Congratulations to Leo Varadkar.
Riding on his trusty steed the young buck has stormed into the mid 1980s, looked around and immediately summed up the dire situation – I quote.
The Department of Justice is not fit for purpose, it is clear that big changes are required.
We need cultural change. You know, too much in Ireland, and it’s not just a Garda issue, we still have the culture of doing favours, the nod and the wink, the use of discretion and those types of things.
Oh Jesus, save me. I’m going weak at the knees to witness such incisive analysis, such vision, and such cutting edge assessment of what’s happening in our country.
Why, I ask, why did we have to wait so long for the chosen one, for our saviour?
And of course, it brings me back to the mid 1980s too.
The time I realised that the banking sector was robbing customers and the State with total impunity, they still are, bless them.
It was the time I realised that the criminal Haughey was corrupt and the principal carrier of the disease that would eventually infect every level of Irish society but in particular the political, administrative and financial sectors.
I wonder how long it will be before Leo arrives in the 21st century?
Who know, but when he does he’ll see, I’m sure, with equal clarity, that every government department is unfit for purpose, that civil servants and particularly senior civil servants no longer serve Ireland and its people but are loyal to the anti principles of arrogance, incompetence and corruption.
But most of all he will see that the disease of corruption that has infected our law enforcement and other regulatory agencies is carried deep within the system in which he lives – the body politic.