It could be said that Ireland has had four phases of development: the first as the country emerged from its fledgling days of independence and civil war before the Second World War; the second one of institutional stabilisation and development in the 1950s and 1960s (think Todd Andrews, TK Whitaker, and the rest); and the third through EEC membership and a series of political crises in the 1970s and 1980s. The fourth – through the last thirty years or so – has seen commercial and corporate success, relative affluence, and international recognition as a beacon of prosperity and peace. Through that time, however, there have been several high-profile scandals, beginning with those in the church, then in the banks, and in recent days an unfolding one within the state broadcaster. Do these scandals have anything in common?

Francis Fukuyama wrote in 2014 that the liberal democratic state can see political decay over time, where its institutions atrophy over time, as their legitimacy erodes. Carl Schmitt almost 100 years ago criticised the liberal democratic project as an exercise in hypocrisy, invoking emergency powers whenever anything important happened. Why were the ‘conventional’ institutions incapable of managing the state when challenged? Was there no real confidence in them to function in extremis? What did that say about the value of those institutions once they are situated outside theory? This state is still debating whether the Special Criminal Court is needed, notwithstanding its quasi-constitutional status and repeated criticisms from UN and other International Human Rights organisations, while the jettisoning of due process and extraordinary Garda powers during the Covid Pandemic needs little reminding.

Looking back over the last thirty years in Ireland – this fourth phase – one thinks of the bishops and their arrogance in the 1990s; the defenders of Bertie Ahern in the 2000s; the banking boosters of the financial crisis; and a sense of entitlement coupled with an astonishing sense of disappointment when it all came crashing down. There was no culpability, no self-admonishment, no sense even of failure. On each occasion, it was a sense of an ending, of a time drawing to a close, that could easily have extended a little more if those who didn’t understand could see what things were really like. It could be argued that there were two Irelands – one for those who administered the institutions, and one for those who were subject to them. In tandem with that, our fundamental authority of State has devolved its separation of powers from a tripartite separation, to one that just about separates the judiciary from the executive, with the legislature left as little more than a well-appointed bureau.

When it comes to the institutions of state, it could be argued that financialization or corporatisation has resulted in a diluted focus on national objectives and state strategy, in favour of commercial probity and performance. What that means, in effect, is that (for example) the State Broadcaster may be seen to be successful in its mission if turns a profit or reduces its demands on state funding. It could be argued similarly that elements of the health service are structured on quantity rather than quality because of financial performance targets, or that the penalty points system in the Gardaí is undermined by commercial interest, and so on.

For the Broadcaster, however, commercialisation appears to have resulted in more damaging behaviour.  Its prosecution of commercial operations through external corporate instruments appears now as a matter of common practice. Leaving aside the issue of who got paid what, the impression persists – and has been allowed to persist – that top presenters are employees of the State, and of the national broadcaster, whereas in fact they are company directors and insulated from the direct obligations of PAYE employees. The hoops through which RTE appears to have jumped to avoid the constraints of public pay commitments further suggest misplaced incentives.

RTE is already an enormous elephant sitting in the relatively small pond of Irish media and advertising. Allegations of kickbacks to ad agencies over the weekend appear to suggest that RTE not only profits from its license fee subvention, but that it then uses that subvention to negatively impact advertising-dependent media businesses in Ireland. This undermines the operation of a free press, and an independent media industry. What has happened to the institutional compass if this is its direction?

The remedies for political and institutional decay involve leadership, engagement, and transparency. Each operates in lock step with the other two. Leaders need to be direct, decisive and mission oriented, and speak to a public that is listening and interested. The people for their part need to be positive and constructive in their efforts and recognise their civic responsibilities to the State and to each other. Clarity of purpose, openness of dialogue and an elevation of the currency of trust are crucial. Recognising the importance of trust, and not merely dismissing critics as ‘not with the program’, will help to reconstruct the power of the institutions and of the country.

Legitimacy is a delicate thing, whether of the institutions of state, or of the state itself. The Catholic Church lost it; the Fianna Fail party lost it; the so-called ‘pillar banks’ lost it. In each case, the hierarchy was laden with hubris, a misplaced sense of permanence, and blighted by poor leadership and short-term decision making. One must worry about whether other institutions of State are suffering from similar yet-to-be-revealed mismanagement today. The country is now entering perhaps a fifth stage of its development – and it remains for us to decide whether that will be one of institutional decay and decline, or one of renewal.