Eamonn Fitzgerald's Rainy Day

How rooted in society, how pernicious in politics, how insidious in business is Irish sleaze? The purpose of the Irish corruption blog is to answer these questions. Its founder has his work cut out when one considers that the Moriarty tribunal has been working for seven years now and still has to produce a report. You see, discovering "the truth" in Ireland takes time and large sums of public money. This would not be the case if principle played a role in Irish politics, especially as practiced by the country's main party, Fianna Fail, but it doesn't. A decade of revelations about the avarice of its former leader, Charles Haughey, has shown that no form of dishonesty is unknown to this party. Corruption is thus institutionalized.

Perhaps concerned citizens such as Gavin Sheridan, aided by the new technologies, can do something about this state of affairs. Here now is the second part of our conversation.

Rainy Day: Not having the deep pockets of the major media, which makes investigative journalism possible, and not having a legal department to deal with the draconian libel laws, which many a corrupt person tries to hind behind, a blog is extremely limited when it comes to doing much about corruption, no?

Gavin Sheridan: I think that depends on what the blog is trying to do. I am not under any illusions; I do not think a sole crusade will end all venality and corruption in Ireland. I look on it more as a tool for interested citizens to look at and reflect — to generate debate and interest, to prompt people to think twice about the country they are living in. In a small way it might help to stop the apathy that has beset the nation. I do not have deep pockets by any means, I will try and stick to staying legal, and not making libellous remarks to the best of my ability — a blog is only limited by the person who runs it — the power of blogs is that I will never run out of paper, and I have the power to publish everything and anything almost completely without cost.

Rainy Day: Who's better at putting heat under the corrupt, RTE, the Irish Times, the Sunday Independent, Sunday Business Post, Tribune... Or do the Irish media bother?

Gavin Sheridan: The Irish media can be quite good at reporting on the existing tribunals, but I have really yet to see any commentator, who has truly seen the big picture — that corruption in every sector, in every aspect of public life, that the system is creaking under the levels of corruption. The entire system is now riddled. The Irish media just seem to look at parts of it and say 'isn't that terrible' or 'we should do something about that'. In the past they have all had scoops, like the Sunday Business Post on planning, or RTE on banking, but nobody seems to realise that all of it is linked.

Rainy Day: It's handy to have a Deep Throat if you want to get to the root of a scandal. Do you have good sources? Are they willing to send you copies of the e-mails that could send someone down?

Gavin Sheridan: This is something I hope will come with time. I do have some sources; sources I will likely not reveal. It could happen that people will contact me directly with their own stories — it is open to them to do so.

Rainy Day: Final question and a chance to speculate. With corruption embedded in the Irish DNA, a Big One, just like the quake that's going to wreck California, is inevitable. So, when's Ireland's next GUBU going to take place and where's it coming from?

Gavin Sheridan : I think the question is where is it not coming from. The problems in the Gardai appear to be endemic, widespread and have gone under-reported since the foundation of the State. I believe in the next year serious flaws in the Gardai will appear — I believe problems may exist within An Post and the National Lottery that have never been highlighted. I believe that in the companies and financial services sector there are far more scandals waiting to be discovered than we might believe, particularly in anti-competitive practices, insurance and banking. Planning corruption may be huge, local councils are making horrendous decisions, country-wide, and developers are gaining from it. It is everywhere.

Our sincere thanks to Gavin Sheridan for taking the time to talk to us. He's providing a positive example for activist bloggers and it's to be hoped that he'll get the support he needs. Because corruption in Ireland is ubiquitous, there's lots of room for others to tackle the subject. For example, someone should be tracking the activities of the country's Centre for Public Inquiry, which has been funded to the tune of $4 by Atlantic Philanthropies. The centre is run by Frank Connolly, whose brother Niall was a member of the IRA group that was caught helping Colombia's Farc terrorists with arms and explosives training. And what's the mission of the Centre for Public Inquiry? Why, it's an anti-corruption body.