THE silence speaks volumes. While a bereaved mother and assorted media outlets call for a minister's head, his political opponents run for cover. In Tony Killeen's Clare constituency, only one politician, Madeline Taylor Quinn, condemned his representations for a murderer and child abuser. And even she stopped short of calling for his resignation. In an intensely competitive constituency, nobody else has sought to make hay.

The plinth on Leinster House was bare. Pre-election shin-kicking was suspended for the affair. No opposition people were willing to soften their facial features into a frown of concern, and address the camera in feigned honesty, with the threadbare line, "he must go". Any chance to embarrass the government was foregone for, well, what politicians seem to regard as the greater good.

Tony Killeen is unlikely to find a knife being wielded on his own side of the House.

After Bertiegate, the party leader hardly has the moral authority to tell one of his ministers to go. Ditto the PDs. But the main reason Killeen will survive is that each and every member of the Dáil has this week been uttering the proverb: "There but for the grace of God go I."

In a mature political culture, Killeen would have to go fast or be sacked. Four times he used his office to apply for full or temporary release for a man who casually murdered another with a knife. Twice Killeen attempted to have a child abuser freed. In neither case did he contact the bereaved family, or the abuser's victims.

This at a time when society is fast losing patience with those who indulge in violent crime.

Sentences for violent criminals are progressively getting longer to reflect society's concern. The lifelong wounds inflicted by child abuse have received proper recognition, and sentences have reflected this. The plight of victims of violent or sexual crimes has also been receiving proper recognition. And on the public stage, politicians of all hue are more voracious in condemning those who visit misery on the innocent. Against this backdrop, how could Killeen survive, after acting with apparent indifference to victims and the bereaved?

The answer is that Killeen was merely acting within the parameters of the Irish political culture. Clientelism is the bread and butter of Irish politics. (A number of TDs contacted about this subject uncharacteristically failed to return calls. ) The willingness of a candidate to brook even the most outlandish or outrageous requests from citizens and make representations thereof, is what gets him or her elected. These parliamentarians are returned by what some laughably describe as the most sophisticated electorate in the world. Frank Luntz, the political scientist who hosted an RT�? programme recently, had a more accurate take when he suggested we were the most cynical electorate he had encountered. Every TD knows that doing their bit for world peace would be great, but supplied copies of the representation to the county council is what gets them elected.

And the media play their part, often describing this TD or that as a "good constituency worker", which really means the politician in question is a demented writer of largely redundant letters. The contention that TDs work extremely hard is based to a large extent on the clientelism that they engage in.

High office doesn't insulate politicians from the base, the outrageous or the ridiculous.

When the Philip Sheedy affair exploded seven years ago, it emerged that Bertie Ahern had made representations for Sheedy, who was jailed for killing Anne Ryan while driving drunk. He had also made representations for the bereaved Ryan family in relation to the affair.

The system facilitates halfwits. There are TDs on all sides of the House who owe their presence exclusively to clientelism. They contribute little to national debate. Their only real parliamentary work is through the committees, which offer extra expenses.

And they spend the entire length of the Dáil on the reelection trail, holding clinics, writing letters, seeking out votes. These creatures are at the sharp end of the culture.

Fianna Fáil backbencher Pat Carey isn't one of them.

He frequently bats for the party and involves himself in plenty of political activity beyond the immediate concerns of re-election. But he is a realist. "Making representations takes up 60% to 70% of the workload, " he says. "It's probably less when the Dáil is sitting. It's nearly as if people think you've nothing else to be doing when it's not sitting."

Most of the representations are routine, and some don't require a TD's input. "There is a great Community Information Centre around the corner from my office in Finglas and we often find that we're sending clients to one another, " he says.

And if one politician isn't willing to contemplate any request, there are plenty others to step into the breach. "I got a letter just today addressed to a colleague on an issue, " he says. "A lot of us would have our own client base but of course there is a certain amount of TD shopping."

One of the main reasons for the pumped-up clientelism is the proportional representation means of election, and in particular our system of the single transferable vote. The result of the system is that party colleagues within a constituency are often the greatest of enemies, intensifying the clientelism culture.

Research by Dr Gary Murphy, senior lecturer in government at DCU, shows that 56% of Fianna Fáil deputies who lost their seats did so to a party colleague. In Fine Gael, the level of same party attrition was 37%. With such intense rivalry, candidates are often willing to make representations to Mars if it will get a constituent and extended family onside. "Ourselves and Malta are the only European countries that have the STV system, " Murphy says. "It's very unusual to have people from the same party fighting each other."

The recent breaking of the dual local authority/Oireachtas mandate has done little to temper the culture. "The perception is that you get things done by going to the TD, " Murphy says. "So even though it might only be a letter to the county manager, people go to the TD rather than a councillor." There is little stomach among politicians to reform this culture, as it might put not a few of them out of a job.

As might be expected, most of the paper mountains are redundant, constructed only for TDs to give the impression they are wielding influence.

But the system of governance around which clientelism has built up means that some of it remains vital.

Earlier this week, it emerged that Fine Gael's John Deasy had made representations on behalf of troubled Waterford girl Michelle Bray a year before the 14-year-old died of solvent abuse. His intervention appears to have made little difference to the girl's fate, but he was attempting to speak up for a constituent at the mercy of an apparently chaotic system. That kind of publicspirited intervention would appear to be more exception than rule. Michael D Higgins in his new book, Causes For Concern, estimates that a TD can or does make a difference in a representation in around 30% of cases. "It is important that you stay in touch with your constituency, " he says. "But what we really have to change is the culture of bureaucracy at both local and national level.

"It's not easy for people to acquire information and there is also very little discretion in the system. These factors add to the culture of clientelism."

Discretion also appears to have been missing in Killeen's contentious letters. There may well have been a case for making representations in both instances, but the routine manner in which they were dealt reflects the general approach to clientelism that has grown up. There was no effort to contact the victims or bereaved because it must have been assumed that, as with most of these letters, nothing would come of it.

Killeen himself said that he had issued around 200,000 such letters in his time in the Dáil. That in itself reflects the waste and cynicism that are such an integral part of our political culture.