This House has had to revert once again to matters relating to the £50,000 donation allegedly received from Mr. Tom Gilmartin in 1989 by the then Minister for the Environment, Pádraig Flynn, on behalf of the Fianna Fáil Party. This is due to the refusal of Commissioner Flynn to respond adequately to the motion passed by Dáil Éireann on 10 February and the failure of the Taoiseach to follow the matter up with the vigour required.
Since this allegation first came into the public domain the attitude of Commissioner Flynn has been totally inconsistent. He has chosen on some occasions to comment publicly to the media about these matters, as in the infamous "The Late Late Show" interview, and has opted on other occasions to shelter behind a claim of legal impediment to making a comprehensive public statement or answering questions on the grounds that he is due to be a witness before the Flood tribunal. A week ago the Taoiseach read into the record a letter from Commissioner Flynn in which he responded to the motion passed by the Dáil on 10 February by saying that because he was due to be a witness before Mr. Justice Flood, it would be inappropriate to make a public comment on the matter. Yet yesterday listeners to RTE radio heard Commissioner Flynn comment freely on his "The Late Late Show" interview, outline his views on political and personal financial contributions, deal with his relationship with Mr. Gilmartin and offer an entirely new and hitherto unheard explanation for his controversial telephone call to Mr. Gilmartin in the immediate aftermath of the original Sunday Independent story.
It seems that when Commissioner Flynn receives an official request from Dáil Éireann to make a statement on these matters he seeks refuge behind legal advice from the tribunal – advice that he claims to have received but that we have not seen or heard – but when somebody puts a microphone in front of him, he feels free to comment without any legal restraint.
It is important to restate that when the story first appeared in the Sunday Independent last year suggesting that Mr. Gilmartin had made a £50,000 donation to Mr. Flynn for the Fianna Fáil party, there was little political response. Most Members of this House took the view that it was most appropriate to leave the matter to the Flood Tribunal. However, it was Commissioner Flynn who made the issue a matter of legitimate public and political comment when he gave his extraordinary interview to Gay Byrne on “The Late Late Show” on 15 January.
The matter was made a further subject of legitimate public and political comment by the fact that on the weekend of "The Late Late Show" the Taoiseach's media handlers were busy decrying Commissioner Flynn's RTE appearance and making it clear that he had now no prospect of reappointment to the Commission for a third term.
Following "The Late Late Show" and further public comment by Mr. Gilmartin, my party leader, Deputy Quinn, was the first Member of this House to publicly call on Commissioner Flynn to make an immediate statement responding to the allegations made against him. In a subsequent statement he said that notwithstanding any investigation by the Flood Tribunal, issues pertaining to people who hold high office must be answered. He said: "It simply is not acceptable that respect for our democracy should be further diminished by allegations of wrongdoing which are left unanswered, possibly for months or even years, concerning senior politicians".
At the time, the Labour Party and Deputy Quinn were accused by some Government representatives and by a number of commentators of going over the top, but the subsequent course of events have borne out the validity of our position. Had Commissioner Flynn made a comprehensive statement at the time setting out the facts as he saw them, dealing with the basic questions that have been raised, then the matter could probably have been regarded as closed until such time as Mr. Justice Flood was able to deal with it in much more detail.
Instead, the way in which Commissioner Flynn continued to try and duck the issue and evade answering any questions on it, coupled with the reluctance of his Fianna Fáil colleagues to even ask the relevant questions, has simply added further to public cynicism about politics in general.
What are the basic facts we already know and what are the issues on which we require answers? What we know is that Mr. Gilmartin claims that in 1989 he gave a contribution of £50,000 to Mr. Flynn, which he says was intended for the Fianna Fáil Party. This donation was made at a time when Mr. Flynn was Minister for the Environment and when Mr. Gilmartin was seeking to advance a huge development project in the Dublin area. Mr. Flynn has not, at any stage, denied receiving this money.
We also now know that the money in question was not apparently received by Fianna Fáil headquarters. It has also been claimed by Mr. Gilmartin that as far back as 1989 he made the Fianna Fáil national organiser, Mr. Seán Sherwin, aware of the fact that he had given Mr. Flynn the donation in question. Despite this, it was only ten years later, when the matter came into the public domain, that the general secretary of Fianna Fáil, Mr. Mackin, actually got around to writing a pro-forma letter to the Commissioner asking what had become of the money.
There are a number of questions that arise both for Mr. Flynn and for the Fianna Fáil Party which can be answered without prejudicing or prejudging the work of the Flood Tribunal. Mr. Flynn should state simply and directly whether he got the money from Mr. Gilmartin. He should outline the circumstances of the donation and say whether all or any part of it was passed on to the Fianna Fáil party. If the money was not passed on, he should indicate how he spent or applied the money.
In the case of the Fianna Fáil Party, it should say very clearly when it first became aware of Mr. Gilmartin's donation and why it took no action for ten years to establish what happened to the money. The failure of Fianna Fáil to pursue this matter is one of the most puzzling aspects of this bizarre affair. Fifty thousand pounds was, by any standards, a massive donation in 1989. This sum would have been enough to fund a general election campaign in several constituencies, yet Fianna Fáil apparently did not take any action to recover the money or to establish what happened to it. I am sure that even Fianna Fáil, for all the legendary generosity of its backers and for all its success in fundraising, would have regarded this as a substantial donation and would have wanted to locate it and put it in the bank.
However, an even more fundamental question arises. If Mr. Gilmartin made a donation which he intended to be passed on to the Fianna Fáil Party, and if the money was not passed on as intended, is there not a danger that a criminal offence may have been committed and that there could have been an obligation on the appropriate personnel to bring the matter to the attention of the Garda? If members of the committee of a small sporting or social club heard that somebody had made a donation of £50 to an individual, which had not been passed on, one would expect that they would have made more effort to recover it than Fianna Fáil apparently did in the case of Mr. Gilmartin's £50,000.
The Taoiseach and leader of Fianna Fáil, Deputy Bertie Ahern, has adopted something of a mantra about ethics and politics. I do not ques tion the genuineness of the Taoiseach's desire to see new ethical standards in politics and particularly within his own party, but for him to have the credibility to do so, it is essential that he confronts wrongdoing by those in his own party in the past and imposes appropriate political sanctions on those responsible. This is the only way to lance the boil.
At successive Fianna Fáil Ard Fheiseanna we have heard him talk about looking to the future and setting new ethical standards for political life. However, we have yet to see or hear the Taoiseach denounce the sort of wrongdoing that has been well documented on the part of a number of those who have held very senior positions in the Fianna Fáil Party and in Fianna Fáil Governments.
Despite all that emerged in the evidence to the McCracken Tribunal and despite the findings of Mr. Justice McCracken in his report, I have yet to hear the Taoiseach condemn in the unequivocal way that every citizen would expect, the improprieties, irregularities and downright abuse of public life perpetrated by his predecessor and political sponsor, Mr. Haughey.
I have already referred to the extraordinary failure of Fianna Fáil, including during the period since the present Taoiseach has been leader, to follow up on the Gilmartin donation. We know that at the time the first allegations were made against the former Deputy, Mr. Burke, the Taoiseach claimed to have "been up every tree in North Dublin" following them up. It subsequently emerged that what this tree climbing amounted to was simply to ask Mr. Burke in a casual way if anything was bothering him, and to send the Minister for Social, Community and Family Affairs, Deputy Dermot Ahern, off on a fool's errand to London to interview Mr. Joseph Murphy. We also know that Fianna Fáil headquarters were aware for many years that Mr. Burke had passed on only £10,000 of the £30,000 he received from Fitzwilton in 1989 – that most successful and financially rewarding of years for senior Fianna Fáil personnel.
Perhaps the Taoiseach's promises of new ethical regimes might be taken somewhat more seriously if he showed some enthusiasm for establishing what happened in the past. Fianna Fáil has now taken to claiming credit for the establishment of the tribunals of inquiry, conveniently forgetting that in the case of both the Flood and Moriarty inquiries, Fianna Fáil initially stoutly resisted all demands for their establishment and conceded only under intense and sustained pressure from this side of the House.
Initially, Fianna Fáil spokespersons rubbished the suggestion that the Dáil should call on Commissioner Flynn to make a statement. I recall in particular the comments made by the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Deputy Andrews, who said the initial motion on this matter "may well constitute an attempted political interference in the ongoing work of a tribunal established by the House". He then went on to deliver a eulogy in praise of Commissioner Flynn and compared him, in passing, to the Birmingham Six and the Guilford Four. Clearly, that speech was written before the Government recognised the writing on the wall and had to table its own amendment calling on Mr. Flynn to make a "full and immediate statement clarifying his position in relation to allegations that he received £50,000 while Minister for the Environment in 1989".
As we know from the letter read to the House by the Taoiseach last week, Commissioner Flynn, despite being a long serving Member of this House, has decided to thumb his nose, to ignore the motion passed by the Dáil, and has again sought refuge behind supposed legal advice from the tribunal that he should not make any public statement on the matter.
I welcome the fact that the Government has accepted the general thrust of the initial Fine Gael motion on this matter. If Mr. Justice Flood confirms that the advice given to Mr. Flynn was as suggested in the Commissioner's letter, then clearly the Dáil will have to accept that and await the matter going before the tribunal. However, if it turns out that the statement made in Mr. Flynn's letter to the Taoiseach was misleading or inaccurate, or did not truly reflect the advice given to him, then it will add to the seriousness of the Commissioner's behaviour and leave the Dáil with little alternative but to return to the matter and take appropriate action.