My party believes that the public have a right to know. That is why the Progressive Democrats has put this motion before the House. A judicial inquiry is the only way in which the full facts can be brought out. It is nearly two weeks since we heard of the alleged payments by Dunnes Stores to Deputy Michael Lowry.
We all owe a debt of gratitude to the press for bringing these issues into the public domain. I dissociate myself and my party from the attacks made on the professional integrity of some of the journalists reporting this story. Surely we can recognise that a free press is a vital part of any democratic society. Nearly two weeks have elapsed since the story first broke and there has been no satisfactory explanation from Deputy Lowry or the Taoiseach as to what really went on. We have posed a number of simple and straightforward questions both inside and outside this House. It is incumbent on the Taoiseach to provide answers to those questions on behalf of his former Minister and his Government.
First, did Dunnes Stores pay over £200,000 for work done on Deputy Lowry's house? Second, were the full details of this transaction notified to the Revenue Commissioners? Third, did Mr. Ben Dunne, or any company in which he had an interest, benefit financially from any decision made by Deputy Lowry during his period as Minister for Transport, Energy and Communications? Fourth, did any Fine Gael Member of the Oireachtas make representations to the Minister for Finance or his Department on behalf of Dunnes Stores or the Dunne family seeking changes in the tax laws? Fifth, when did Deputy Lowry first become aware of the existence of the Price Waterhouse report and the import of its contents? These are simple and straightforward questions, yet almost two weeks later we are still waiting for the answers. Does anybody on the Government benches think these questions are difficult or complicated? If they do, they should ask any of the ordinary taxpayers of this country where they got the money to buy their house. It would not take them two weeks to give an answer. They would not even need two minutes. We need straight answers to straight questions.
The electorate have a right to expect that political parties will keep their principles intact when moving from Opposition to Government. When in Opposition, Fine Gael, Democratic Left and, above all, the Labour Party took a long-term lease on the high moral ground. For a while, it seemed as if the new morality would survive the transition to Government. The resignation of Deputy Hogan and the demotion of Deputy Coveney led us to believe that the highest standards would be observed. That was not to be the case. Once Labour Party Ministers began to find themselves in the frame, the ground rules were quickly changed. There was no question of resignation when the Minister of State, Deputy Eithne Fitzgerald, was found selling access to the Minister for Finance at £100 a go in the context of the 1996 budget. There was no question of resignation when the Minister for Arts, Culture and the Gaeltacht, Deputy Michael D. Higgins used the head of a State body to raise funds for his constituency party in Galway West. It was hardly surprising that there was no question of resignation last month when the Minister for Justice singlehandedly rewrote the laws of this country and proclaimed that nobody, least of all the Minister, is responsible for what happens in the Department of Justice. Deputy Hogan must feel hard done by when he sees the cynical way in which other Members of this Government have dodged responsibility for their actions.
The continuing fall in standards is all the more remarkable when the self-righteous way in which this Administration conducts itself is considered. No previous Government in the history of this State has made so much play of its commitment to openness, transparency and accountability, made such opportunistic use of ethics in public office as a political issue or so loudly proclaimed its moral superiority over its opponents. Last week in this House the Tánaiste circulated a script in which he referred to one of the Opposition parties as "chancers", a remark he was later forced to withdraw. This is the Government that was to carry out its business as if behind a pane of glass. It is time we sent for the window cleaners.
The Government's handling of this affair has left a lot to be desired. It began following the press revelations about the payments to Deputy Lowry, with the Taoiseach's preposterous suggestion that different ethical standards might apply to Opposition front bench Deputies as opposed to when that Deputy became a Minister. Despite his efforts to row back, the Taoiseach attached clear significance to the fact that the events concerned took place before Deputy Lowry became a Minister. The Taoiseach showed himself to be out of touch with the mood of the times when it came to the disclosure of political contributions from Dunnes Stores. At first, his party decided to say nothing. Then, in the small hours of the morning, shamed by the frankness and openness of all the other parties in this House, he finally came clean and admitted Fine Gael had received £180,000 from Dunnes Stores. He said this money was received over a seven year period. Perhaps he might use the opportunity of this debate to be more precise. Is it not the case that the bulk of this money was paid in a short space of time in 1992 and 1993? Is it not the case that these contributions resulted from Deputy Lowry's unorthodox relationship with Dunnes Stores, about which serious questions remain unanswered?
During last week's debate on Minister Lowry's resignation, the Minister for Social Welfare, Deputy De Rossa, used his speech to launch a blistering attack on Dunnes Stores and the way in which the company deals with its staff. Apparently Deputy De Rossa has no difficulty sharing Government with a Fine Gael party financed by contributions from the same company. At the heart of the present controversy lies a document listing payments by Dunnes Stores to various individuals, some private, some public, as alleged in our national newspapers. That document should be published in full and investigated in depth. The people are entitled to no less.
Only a public inquiry can achieve both of these objectives. The public will not be satisfied with the kind of "pass the parcel" arrangement cobbled together by the Government. The secretary to the Government will hand the document to a retired judge. He will select certain names from it and hand it on to the Ceann Comhairle who will then hand it on to the Committee of Procedure and Privileges who will then hand it on to a sub-committee. That sub-committee will have no power to investigate, compel witnesses, request documents or to censure. The whole matter will be a damp squib. Money will be spent, time wasted and at the end of the day the people will be none the wiser as to what went on. So much for openness, transparency and accountability. Does anybody really believe that this ludicrous exercise in paper shuffling is an adequate response to the crisis of public confidence which now threatens the political system? Mr. Buchanan is a fine upright individual and the Committee on Procedure and Privileges is an excellent body. It has a distinguished chairman in the person of the Ceann Comhairle. Nobody is questioning their integrity or ability but without proper investigatory powers their efforts will be useless.
Confidence in the political system is at a low ebb and it will not be restored if, in the middle of the biggest scandals in recent years, politicians are not willing to let the truth come out. That simply will not wash. This House has a duty to uphold the integrity of our democratic system, serve the public interest and ensure that all the facts are made available. We have all the powers we need to discharge those duties and the only question is whether we have the political courage to use them to the full and face the truth they may reveal. If so, there is one realistic option available to us: the establishment of a tribunal of inquiry, as provided for under the Tribunals of Inquiry Act, 1921.
In the wake of the beef tribunal it became fashionable in political and media circles to ridicule the whole idea of judicial inquiries. The beef tribunal cost too much, it went on too long, it did not really get to the bottom of all the issues and the public interest was not adequately represented. Everybody, it seemed, had their own legal representation at Dublin Castle except the taxpayer. We have all learned from the shortcomings of the beef tribunal and the same mistakes will not be made again.
The judicial inquiry is one of the most valuable tools a democracy has available to it when it comes to discovering the truth. Would anybody question the very valuable work done by the Bantry Bay tribunal or the Stardust tribunal? I do not think so.
In recent months, the Government instituted a tribunal of inquiry into the hepatitis C scandal. That decision was supported by everybody in this House, by the victims involved and the public. It could be said that in setting up a tribunal the Government was belatedly responding to the mounting pressure of public opinion for such an inquiry. That inquiry under Mr. Justice Finlay has made excellent progress to date. Even those who were highly critical of the beef tribunal have been impressed by the efficiency with which the Finlay tribunal is going about its business. Mr. Fintan O'Toole, a journalist with The Irish Times, who has taken a keen interest in the workings of both the beef tribunal and the hepatitis C tribunal has spoken highly of the achievements of the latter. Earlier this week he said the victims of the hepatitis C scandal had learned more in the first hour of evidence before the tribunal than they had in the previous two years. The hepatitis C tribunal may be in a position to present an interim report to the Government very shortly and may complete its work by February or March 1997. I know of no right thinking person who does not believe the tribunal is doing a valuable and important job in an efficient and effective manner. The decision to establish that tribunal shows there is agreement that, in the appropriate circumstances, tribunals of inquiry are good and necessary.
In the hepatitis C scandal the State poisoned thousands of innocent people. In the Ben Dunne-Price Waterhouse-Deputy Lowry affair there is a fear that private money threatens to poison our whole democracy. Are the circumstances serious enough to warrant a public inquiry? I believe they are. There are reports that very senior officials in the local government system, serving Members of the Oireachtas, senior officials in the political parties and a number of former Government Ministers may have received unorthodox payments. In the absence of clarification and explanation the rumour mill is in overdrive. Not only has a shadow of suspicion been cast over every single Member of the Oireachtas, the integrity of our whole system of parliamentary democracy is being called seriously into question. If these strange and exceptional circumstances do not warrant the establishment of a public inquiry, what does? We are told that a tribunal of inquiry would take too long. Our motion takes account of this criticism. It stipulates that the tribunal's work should be carried out as speedily as possible within a target completion date of 90 days. We are told that a tribunal of inquiry will cost too much, yet those people on the Government benches who do not want to spend public money on a tribunal are the people who want to spend millions of pounds of taxpayers' money funding political parties. They are not prepared to spend public money to find out the truth but they are prepared to give public money to politicians so that they can pay for their election campaign.