician “mention a cautionary note”. “In fact the opposition drove the Government to even greater heights of extreme, heating up the model so that eventually it broke,” she said.
Ms Brennan told participants it was not just a simple linear question of corporate influence, though that was present. Voters had power to make sure they elected politicians “who will not open themselves to influence by corporations”.