John Halligan (Waterford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

It is interesting that the document produced by Deputies Catherine Murphy and her colleagues uses the phrase "threat to democracy". I heard someone in the bar last night suggesting that the use of such a phrase was a bit tough or rough. We have to ask whether it is inappropriate. We might consider that war, armed revolt or severe apathy to the political system constitute threats to democracy. However, I suggest that corruption is a threat to democracy that goes under the radar and is not often reflected on as such. If we look at the histories of various countries throughout the world, we will see that corruption, rather than war or armed revolt, has damaged the political processes in many of them. Deputy Ross has spoken about what has happened in Ireland over the years involving city managers, politicians and planning officers. A friend of mine who is a businessman in France told me that during the period of the Mahon and Moriarty tribunals, when various details of corruption were breaking, he picked up a business magazine in a hotel which sadly referred to this country as "Irlande: banana republic". I do not know the name of the magazine in question but it accurately reflected how we were thought of in light of everything that had gone on in a relatively small country with a relatively small Parliament and a small population.

The point remains that corruption will continue to go on. It was felt that people would cop on after the Mahon and Moriarty tribunals, but we might as well not have had the tribunals in the first place because this Government has done nothing to act on their recommendations. It was in that context that we saw what was depicted on the television on Monday night. I refer to the arrogance of these councillors in thinking that, as members or ex-members of Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil, they would be able to get away with what they were doing. This is exactly what has happened over the last 20, 30 or 40 years. I do not know what we would dig up and find out if we were to go back to the 1950s or 1960s. It is rather shameful that we appear to have learned nothing. As Deputy Coppinger said, it is not good enough for people to try to excuse their actions by saying they did not know what to put on the forms. People come into my office with housing forms and medical card forms that are 20 or 22 pages long. I find it difficult to fill out these forms, such as the form for the old age pension, but these arrogant assholes come along and say they did not know about the form and could not-----

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