Joe O'Reilly (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I might play devil's advocate and question some of the propositions here for the sake of balance, and also to give the witnesses an opportunity to clarify things. I apologise for not hearing Mr. Ligeti's presentation; I am just reading the documentation, which I presume is more limited than the presentation was. I believe it is an unreasonable proposition that countries in Eastern Europe that have come out of Communist rule should become totally transparent democracies of a Western type overnight, given the limitations within Western democracies and given that there is human imperfection in every system and that even well-established Western democracies have flaws and corruption scandals occasionally. Is it not a reasonable assumption that a country in transition from totalitarian Communism and all that went with it into democracy or modernity is not going to be a model of perfection en routeand that there are going to be some hangovers from the old way of thinking? Mr. Ligeti has presented a wonderful desktop analysis, but it is not practical in the real world. Is that a reasonable proposition?
The background paper by Mr. Ligeti contains a lot of wonderful generalities and concepts and it alleges corruption and malpractice. However, it does not itemise or detail these alleged incidences. I have a certain intuition or instinct that tells me two things: first, this is a country in transition - all is not well, and one must accept that reality; and second, Mr. Ligeti has presented us with broad generalities and a very blasé umbrella attack on a country without specifics. I am very aware of an issue raised by Deputy Byrne in relation to rights for people with different sexual orientations. Of course one is not happy that there are not fuller rights in this sphere, and of course it offends all our values, but think of the situation in Russia and so on. Are we applying a whole set of standards to this that are not realistic? Are we generalising and being alarmist here? How specific are these allegations? How many specific cases can Mr. Ligeti cite for us of actual corruption? With regard to many of the issues mentioned, such as parties accruing income to themselves, one could have the same discussion in any Western democracy, except Ireland, of course.