The FF Mafia

I was watching a program on TV one night about the rise and fall of the Mafia, and the similarities to our Fianna Fáil party struck me. Here you had an organisation with a very distinct hierarchy, a number of prominent 'families' who promoted their own, an organisation that infiltrated every level of society, from the lowest right up to the top, that had it's people everywhere, controlling, and reporting back to the 'family.' Practically nothing could be done in business, either legally or illegally, without a kickback to the 'family.'

Much of their activity was perfectly legal, albeit a front for the shadier practices going on behind the scenes. The Mafia was controlled by a series of dons, who ranged from the discreet to the flamboyant, but who even in all their power, knew just how far they could safely go. Alas, it was when the most flamboyant of them all, John Gotti, came to power, a man who from an early age made it his business to rise ruthlessly to the top, that things began to go wrong. Here was a man with a huge sense of his own invincibility, who took the 'family' into business interests that heretofore had been frowned upon, who pushed the envelope too far, and when he fell, took the 'family' with him.

The parallels are interesting. Fianna Fáil as an organisation rose and survived as a kind of 'family' which circled the wagons and looked after it's own. Much of their existence was owed to working the system, not for the betterment of everyone, but purely for the betterment of their own. While not strictly illegal, they managed to fiddle the rules, to create a system that favoured the single party in power, not withstanding the existence of small, relatively inconsequential coalition partners. It was only when a new, more ruthless generation climbed their way to the top, and pushed the organisation into new depths of roguery that they finally fell. Indeed, there was a false period where it seemed that nothing could go wrong, that they were unstoppable, but from the very arrival of these ruthless new dons, the writing was on the wall, no matter how many riches befell them.

Scofflaw elsewhere observes that Fianna Fáil has a much stronger cohesion at ground level, which carries them through the roughest times, something the other parties cannot manage so well. The fundamental question for me is this: How much of that support is based on a genuine political ideology that Fianna Fáil is 'good for the country,' and how much of it is based on a very selfish ideology that Fianna Fáil is good for itself and those within it? I think I could live with Fianna Fáil if there was a genuine belief among even just a quarter of the population that voting Fianna Fáil was a genuine political alternative. However my fear is that nowhere near a fraction of their support believes this. Rather, the majority of that quarter of the population continues to give them their cohesive strength because the party is good for them personally, on a purely selfish basis, as long as they continue their support. It is a bit like supporting the worst excesses of the Mafia dons, as long as there is a tiny kickback down the line. Even if, in Fianna Fáil's case, that tiny kickback is nothing more than planning permission for a garden shed, or a fast tracked passport or driving test.

For this reason, the more important issues regarding Fianna Fáil for me, are NOT the excessive corruption of individuals of that party, like Beverley Flynn, John O'Donoghue, Ivor Callely, to take those examples. Each of those individually merits full investigation, and due retribution. The gross expense claims of Callely, for example, will make little difference to the public purse. He needs to be made an example of, yes. But the wider issue is how Fianna Fáil as an organisation operates, how it is fundamentally structured, what it's purpose is. I fear it is not a political party with the best interests of the country foremost in it's mind, but rather primarily with it's OWN interests foremost. In such a case, the country under Fianna Fáil is doomed to flounder and fail, because it's leaders have an alternative agenda to the single agenda of making this country be the best and fairest it can be, for ALL it's citizens. This has become self evident in recent times, catastrophically. But I suggest the country always suffered so, it simply took the current generation of ruthless FF leaders, who got so carried away with power and privelege, to make it so obvious.

We need our tribunals of investigation into the worst excesses of the corruption, where the money went, who were the cause of it all. BUT, I fear that concentrating solely on that, takes the eye off the real issue, which is the long term support in this country for a political organisation that does not have as it's first and sole agenda, the betterment of this country and all it's people, but rather a partisan and selfish agenda to look after a select and narrow slice of the country. Why does a political party with such a divisive track record continue to consolidate itself and buy it's way into power, election after election, generation after generation, while a new state with the advantage of a clean slate, manages to squander nearly ninety years without making an example of itself as a modern, fair society, but rather, a corrupted, unequal society with an extreme class divide and a tarnished reputation for greed and bribery? THAT is the REAL investigation we need. This country is going NOWHERE as long as we continue to play cards with the same loaded deck, no matter how many jokers we throw aside.