One thing we know from the events of the past week is that probity is nowadays regarded as a vital value by Irish society and those who speak on its behalf. That, you may decide, is as it should be. Reading the newspapers or listening to the radio phone-ins this past week, it would have been easy to get the impression that a society in which financial ethics were observed to perfection would be the best kind of society.
But this is as nonsensical as the suggestion that parking regulations, or sexual morality, or personal hygiene, should become the absolute arbiter of the health of the public realm. To pursue a taoiseach out of office because he had, in a momentary haste or inadvertence, parked in a disabled parking bay would make roughly as much sense as pursuing him out of office because he took a few quid from friends when he was financially strapped.
This, I know, is a difficult argument to hear, because the Greek Chorus has decided what it has decided, and the rules of the argument do not allow for fundamental reappraisal of its terms. Still, it needs saying: financial probity is not the only virtue worth preserving. There are other values on which the quality of our public life and the happiness and security of our society, depend.
There follows a brief and by no means exhaustive inventory of values which may have been dropped unnoticed off the back of the trailer this past week as we overloaded the front with outrage about matters of financial and fiscal compliance.
1. Friendship: Without friendship there would be no such thing as society, which is really a macro-association of friends. Is the Minister for Finance not entitled to have friends, and are such individuals not entitled to act in friendship in the same way as the friends of other categories of human being - in support and assistance of those they love or admire?
2. Generosity: We constantly accuse ourselves in relation to the alleged decline in ancient values like generosity and hospitality in Irish life. Should we be so surprised? Is the impulse to give without asking for profit, favour or repayment henceforth to be regarded always with cynicism and doubt? What will it profit us if, having eradicated all informal loans and/or gifts, we have eradicated also the spirit of charity?
3. Trust: The current commentary and conversation threatens to upend the assumption that hitherto held society together - that by and large, and on the overall balance of things, we can broadly trust one another. If this happens, cynicism, suspicion and mistrust will become the governing values of our society. Is this what we want?
4. Privacy: There must surely be a right of a politician, as much as other citizens, to respect for his or her private affairs, including financial affairs. There must also be a right of the politician's family to such respect. Leaving aside the issue of how an overly scrutinising culture will impact on those with one eye on the possibility of a career in public life, there is the unedifying nature of these intrusions and the sense they give that every cent anyone receives or pays out should be subject to the scrutiny of the State, allegedly on behalf of the citizen. Since we are all now subject to this intrusion, who then is the interested citizen?
5. Dignity: There is surely also a right of an individual and his or her family, regardless of the so-called public interest, to retain a basic degree of human dignity in the matter of income and resources. Since when did we begin to imagine that, by employing someone in a senior governmental capacity, the Irish public has a right to have him reduced to tears on the six o'clock news? I would prefer that every taoiseach for the next 50 years be financially corrupt beyond measure than for this to happen again.
6. Understanding for human weakness: Even at the height of previous moral panics in Irish life, the fanaticism of the few was redeemed by the willingness of the many to forgive and embrace the sinner. For society to function in an harmonious way, it is beneficial that there be an expectation of individuals, including those involved in public life, that they be accorded not merely the benefit of doubt regarding their probity, but indeed be cut a little slack in the matter of occasional lapses from absolute adherence to the letter of ethical codes. This on the basis that such lapses are an inevitable part of the human condition and do not represent any significant threat to public order.
There are many more such values that have been trampled on this week. I do not suggest that any one, in isolation, is of a higher value than financial probity.
But I do suggest that, together, they represent a package of values which we would do well to reflect on before trading in the lot for the values of the tax collector.