I was tempted to raise the readmission of Deputy Edward O'Keeffe to Fianna Fáil but——
Leaders’ Questions.
(Interruptions).
Deputy Kenny should go on.
Deputy Kenny does not want to raise the temperature.
It is the race to the bottom
Fianna Fáil might need him shortly. I recognise that the Taoiseach is away on official business. I expect the Tánaiste will be in touch with him today and I would like him to remind the Taoiseach I have a number of serious questions I would like him to answer when he returns. In the Tánaiste's less than 100% support for the Taoiseach in this House yesterday he claimed I was jumping to conclusions, that I had assumed the role of the Revenue Commissioners and that I was determining people's guilt. I made the point that I was asking the Tánaiste questions about facts that had emerged from the Taoiseach's mouth.
Yesterday the Tánaiste came to a conclusion and made an assertion and said in response to Deputy Gilmore that the Mahon tribunal had a "bogus dollar" claim. What evidence has the Tánaiste to back up that assertion? What proof has he that this is a bogus dollar claim? If he does not have that evidence, is he prepared to withdraw that remark? Speaking for the Government last night, Deputy Fahey said the Mahon tribunal is involved in a witch hunt against the Taoiseach. Does the Tánaiste believe that the Mahon tribunal is engaged in a witch hunt against the Taoiseach, yes or no?
I am not aware that is an accurate reflection of what Deputy Fahey said. Fine Gael is conducting a witch hunt. It is a political witch hunt that runs into sand regularly.
There are many witches out there.
It is going well.
I would listen to what the tribunal has to say about its workings and how we can best assist it. It is the best arbiter of how we should conduct ourselves on the proceedings there. In a formal statement at the beginning of this year the tribunal made it clear that it does not regard as helpful continuing evaluations on a weekly and daily basis, mostly from Fine Gael members in an effort to draw some partisan political advantage that might emerge. The tribunal has made it clear that is not helpful to the conduct of its proceedings. It affects the perception of fair play which the tribunal is anxious to uphold and which it will and must uphold.
The tribunals are not subject to the usual sub judice rules of court and hearsay and second-hand evidence can be brought forward. The allegation against the Taoiseach, on the basis of an assertion made by Mr. Tom Gilmartin, which has been of nine years standing, that he obtained a corrupt payment from Mr. Owen O’Callaghan, as far as I am aware has not been directly put to him yet. There is no supportive material in the interim to suggest it is true or has been corroborated.
On the bogus dollar claim, counsel for the Taoiseach does not agree with the theory the tribunal put forward. I do not often read the transcripts, but on that occasion it made the point that it was simply putting forward propositions, not advocating positions. The suggestion Deputy Kenny contends, that the tribunal holds that view, is not something even counsel for the tribunal suggests. It is simply putting a proposition to the Taoiseach for him to rebut it.
The Tánaiste should read the transcripts.
We have read them.
In Tullamore last weekend the Tánaiste said in one interview that the tribunal was able to do its work and was doing good work. The Taoiseach said the tribunal has a number of flaws. The Tánaiste did not answer the assertion he made yesterday that the tribunal has a bogus dollar claim. I understand it went through 1,200 permutations to arrive at its conclusion. How many did the Taoiseach's legal team deal with if the Tánaiste states in this House as a matter of fact that this is a bogus dollar claim? The Tánaiste has not said whether he believes that, as Deputy Fahey said last night on behalf of the Government, the tribunal is involved in a witch hunt against the Taoiseach.
It is not. He did not say that.
The statements made by Minister after Minister, including the greatest columnist of them all, the Minister, Deputy O'Dea, who has been making comments on this tribunal and its remit for a very long time, are the running commentaries.
Deputy Kenny should keep it accurate. He should tell the truth for a change and try to be straight.
Let us move on from this.
We will take no lessons in the truth from Fine Gael members. They would not know the truth if it bit them.
The Minister, Deputy O'Dea, takes his defence role seriously. Who is he defending?
Fianna Fáil would know a lot about the truth.
(Interruptions).
Deputy Kenny, without interruption.
The Opposition had its chance last year.
This is round two.
At last year's Humbert summer school in Ballina, the Tánaiste said that the Taoiseach, Deputy Bertie Ahern, was never the recipient of beneficial gain from his years in politics. Does the Tánaiste believe the statement of the chairman of the tribunal that it is investigating two and a half times the Taoiseach's known and admitted income in a 12-month period?
What is that statement?
The statement from the chairman of the tribunal that it was investigating two and a half times the Taoiseach's known and admitted income in a 12-month period.
According to Deputy Kenny, it is half a million euro.
In today's terms, it is the equivalent of half a million euro.
No, it is not. That is more dishonesty on the part of the Deputy and it is disingenuous of him.
It is two and half times his known and admitted salary.
Deputy Kenny should put his question to the Tánaiste, who should then reply.
We do not know the question.
Does the Tánaiste believe the statement of the chairman of the tribunal that it is investigating money received that was two and a half times his known and admitted income? In this House, the Taoiseach said that he had no tax issues, but at the tribunal he accepted that he had tax issues. In this House he said that there were no more accounts to be revealed, which is patently not the case given his evidence at the tribunal. He said that he would explain all the sources of all these moneys, but at the tribunal he either cannot or will not explain them. As his anointed successor, as Tánaiste and Minister for Finance and the person who will have to clean all this up, does the Tánaiste believe the Taoiseach's evidence, yes or no?
In case he is under any misapprehension, I want to make it clear to Deputy Kenny that the Taoiseach is giving his evidence truthfully, the same as other people at the tribunal. The evaluation of that evidence will be decided upon by the judges who have been appointed by the Oireachtas, not by the Deputy who is neither qualified nor able to evaluate that evidence.
Deputies
Hear, hear.
(Interruptions).
So the Tánaiste believes it.
Deputy Kenny is coming into the House every second day, asking whether I agree with this or that statement. If the man said it, I am sure it is true. That is what the judge is doing. That evidence has to be evaluated. It cannot be decided by Deputy Kenny. We will not have political mob rule in Parliament.
Deputies
Hear, hear.
The mob was out in force a few weeks ago.
All the Deputy's efforts to try to distract the Government will not work. The Government will continue to do its work. The only person who is not doing anything apart from coming in and dealing with this matter is the Deputy. In fairness to this man, he has something to say about other things, but the Deputy has nothing to say.
(Interruptions).
A Deputy
Does the Tánaiste believe him?
Beware the Trojan horse.
(Interruptions).
The Tánaiste has made my day. I hope I will make his day too.
Deputy Gilmore, without the chorus.
The Tánaiste's replies to Deputy Kenny and me yesterday and today are beginning to sound more and more like the chairman of the board of a club expressing full confidence in the manager. This time last year the FAI——
That only happens with the Labour Party.
——was expressing full confidence in Steve Staunton while he retained the confidence of the fans and the players.
The Tánaiste commented yesterday and today on the length of time the tribunal is taking. One of the delays the tribunal will encounter is the legal challenge that has been mounted by the Taoiseach, which he claims is on the basis of protecting parliamentary privilege. Of course that is not the case. It is an attempt by the Taoiseach to buy time. Will the Tánaiste ask the Taoiseach to withdraw his legal challenge to the workings of the tribunal so that it can conclude all this business much more quickly than will otherwise be the case because it will take six to nine months more for the tribunal to do its work if that legal challenge proceeds.
The Tánaiste also said yesterday — he referred to it again today — that the Taoiseach's appearances at the tribunal, the embarrassment he is suffering there and the consequences of that for Government are not distracting from the work of Government. Last autumn we witnessed the sad spectacle of nine women being recalled to a hospital in the Tánaiste's constituency because they were misdiagnosed. They had been given the all clear, but it turned out they had cancer. A woman in Galway was given the all clear on two occasions, but it also turned out she had cancer. There was the case of Ms Rebecca O'Malley, who was misdiagnosed in Limerick. We were promised reports on all those cases and those reports were to have been published before Christmas, outlining what happened, why these women were misdiagnosed and what went wrong. The last time I asked the Taoiseach about it, he said that the report dealing with the Portlaoise case would be published before the end of February. We are now at the end of February, so will that report be published in the next day or two?
The second matter is an issue in which people are far more interested. The Minister for Health and Children has asked the chief executive officer of the HSE to request a report on the circumstances that led to the decisions of the HSE to suspend breast radiology services at the hospital, to place a consultant radiologist on administrative leave and to initiate a clinical review of breast radiology services. That report, which was carried out by a review group led by Ms Ann Doherty of the National Hospitals Office, has been completed and submitted to the chief executive officer of the HSE and the Department of Health and Children. The Minister has also asked for a report from the board of the HSE on the management of all events starting from and subsequent to those decisions. That report, which was produced by Mr. John Fitzgerald, has been completed and will be examined by the board at a meeting on Thursday of this week.
A clinical report, conducted by Dr. Ann O'Doherty — the other report was produced by Ms Ann Doherty — has been the subject of legal issues raised by some of the parties named in it. The case has not yet been resolved to the satisfaction of legal advisers to the various parties. The Minister for Health and Children will publish those reports as quickly as possible.
Being from that constituency and knowing some of the people involved, I agree, as do other Deputies in the constituency, it is important that these reports are brought into the public domain as quickly as possible to find out what happened, how it happened and, as an exercise in accountability, make sure it does not happen again. We should also make sure that the best possible clinical support is available for the purposes of seeing how the treatment can be progressed and dealt with, hopefully, successfully.
I made the point that, while Deputy Kenny can give his opinion on the tribunal, score a few political points and get some advantage if possible — that is the cut and thrust of politics and we all understand that — he is not authorised by the Oireachtas to evaluate the evidence. It is the job of the three judges to evaluate the evidence.
Regarding the suggestion that the Taoiseach is in some way responsible for delays, the corollary of that argument is that he has less rights than other citizens who come before the tribunal in the event that issues of substance arise, based on his legal advice. Incidentally, Deputy Gilmore suggested yesterday that one of the issues upon which the Taoiseach was seeking legal advice was that he was depriving the tribunal of a report by Mr. Paddy Strong, an adviser to his legal team on certain matters that arose in the tribunal. That is not correct. The tribunal has the report. The issue is that the tribunal has suggested it wants to go behind that privileged relationship and seek the communications between the legal advisers and the expert they employed to help deal with the Taoiseach's side of the story regarding that matter. That is an issue of substance.
I remind the Deputy that when Judge Mahon had a contretemps with the Taoiseach’s counsel last Friday, he made the point that it is open to any person before the tribunal to seek legal redress in the courts on any issue. The tribunal does not in any way regard that as a wrong thing to do or a course of action that compromises it in any way. In fact, it would advise such action should any of the people before it feel strongly about any particular matters where procedures and fair play are involved because, unlike some Members of this House, it wants to see an objective assessment and evaluation of all the evidence, with the full rights and entitlements of all those before it being respected. The Taoiseach is making the point in relation to one of the matters he is bringing for judicial review in a court action that he is obliged not to give the information he gives in this House. His legal advice, which is based on constitutional provisions in Bunreacht na hÉireann, is not that he should be obliged to give this information but that he is obliged not to give it.
These are matters of substance and other matters of substance brought by counsel for the tribunal and others have been adjudicated on by the High Court and Supreme Court. I invite Deputies to read the Supreme Court judgments in which strong views are expressed by eminent members of the Judiciary on certain issues that came before the court. There are fair procedures to be adjudicated on. The right to constitutional and natural justice is an unenumerated constitutional right in case law and before the courts. It is available to every citizen, however humble or eminent.
Two issues arise from the Tánaiste's reply. First, it is perfectly clear that the whole issue of the tribunal and the Taoiseach is transfixing the Government and distracting its attention from the issues which affect the people.
It is transfixing the Opposition.
Last autumn, the country was scandalised by the problems experienced by a group of women and the sad case of these women walking into a clinic on a Saturday morning to find out if they had cancer. Now that the issue has disappeared from the headlines, it has been forgotten about. The report which was supposed to be produced by the Minister for Health and Children, Deputy Harney, has not materialised. It was promised for November but was not delivered. It was then promised for the end of February and it is clear it will not be delivered by then either. When I ask the Tánaiste about the report the only response he can give is to read a prepared statement.
The tribunal did not stop the report.
The women in question are entitled to a response. It is clear the Government is not giving the matter the priority it deserves.
As for the position of the Taoiseach, it is as clear to the Tánaiste as it is to every Deputy on this side of the House and most Members on the Government side that Deputy Ahern's days as Taoiseach are numbered. The Minister for Defence, Deputy O'Dea, need not smile. He took an each way bet on Sunday by having two articles in the Sunday Independent, one defending the Taoiseach and the other praising the Minister for Finance. He cannot lose.
It was nothing less than they deserve.
(Interruptions).
Every Member of the House and members of the general public now know that the Taoiseach's days are numbered. The issue to be faced up to is whether his departure from office will be long and painful or whether the Tánaiste will act. What really matters now is not so much what the Tánaiste says as what action he will take. The half-hearted defence he has given the Taoiseach over the past two days does not fill me with a great deal of confidence that his support will continue. The sooner the Tánaiste acts by gathering around himself a couple of senior Ministers, knocking on the Taoiseach's door and telling him the game is up and the country needs to move on from the scandalous and embarrassing position in which the Taoiseach has placed it as a result of the convoluted and unbelievable evidence he has given before the tribunal, the better for all of us.
Given the adversarial nature of our political system, there is nothing I can say to the Deputy that would fill him with sufficient confidence. His job is to try to ebb confidence away from the Government. He is not interested in confidence in the Government. That is my first point.
My second point is meant slightly humorously. If ever I want advice on coups or conspiracies, I can knock on the door of former Workers Party activists who would give me a lecture in democratic centralism.
The Tánaiste is dredging the barrel.
They know how to get rid of the evidence.
I want to make a serious point, one which I made yesterday. I read comments by Deputy Gilmore in a good speech he made in May 1997 when the tribunal was being established.
The Tánaiste must have very little to do if he is reading speeches I made in 1997.
I have good researchers.
Even I do not read them.
I did not do the hard left trick of repeating comments without attributing them, allowing the Deputy who made them to disagree with them and then pointing out to him that he made them. In 1997, Deputy Gilmore made a point that is relevant to today's debate on what we should do in the current circumstances. He stated that if we are to lift the suspicions, serve the people properly and let the tribunal get on with its job and come to conclusions as expeditiously as possible, it is important that we get on with our job and allow the tribunal to get on with its job. We have a continuous effort to bring its work into the House for predictable, party political purposes under the guise of statesmanship and standards and all the old guff that emanates from that side of the House and is part of its tradition.
Who is obstructing the tribunal?
We need to get on with business. We are here to do the business and are getting on with our job. We would like the Opposition to engage also because that is what people want.
To address the issue that is more germane, as Deputy Quinn pointed out, the reports in question will be published as quickly as possible. A legal problem has arisen with regard to one of the reports, while another will come before the board of the Health Service Executive on Thursday. I see no reason it could not be published following consideration by the board.