From the Irish Times, which will have to stop charging a subscription fee sometime soon if it hopes to survive …
Six Dáil statements Taoiseach would not like to be asked about
There are at least six Dáil statements Bertie Ahern would prefer not to be asked about as they are misleading, hypocritical or both, writes Fintan O’Toole .
ONE ASPECT of Bertie Ahern’s High Court challenge to the Mahon tribunal which begins today seems, on the face of it, rather puzzling. He is attempting, among other things, to stop the tribunal asking him questions about statements he has made in the Dáil.
His stated reason for this challenge - that he is obliged to uphold a constitutional ban on anyone being “made amenable” for statements in the Oireachtas - is not credible. Tribunals have questioned politicians about Dáil statements before, and one, the beef tribunal, was almost entirely based on allegations made in the Dáil.
What has puzzled many people, however, is why he would have any other reason for preventing questions about his Dáil statements, when his explanations for unorthodox financial transactions were also given in the Bryan Dobson interview on RTÉ and in the famous election press conference clash with Vincent Browne. What could there be on the Dáil record that is not otherwise available? As it happens, quite a lot.
There are at least six statements on the Dáil record that the Taoiseach would prefer not to be asked about because they are either patently misleading, utterly hypocritical or both: 1. February 18th, 1999: The then leader of the Green Party Trevor Sargent asked a straight question: “During his political career since the mid-1970s in which he has been a close associate of three senior Fianna Fáil figures who have been engulfed in financial allegations, namely, Mr Haughey, Mr Burke and Mr Flynn, has the Taoiseach been the beneficiary of a payment, contribution or gift from any source which, with the benefit of hindsight, he now considers to be unorthodox, unusual or irregular?”
Bertie Ahern’s reply was: “As regards the comments of Deputy Sargent. I do not believe I have ever done anything wrong concerning money in my 22 years in politics or prior to that. I would be honour-bound not to do so as a professional accountant. I hope I have not done so and I deem that I have not done so.”
This was deliberately and knowingly misleading. The very word used by Trevor Sargent, “unorthodox” is the one subsequently used by Bertie Ahern to describe the handling of his personal finances. (”My affairs are unorthodox.”)
2. January 27th, 1999: “I formally became treasurer of Fianna Fáil on 28th January, 1993, but I started work in that area in 1992 in the course of the changeover period . . . Early in my term as treasurer we suspended local activities in constituencies so the money could go to the national organisation which was in a poor financial state.”
Given the large amounts of money apparently being raised in this period by Bertie Ahern’s own constituency, either this statement was untrue in itself or he, as treasurer, was ignoring the rules he made for others.
3. May 28th, 1998: “Financial contributions to politicians should be made for strictly political purposes, be clearly accounted for and given with no other motive than the good government of this country and support for the democratic system as a whole.”
He knew at the time he said this that he himself, as he accepted under oath at the tribunal, “regularly received political donations which were to be understood as being capable of being used for personal purposes”, and that the system of accounts operated by himself and his associates were the opposite of clear accountability.
4. February 18th, 1999: “I have not ever taken any money from [ a] Fianna Fáil account unless properly authorised to do so for specific purposes.” Money from a Fianna Fáil account was in fact used to purchase a home in the name of the Taoiseach’s then partner. There is no evidence that the party authorised, or was asked to authorise, this transaction.
5. September 10th, 1997: “It is also unacceptable that in the case of Mr Haughey full co-operation was withheld from the tribunal, forcing it to undertake lengthy, painstaking and costly research to establish facts, which could have been established almost at once with his full co-operation. It is unacceptable that in a manner hitherto concealed from the public a taoiseach should be personally supported to the tune of £1.3 million.” Neither of these things were, as we now know, at all unacceptable to Bertie Ahern.
6. September 10th, 1997: “The Government considers that following the money trail is the most efficient and effective way to progress this type of inquiry.”
This alleged belief is contradicted both by the repeated attempts by members of the Government to characterise the adoption by the Mahon tribunal of this method of inquiry as a witch-hunt and by Ahern’s own attempt to stop the tribunal investigating any sums less than £30,000.
In any functioning democracy, this repeated misleading of parliament would in itself be grounds for resignation. Here, there is a different standard. As the Taoiseach told the House on December 9th, 2003, in a rare moment of honesty: “Those who have been elected to the House try to remain elected. That is the code of ethics in this House.”
