Speaking today to the Association of European Journalists, Joan insisted that the new government must ditch the politics of the past and call time on the culture of impunity that has reigned in Ireand during 14 years of Fianna Fail misrule:

 The one single feature of our culture that has caused the most damage is the sense of impunity it has created and sustained for decades.

 This is when people think that they can get away with doing what is wrong without serious penalty.

 It bewilders the ordinary citizen to witness the scandals and to see no one punished.

 The wrong doers get away with it and are confident that they can delay and frustrate enquiries to the point of exhaustion.

 This culture of impunity takes many forms. In political life .it means that no Minister is made personally responsible for disastrous policy errors.

 The Comptroller and Auditor General make numerous reports to the Committee on Public Accounts and the civil servants in the Department concerned may be grilled and cross examined by the Committee.

 Only in rare instances do Ministers appear to explain why a policy decision was a costly error.

 Accountability must mean more than that. Take the entire decentralization fiasco as a case in point. It started as a budget announcement, was hailed as a political master-stroke, and proceeded from one costly acquisition of property to another, at hugely inflated prices.

 Some of the Ministers involved have left the political scene to enjoy amazing pensions and retirement lump sums. The rest of us are left to pay the bills and just grit our teeth.

 If there is o ne reform I want to see enacted in the 31st Dail, it is an overhaul of company law and a ruthless determination to punish white collar crime and malpractice.

 Our standards of Corporate Governance are woeful.

 The same tiny golden circle dominate the boards of Irish Companies, a self perpetuating oligarchy drawn from an extremely narrow group of well connected individuals.

 Recall the notorious case of the alleged insider trading during the €106m sale of DCC’s stake in Fyffes 10 years ago. It did the rounds of the High Court, the Supreme Court and finally a costly 970 page Company Inspector’s report published this time last year.

 The Inspector concluded that the actions of DCC and Flavin measured up to the standards required by the law and that any breaches of company law in relation to DCC’s sale of its Fyffes stake were not made intentionally.

 We are still waiting for a determination by the Director of Corporate Enforcement on a reference to the DPP of the evide nce he has accumulated concerning Anglo Irish Bank activities and share dealings.

 Obviously the law as it stands must take its course without political interference but I do wonder how adequate and effective company law is and how prone it is to evasion and manipulation.

 After the DIRT scandals it did seem that a new culture of compliance had taken hold. Alas that has turned out to be an illusion.

 The culture of impunity is as strong as ever and a new Government, of whatever hue, will be judged on its capacity to turn that around.

 I do go so far as to say that economic renewal and recovery is conditional on the achievement of high standards of probity in every feature of Irish life, political and commercial.