The word criminals conjure
all sorts of stereotypes of what that means. Closer to reality is that many
people in jail should not be there, and many more outside should. It is a
strange island where if you do not pay your television license, you can and do
go to jail, and those who are moneyed, privileged, and yet inherently corrupt
rarely do for real criminality. It matters not what justice is morally and much
less legally here. I suspect we are not all in this together or ever were.
It is a strange island too
that you can go to jail for stealing food just to stay alive. There were
430,000 people in ‘food poverty’ in 2012 according to the Department Of Social
Protection facing those risks. One unlucky man who did, a 57 year old out of
work actor, was caught stealing food for his children. He was convicted,
branded with a criminal record that classes him a thief, that in the long-term
may preclude him from finding work because of that conviction. The vicious
cycle goes on.
Yet, if you were a former
prime minister of this country who ‘under-declared’ his taxes by over
€2,000,000 after a tax assessment by the Revenue Commissioners for the cash
gifts he received from former supermarket magnate Ben Dunne, and then have it
reduced to zero by an independent appeals commissioner, who is a brother-in-law
of another just slightly less than honest former prime minister Bertie Ahern,
then you will know we are not all in this together.
Barry Clifford
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