The integrity and inherent personal restraint of those who founded and led the State in its first decades ensured the civic framework they built was safeguarded from corruption. The system of government at both national and local level was not prepared for this, or for the pressures that this thrust would place upon it. In one sense, the last 30 years have been about growing pains. An agrarian economy has been transformed into a modern and efficient technology-based economy. Third-level education, once a rare exception, is now the norm.
Most people are now as well educated as their leaders in church and State.
Public representatives have become rigorously and publicly accountable and the organs of the State are open to full scrutiny. However, the tidal wave of recent events should not mesmerise us into forgetting that we are at the crux of a long continuum. It is over 30 years since the late George Colley sounded the alarm about low standards in high places. A general disbelief, then and long after, that such a scenario was possible, together with the good example of the great majority in public, postponed any further effort to look under the stones. The seed of doubt had, however, been sown.