Dr. Elaine Byrne:

This is the distinction between legal corruption and moral corruption where, even though no laws may be broken, morally there may be outrage at particular types of behaviour. Often one finds that the law is catching up to address different concerns that arise. We must remember that the first legislation directly on corruption in Ireland was introduced in 1995. With the existence of the Irish State before that period, our legislation on corruption and ethics was derived from British statutes, from 1889, 1908 and 1916. One had this kind of gap where there was no legislation whatsoever to moderate regulated relationships between different entities.

Arguably, one could say there was a lot of behaviour in politics in the 1980s and 1990s which, if it were to happen now, would certainly come under corruption legislation. It was not corrupt because there was no legislation which stated it was corrupt, but just because there was no legislation which stated it was corrupt does not mean that it was not corrupt.