Denis O’Brien’s journalists miss the point

Denis O’Brien’s broadcaster Seán Moncrieff conducted a cosy conversation yesterday with Denis O’Brien’s journalist Daniel McConnell (Group political correspondent with ‘Independent’ Newspapers) on the government payment (bribe) to all those who have signed up with Irish Water.

McConnell argued that to dismantle Irish Water at this stage would cost a fortune. Millions would be wasted, redundancies would have to be paid for, the very expensive IT system would have to be scrapped and what would replace the company?

In other words, we are where we are, the damage is done, let’s forget the past and move on.

McConnell’s argument, which was, of course, fully suported by Moncrief, is simplistic and completely misses the point.

The setting up of Irish Water almost certainly involved some very dodgy dealings. The company was set up in almost total secrecy with deals done behind closed doors that involved the handing over of millions in taxpayers money.

In a functional democracy the whole dirty deal would have triggered an immediate police investigation.

McConnell’s attitude can be likened to a police unit coming across the scene of a suspected crime and, instead of doing their job, deciding to ignore the whole thing because an investigation would be too constly.

For decades our corrupt political/administrative system has engaged in massive corruption and criminalty. Nobody is ever made accountable, nobody is ever brought to justice. The evidence for this fact is overwhelming.

Journalists (and politicians) like McConnell, either out of ignorance or in defence of an agenda, repeadedly make the argument that it’s too late to do anything about it now, we should just forget about making anyone accountable and move on.

This attitude guarantees that the corruption and criminalty will occur again and again.