Listening to the proceedings of "accountability day" in the Dáil last Tuesday, there was one striking omission from the debate. No one even mentioned the business of appointing one's friends to State boards, writes Mary Raftery.
It is possible I may have missed something, but to my knowledge the Taoiseach has neither contradicted nor qualified his statement last week that he appointed certain individuals to positions on State boards because they were his "friends".
It is an utterance which at least has the quality of honesty, an unashamedly naked definition of political patronage in action.
Bertie Ahern did not tell us anything that we did not already know. What was startling was that he was prepared to admit it.
Perhaps he felt that such a concession was minor in the context of the maelstrom surrounding the payments issue, and that it would receive scant attention. And so indeed it has proved, at least in the short-term. It is, however, something which may return to haunt him.
To get an idea of the scale of what the Taoiseach has confessed to, a recent report from TASC (Think Tank for Action on Social Change) indicated that there are roughly 5,000 appointments made to State boards by the Taoiseach, Tánaiste and Government Ministers. In most cases there are no criteria for selection, no independent procedures, and no form of accountability.
Over the last two decades there has been an exponential growth in the number of these bodies, with increasing powers being devolved to them from central government. With over 800 of them now in existence, many in charge of significant aspects of the State's business, the opportunities for politicians to hand out rewards to their friends and supporters are vast.
Every so often, outrageous examples hit the headlines. Governments typically pack as many boards as they can in the run-up to elections. Even out-going Ministers manage to get in some last-minute board stuffing before moving on.
After the last election in 2002, five outgoing Government Ministers (John O'Donoghue, Dermot Ahern, Noel Dempsey, Mary O'Rourke and Frank Fahey) jammed 60 of their nominees on to State bodies in the days before they left office or moved to other departments.
The appointment on the direct recommendation of the Taoiseach of his former partner, Celia Larkin, to the board of the National Consumer Agency caused a furore last year, particularly when it became known that the body representing consumers (the Consumers Association of Ireland) was excluded from the board. Earlier this year, Minister for the Environment Dick Roche asked an umbrella body of 24 environmental protection groups to put forward six nominees for membership of the Environmental Protection Agency Advisory Committee. He then promptly ignored all six, and made his own appointments. And then, of course, we come to the most recent controversy surrounding State boards, namely the appointment by the Taoiseach of five of the 12 friends who gave (lent, donated, gifted?) him cash in 1993 and 1994. No minor or insignificant appointments these - they were to some of the most important and influential bodies running vital areas of State policy.
Des Richardson (Aer Lingus), Jim Nugent (Cert and the Central Bank), Padraic O'Connor (ACC Bank), Joe Burke (chairman, Dublin Port Company), and David McKenna (Enterprise Ireland) all owed their positions on these boards to their friendship with the Taoiseach.
It is important to point out that by no means everyone serving on a State board is there as a result of cronyism. Many excellent appointments are made of people who bring integrity, invaluable expertise and independence of thought to their positions.
However, the system is a charter for blatant patronage, and has a dangerous potential for corruption. In short, it stinks.
This was clearly recognised in Britain well over a decade ago, and procedures were introduced to limit the extent to which government ministers could use appointments of this kind to reward friends and supporters.
A code of practice was agreed, which lays out the mechanisms for appointments to state boards. All positions must be advertised, and candidates must make a detailed application.
They are then interviewed by an independent body, which assesses their qualifications and suitability. Two names are then forwarded to the relevant government minister, allowing for a choice to be made at the highest level.
Should ministers ignore the code of practice and appoint their pals regardless, then the Commissioner for Public Appointments must investigate and issue a public report.
The UK system is not perfect. It cannot, for instance, force a minister to abide by the rules. But it has at least had the virtue of shaming most of them into complying with the general principles of accountability and proper procedure. In the light of the Taoiseach's bald admission of cronyism last week, it is no longer remotely acceptable that we remain without a similar mechanism in this country.