I remember an old cartoon I saw once of a guy in the dock with a tenacious lawyer grilling him. The guy turns a pleading look at the judge and the caption reads, "You ask me to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, and then he asks me THAT!"
It sprang to mind yesterday when I read some of the media stories on the banking inquiry that is finally up and running, seven years late. When the bastards were finally shamed into setting it up, their first priority was what they called its, "Terms of Reference." This took ages to draft because they had to carefully avoid allowing anything that could embarrass or damn any of them. They had to ensure to forbid any questioning of activities that took place between certain dates, essentially pulling the teeth of anything the inquiry could usefully do.
To refine the terms of reference further, they then chose an agenda. This stroke prevented anything they didn't want discussed or revealed from even coming up (because it wasn't on the agenda). Items on the agenda were all that could be dealt with. Only then could the charade begin. A procession of still wealthy has-beens were wheeled in to allow them to recite their own scripts. No hard questions could be asked and no real facts presented. It's been a con-job so far. Everyone said sorry but no accountability could possibly be apportioned and none of them were to blame for anything. It turned into an old-boy's club of back-slappers scoring points off each other. It was a case of politicians asking politicians questions.
Then an exasperated whistle blower revealed corrupt practices in the whole process and we had a storm in a teacup. Now they propose to hold an inquiry into the inquiry. The whole edifice is turning into as farce, as reported here. But you and I are not getting this farce for nothing. It is costing us fifty grand a day!!! That's a cool quarter of a million a week, every week.
Speculation abounds that we will end up needing an inquiry into the inquiry into the original inquiry. And the biggest insult is, that no inquiry can convict or sentence anybody. This is no court of law with consequences for the guilty. Indeed, Enda and his buddies have blatantly used it for electioneering.
Is it any wonder we have lost respect for any of those bastards?