A few words on the front page of last Saturday’s Financial Times said an awful lot: “The head of ports operator DP World (one of the world’s largest logistics companies) has resigned over his ties to Jeffrey Epstein, joining Goldman Sachs’ top lawyer and a series of business and political figures in quitting over their links to the sex offender. He is one of the most high-powered figures to leave their position since the US Department of Justice released more than three million documents related to Epstein two weeks ago.”

What struck me most was ‘three million’. That, by any yardstick of measurement, is a vast number of documents (including enormous numbers of personal, incriminating, reckless email exchanges) for one man to store. More documents are on the way.

Even the time required to collate, file and then store the stuff would clearly have taken more than one person.

Which, of course, raises the crucial question: who was at the very heart of all of this; what was the real purpose of it all; and why were so many wealthy, powerful, influential and already very successful in their own field people seemingly so easily sucked into the world that Epstein – even if he wasn’t solely responsible for creating it – curated and facilitated.

Máiría Cahill: No thanks Turning Point USA, we have enough intolerance already

There’s another issue. How should we react when we discover that someone, once accorded almost god-like status, turns out to have feet of clay?

Like George Mitchell, for instance. I met him a few times and had brief conversations. I wrote pieces in which I expressed the opinion that I didn’t think the Good Friday Agreement would have got across the line had it not been for his combination of patience and persuasion.

He did help to make Northern Ireland a significantly different and, in some ways, at least, a better place.

So it was no surprise that praise was rained down upon him. Or that portraits were commissioned, honours bestowed, awards named for him, sculptures modelled and standing ovations guaranteed as soon as he walked into a room.

The general consensus, even if you didn’t agree with the signing or outworking of the GFA, was that George Mitchell was, in the words of one politician involved in the negotiations, “one of the world’s genuine good guys and almost impossible not to like”.

Yet the link to Epstein has changed our perception of the man. His name has been dropped from a scholarship programme created in his honour. A bust has been removed from the grounds of QUB. Photographs and portraits will be moved into storage.

It’s a process of disconnection and disassociation which will be happening all over the world while the Epstein saga continues and no-one – apart from the ring which has probably been ‘running’ the Epstein operation – knows what else and who else will be named.

Which raises another issue. Have we now reached the point at which no-one will ever be taken on trust again?

Hundreds, indeed, it’s probably thousands of organisations, charities, support groups and research bodies rely on wealthy donors to keep them going.

Celebrities, especially those in showbusiness, lend their names to causes and projects. Former politicians are pressed upon to bring their experience to fix international conflict zones. Even ‘ordinary’ people in our local communities are given roles to play in everyday life.

But the more we hear about sex scandals, corruption, secretive groups and private organisations which seem to be a law unto themselves, the more we will want to know every detail of the background of every donor, celebrity and political fixer.

We already live in a world in which the vast majority of people don’t trust political parties or governments to properly represent and promote their interests.

And, of course, the world we thought we understood even just 15 years ago has already been utterly, utterly upended.

Someone I’ve known for years – and he’s one of the most level-headed people I know – surprised me the other day: “Do you remember how we laughed at those conspiracy whackos who claimed there was a secretive elite of paedophiles involving hundreds of household names and key players in just about every area of life… well, maybe they weren’t so far off the mark after all.”

He admitted he wasn’t being entirely serious; yet we both agreed that it wasn’t quite as easy to dismiss the stuff as it had been about five years ago.

And it’s that not ‘quite as easy’ dimension which genuinely worries me.

We are, I fear, shifting to a position where trust in mainstream politics, celebrity, media, expertise, knowledge, institutions, banking and even everyday currency, is just melting like snow off a ditch.

My lifelong pessimism has never drifted into dystopia before. That is no longer the case.

If you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article and would like to submit a Letter to the Editor to be considered for publication, please click here.

Letters to the Editor are invited on any subject. They should be authenticated with a full name, address and a daytime telephone number. Pen names are not allowed.

© The Irish News