Here is Micheál Martin, speaking yesterday on the discovery of what Gardai believe to be the remains of Daniel Aruebose, who was at one time in the care of the state and is now dead:
Asked about Labour’s call for a “root-and-branch” review of Ireland’s child protective services, Martin said he was concerned about a “rush to judgment”.
Martin said: “We need to be very careful about our language. There are many genuine, lots of genuine people working in Tusla, working flat out.
“Carelessly using language and conflating Tusla with what happened here is wrong in advance of finding out what actually happened here.”
If you want an example of what is wrong with Ireland, and Irish politicians, you couldn’t do much better than this. It is a pitch perfect example of every single thing wrong with the rotten Irish state.
We’ll start with this: Who does Micheál Martin represent? Let me give you a clue: It is not Tusla, the Child and Family agency.
He is elected by the public in order to manage the state, including its agencies, and including Tusla, the child and family agency. So why does he always sound as if he is representing Tusla’s interests to the Irish people, instead of the Irish people’s interests to Tusla.
Because if ever there was a case where a “rush to judgment” is warranted, it is this one.
What we know about this case is straightforward: When this little child was born, he was placed into the care of the state, specifically the Child and Family agency. We know further that it was the decision of the Child and Family agency to return him to the care of his parents at the age of two, when he was still a small and vulnerable child.
We know further that he is now dead. We know also that the parents, though not as yet facing any criminal charges, continued to collect payments in respect of the child from the taxpayer. We know yet more: We know that the child was last seen some years ago.
We know that this case came to light when a new application for social welfare payments was made to the Department of Social Protection. The matter came to light when that Department did checks, and discovered that little Daniel had never attended school. It was only then, at this juncture, that the Department of Social Protection alerted Tusla that there might be an issue.
Let me repeat Tusla’s full name: It is the child and family agency. It is the agency of the state responsible for the welfare of children. It had contact with a vulnerable child, ceased that contact, and the child is dead.
So yes, Mr. Martin, we can “rush to judgment”: Tusla failed, and failed in its most basic of statutory duties, and the result is the death of a child.
If Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael wish to understand the reason for their decline from the commanding heights of Irish politics to their present, historically anaemic position, they could do a lot worse than examining their instincts here. Because they appear to have forgotten the reason why we elect Governments. Not to defend the state; but to hold it to account.
Mr. Martin has no business being in the Dáil defending Tusla on this matter. Instead, as Taoiseach, he should be the man voicing public anger and demanding accountability. He should be the man ordering Tusla into his office, and sacking whomever in his judgment is most worthy of the boot. He should, in other words, be rushing to the obvious judgment on the public’s behalf.
But around about the time – not coincidentally – that Irish political parties started being funded by the state, they also began to be wholly owned by the state. Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, with their millions in annual state funding, are less political parties these days than they are state agencies themselves. They have been transformed from advocates for the people into advocates for the system.
And so there you have the Taoiseach, standing in the Dáil after the death of a small child, firmly convinced that his job is to defend the state’s actions instead of defending the people’s right to competence and decency from the taxpayer funded agency charged with the welfare of children.
He has this one entirely backwards.
And it is not just on Tusla, either: Right across politics, these guys do the same thing. The Minister for Health is not the manager of that department, or the public’s champion: She is the spokesperson for the civil service. The Minister for Justice is the spokesman for the Gardai. They are not running the country – they are being run by it. Our political outcomes would not be meaningfully different, and our political debates would be identical, if we just stopped electing politicians and let the secretaries general of Government departments act as the Government.
There are times in public life when the people running the country have to hold those below them to account. This is such a time. But Mr. Martin cannot do it – because he long since stopped being the public’s representative managing the machinery of state.
These days, he is the representative of the machinery of state, trying to manage the public. Until he, Mr. Harris, and their parties figure that one out, they will continue to languish in the public’s deserved and weary contempt.