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Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 3 Jun 1998

Vol. 491 No. 6

An Bille um Binsí Fiosrúcháin (Fianaise) (Leasú), (Uimh. 2), 1998 Tribunals of Inquiry (Evidence) (Amendment) (No. 2) Bill, 1998

AN ACT TO AMEND THE TRIBUNALS OF INQUIRY (EVIDENCE) ACTS, 1921 TO 1998.
BE IT ENACTED BY THE OIREACHTAS AS FOLLOWS:
1. Section 1A of the Tribunals of Inquiry (Evidence) Act, 1921, (inserted by section 1 of the Tribunals of Inquiry (Evidence) (Amendment) Act, 1998) is hereby amended by the substitution of the following for subsection (1):
(1) An instrument to which this section applies (whether made before or after the passing of theTribunals of Inquiry (Evidence) (Amendment) (No. 2) Act, 1998, shall be amended, pursuant to a Resolution of both Houses of the Oireachtas, by a Minister of the Government, unless the tribunal informs the Chairmen of both such Houses that it is satisfied that such amendment would prejudice the rights of a person who has co-operated with or provided information to the tribunal under its then existing terms of reference.”
2. (1) This Act may be cited as the Tribunals of Inquiry (Evidence) (Amendment) (No. 2) Act, 1998.
(2) The collective citation the Tribunals of Inquiry (Evidence) Acts, 1921 to 1998 shall include this Act and those and this Act shall be construed together as one.
It was never normal for Ministers to be handed £43,000 in two donations to keep for their own use in their homes during an election campaign. I do not believe that any of the other Ministers appointed by the Taoiseach have ever had any such experience. What happened was exceptional; it was an aberration. It is because it was an aberration that I do not believe there is any acceptable explanation for the fact that the Taoiseach did nothing last March when he heard that it was £43,000, not £13,000, that his long time colleague, Ray Burke, had received by way of donations in his home in 1989 and which he kept for his own use.
The fact that the Taoiseach did nothing last March leads one to believe that, at some level in his mind, he believed it was all right for Ray Burke to get and keep £43,000 and that he, as
Taoiseach and leader of Fianna Fáil, had no responsibility to do anything about it when he apparently heard about it for the first time last March. If the Taoiseach wanted, as he said last October, to dispel the poisonous innuendo that hangs over our political life, he would not have kept that information from the public, the tribunal, the Tánaiste, other Ministers and the Dáil when he first heard about it last March. His credibility is fatally weakened.
The assertions made last night on the RTE radio programme "Tonight with Vincent Browne" and in today's newspapers are of the utmost gravity for the Taoiseach. They show he was wrong on several counts when he told the House last week about the Fizwilton payment to Mr. Burke. First, it has now emerged that it was Mr. Byrne of Rennicks who told Fianna Fáil about the £30,000 payment to Mr. Burke and that the £30,000 was not something Fianna Fáil's internal detectives had discovered. Second, Mr. Byrne never said the company gave "no money", as the Taoiseach tried to tell the Dáil last week. Third, the Taoiseach misled a wider audience when he told the nation on television on Friday that he had instructed an official to "make sure the tribunal get everything". It has now emerged that Fianna Fáil did not tell the tribunal everything. It did not tell the tribunal that Mr. Burke had got £30,000 from Fitzwilton and not just £10,000.
Were the Minister for Education and Science, Deputy Martin, and the Minister for the Marine and Natural Resource, Deputy Woods, who appeared on the media over the weekend to defend the Government, ever told that their party had only disclosed £10,000, not £30,000 to the tribunal? I believe the Taoiseach also kept them in the dark about the facts, but perhaps they can deny that.
The impression was systematically created by Fianna Fáil that everything had been given to the tribunal. Now, in a change of tack, the Taoiseach's anonymous spokespeople are telling us he was legally advised last March not to disclose the extra £20,000 from Fitzwilton because they had not been asked about it by the planning tribunal. How could the tribunal ask about it when it had not been told about it? If Fianna Fáil believed the £20,000 was outside the planning tribunal's legal remit, who did the Taoiseach think would then investigate the £20,000 Fitzwilton money pocketed by Ray Burke? Did he think it was not worthy of any investigation? Did he think it was acceptable for a serving Minister to pocket a donation of that size? If not, why did he not initiate an investigation last March?
We are told that tribunals can ask to have their terms of reference extended. How was the Flood tribunal supposed to decide whether it should seek an amendment to its terms of reference to include the extra £20,000 Fitzwilton donation to Mr. Burke if Fianna Fáil refused to tell the tribunal that an extra £20,000 had been paid to Mr. Burke? This obfuscation by the Taoiseach cannot be explained by lack of preparation for unexpected questions or by a breakdown of communication between Fianna Fáil staff and him.
The Taoiseach has known about the full £30,000 paid to Mr. Burke since last March. He has had two and a half months to prepare his story. If any misstatements transpire to have been made in the past week after that amount of time to prepare, these misstatements by the Taoiseach would have to have been deliberate and calculated. I can think of no more appropriate day than 1 April — April Fools' Day — for Fianna Fáil to send its affidavit to the tribunal — the April Fools' affidavit.
The Taoiseach's decision not to tell the tribunal about the £20,000 retained by Ray Burke raises serious questions. What special hold has Ray Burke over his loyalty? He appointed Mr. Burke to Government last June when dark clouds were already gathering over Mr. Burke's head. While the Minister for Social, Family and Community Affairs, Deputy Dermot Ahern, asked a direct question of Mr. Murphy in London, the Taoiseach has had to admit that he had asked no matching direct question about the JMSE donation of Mr. Burke in Dublin last June. Why was he afraid to ask Mr. Burke?
Last March the Taoiseach concealed from the tribunal the information that Mr. Burke had got a total of £30,000, not £10,000, from Rennicks. Why did he not tell the tribunal all he knew then? He had strong evidence to offer the tribunal about Mr. Burke but he chose to hold it back. Why? Is there something that Mr. Burke might say or do that is of such concern to him that he has to show Mr. Burke he will only do what he is forced into doing?
There are four key questions at the heart of this motion which require immediate answers. They are also at the heart of the nature of good Government. The first concerns the responsibility of any parliamentarian, especially a Taoiseach, to come before the House to correct any misleading information he or she may have placed on its record. The Taoiseach did not do so when he spoke last week. He has compounded this by last night's revelations of what now look like deliberate misstatements.
The second question concerns the responsibility of any head of Government to be open and honest with his Tánaiste. This means sharing information and trusting a ministerial colleague. The Taoiseach did not do this. He has now twice concealed information from the Tánaiste. Is he playing a psychological game to test out how far he can demean his partners in Government before their nerve breaks?
The third question deals with the farcical nature of the so-called investigation into the allegations that surrounded Mr. Burke before he was appointed Minister for Foreign Affairs last June. The Taoiseach and the Minister for Social, Family and Community Affairs, Deputy Dermot Ahern, are at odds about what this investigation involved. In his speech last Wednesday, the Taoiseach said that Mr. Ahern was examining the array of allegations about Mr. Burke when he went to London. Later that evening the Minister, Deputy Dermot Ahern, was at pains to point out that he was not examining an array of anything, but merely asking one man one question about one donation. I believe him.
If the Taoiseach had acted promptly and properly when he received the information about the Rennicks £30,000 donation last March, this debate could have been avoided, the Taoiseach would have been congratulated on his businesslike approach and there would have been no more than a short debate authorising the necessary inquiries. None of the questions asked last week would have been necessary. They would have been asked and answered by the inquiry which would have been established as soon as the Taoiseach asked that this be done. IfMagill had not publicised the matter, the Taoiseach would never have told the Tánaiste or this House and would never have ordered any of the inquiries now taking place. If the Vincent Browne radio show and today's newspapers had not run the new allegations, the Taoiseach would have furthered his concealment tonight.
Like a small boy caught robbing an orchard, the Taoiseach's reaction was a mixture of petrification and denial. Last Wednesday——

——we saw petrification in the Taoiseach's wholly inept and unconvincing explanation. Next he treated this House and the people to the unedifying spectacle of his rush to the high moral ground, the place for which he always heads when there is nowhere else to go.

It was last Thursday, not Wednesday, just in case there is an inquiry over it afterwards.

Was the Minister, Deputy Woods, told that the tribunal had only been informed of the £10,000? Was he told the truth before he went on radio or was he kept in the dark too?

The Deputy would have driven the peace process off the rails. He will do the same now if he is not careful.

Make that call.

Was the Minister for Social, Community and Family Affairs kept in the dark like the Tánaiste? Now that all has been revealed there will come from the Taoiseach the third phase, a blustering attempt at self-justification but it is too late.

A poor effort.

Two weeks ago the people, North and South, endorsed the finest achievement of politics and politicians in a generation, the British-Irish Agreement. Politics and politicians could hold their heads up high. Last week we were thrown back into the pit of distrust and deceit. This week it has become worse. We have been placed there by the Taoiseach and the Government. They have no one to blame and nowhere to hide.

The Taoiseach has fundamentally failed in his duty to the House, his Government partners, the profession he practises and the people. There are three issues of trust on which he has been found wanting. He allowed a misleading statement to the House given by the former Minister, Ray Burke, on 10 September last to go uncorrected despite knowing for at least two months that it was false. He and his party denied information to the Flood tribunal that Mr. Burke had received £30,000, not £10,000, from Rennicks despite being explicitly informed of this by that company's accountant before the affidavit was lodged. Fianna Fáil has sought to defend its duplicity by suggesting it was acting on legal advice. What was the nature of that advice? Was it verbal or written and does the Taoiseach intend to publish it?

The Taoiseach's disregard for this House and the tribunal extended to his Government partners. He revealed last week that he had concealed the information from the Tánaiste, his so-called Government partner — so much for partnership Government. The Tánaiste is now shouting stop but it is too late. I remind her of the words of her former colleague, Michael McDowell, writing in the Sunday Independent after the last election: “A party that does not stand for anything will stand for anything”. Speaking in the debate on the establishment of the McCracken tribunal last September the Tánaiste said:

We must rescue Irish political life from the ravages of understandable cynicism. We must be able to demonstrate that those who serve in public life are honourable. The people of this Republic deserve no less and they must get it.

Does she believe the Taoiseach has lived up to her expectations in the last two months?

The Taoiseach was not content to abuse the trust of this House, his Government partners and the tribunals of inquiry. In defending himself in this House last week he maligned a private citizen simply because it was he who confirmed to Fianna Fáil that Rennicks had given Ray Burke a cheque for £30,000, not £10,000. Yesterday Mr. David Byrne wrote to the Taoiseach requesting a correction of the record. Why has it not been forthcoming? Time prevents me from reading all the letter but I will read the relevant section:

I met Mr. Richardson and at all times I told him that the figure was £30,000 and I never never denied the fact. Indeed, I gave him a copy of the anonymous letter for his files. If one were to assume that Fianna Fáil and Mr. Richardson were not aware of the £30,000 when Mr. Richardson made contact with me, I consider that I was the person to alert Fianna Fáil to this payment of £30,000. The Taoiseach has a duty to correct the record and restore Mr. Byrne's good name and reputation.

It is my view and that of my party that decisions made by Ray Burke in Government must be subject to examination by an independent tribunal. There is a cloud over the decisions taken by the Government which included Deputies Mary O'Rourke, Séamus Brennan, Michael Woods, Dessie O'Malley and Bobby Molloy as well as the Taoiseach, a Government for whom only Ray Burke was deemed capable of handling the Communications portfolio.

The issuing of MMDS licences by Mr. Burke must be subject to scrutiny. Much has been written about this subject in the past few days. A few facts need repeating. It was improper for Mr. Burke to receive money from a company with a connection to another with which he was then dealing in relation to the issuing of State backed licences. What we already know about Mr. Burke's modus operandi and reports in the weekend's newspapers as to the amount of money in his “political account” indicate that any decision taken by him in Government is now open to question.

The Taoiseach and the Tánaiste are now on record that such an examination should take place, a fact seemingly overlooked by the Independent group of newspapers which has concentrated its considerable fire-power elsewhere, but how is this examination to be done? In a complete and total climb-down the Bill published today is the first recognition by the Government of the right of the Oireachtas to amend the terms of reference of a tribunal. It represents a negation of every argument employed by the Government, the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Deputy O'Donoghue, and the Attorney General since the Labour Party first tried to have the Ansbacher accounts included in the terms of reference of the Moriarty Tribunal.

I remind the House that at a Government meeting on or about Tuesday, 10 March the Government had before it a memorandum from the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform which contained two proposals for amending the tribunals Act, one a broad option which retained the initiative with the Houses of the Oireachtas and the other a narrow option which required the chairperson to request the change. The Taoiseach and the Government consciously and deliberately chose the narrowest possible option and only belatedly are they coming to realise the utter folly of this choice.

The sheer cynicism of that Government decision was forcefully pointed out by Deputy Upton in this House and Senator O'Meara in the Seanad. Their stand in pressing amendments is utterly vindicated by the complete U-turn engaged in by the Government here today, just two months after the first amending Bill was enacted by these Houses.

In every possible respect the Government's Bill is inferior legislation from that which I moved on behalf of the Opposition earlier today. In particular, I am concerned the Government's Bill may require the prior approval of the tribunal to an amendment to its terms of reference proposed by the Oireachtas. In addition, it retains the procedure whereby the Attorney General will have a role in unilateral consultations with tribunal chairpersons, a procedure which does not allow a role to the Opposition. For those reasons we will oppose the Bill on Second Stage and, if passed, will seek to amend it on Committee Stage.

It should be noted also that in replies from chairpersons of tribunals to letters I sent to them, which were published today, they do not appear to be keen to see their respective terms of reference amended. It is clear, to use the phrase employed by Ray Burke that, "the Government is trying to draw a line in the sand" under its lamentable performance on this issue over the past year. I hope for the Government's sake, and for the sake of politics, that the line in the sand is more substantive than its immediate forerunner.

There are two major issues involved in this debate, the motivation for and the implications of the Taoiseach giving this House material information that was untrue and the frenetic four day campaign by Independent Newspapers to defend the economic interests of their proprietor.

The Taoiseach misled the House on 8 October in respect of the origins of the £10,000 remitted to Fianna Fáil by Ray Burke in June 1989. We do not know it was inadvertent, but given that the office of Taoiseach is involved, it is proper there should be a presumption it was inadvertent until the contrary is proven.

Last Thursday the Taoiseach sought to explain it by taking shelter behind the Flood tribunal to explain why he acquiesced and participated in the promotion of the wrong view that the £10,000 was Gogarty-JMSE money. It was also his defence as to why he did not tell the Tánaiste in March when he claims he first discovered that the £10,000 in question came from the Fitzwilton subsidiary, Rennicks. We still do not know whether he told the Tánaiste about the £20,000 retained by Mr. Burke. He said, "an official came into my office to tell me this and I told them to make sure the tribunal gets everything.". We know now that the tribunal did not get everything. Although he knew Rennicks executives had confirmed they gave £30,000 to Fianna Fáil though Ray Burke, the affidavit to the tribunal made no mention of the £20,000 which Ray Burke had retained. Amazingly the Taoiseach told the House on Thursday, "A Mr. David Byrne on behalf of the company made contact to say that he had given no money at all, under any circumstances.". The Minister, Deputy Dermot Ahern, repeated a version of this denial on Thursday night's "Prime Time" programme with Deputy Quinn.

We now believe the same Mr. David Byrne has written to the Taoiseach reminding him that not only is the Taoiseach's version not true, but that Mr. Byrne asserted that £30,000 had been given to Ray Burke and that Fianna Fáil "must have been left shy of £20,000" and demanding that the record be put right. It is difficult to see how "inadvertent" can be tagged on to this latest contradiction.

Contradiction has now been piled on contradiction and the question is why? Why did the Taoiseach claim to have been up every tree in North Dublin — where, apparently, it is a fact there are trees — as part of his upside down inside out investigation of Ray Burke's suitability for Cabinet office when he knew no investigation worthy of the name took place? Why did he tell the House as recently as last Thursday that Minister Dermot Ahern travelled to London "to examine the array of allegations" made about Ray Burke and "whether he had received a donation from JMSE or others and the amount involved" when Minister Dermot Ahern said his mission was to go to London to ask Mr. Murphy one question and that was the extent of his mandate? Why did Minister Dermot Ahern, acquiesce in the Steve Silvermint role until, subjected to ridicule in the House last Thursday, he decided on "Prime Time" to drop his leader in it?

There never was an investigation by the Leader of Fianna Fáil into allegations that, if established, would have precluded the appointment of Ray Burke to Cabinet, but there was a carefully contrived public relations exercise designed to mollify the malleable Progressive Democrats and to facilitate the Cabinet appointment of Ray Burke. At least one prospective member of Cabinet, Minister Dermot Ahern, knew it was a sham and the remainder of the Cabinet, including the Leader of the Progressive Democrats, either knew it was a sham or were duped.

The Taoiseach has not explained why, if Deputy Spring put him in possession of the information in the anonymous note from Rennicks, he subsequently acquiesced in the Burke version of events? Perhaps it is possible that a casual encounter with Deputy Spring may have slipped his mind, but why did he acquiesce in the statement from Fianna Fáil headquarters confirming Ray Burke's version of the £10,000? That statement was unlikely to have been issued without the Taoiseach's knowledge and approval, given what was at stake.

The Taoiseach said on Thursday last that he "was told in early February that we would receive orders from the tribunal with which we would have to comply". Therefore, he knew what would be required of his party. He went on, inside and outside the House, to underline several times how his party gave full co-operation to the tribunal. For example, he said, "as soon as I got all the details, I gave them to the tribunal". We know now that for whatever reason the tribunal did not get all the details.

The Taoiseach stated on another occasion that "what matters most is how a political party reacts to knowledge when it becomes available". It is hard to gainsay that, but by his own yardstick he has reacted furtively; he has misled the Dáil, inadvertently or otherwise, and latterly given the Dáil information he knew to be incorrect. These are serious matters for any holder of the office of Taoiseach, but are more serious in the context of his failure to take seriously the allegations in the public domain against someone to whom he proposed to give a Cabinet office. This failure has since been compounded by his refusal, until the Magill story was published, to investigate any of the public policy decisions taken by Mr Burke as Minister that might have been influenced by the personal receipt of such a large amount of money.

Given the Taoiseach's failure to initiate inquiries into these issues, it fell to the Opposition to raise the pertinent questions. In particular, Deputy John Bruton drew attention to the possible conflict of interest in Mr Burke's acceptance of a large donation from a sister company of Princes Holdings to whom Mr Burke, as Minister, had awarded the lion's share of the MMDS licences.

Deputy Bruton pointed to the unusual circumstances in which the letter of February 1991 was written to Mr Joe Hayes, then managing director of Independent Newspapers; to the far reaching nature of the private assurances given "without bothering to survey, identify and exempt areas where it was physically impossible for Princes Holdings to provide any TV service" and he queried whether Mr. Burke had been influenced by the donation received two years earlier. In that regard it is interesting to note that the Minister of State, Deputy Cullen, has since gone on local radio in Waterford to advocate that the local deflector company be licensed.

Nobody in this House could have anticipated the fevered response of Independent Newspapers to this reasonable questioning. The fact that Deputy Bruton prefaced his remarks by observing that Dr. Tony O'Reilly is "an immensely successful businessman" who has "created jobs and wealth in Ireland which all Governments acknowledged" did nothing to stem the vituperative tide. "Lying letters, phantom meetings and calculated smears" screamed yet another front page editorial in the Irish Independent. As the tirade continued, one conclusion is inescapable: if ever there was a doubt about the undesirability of a dominant position in such a sensitive industry then the conduct of Independent Newspapers over the weekend removed that doubt.

Journalists and columnists were used in such an overkill to defend the economic interests of their proprietor that the public were given a glimpse of what abuse of dominant position means in practice. On a weekend radio programme a prominent senior counsel, not unconnected with Independent Newspapers, if disconnected from any party in this House now, first disputed whether the group had a dominant position and then conceded that perhaps it has what he called "a slightly dominant position". In fact, of the papers published in Ireland the Independent Group has 66 per cent of the daily and evening papers; 95 per cent of the Sunday papers, prior to the advent of Ireland on Sunday, and ten regional newspapers from Dundalk to Wexford to Kerry.

No matter how many hired hands are rounded up to defend the citadel, including today's appearance by the Minister of State, Deputy O'Dea, to sing for his supper, those figures represent a blatantly dominant position.

Columnist at large.

If Tony O'Reilly felt he had been traduced in the House, why could he not have issued a riposte which would have gained prominent coverage in all the media? The old lady of Middle Abbey Street has let her slip show and it is not a pretty sight.

I wish to take this opportunity to ask the Irish Independent if it is true that last Saturday it pulled a mildly critical piece by its regular columnist, Bruce Arnold? If the one dimensional fever had reached such a pitch at Independent House that a piece by a regular columnist with the track record of Bruce Arnold was censored, then those of us who hold a different view of the world from him know what to expect. I never believed that such deliberate censorship took place.

It did in the Soviet Union.

It did at the time of the advertisements.

I subscribed instead to the view that there was a measure of voluntary enslavement before the icon. However, if Bruce Arnold's copy was spiked, it represents a bad day for the role of the media in our democracy.

Why can Tony O'Reilly, as chairman of Fitzwilton, not make a statement setting out his point of view? For example, in favour of the Irish Independent case, it is true that at a meeting on local radio organised by Senator Séamus Cullimore between Mr. Burke as the Minister for Communications, Mr. Ray Doyle, managing director of People Newspapers and Mr. Dermot Walshe, then editor of the Wexford People, it was Mr. Burke who introduced Mr. Doyle and Mr. Walshe to the MMDS possibilities. Despite having been warned about the appearance of newspaper advertisements which were inaccessible to ordinary people, the Independent Group missed the deadline, was specially exempted and subsequently received the lion's share of the MMDS licences through Princes Holdings. This happened in late 1987/early 1988.

We need to know from the chairman of Fitzwilton the payments since 1987 made to political parties and politicians. After all, Mr. O'Reilly told Forbes magazine that because he owned 35 per cent of the newspapers in Ireland — he owns a larger percentage now — he was close to politicians so he could get the exploration blocks of his choosing. We also need to know if it is the case that Mr. O'Reilly made a single exceptionally large contribution to Fianna Fáil in 1994. Plain answers to straight questions would be appreciated rather than another fulminating editorial on the front or back pages.

At Question Time on 8 October the Taoiseach opined that the "unsubstantiated innuendo" against Mr. Ray Burke "may well fall away". The Taoiseach appears to have forgotten the McCracken conclusions:

It is quite unacceptable that a Member of Dáil Éireann, and in particular a Cabinet Minister and Taoiseach, should be supported in his personal lifestyle by gifts made to him personally. It is particularly unacceptable that such gifts should emanate from prominent businessmen within the State. The possibility that political or financial favours could be sought in return for such gifts, or even be given without being sought, is very high, and if such gifts are permissible, they would inevitably lead in some cases to bribery and corruption.

This debate is about corruption. There can be no doubt that in our system there is deep political corruption at the highest level. There can also be no doubt that the largest party in the State is deeply corrupt.

I beg the Deputy's pardon.

Fianna Fáil is now in the top five of the most corrupt parties in the world.

The Deputy should come into the real world.

Fianna Fáil is up there with the Christian Democrats in Italy and the RPI in Mexico.

How dare the Deputy?

It is in the top five.

That is not acceptable. The Deputy should withdraw that remark.

Fianna Fáil in Government has had a deeply corrupting influence on our political culture and society.

(Interruptions.)

I ask the Chair to request the Deputy to withdraw that scandalous remark which is totally false.

I ask Deputy Gormley to temper his language.

It is interesting that the Minister defended that point.

(Interruptions.)

Anything I did was absolutely proper. I do not have to think twice about it.

Do not push me.

Deputy Gormley without interruption.

Under the Taoiseach's leadership, Fianna Fáil has once again become the untouchable in Irish politics. Last week's speech by the Taoiseach was an exercise in concealment. He deliberately created confusion and clouded the issues. He misled the House.

There are glaring contradictions and inconsistencies in what the Taoiseach said in the past and what he told the House last week. Deputies may recall the Taoiseach's recent appearance on "The Late Late Show". He was asked by Mr. Gay Byrne, who is a good and loyal friend of Fianna Fáil, what characteristic made him such an effective politician. Mr. Byrne asked him if he was highly intelligent.

He will tell the Deputy that in the morning.

The Taoiseach modestly demurred and said he was not highly intelligent but he had a very good memory. A person rang in to confirm that the Taoiseach had a good memory and said he had a great eye for detail. This image of the Taoiseach does not square with his performance in the Dáil last week.

The Taoiseach is also a great negotiator. The Deputy missed that part.

The memory man was not in evidence last week. A poor unfortunate person in the latter stages of Alzheimer's disease would have made a better fist of it than the Taoiseach did last week.

That is despicable.

The memory man could not even remember a meeting with Deputy Spring when the former Tánaiste made serious allegations against Mr. Burke.

The Deputy is right in the gutter.

It was not a chance meeting. It involved an eminent politician and the Taoiseach expects the House to believe that he could not recall the meeting. This is incredible and difficult to accept. Perhaps on mature reflection the Taoiseach can now state whether he recalls that meeting with Deputy Spring.

Last week the Taoiseach refused to state unequivocally that Mr. Ray Burke's behaviour was totally unacceptable. He said, "I will not judge him". However, the Taoiseach judged him when he made him a Minister and he was supported fully by the Tánaiste in that move. The Progressive Democrats now claim that if they knew then what they know now, they would not have supported Mr. Burke's appointment. However, they continue to support a Taoiseach who continues to support Mr. Burke.

The Taoiseach's colleague, the Minister for Education and Science, Deputy Martin, said on Sunday that he was angry at Mr. Burke's behaviour and he found it unacceptable because it sent out all the wrong signals.

The Minister has gone missing.

He did not equivocate. However, the Taoiseach still cannot bring himself to state the obvious, that Mr. Burke's behaviour was wrong. The Taoiseach was not so hesitant during the Deputy Lowry affair when he stated that if members of his party had accepted large donations from business interests they should resign. He said we have to maintain the confidence of the public in the integrity of the political system. Yet, when he discovered that Mr. Burke accepted £30,000 from developers, he did not ask him to resign and he was supported by the Progressive Democrats.

The Taoiseach claimed that Mr. Burke was hounded out of office. However, having discovered that Mr. Burke misled the House and apparently misled Fianna Fáil, he still refused to state categorically that Mr. Burke's behaviour was unacceptable. This is most disquieting. The question many people are asking — Deputy Bruton mentioned this aspect — is whether Mr. Burke has something on the Taoiseach. The Taoiseach should clarify the exact nature of the relationship. If he does not do so, Mr. Burke will continue to slowly dig his political grave.

The public is becoming cynical about tribunals. They are seen as an easy way for lawyers to make large amounts of money but people appear to remain unpunished. For example, regarding the McCracken case, a file has been with the Director of Public Prosecutions for some time but we have not heard anything about it. Politicians must be seen to deal with this matter and we can do that in the House. We can clean up what is perceived to be the mess in politics. It is up to us and we must do it.

I move amendment No. 1:

To delete all words after "That" and substitute the following:

"Dáil Éireann noting the excellent work done by tribunals to date and confident that the existing Flood and Moriarty tribunals will complete their work effectively and efficiently

Welcomes the Government's intention to introduce, as a matter of urgency, legislation amending the Tribunals of Inquiry (Evidence) Acts so as to enable the Houses of the Oireachtas to resolve to change the terms of reference of a tribunal, subject to the consent of the sole member of the tribunal. The proposed amending legislation is attached hereto; Welcomes the Government's intention to seek, on the enactment of the necessary legislation, the consent of Mr. Justice Flood to the amendment of the terms of reference of the tribunal of which he is the sole member to establish whether payments were made to Mr. Raphael Burke in circumstances giving rise to a reasonable inference that the motive for making the payments was connected with any ministerial office held by him or had the potential to influence the discharge of such office."

PROPOSED AMENDING LEGISLATION

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