Leaders’ Questions


Image by The Labour Party
Events as they are unfolding in the Dail this afternoon, October 3.

The proceedings can be accessed from this link Dail TV

Below is a copy of the statement released by the Labour Party leader Deputy Pat Rabbitte

HEART OF MATTER IS : ‘WAS AHERN RIGHT TO ACCEPT MONIES?’

It is fair comment that the Opposition has shown restraint in the matter of the Taoiseach accepting money for private use while a serving Minister. However, since Mr Ahern had created a context that sought to explain the Drumcondra monies in terms of his private family affairs, common decency required that opposition politicians should have demonstrated a certain restraint.

And then on Sunday I heard Minister of State, Conor Lenihan, ridicule that restraint. It was, he said, ineffectiveness, not decency, on the part of the Opposition. The suggestion was apparently that the Opposition should cut through the smokescreen to the heart of the matter. To me the heart of the matter is: was Mr Ahern right to do what he did? Is it remotely credible that monies outstanding for 13 years, without any repayment of any kind, can suddenly be called loans? You don’t need to be as bright as Minister Lenihan to know that these transactions, if they happened, were gifts and therefore there are tax implications.

Can we do more than highlight the absolute impropriety of a serving Minister for Finance accepting payment for a nixer outside the State. Never mind the “no law was broken” defence. By any standards it was wrong. What would have happened to a Senior Civil Servant in the Department of Finance if he trousered money for a private encounter in Manchester? He would be sacked. Why is it alright for the Minister but not alright for the civil servant? What does it say about this Government’s standards that not a single Cabinet Minister can bring himself or herself to say what everybody knows: that what happened at Manchester was wrong. You believe in the tooth fairy if you believe that businessmen happen along to a function in a posh hotel to listen to any old Joe Soap talk to them about the Irish economy and then organise an impromptu collection to give him something for himself.

In normal life you get gifts from your friends and you take loans from strangers. Yet Mr Ahern got loans from his friends and gifts from strangers.

Maybe Minister of State Lenihan’s derision of the Opposition is because we didn’t adequately probe behind the discreet veil drawn over the other 50,000 by Mr Ahern when he says enigmatically that he “put back into” his account. “Back into his account from where”? is the questions that must be answered. Where was the 50.000 resting since Mr Ahern didn’t have a bank account? In a sock in the hotpress? If the Taoiseach says this 50.000 was savings I accept that but if he enjoyed a T.D’s salary, a Ministerial salary and the use of a premises bought by friends of Fianna Fail, how can it be portrayed that he was in straitened circumstances?

Why if there were 50.000 in “savings” was it necessary to raise a Bank loan and if a Bank Loan was in place why was it necessary to have a whiparound to replace the Bank Loan ?

An effective Opposition doing its job must ask the Taoiseach: have you evaded tax? Why did you say you paid CGT and gift tax? Why is that relevant here? Are you serious that you had no Bank account while Minister for Finance? Did you have a Bank Account elsewhere on the Island? Or outside the jurisdiction? Or did someone else open one on your behalf? If the whiparound was among friends why is there a cheque in there for 5,000 from NCB stockbrokers? How many times have NCB been retained by the State? How many of the donors were appointed on how many occasions to state boards? Who were the donors in Manchester? What was the function? Are they involved in business in Ireland? Did any of them win state contracts? Is this another loop in the golden circle?

Our new Tanaiste is also impatient with the Opposition. On Thursday he told the House he could scarcely forbear to sit in silence and watch the Opposition squander the opportunity for accountability. Well the Tanaiste had better grow accustomed to sitting in silence. The only question he will be allowed at Cabinet after this debacle is “Bhuil cead agam dul amach?” Mr McDowell sought and got a mandate to ride shotgun on Fianna Fail standards in government. He has comprehensively failed the first test. As he said himself:

“A party that stands for nothing will stand for anything.”

If the Tanaiste can no longer ask questions aloud maybe he would ask himself what Des O’Malley would have said if the Taoiseach of the day admitted receiving money, not for political purposes, but for his private use while a serving Minister?

Forget the orchestrated phone-ins to radio stations, the unscientific polls and the packed television audiences, was it right or wrong to accept money for private use while a serving Minister? You are on the record as saying you did nothing wrong and your Cabinet Ministers without exception have parroted that line. Brian Lenihan alone said it would be unthinkable.
But all the rest Hannafin, O’Donoghue, O’Dea, Dempsey, Ahern, Coughlan, Martin and Cullen can see no wrong. If anything demonstrates why this country needs a change of government it is the media parade of your Ministers, blind to standards, defending the indefensible.

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