That speech

BERTIE Ahern’s speech to the Joint Houses of Representatives is open to three competing readings, only one of which captures its significance.
By the first reading, the speech was a missed opportunity. The Taoiseach had the ear of US lawmakers and, as the leader of a state of high moral standing, he could have contributed meaningfully to such debates as those on the war in Iraq and global inequality. But instead he blew his chance with an address that amounted to nothing more than pleasing platitudes spiced, mildly, with passing references to multilateralism and the heartfelt desire of the “illegal Irish” to return home for births, marriages and deaths.
According to the second, his speech was a waste of time because, as the leader of a small state, he could not make a significant impact on world affairs. For all the applause he received, world politics continued as usual. The US remained the most dominant power in the international system of states. Ireland stayed dependent on US favour for its economic survival. Furthermore, as a retiring Taoiseach, he was hardly in a position to address substantial matters of domestic politics. Essentially, the predictability of its circumstance so completely robbed the speech of interest that frantic officials had to fill the empty aisles with bemused congressional interns.
But the speech need not be seen solely in terms of its impact on tangible things like war and the world order, nor be judged as unimportant because of its more subtle focus. Yes, Ahern was diplomatic in language and, at various moments, his delivery was dull. Nevertheless, to an audience of power brokers in the world’s most powerful state, he gave form and shape to contemporary Irish identity. The imagining of peace was now reality. To be Irish was no longer to exist under the shadow of conflict but to thrive in prosperity. 
We may know about that change and, already, take it for granted. But there is importance in the head of Government placing it on the record of a country which nourished the Irish in darker hours.

Reforming the Garda

THE claims of incompetence against the Garda Ombudsman Commission which the new President of the Garda Representative Association (GRA), Michael O’Boyce, made in his annual conference speech last week provide a worrying snapshot of progress on Garda reform.
His claim that the commission endangered evidence stored in a garda’s locker, during an authorised search by commission investigators of Roxboro Road Garda Station in Limerick, does not withstand scrutiny. The search took place with the cooperation under statute of a senior garda and, furthermore, was videotaped. 
This is not to say that the Garda Ombudsman Commission is working as effectively as it should. Most obviously an already substantial backlog of cases has built up.
By this inefficiency alone, the commission risks losing the battle for a fully accountable police force; public faith in and Garda cooperation with the commission’s processes will decay if justice takes years to be done.
More sinister, however, is the problem of members of the force who do not see the need for reform and work against it. In this regard, the question is whether Mr O’Boyce, an influential garda, is the cheerleader in chief for a rump of dyed-in-the-wool anti-reformists or representative of a rapidly growing body of cynicism in the force. If a spread of dissafection is underway, the Government must shoulder substantial responsibility.
That some would seek to take advantages of any commission shortcomings was predictable. But the main pre-emptive measure necessary to avoid such shortcomings, an adequatly funded commission, depended largely on the Government’s commitment to change. Here the rhetoric and reality of the Government’s commitment sharply diverged.
The rhetoric was of radical change with a well-funded ombudsman commission at its leading edge. But the reality of the response was the Government’s establishment of a commission which was too small to take on a deeply embedded cultural problem quite apart from the scale of complaints which could have been envisaged in the context of greater public unease with the Garda since Donegal. This was despite Mr Justice Morris’s finding of chronic indiscipline and mismanagement in the force and his unequivocal warning that “disaster” would be the price of inaction.
A commission commensurate with the investigative demands it faces is the only way forward. The State and its citizens will pay a heavy price for anything less.