Last May, members of the Opposition attempted to ask the Taoiseach questions about the cabinet subcommittee that was then deciding on the privatisation of Aer Lingus, notes Fintan O'Toole Bertie Ahern refused to answer.
"Questions as to the business conducted at cabinet or cabinet committee meetings have never been allowed in the House on the grounds that they are internal to government. The reasons for this approach are founded on sound policy principles and the need to avoid infringing the constitutional protection of cabinet confidentiality."
The "sound policy principles" that were invoked by the Taoiseach are those to be found in Article 28.4.2 of the Constitution: "The Government shall meet and act as a collective authority, and shall be collectively responsible for the Departments of State administered by the members of the Government."
As Séamus Dolan of the law faculty at NUIG has explained with admirable succinctness: "The concept of cabinet confidentiality flows from the notion of collective responsibility, as referred to in Article 28.4.2. Collective responsibility mandates that individual ministers present a united front to the public, and individual ministers must each offer public support for government decisions and policies, regardless of their own private or personal views on the topic. This, by implication, means the individual minister is not entitled to criticise government policy or decisions if he wishes to retain his ministerial office." Or, as the all-party committee on the Constitution put it even more succinctly, "the only way to record dissent from a government decision is to resign".
This is precisely what a number of honourable politicians did when they wanted to dissent from a policy position adopted by a government in which they served. Kevin Boland (and his parliamentary secretary Paudge Brennan) did so in 1970 over the arms crisis. Frank Cluskey did it in 1983 over the government policy on Dublin Gas.
In November 2003, Willie O'Dea's predecessor as minister for defence, Michael Smith, dissented from the health policy of the government of which he was a part when he supported protests in his own constituency against the downgrading of Nenagh hospital. But he quickly apologised to the Taoiseach and issued a statement saying that it had not been his intention "to breach the rules of collective cabinet responsibility or to undermine the efforts of his colleagues to implement government policy", and that "he deeply regretted giving the appearance of being at variance with government policy." The apology was the only alternative to resignation.
Four years ago, therefore, it was completely unacceptable for the minister for defence to play to the gallery in his own constituency by contradicting government policy and disowning the local consequences of decisions for which he himself was jointly responsible. Last week, in a statement issued through the Department of the Taoiseach - implying that she was in effect acting Taoiseach at the time - and explicitly "speaking on behalf of the Government", Mary Hanafin issued a strong statement of its policy on the Aer Lingus decision to end its Shannon to Heathrow service.
She could not have been clearer about Government policy on the matter: "As a listed plc, Aer Lingus has to take its own decisions. It is inappropriate for the Government to intervene in the decision making of a private company. To do so would ultimately be damaging to the company and its customers."
Willie O'Dea is clearly and strongly opposed to this policy. He believes that the Government should support a Ryanair move to convene a shareholders' meeting to reverse the Aer Lingus decision. He believes that political pressure should be brought to bear: "We will sit down and we will try and persuade them that they are wrong and we will try and persuade them to change their minds. If they don't change their minds, then there are other options."
He told us Minister for Transport Noel Dempsey doesn't really understand the issue. He also strongly implied that the Cabinet is split on the issue: "When the Cabinet meets, we will see if I was as totally isolated as I appear to be."
Three things are absolutely clear here. Firstly, a Government decision not to interfere with the Aer Lingus move was taken last week - otherwise Mary Hanafin could not have issued her statement. Secondly, Willie O'Dea profoundly disagrees with that decision. Thirdly, the only lawful and constitutional way for Willie O'Dea to express that dissent is to resign from the Government. Logic implies a fourth conclusion: Willie O'Dea's behaviour over the last week has been utterly unconstitutional.
The levels of hypocrisy involved in all of this are stratospheric. The man whose job it is to defend the State has been flouting its basic law. The principle that is so important that it justifies extraordinary levels of State secrecy means nothing at all when political expediency demands otherwise. It is unconstitutional to reveal even the agenda for a meeting of a Cabinet subcommittee, but fine for a Minister to dump collective responsibility when it becomes inconvenient.
The governmental chaos of the last week may look like anarchy, but it is really a form of autocracy: the Government owns the Constitution and can do with it what it likes.