It is said that domestic cats have a poor sense of their actual status in the world, imagining that their human owners are actually their servants, and that they, the cats, are masters of reality, writes John Waters
A similar syndrome besets tribunals. Those who administer them and those who approve their investigations imagine that their primary function has to do with rooting out corruption, and accordingly fancy themselves to hold a sword over politicians and the political process. But there is very little evidence that the tribunals have had any material effect on, for example, the culture of planning in Dublin, or any of the other "cultures" they were ostensibly established to investigate and expose.
For such an initiative to work in that way, it would have required to be short and sharp, to take, for example, the planning system by the scruff of the neck and shake it out. But built into the tribunal mechanism was the lure of longevity, acting on the greed of lawyers, which scuppered any chance of a surgical strike. It stretches credulity to claim this was an accident.
Tribunals have done much to damage the cultures of politics and justice in this Republic and may indeed have done some minor damage to our reputation as a safe place to conduct business. Seven years ago, Master James Flynn, a taxing master at the High Court, described tribunals as "Frankenstein monsters" and "Star Chambers", alleging they were serving to enrich lawyers while trampling on some of the most fundamental protections of our legal system.
Each passing day serves to vindicate this analysis. But this is not to say that tribunals were entirely without merits. Indeed, their most important contribution to Irish society in the past two decades - that they have provided the several coalition governments with an unprecedented and otherwise unimaginable expectation of stability - has gone unremarked.
Although ostensibly designed to expose the "culture" of Fianna Fáil, the tribunals have in effect acted as a flying buttress for Fianna Fáil's marginal dependence on smaller parties. Sure, a couple of FF b-listers have done a little bird, but the party overall has benefited enormously from tribunals. The recent era of coalition between Fianna Fáil and Labour, the Progressive Democrats and latterly the Greens, would have been impossible without Flood/Mahon and Moriarty. I would go so far as to say that tribunals are nowadays an essential element of the political process, in as far as they provide a mechanism whereby the smaller party in coalition with Fianna Fáil can deflect the moral outrage of literal-minded journalists by the endless repetition of the mantra: "It's a matter for the tribunal."
Asked last week about the continuing investigations of the Mahon tribunal into the private finances of the Taoiseach, Green Party leader John Gormley said: "It would be wrong of me to make direct comments in relation to matters which are before a tribunal of inquiry." How many times in the past two decades have we heard similar formulations from Des O'Malley, Dick Spring, Mary Harney and Michael McDowell? Mr Gormley, in opposition, was among the most strident prosecutors of Fianna Fáil embarrassment, rarely missing an opportunity to excoriate the allegedly defective culture of the largest party in the land, and only recently making headlines for his satirical remarks about "planet Bertie".
Had allegations such as those currently in circulation concerning Bertie Ahern's finances been floated without the cover provided by the tribunal, Mr Gormley would have been standing ashen-faced on the plinth, demanding "reassurances" and calling for the restoration of the credibility of a damaged government.
During the 1980s, before the introduction of tribunals, there occurred five general elections, and we might have had several more if the Fine Gael/Labour coalition had not stayed in office for nearly five years. In the 1990s, the decade dominated by the beef tribunal, there were just two general elections. Likewise in the present decade, and if John Gormley's implacability holds out, there will not be another.
This is no small thing. It is no coincidence that the economic boom played out during this period of political stability. Of course, in a sense, this is a collateral benefit. The chief reason why Charles Haughey and, more recently, Bertie Ahern, showed such enthusiasm for tribunals was that they saw an opportunity to protect themselves and Fianna Fáil in office, to provide a lightening rod by which potentially problematic issues could be diverted to ground. The interesting thing is that this tactic has worked for both Fianna Fáil and the country.
Latterly, however, the tribunals have seemed to paw at the leash, becoming more and more agitated as the public mood turns against them.
The increasingly bizarre and seemingly panic-stricken floundering at Mahon suggests that there is an awareness, simmering below the greed and self-importance of the tribunal's personnel, that they have been taken for a ride. The cat, tail rampant, has started to hiss and spit at the idea of being outfoxed by The Most Cunning Of Them All.