Lance Armstrong and the Mahon Planning Tribunal

When Lance Armstrong announced he wasn't contesting charges that he used blood doping to achieve his "unbelievable" 7 Tour de France titles, there was for me no sense of justice or victory. It comes 13 years too late. It is practically irrelevant. It does nothing to address the wilful neglect of the governing bodies, the great athletes who's sporting careers were damaged, the bullying and outing of competitors who didn't play along with the EPO game, and in the case of Marco Pantani a tragic ending of a life through overdose. It has taken a generation change to clean out Armstrong and his cabal. It made me think of the Mahon Tribunal, published to much fanfare just a couple of months ago. Righteous indignation, victory and justice. The moral incarceration of Bertie Ahern, Flynn, Wright etc. etc. All a generation too late. Mahon: a judicial report that now sits on a shelf and brings no justice. Just as Lance got back on his bike, said don't worry and talked about his cancer work, everybody involved with Planning corruption has just got on with it. We can't go back and declare Ahern's election victories null and void, and install the #2 party belatedly. Even talk of a planning regulator has gone very quiet. What is clear is the idea of legal justice, where someone is tried and sentenced 10 years after the event is of little benefit to anyone, unless corrupt politicians and developers compensate Irish society for the billions of euro of damage done (of course thanks to Fiana Fail society is compensating the government and banks). Justice is an on-going project. It demands open governance, transparency and leadership. The planning system (with the check of An Bord Pleanala) is actually not too bad at this (although can still do better). The local government system of governance, which is supposed to balance the Executive with the Public is not so good. Sometimes organisations operating in the name of management which operates in the interest of the organisation (as opposed to the people and places they serve), can be just as damaging as a corrupt one. The priority for Local Government reform should not be efficiency (ie. number of Councils etc) but accountability and responsibility... every day.