Our Man In Stockholm

The “economic council” meets to discuss the latest FOI legislation.

Ireland is one of the only countries in the world in which you have to pay to find out how you’re governed.

And in insisting on charging for information that almost every other civilised democracy provides for free, most Irish people – including journalists – are priced out of the market for truth and transparency.

Let’s leave aside for a while the fact that there has been a huge culture shift in the corridors of power since the original FOI legislation was enacted.

Whereas previously there were paper trails that could be followed and initials to prove who knew what and when, the new legislation has promoted a “three monkeys” culture of plausible deniability – no paper trail, no records, nothing to see here.

It’s common knowledge that Ireland’s democracy is a lame duck, when a roomful of people – mostly men ignorant of the workings of the world – can suddenly and irrevocably give away the financial future of the nation without ever asking its citizens.

(Ironically, this is one of those areas that we will never be told the truth about, given the impossibility of accessing the records).

However hard the work of journalists is to begin with, it will be made virtually impossible now. It’s hard enough to get paid for the work – adding another layer of expense is going to make it even more so.

And what will happen is that even more bright, clever, creative, driven people will move from media into PR and start writing press releases and speeches for the very people they once would have taken down.

And this is the point.

Most of us have been there at some point, the red lamp of the dictaphone on, the list of carefully-compiled questions put aside as we realise that the interview subject sitting in front of us has a story to tell, if only we’d ask the right questions.

So the question is this – why is this government going back on its word and making the Freedom of Information process even more opaque?

And the answer is equally simple – if government in Ireland was truly transparent, there is absolutely no way the people would accept what was revealed.

So the question is not one of journalism, but of democracy.

Both Fine Gael and Labour came to power insisting that they would reform politics.

Great – they can start by opening up the most central part of politics – the government – to scrutiny, and living with the consequences.

Doing so would force another sea change in how things are done in departments, as would the mandatory taking of minutes and recording of discussions.

All this costs money, but so do ballot papers and polling booths. Chalk it down to the price of democracy.

And when they’ve taken away all the barriers and ensured that proper records are kept, they can make sure it’s free, fair and easily accessible to all.

Because freedom bound by constraints is enslavement by another name.

If we were really good friends, colleagues, we would be able to sit down with each other and talk out the miseries.

Maybe it’s the time of the year.

If you looked closely, the ghost flitted in the background, but not a word was said.

“Look happy, even when you’re not” – Terry Prone’s advice for a successful life.

The millions watching could see it, but not the two on the TV set.

Interviewer and author, they talked and they talked, about the book, and about life coaching and how to be happy, and it was darkly comical.

Seemingly unwittingly, they mentioned all the things that created the ghost – work, pressure, depression, suicide – but the ghost’s name was never mentioned.

Maybe they’d agreed beforehand that the book – with its ten case studies designed to help people help themselves – would be the subject of the interview.

The eleventh case study – the one that turned the ghost from a girl into a ghost – is not mentioned.

Nor is the ghost herself.

Because mentioning the ghost might detract from the book, so the ghost would not be mentioned.

Maybe they realized that any mention of the ghost would cause the façade to fall, that it would wash away the final vestiges of the illusion of credibility, that it would tear the cloak of respectability inherited from an emperor later found to be naked.

But as the interview went on, the ghost grew bigger and bigger, and by the time the author was dispensing her folksy snippets of wisdom it was screaming silently in the background.

Seemingly unhearing, blithely unaware once more of the ghost’s presence, the author pontificated about optimism, and about having an interest in other people, and being able to look happy even when you’re not.

The ghost laughed bitterly, but the show went on.

They talked about a golfer and his girlfriend and whether or not she was still his girlfriend, and the author wouldn’t say and nobody laughed.

By then, the time had passed. We had moved on to the golfer. The ghost would not be mentioned.

At least not on TV. But she will be here.

The ghost’s name is Kate Fitzgerald, and she died by suicide.

Her last anonymous testament was published by the Irish Times, and then hacked to pieces when it became known that she had worked for Terry Prone – the author – at the Communications Clinic.

The Irish Times issued a craven apology to the Communications Clinic – effectively calling the ghost a liar.

Her case provoked a debate about depression and work and pressure and suicide and journalism and censorship that faded away quickly as threats emanated from an IP address related to a prominent legal firm.

Terry Prone has never commented publicly on Kate Fitzgerald or the article in the Irish Times. Instead, she wrote a book telling the rest of us how to live.

No wonder the ghost laughs bitterly. The ghost doesn’t even need to read the book.