I wish to share my time with Deputy Howlin.
Private Members' Business (Resumed). - Ministerial Appointment: Motion (Resumed).
The following motion was moved by Deputy Noonan today:
That Dáil Éireann:
–noting the Government's failure to persuade or require Mr. Hugh O'Flaherty to avail of the opportunity to explain his actions in regard to the Sheedy affair to the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Equality, Defence and Women's Rights; and
–noting the unusual provisions of the Courts (Supplemental Provisions) (Amendment) Act, 1999
condemns the appointment of Mr. Hugh O'Flaherty by the Minister for Finance to the post of vice-president of the European Investment Bank.
Debate resumed on amendment No. 1:
To delete all words after "Dáil Éireann" and substitute the following:
"notes the nomination of Mr. Hugh O'Flaherty by the Minister for Finance for appointment by the board of governors to a post of vice-president of the European Investment Bank.".
–(Minister for Finance).
Is that agreed? Agreed.
I bring to the attention of the House the fact that we are not being asked to approve this nomination in the Government's amendment, we are simply asked to note it. The significance of that verb should not go unnoticed.
I am sure that, when the decision to appoint Mr. O'Flaherty to the European Investment Bank was being discussed by the Taoiseach and the Minister for Finance, the plight of the Ryan family and how they would react to Mr. O'Flaherty's elevation must have been discussed. It is impossible to see how it could not have arisen. Ultimately and unfortunately, concern about the Ryan family was considered to be of secondary importance to Fianna Fáil's key concern that one of their own, Hugh O'Flaherty, was looked after.
In its essence, the Sheedy case was about two forms of justice and two different legal systems, one for the golden circle and another for other citizens. It is telling then that what may probably be the final act in this saga, the appointment of Mr. O'Flaherty last Friday, confirms that view. We do not know fully the circumstances in which Mr. Sheedy was released from prison or the motivation of those involved. It looks like we will never know, Deputy Briscoe notwithstanding. Even an Oireachtas committee could not get to the bottom of the matter. My party's view of Mr. O'Flaherty is coloured by his failure to account for his actions.
Whatever benefit of the doubt I was prepared to give the Fianna Fáil Party last year disappeared on Friday. Only it is responsible for the construction put on last year's events by commentators, the Opposition and the public. Looking back on it, Friday's decision was sadly predictable. From the attempts by Fianna Fáil to exonerate both Judges Kelly and O'Flaherty to the now infamous dash to Herbert Park, the writing was on the wall.
Just as I do not know enough about why Philip Sheedy was released from prison, neither do I know, nor will I ever know, if this deal was cooked up this time last year or whether comforting words and knowing nods sufficed at that time. However, every member of the public suspects that Friday's act was the final chapter of some kind of arrangement. The fact that no file exists in the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform on the negotiations that took place officially with Judges Kelly and O'Flaherty only adds to the suspicion.
Are we really being asked to believe that the Minister's starting position was that he found himself with a vacancy and searched for the most eligible and qualified candidate? I suspect the opposite is the case. He started with a candidate and searched for a well paid vacancy. Was every Minister given a similar instruction and the Mini ster for Finance merely the man who came up with the goods first? Technically, the decision to appoint may have been made by the Minister for Finance, but he made sure to secure approval from all his Government colleagues, although the Tánaiste has clearly lost touch with both her party and her constituency.
Ultimately, executive responsibility lies with the Taoiseach. So much for the Taoiseach who presents himself as the common man. Like any true conservative, he disguises his special regard for the golden circle and the establishment by a folksy appeal to the public. However, one can scarcely believe that he could be so contemptuous of public concern. At the last election his party campaigned on a platform of "People Before Politics". The true meaning of that slogan is now more than clear. It is the Taoiseach's people before politics. The Taoiseach's contempt for politics is unprecedented. He knows his party is the likely beneficiary of a phenomenon that will drive frustrated and disillusioned people from the polls and party politics.
The Taoiseach's style is beginning to jar. A pattern of behaviour has been established with the Ray Burke affair, the Ansbacher saga, the Rennicks payment, the blank cheques and his indifference to the revelations about Deputy Foley. If the Taoiseach can get away with doing nothing, nothing will be done. From the implementation of the national development plan to planning the underground, overground or up in the air Luas, decision-making has ground to a halt. On the important issue of asylum seekers, we had to wait until the Taoiseach's visit to Australia before he chose to make an intervention. It is a pity he bothered to do so.
The leader of the Fianna Fáil Party is the only party leader who has failed to produce proposals to resolve the crisis surrounding the funding of politics. He apparently wants the link between business and politics to stay and in an attempt to achieve his goal, he wants to park the issue in a committee for at least six months. Since his election to the office of Taoiseach, with the exception of Northern Ireland, leadership has been conspicuous only by its absence.
I do not know Hugh O'Flaherty well. He seems to be regarded as a pleasant, intelligent and capable man. However, his refusal to account for or explain his actions to the Dáil last year has made him unsuitable for appointment to a critical public position, however consistent it might be with the Government's approach to European issues.
However, tonight's debate is not about Mr. O'Flaherty but about the Taoiseach. It is about the loss of trust in a Taoiseach who, when it was expedient to do so, forced Mr. O'Flaherty to step aside last year following threats to impeach him. This is the same Taoiseach who resurrects him this year to an important post without any change in circumstances, save the passage of time. I have not been in politics for as long as Deputy Briscoe but I have been in it for some time during which I have seen some strokes pulled, but this, as Frank Cluskey used to say, is about the worst of them. The Government and the Taoiseach will reap their reward.
A man who was forced out of judicial office to restore confidence in the system is now being rewarded by this appointment. His appointment to this post by the Taoiseach, the Tánaiste and the Minister for Finance has brought politics further into disrepute.
The decision by the Taoiseach and the Minister for Finance to nominate the former Mr. Justice Hugh O'Flaherty to the position of vice-president of the European Investment Bank indicates a Government without standards, values or any sense of political judgment. It indicates a Government which is arrogant, has no regard for people's opinion, has lost touch not only with its supporters but with its backbenchers and is in its dying days. The decision also clearly tells us that we have a Minister for Finance who has become so arrogant he can be contemptuous of public opinion.
The leader of the Labour Party, Deputy Quinn, said that the amendment proposed by the Minister is interesting. It asks the Dáil to note, not support, commend or agree with, the nomination of Mr. Hugh O'Flaherty. Although the Minister might respond that it is a pro forma action in that the assent of the House is not required, it is normal for the Executive to seek the assent and support of the House when there is a challenge to its decision. To merely note it is an indication of how weak is the ground on which the Minister for Finance perceives the Government to be standing.
The decision of the Tánaiste to meekly endorse the decision to nominate Mr. O'Flaherty indicates that the Progressive Democrats has abandoned its self-proclaimed role as the watchdog of Fianna Fáil in Government and is now willing to serve out the remainder of this Government's term of office as a compliant lapdog for its senior partner.
The Labour Party has been a consistent opponent of many of the Progressive Democrats' policies since its inception, especially its right wing economic ones. However, like many people, I have always had a genuine and strong regard for the personal and political integrity of many members of the Progressive Democrats. On many occasions they have taken a stand for standards in office, sometimes at considerable cost to themselves. We all remember the striking "standing by the Republic" speech made in this House to which all of us could rally. It is difficult to believe a decision such as that being debated tonight would have been approved by the Progressive Democrats when Deputy O'Malley was leader of that party.
The explanations offered by anonymous spokespersons for the Tánaiste that the Progressive Democrats "could not oppose everything" and that "this was Fianna Fáil's call" are just too feeble for words, too inadequate and pathetic to justify a response. We are informed that the Tánaiste has made herself unavailable for public comment or interview in respect of this matter—
That makes a change.
—until she hears directly the views of her parliamentary party tomorrow. One would not have thought this would prove to be a major job.
In May of last year the Tánaiste, Deputy Harney, locked herself away in her Department for days on end and was willing to bring down the Government until the Taoiseach issued a statement of apology to her because she believed he had not honoured a commitment he had given to her that he would inform the Dáil that he had earlier made inquiries of the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform about the Sheedy case. Who was the intermediary between the collapsing Government and the embattled Tánaiste locked in her ivory tower on that occasion? It happened to be the Minister for Finance, the author of the order which is the subject of this debate.
When one reflects on the position that obtained last year, it is clear that the new Progressive Democrats order dictates that a personal snub to the Tánaiste is regarded as sufficient grounds to threaten to bring down the Government. On the other hand, it is obvious that a patently inappropriate appointment, which flies in the face of logic and public opinion and which will clearly do further significant damage to public confidence in the political system, to a senior European position is grounds merely for a helpless shrug of the shoulders from the Progressive Democrats.
At a time when the standing of politics and the political system has never been at a lower ebb, the last thing we need is an appointment of the nature proposed in the Government amendment. This appointment will inevitably give rise to further suspicion among the public of cronyism, secret deals and debts being repaid.
Let us remember that just over 12 months ago Mr. O'Flaherty was forced to resign from the Supreme Court under the unprecedented threat of impeachment by the Dáil, a threat delivered not from these benches but in unambiguous terms in the letter authored by the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Deputy O'Donoghue, on behalf of the Government which stated:
I have been asked to advise you that the Government will consider, at its meeting next Tuesday, proposing resolutions for the consideration of the two Houses of the Oireachtas, pursuant to Article 35.4.1 for your removal on the grounds that the facts admitted to the Chief Justice or established by him in his report, amount to misbehaviour within the meaning of the said provision of the Constitution.
That was the view expressed by the Government.
I listened with interest to the apologia for a friend given by Deputy Briscoe which was couched, here and there, with a little innuendo. It was not, however, comments from the media or from these benches which led to the removal from office of Mr. Hugh O'Flaherty last year; it was the unambiguous threat, authored by the Government, signed by the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform and delivered to Mr. O'Flaherty, that demanded his resignation forthwith on pain of impeachment. It is like being in the twilight zone here this evening. People have forgotten history and changed the facts to suit the occasion. Are we all supposed to suffer from the same dementia and forget what occurred at the time?
The threat issued by the Government was one of unprecedented seriousness. Never before in the almost 80 years of our independence has a Government felt it necessary to issue a similar threat. The letter, signed by the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, was issued on foot of a report, which was itself unprecedented, from the Chief Justice, Mr. Liam Hamilton, who found that the actions of his colleague, Mr. Justice O'Flaherty, in involving himself in the Sheedy case were "inappropriate and unwise" and were "damaging to the administration of justice".
Following that affair, in April 1999, Mr. O'Flaherty pronounced himself available to appear before the Joint Committee on Justice, Equality, Defence and Women's Rights. He proffered the view, as an eminent member of the Judiciary, that there was no constitutional debar on his providing evidence to the committee. However, a month later when he had left office he suddenly indicated that, in his opinion, he was constitutionally debarred from giving evidence. As a serving member of the Supreme Court he felt there was no debar but one month later when he no longer held that office he found himself to be debarred. That is inexplicable.
A mere 12 months ago we were in the midst of a serious political, legal and constitutional crisis in which Mr. O'Flaherty was a central figure. A year later, history is being rewritten. The criticisms made by the Chief Justice have been forgotten. Mr. O'Flaherty's U-turn in refusing to co-operate with a committee of the House following his resignation and his financial compensation package, which was rushed through the House, are to be ignored. He is now the innocent victim who did no wrong. The statement issued by the Department of Finance last Friday announcing his appointment to the European Investment Bank simply stated that Mr. O'Flaherty "was a justice of the Supreme Court until 1999". Anyone who was not familiar with the story would conclude from the Minister for Finance's statement that Mr. O'Flaherty retired with the gold watch, after an uneventful career, with no questions left unanswered.
I have spoken on the Sheedy case and its fallout on a number of occasions in this House. Each time I emphasised that while judicial resignations had been caused, reputations damaged and families put under stress, we should never lose sight of the fact that those who have suffered most are the members of the late Anne Ryan's family.
Hear, hear.
As I remarked on previous occasions, nothing could compensate the Ryan family for their loss but they had the right to expect that if and when the person who caused the action was charged, convicted and sentenced, then justice would be allowed to take its course. All that has happened to shake the legal system has flowed from what was clearly an attempt to ensure that justice did not take its normal course and that, in effect, the course of justice would be interfered with.
The mess in which the Government now finds itself is entirely of its own making. There are many people in public life in this country – in politics, in administration and in the financial sector – who could have adequately filled the position in question. However, the Minister for Finance ignored these people and made a peculiar decision which has been endorsed by the Taoiseach and in respect of which the Tánaiste remains silent.
No Government or Minister likes to have a decision reversed once it has been announced and placed in the public domain. However, it is clear that unless the decision made by the Minister for Finance, Deputy McCreevy, is reversed it will do serious damage to our political system. Is there nobody on the Government benches who is prepared to shout "Stop"?
Debate adjourned.