Head over to our T
Judging “Judging Dev”
Read more about: Clare, Fianna Fail 
Diarmaid Ferriter’s 10 part series on De Valera for RTE radio 1 concluded yesterday. It was very interesting and well worth a listen on the still-available podcasts. Of course the series is linked to his re-revisionist book about Dev which itself was the source of a pseudo-controversy regarding its distribution to schools. Anyway, over 10 episodes the series has the luxury of getting in just about every view of Dev so any accusation of implicit propaganda is far off the mark. What follows is a purely personal assessment of where the series managed to move Dev up in estimation while leaving one aspect of his legacy relatively unexamined.
Since the series accepts the general verdict on Dev’s failures — his mismanagement of the Treaty negotiations, his incoherent position on Northern Ireland, and economic stagnation — a lot of attention was focused on his 1937 Constitution. I had been used to thinking of this as a flawed document, in its need for frequent amendment to adapt with the times, and its botched declaration of a Republic, but the series rightly highlighted its durable political core: locking in parliamentary democracy, an elected but non-executive presidency, and a requirement of referendum for constitutional changes. All these choices look good 70 years later, and Dev would surely be proud that his constitution makes Ireland the only country in the EU carrying out a referendum to ratify the EU Consti-treaty.
Seen in this light, Dev can be clearly be rated among the best of the post-colonial leaders — similar to figures like Nehru (India) or Nyerere (Tanzania), who took the helm of still insecure countries and solidified the national and political identity. But of course these comparisons bring up leaders whose economic record doesn’t rank with their political achievements.
Then there is what needed more exploration. Because surely Dev’s biggest legacy to Ireland is Fianna Fail. Now, for FF supporters and the FF political elite, there’s no problem, as his creation has delivered near-permanent power and perks. The rest of us have more questions. Episode 9 did raise the issue of the transition from the “frugal” FF of the Dev years to the corruption of the 1980s and 1990s, but the view seemed to be that the rot was only setting in as Dev faded in influence in the 1970s.
But. Irish Cement got its exclusive licence in 1933. That’s the company that becomes Cement Roadstone. You can tell a long tale of the Irish business golden circle and corruption just by looking at the FF-CRH nexus (and offshoots such as National Toll Roads). One can try to portray Dev as the vision man who was above the fray, but is that credible for a details man like him? Move on to the 1950s and Charlie Haughey is already a mover and shaker in the party (and of course future son-in-law of future leader and Dev protege Lemass). By the 1960s, Dublin’s now inner but then outer housing estates are going up and the gossip was already rife about a system of payoffs to politicians for everything from movement along the public housing entitlement list to planning permissions and zoning.
Can Dev be blamed for this? Perhaps Jack Lynch was the representative heir to the Dev tradition — not from the emerging Dublin property development belt but popular and pragmatic, but then pushed out, as an incumbent Taoiseach, by the aforementioned group. As the new batch of state papers reveal, omens of scandals future were present in the direct appointment of Frank Dunlop to a senior civil service position in 1977, so the unfortunate Lynch had brought along quite a lot on his coattails.
So maybe it’ll take a 10 part history of FF to settle these questions. But as the clearest remaining element of the De Valera legacy, it’s hard to separate an assessment of him from an assessment of the party.
How was the direct appointment of Frank Dunlop to a senior civil service position in 1977 “omens of scandals future” ?
In the sense of Frank’s central role in the allegations of the planning tribunal. He was near the inner sanctum for a long time.
I missed the series. But I do wonder just how good is the 1937 Constitution? To what extent is the institutional set-up specified capable of limiting the scope for excess by the governing class? Take the separation of powers to which Ministers and others love to refer when talking about the power of the judiciary. The existence of tribunals on the Hep C scandal, Gardai, Payments to Politicians and and Planning shows the range of serious failure on the executive-legislative side. The tribunals are showing ineptitude, bad management and corruption in areas run by government. It is interesting to see the issues chosen for investigation by tribunals. Why was the long-running Nursing Homes fees issue dealt with by a report by a retired public servant and not a tribunal? A similar approach was tried for the Hep C issue first, but civil servants were less than forthcoming in responding to this non-judicial investigation. To what extent can we, as citizens, be reassured by such a report? The governing class rarely refers to another means of limiting the effects of bad government ie.the separation of powers between the Executive (ie. Government) and the Legislative (ie. Oireachtas). Dev’s 1937 constitution cements the British practice of complete integration of these two functions. IMO, this is the very anithesis of how we, citizens of a republic, should govern ourselves. The government controls our elected representatives completely. Another example is Freedom of Information. This was introduced, presumably to limit the scope for government mismanagement, following the revelations of the Beef Tribunal, Yet, after the 2002 election, the governing class moved swiftly to limit this. Who sought this? Why did they seek it? I do not remember it being an issue in the 2002 general election. Jonathan Swift would have a field day given his observation that “Providence never intended to make the management of public affairs a mystery to be comprehended by a few persons of sublime genius. Yes, De Valera’s constitution has served us well, but now leaves a lot to be desired.
Those are all good points but the challenge is to find a better alternative to the Westminster system. Ferriter discussed how Dev was influenced by his time in the USA into thinking that a separate executive presidency was not a good system and now there’s the George Bush presidency as yet more evidence that he was correct — note the inability of the legislature to rein in the executive branch. The Westminster system does keep the executive under legislative control. Now that being said, you get the problem where the executive then controls the legislative branch. This brings me back to the problem with Ferriter’s assessment — its failure to account for how machine politics undermined the solid aspects of Dev’s political legacy. FF have always been able to limit the impact of scandals because the TDs see little adverse impact and so the only issue for the leadership is scandal-management — doing just enough to keep the watchdogs at bay while ensuring that there is no day of reckoning at the polls. Unravelling that is a lot of work — perhaps things like reducing the number of TDs, more power to county councils (since much of what TDs do in their clinics should actually be local government business), and limiting the patronage power of the State.
‘Judging Dev’? Sadly Ferriter has produced such an unbalanced piece of work that even when he’s bound by the context of his arguments to be critical, he shirks the issues. The book does not provide any real critique.