Ireland 2007. Fáilte.

This, you could say, has not been a great week for the HSE. It is not turning out to be much of a week for Bertie Ahearn and Mary Harney either. The scandal of the misdiagnosed breast cancers in Port Laoise is, I suspect, weighing heavily on everyone concerned but, worry not, there is still almost five years to the next election so I'm sure they can all recover in time.

All of us outraged citizens who this week and next will make irate phone calls to Joe Duffy or write strongly worded letters to the Irish Tmes should ask themselves one very important question.

Is this what we really deserve?

We should also cast our minds back to May of this year and remember who we voted for in the election. While we are at it we should think back five more years and remember who we voted for in 2002 and five years earlier in 1997.

We have now had ten years of this FF/PD alliance and another five more to come and this writer would not be staking the Lawlor homestead on them not making it 20 years of FF led government in 2012.

In 1997 the FG led rainbow coalition went to the country as one of the most popular governments of modern times, sailing on the crest of the emerging Celtic tiger wave with falling unemployment, rising tax revenue and economic predictions of good times ahead. Nobody was betting against the government in '97 and yet along came Bertie, all smiles and anoraks, and told us that, if elected, FF would cut taxes, putting more money into the pockets of Joe and Josephine public - election over.

Move forward five years and replay the tape. FG say FF are mismanaging the economy, FF say that they will cut taxes again - FG are routed at the polls.

I could outline '07, but why bother.

At each of these elections the electorate were told by politicians and media commentators that it was not possible to provide a high level of public service on a low tax base. Naturally the electorate worried about this. No doubt we who voted FF again and again spent many sleepless nights tossing and turning. I'm sure the plight of our public health service, our public transport service and our schools were fighting tooth and nail with the desire to have more money in our pockets as we agonised over which way to cast our vote. And then we realised that the extra FF money would pay for VHI and a nice comfortable BMW to cruise to work in and hell you're nobody if your kids aren't in private education.

So we voted with our collective pockets instead of our consience, not once, not twice but three times. We, as a nation, voted for 00 reg cars (remember that rush?), we voted for 27 inch wide screen TVs, we voted for skiing, we voted for paid for child care and then we voted for overseas property, (taxi drivers, electricians, civil servants with holiday villas and apartments in the sun!!), we voted for 42 inch plasma screens, newer, bigger cars, three holidays a year, endless weekend city breaks to Prague and Budapest and private schooling with grinds for the kids and ponies and piano lessons.............

......and then we got sick.

So what. Now we've got VHI or Bupa and the doors of private clinics swing open to us and if the private ward is full well then someone just moves over in the public system and we get world class health care.

We don't care about the Laois cancer women. We don't care about people like Susie Long or the lost generations of Moyross. Taxes are not going up and that is what we voted for.

Belgium has a pretty good public health service. In fact, many people travel from France and Germany and Holland to avail of Belgian public health, such is the over capacity in the system.

How can the Belgians do it?

They pay 12% employees social insurance while empoloyers pay 30%. Can you see FF running that one by the electorate in 2012?

If we want european levels of public service we cannot do it without european levels of taxation.

So, before you crank up the laptop to fire off a stern letter to Madam in Tara St. Before cracking the knuckles on that dialling finger, remember, this is the Ireland we voted for. This is Ireland 2007. We don't give a shit if people without private health insurance die unnecessarily of cancer or whatever.

Do I care?

I've got Bupa. A nice house, nice car, two wide screen TVs.

I'm doin' okay.

Are you?

Are we?

Bertie's (or Celia's) Money

So, Bertie has questions to answer.

Among the blizzard of questions about Bertie's finances this last week there was one startling omission.

Yes, we all want to know if the purchase of his house in Drumcondra was 'an arms length, bone fide transaction for full market value'.

Yes, we all want to know how he managed to 'save' £28,000 in just eight or nine months of 1994. A year during which his salary was about £52,000, out of which he had to pay income tax, a mortgage on a house in Malahide, maintenance to his wife, child support for his kids and he had to eat and provide a roof over his own head.

Yes, we all want to know, also, why he would keep £50,000 in a safe in his office. It certainly wasn't 'run away money' - I mean why would he run away after the separation. (I know, I know, we're not supposed to be getting into his private life!)

Yes, we all want an explanation for the startling coincidence of the lodgements to Celia's bank account which don't match up to Stg£30,000 but do make up exactly $45,000 at that day's exchange rate.

However, the question I would like an answer to is this.

In what sane, democratic, developed nation is it deemed ok for the serving minister for finance to be in the same room as a business man and a briefcase containing Stg£30,000 in cash? (I said sane, Mr. Mugabe.)

Here's another question.

In what sane, democratic, developed nation could said minister expect to be exonerated by simply claiming that the money wasn't for him. It was, apparently, for his girlfriend! So that's all right then.

I don't do business at the scale of thirty grand transactions, but this last week I have spoken to some people who do. Neither they nor I do business by carrying around briefcases stuffed with cash. Regular business transactions involve bank drafts, cheques, inter bank transfers and other normal, traceable methods of transferring money.

The essence of our democracy should be that those charged with dispensing the democratic will of the people should be like Caesars wife. That is they should not only be above suspicion but should be seen to be above suspicion. If a serving govrnment minister is hanging around with business men and large sums of cash, well let's just say that the optics are not great.

However, in a country where an admitted tax cheat can top the poll in a general election. Where a minister can waste €50,000,000 on electronic voting machines that will never be used, and still get reelected. Where a Prime Minister can openly live the life of a multi millionaire (private island, racehorses, huge mansion stuffed with art works etc.), all on a salary which wouldn't support even the house he lived in, without serious questions being asked, it is just possible that Bertie can flash that famous cheesy grin of his, revert back to the poor northside boy who done good persona, grumble about how it's really not fair and is distracting him from the running of the country, and he might just get away with it.

So if you're thinking of voting Fianna Fáil on May 24th let me ask you one more time.

Should a serving minister be hanging around business men with briefcases full of cash - even if the cash was for his girlfriend?