Second Interim Report of the Tribunal of Inquiry into Certain Planning Matters and Payments: Motion (Resumed).

The following motion was moved earlier today by the Minister for the Environment and Local Government, Deputy Cullen:

That Dáil Éireann:

– notes the findings of the Interim Report of the Tribunal of Inquiry into Certain Planning Matters and Payments;

– condemns the actions of those against whom the tribunal has made findings;

– commends the work of Mr. Justice Flood and his legal team; and

– expresses its continuing support for the ongoing work of the tribunal.

Debate resumed on amendment No. 1:

To delete all words after "Dáil Éireann:" and substitute the following:

– condemns the conduct of former Deputy Ray Burke;

– deplores the failure of the Taoiseach to properly investigate the allegations against Ray Burke, prior to appointing him as Minister for Foreign Affairs and to explain why he did not speak to Mr. James Gogarty on the issue;

– calls on the Taoiseach to fully explain the extent to which he was aware of the allegations against Ray Burke before he appointed him to his Government;

– calls on the Tánaiste to disclose details of the assurances given to her by the Taoiseach in relation to Ray Burke which led her to accept Mr. Burke's appointment;

– demands that the Government investigate all Government decisions prompted by Ray Burke when he was a Minister;

– calls on the Taoiseach to provide details of any report or evidence supplied to him by former Taoiseach Albert Reynolds prior to appointing Ray Burke to the senior and sensitive Ministry of Foreign Affairs;

– calls on the Taoiseach to provide details of investigations carried out by his ministerial colleagues into allegations of misconduct by Ray Burke;

– demands that Dáil Éireann now set up a permanent anti-corruption commission and a land development agency commission as proposed by Fine Gael; and

– requests that the Taoiseach and the Tánaiste both answer questions arising from the report for a period of one hour at the conclusion of the debate.

– (Deputy Kenny).

An Ceann Comhairle: Deputy Howlin was in possession. He has 13 minutes remaining.

Mr. Howlin:

Before the adjournment of this debate, I was giving a chronology of events leading to the appointment by the Taoiseach of Mr. Raphael Burke to his Cabinet. I was indicating that on 24 June 1997 Deputy Dermot Ahern reported to the Taoiseach that JMSE was denying making a payment to Mr. Burke. Why would a company, being asked in confidence by a senior member of the party it supported, deny making a political donation to another senior member of that party if that donation was above board and satisfactory? However, by 27 June, the Taoiseach was able to tell the Tánaiste that the payment JMSE claimed had not been made had actually been made. How was he in a position to do so? We do not know.

In the Dáil on 28 May the Taoiseach sought to suggest, among other things, that he was not aware of the donation from JMSE to Mr. Burke until Mr. Burke's statement in the Dáil about the affair. What we do know is that he certainly did not ask Mr. Burke himself, or if he did, he denied doing so in this House when asked that particular question by Deputy Quinn on 28 May 1998.

The Taoiseach has since sought to suggest that he did not mean what he said on that fateful day, 28 May 1998, but his colleague Deputy Dermot Ahern thought he knew the line to follow. He thought the line the Taoiseach presented originally was the one he was supposed to defend. In defence of the position he thought the Taoiseach was then adopting, which was that the Taoiseach was ignorant of the JMSE payment, as related by the Taoiseach to this House, Deputy Dermot Ahern told the Dáil that the Taoiseach was in no position to know about the Burke payment.

In fairness to Deputy Dermot Ahern, it is very difficult to slavishly follow one's master when one does not know where he has been or where he is going. However, if Deputy Dermot Ahern was not confused at that stage, he must surely have got a shock when the Tánaiste, a year later, informed the Flood tribunal that she had been informed by the Taoiseach of the payment to Mr. Burke prior to Mr. Burke's appointment on 27 June and that she thought the payment was okay. True to form, Deputy Dermot Ahern does not seem to be unduly troubled by this particular chain of events, or if he was, he certainly did not indicate this to the rest of us.

Deputy Dermot Ahern was not the only one to look the other way when these clear contradictions of the official line became apparent. Despite her evidence to the Flood tribunal, the Tánaiste was not unduly bothered when the Taoiseach told the Dáil on 28 May 1998 that: "On the day I appointed the then Deputy Burke as Minister I was working on the understanding that no money had been given to him". Did he or did he not know? Deputy Dermot Ahern's aforementioned restating of the position in the Dáil on 3 June does not seem to have impacted on his conscience too much either.

Perhaps the Tánaiste's conscience was troubling her anyway. Her recent statement that she accepted the Taoiseach's assurances on the Burke appointment does not represent her finest hour in Irish politics. The reality is that her knowledge of the existence and seriousness of the allegations against Mr. Burke was considerable. I have already informed the House in my earlier contribution that she had been informed of the payment to Mr. Burke from JMSE by her own source within JMSE. She seems not to have winced when told by the Taoiseach that the Minister for Foreign Affairs designate had received £30,000, an enormous sum at the time, from a building company despite ongoing and serious speculation about corruption in her own local authority area. It seems not to have bothered her in the slightest.

More importantly, she told the Flood tribunal that she raised the matter with the Taoiseach and that she continued to discuss it with him until the morning of 27 June, the day that Raphael Burke was appointed to the Cabinet. Why is this important? It is important because on 24 June, three days before the appointment, Deputy Dermot Ahern told the Taoiseach that the donation had not been made. Did the Taoiseach tell this to the Tánaiste? If not, why not? If so, why did the Tánaiste not appreciate the significance of a payment claimed to have been received but the making of which was denied? If she did not know on 27 June, why did she not bring the whole house down when she became aware of the Taoiseach's deception in this matter?

The Tánaiste certainly received additional information about the alleged JMSE payment in the immediate aftermath of her connivance in the formation of that Government. She was informed of Mr. Gogarty's allegations by her party colleague, then Mr. McDowell, now the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, and by Mr. Gogarty himself by letter in July 1997. However, having presided over a disastrous election campaign, the Tánaiste did not feel able to rise above the action and colluded further in the exclusion of Raphael Burke's name from the original terms of reference of the Flood tribunal that came before this House.

It was nearly a year later, when the Tánaiste was dealing with the Taoiseach's evasiveness on another matter – the Rennicks payment to Mr. Burke – that Mr. Justice Flood was finally asked to investigate the payment to Mr. Raphael Burke. We now know that in the new PD speak none of this matters.

The party president, the current Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, has said that his party would not pull the Government down because of what happened in 1997. The Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform is operating on a new Pol Pot basis, a new year zero policy. Year zero started when he was appointed to the Cabinet as Attorney General. His intent is clear – he will not be responsible for what his hapless party leader did before his return to office. The Progressive Democrats were bought and they will stay bought. In a classic example of biting the hand that feeds it, the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform now blames it all on the media: it is all the media's fault anyway.

To say that the Taoiseach and the Tánaiste have to provide answers to this House about the Burke appointment is, in a way, a futile demand. I recognise that fact. The time for proper accountability is long since passed. While this House still has an obligation to pursue the truth, the solemn responsibility of the Taoiseach, the Tánaiste and other Ministers to be answerable to the House on this matter has long since been abandoned. Both the Taoiseach and the Tánaiste have let down their parties and the electorate that put them into high office and they should depart the political stage.

Irish politics will recover from the seediness that has infected it throughout the Haughey era. I believe it is already doing so. The tribunals, dragged by the Opposition from a reluctant Taoiseach, represent an important starting point. We resent the constant claims by the Taoiseach that he is responsible for the establishment of the Flood tribunal. It took us a year to have Raphael Burke included in the terms of reference because of the hostility, even to an investigation, by the parties in government.

Legislation insisted on by the Labour Party and implemented by me as Minister for the Environment and by my party colleague, Eithne FitzGerald, provides a legal framework for accountable public administration in this country. It was fought tooth and nail by the parties in government. The Electoral Bill I introduced was fought by the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform for months on end on Committee Stage. He took the view it was a bad Bill that needed to be resisted. To borrow a phrase, we have much more to do.

The problems within Fianna Fáil go far wider than the Taoiseach and Mr. Raphael Burke. Since the publication of the interim Flood tribunal report, the Fianna Fáil spin has been to the effect that Ray Burke was a once-off rogue and that as far as the party is concerned the problem was addressed when Mr. Burke resigned from the Dáil. Unfortunately, there is much evidence to suggest that the political culture that created Ray Burke, revealed in such stark detail in the interim Flood tribunal report, still infects much of the Fianna Fáil organisation.

It is an informative exercise to consider the list of people indicated in the report as having obstructed, hindered or failed to co-operate with the tribunal. Apart from Mr. P. J. Mara, the man to whom the Taoiseach entrusted his political fate in the last two general elections, the list includes several who have featured regularly in the Fianna Fáil hospitality tent at the Galway races. The list also includes those who were seen to be visibly and actively involved in the recent Fianna Fáil general election campaign. It is at least probable that some of those who contributed so generously to Mr. Burke have continued to provide financial support to the Fianna Fáil Party.

The Taoiseach has promised that in his reply to this debate tomorrow he will answer all questions put by the Opposition. I have a simple and direct question to put to him and I look forward to a simple and direct reply. How many of those listed in the report as having obstructed, hindered or failed to co-operate with the tribunal of inquiry were, or are, members of the Fianna Fáil Party? How many, if any, of those on the list have made financial contributions to Fianna Fáil since the Flood tribunal was established?

What has been revealed by the Flood tribunal about the organic relationship between one of the most senior Fianna Fáil politicians and business interests also puts into context the huge determination and effort by the Taoiseach in defending corporate donations last year in the face of Labour Party efforts to end the practice by way of a Private Members' Bill. There is much more I would like to say but I will conclude by pointing out that the actions of the Taoiseach and the Tánaiste in the appointment and rehabilitation of Raphael Burke will almost certainly, in the eyes of the people, have the most serious consequences for them and their political future.

Mr. Cuffe:

I wish to share my time with Deputy Ó Caoláin.

An Ceann Comhairle:

Is that agreed? Agreed.

Mr. Cuffe:

Amendment No. 4 states:

To add the following to the motion:

"and that Dáil Éireann now set up a new national planning body to ensure that all development plans are compatible with:

– the forthcoming National Spatial Strategy,

– Sustainable Development, a Strategy for Ireland,

– Strategic Planning Guidelines for the Greater Dublin Area and subsequent reviews,

– relevant international thinking on sustainability;

and that the Government investigate and review all significant decisions made by former Minister Ray Burke in his periods of office as Minister for the Environment; Energy; Communications; Industry and Commerce; Justice; and Foreign Affairs, and as Minister of State at the Department of Industry, Commerce and Energy, and as a county councillor."

Five years ago, the Minister of State at the Department of the Environment and Local Government, Deputy Noel Ahern, said he was convinced the Flood tribunal would vindicate the former Minister, Mr. Burke. Is he still convinced of this? Five years ago, the Taoiseach said that Raphael Burke was a proud and honourable man and that he was loyal, true, persevering, principled, caring and committed. Does he still hold that view?

The thrust of my party's amendment is to undo the damage done. The Government's motion notes the findings, condemns the actions and commends the work of Mr. Justice Flood and expresses its support for the tribunal. However, it does nothing to undo the damage inflicted on the people from what happened and which is being investigated by the Flood tribunal.

It is not only planning decisions that must be considered. Ray Burke was Minister for the Environment, Energy, Communications, Industry and Commerce, Justice and Foreign Affairs. He was also a Minister of State at the Department of Industry, Commerce and Energy and a county councillor. If he was a virus he had the potential to infect the entire body politic. Bug Burke and its consequences continue to this day.

Has Fianna Fáil changed its view on ethics over the years? Would the party accept contributions from Ansbacher account holders? Will the Taoiseach or his representatives express a view on this? The consequences of the actions of Ray Burke and his colleagues continue to this day. Families are left without shops, parks and playgrounds which are within walking distance of anonymous new housing estates. Communities are left without local shops or services and workers are left without a decent public transport system and are stuck in lines of traffic to and from work. This still happens. In the village of Delvin, County Westmeath, local councillors, including a Member of this House, Fianna Fáil Deputy Cassidy, are defending their decision to rezone land outside the village. Perhaps as a Fianna Fáil councillor Deputy Cassidy has a monopoly of wisdom in opposing the views of the professional planners working for Westmeath County Council, but I doubt it.

In 1993, the Irish Planning Institute condemned the rezoning in County Dublin as outrageous. It stated that a cursory glance showed how inappropriate and indefensible were many of them. It has not gone away. The then Minister for the Environment, Deputy Smith, called rezoning a debased currency but he did nothing to remedy matters.

The Green Party is calling for action on two fronts. We need to review and undo the bad decisions that were made over the course of Ray Burke's political career and we need to rectify the damage from hideous rezoning decisions. We call for a new national planning body, which would review the county and future development plans to ensure that they provide for the proper planning and sustainable development of each county. It would not allow county councillors at a whim to rezone large chunks of land within their area and it would ensure the implementation of the forthcoming national spatial strategy, promised before the end of last year and which is still awaited. It would only intervene in local zoning and rezoning where it can be clearly shown to be unsustainable with reference to Government policy, as contained in the document, Sustainable Development, a Strategy for Ireland, and other thinking in this area. This new body would contain the reckless antics of some county councillors, whose inappropriate decisions continue to this day.

With regard to the questionable rezoning incorporated into development plans, we believe that the plans should be correlated to local elections so that when these occur, the electorate would be given the chance to vote for councillors or candidates on the basis of zoning or rezoning in development plans they proposed and voted for at their county council. The electorate would then have a clear record of who they vote for. This would assist democracy at all levels.

Who knows on what basis the former Minister, Mr. Burke, made decisions. They must be investi gated and reviewed by the Government. I have referred to planning and rezoning matters but there is also a need to look at licences awarded and decisions on gas fields in the west, telecommunications and planning. Each Department must undertake this review and the results should be presented to this House for debate.

If the Taoiseach has the courage of his convictions – I hope there will be convictions – he should undo any decisions seen to have been made for the wrong reasons at any stage over the last quarter of a century of Ray Burke's political career. It is an appalling vista but the political process and the people will continue to suffer unless justice is done and is seen to be done. I am proposing the amendment that Dáil Éireann set up a new planning body to ensure that all development plans are compatible with the sustainable development of the area and that the Government would investigate and review all significant decisions made by former Minister, Ray Burke, in his periods as an office holder of many ministries and relating to his work as a county councillor.

Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin:

I welcome the interim report and its clear and comprehensive findings. Its clarity and straight-talking approach has struck a chord with the people who have bought copies of the report in unprecedented numbers. The report confirms that former Minister, Ray Burke, enriched himself with the help of property speculators and developers who themselves benefited hugely from the corrupt planning system. While these people ripped off the ordinary citizen in the 1980s our country was experiencing record levels of unemployment and emigration which had returned to the levels of the 1950s and Government cutbacks were devastating our health and education systems. The report answers many questions but it raises many more. That is why we have tabled the amendment in the name of the five Sinn Féin Deputies which I wish to formally move.

An Ceann Comhairle:

It is not possible to move the amendment at this point as there is already an amendment before the House. It is possible to speak on the amendment.

Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin:

I thank the Ceann Comhairle for his clarification. The amendment we would have moved calls for the oil and gas exploration licences negotiated and granted by former Minister for Energy and Communications, Ray Burke, to be fully investigated by the tribunal.

I first raised the great gas and oil rip-off here in the Dáil four years ago, in October 1998. It received little attention but I believe it is as scandalous as anything in the interim report, a report which vindicates our challenge. Sinn Féin is proposing this amendment as we believe that the circumstances surrounding the changes made to the terms and conditions governing the granting of oil and gas exploration licences by Ray Burke in September 1987 demand the very same scrutiny as that which has been given to his role in planning and other irregularities.

Ray Burke sold off our natural resources to the multinationals at a knockdown price unprecedented anywhere in the world. This island is surrounded by vast mineral wealth, which if properly utilised could immeasurably improve the economic and social conditions of all our people. Successive Governments have instead chosen to surrender control to unscrupulous and deceitful companies who are sitting on these reserves practically rent free while they make little attempt to exploit them.

It is our contention that the most serious and dubious of the concessions made were those introduced in September 1987 by former Minister, Ray Burke. The changes made in the terms and conditions governing the granting of exploration licences abolished the State's 50% stake in any discovery, got rid of royalties and allowed the companies to write off most of their earnings against tax. In other words, the potential benefits for the Irish economy and the Irish people were given away.

The changes were made by Ray Burke against the strong advice of a senior official in the Department of Energy and Communications, and following a series of private meetings between the Minister and company executives. Given what we now know of the nature of the deals which Ray Burke made with various property developers, we would strongly urge that the precise nature of the deals done with the multinational oil and gas companies be investigated by the tribunal.

In replying to questions in the Dáil on the changes, Ray Burke admitted that some of the oil companies had been given advance notice of the proposals but there had been no prior negotiations with them in regard to what they wanted to be included. That sounds highly implausible, especially given that when later questioned, he refused to give the Dáil any details of the results of drills because of the confidentiality clauses in the licences granted. In other words, the elected representatives of the people of this State were denied all knowledge of what was being done.

The reasons given at the time to justify the concessions were that they would provide a massive boost to the drilling for oil and gas. That did not happen. Instead the companies snapped up the licences and have, by and large, been content to sit on them for the past 15 years. While Ray Burke claimed in the Dáil that he hoped to see up to 30 new wells drilled in the year following the changes, there were in fact only three. Indeed, the overall level of activity declined after 1987. While the companies invested almost £400 million in the ten years prior to the changes, this fell to £170 million over the following decade. Of that sum, a mere 4% was spent in this State.

It is high time, therefore, that the subterfuge and secrecy surrounding the deals are made sub ject to the same examination as all of the other shady aspects of the former Minister's career. It is time also that the people of this State were given some insight into the manner in which their natural resources were shamefully surrendered. The ongoing relationship between the oil companies and Fianna Fáil must also examined. One of the main beneficiaries of the changes, Marathon International Petroleum Ireland Limited, has contributed to Fianna Fáil funds. Another company, Enterprise Oil plc, is one of the main stakeholders in the Corrib field, and has hosted Fianna Fáil's fund-raising event at the Galway Races, as referred to by earlier speakers.

The Marathon Oil Corporation, the parent company of Marathon International Petroleum Ireland Limited, spent $4 million in political lobbying in the United States in 1997. It has also been the subject of federal litigation over its failure to pay the correct royalties by not reporting finds, something which may not be unique to its US activities. Is it not a happy coincidence that Marathon's Irish subsidiary is based in the Cayman Islands?

That the legacy of Ray Burke is well and truly alive was proven by last year's sale of the Irish National Petroleum Corporation Limited for a pittance. Tosco Oil Corporation, the company which bought INPC has an appalling record. It has been found guilty in the United States of safety breaches which have led to the deaths of several refinery workers. It has had decrees issued against it by the Environmental Protection Agency and it operated under the brutal regime in Indonesia. I urge the Government to accept the terms of this amendment. It is an imperative that that be done.

The interim report highlights the need for a more thorough forensic examination of Ray Burke's entire career. In particular, the report contains serious allegations not just about the granting of the Century Radio licence but that a shopping list of prices for all the radio and TV licences was on offer. We need to investigate if the granting of the other 20 licences was carried out in a proper and fair manner.

The Flood tribunal is dealing with one county council. Are we really to believe that Dublin County Council was the only council in the 26 counties where planning corruption was going on?

Just as the Moriarty tribunal has decided to widen the scope of its inquiries to cover the granting of the second mobile phone licence to ESAT Digifone, there is a need to widen the scope of the Flood tribunal. I ask the Tánaiste who is representing the Government here this evening to take note of that appeal and to recommend the acceptance and adoption of the proposals contained in the amendment put forward by myself and my colleagues.

Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment (Ms Harney):

Mr. Justice Flood and his legal team are to be congratulated for their outstanding efforts on our behalf. Their second interim report is an excellent document. It is clear, concise and forthright and is written in plain and understandable language. It is an eminently readable document which draws clear and unambiguous conclusions and pulls no punches. The House and the country owe a great deal of gratitude to the honourable judge and his team. They have done a great act of public service to the State. Their work to date has fully justified the decision of the House to establish the tribunal in the first place. There have been tribunals before which have disappointed the great hopes placed in them. This one certainly has not done so.

It is to the credit of Mr. Justice Flood and his team that they persevered with their work and persisted with their inquiries and efforts. Few tribunals of inquiry have had to contend with such sniping hostility as this one. Almost from the outset there were clear and determined attempts to undermine the tribunal, discredit it, cast aspersions on its efficiency and effectiveness, and query the rationale for its continued existence. Powerful, wealthy and influential people wanted to bring it down at the earliest opportunity. They sought to bring the tribunal into public disrepute and they would have been happy to see it abandoned. Despite this, the tribunal got on with its painstaking work. It saw off a series of legal challenges, overcame many obstacles and allowed nothing to deflect it in its search for the truth.

The Flood tribunal has helped to restore public confidence in the concept of a tribunal of inquiry. It has delivered results and has not been a waste of taxpayers' money as the cynics have suggested – quite the opposite. The work of the tribunal has generated money for the Exchequer in terms of tax liabilities uncovered. That said, tribunals do not operate to some crude profit and loss account. They stand or fall on their ability to uncover the truth. By this standard the inquiry has been an outstanding success.

A little more than five years ago the Progressive Democrats and Fianna Fáil received a mandate from the people to form a coalition Government. Discussions commenced between both parties about the formation of a new Administration in terms of its policies and personnel. The leader of the Fianna Fáil party, the current Taoiseach, Deputy Bertie Ahern, signalled to me his intention to appoint Ray Burke to the new Cabinet. I was aware of various allegations which had been made against Mr. Burke and I sought information and assurance on these from the Taoiseach.

My specific concerns related to payments which Mr. Burke was alleged to have received. I wanted to know what moneys he had received and whether he had done anything improper in return for them. The Taoiseach told me that he had investigated the matter fully. He told me that Ray Burke had received £30,000 from Mr. James Gogarty/JMSE, that he had retained £20,000 for his election campaign in Dublin North and had forwarded £10,000 to Fianna Fáil headquarters.

I had two choices as leader of the Progressive Democrats: either to accept the assurances given to me by the Taoiseach and agree to the appointment of Ray Burke as a Minister, or to refuse to accept the assurances given to me and to refuse to accept the appointment of Mr. Burke as Minister. I accepted the former option because I wanted to base the new Government on a foundation of trust, co-operation and partnership. In a previous coalition with Fianna Fáil, the Progressive Democrats had been branded, fairly or unfairly, as a party that was unreasonable and too quick in forcing resignations and blocking appointments. I was determined to show that the Progressive Democrats could work successfully in a coalition Government. I recognised from the outset that the issue of trust between the party leaders was central to the success of any coalition. That is why I was willing to take the Taoiseach on trust and to accept in good faith his assurances regarding Mr. Ray Burke.

As the weeks went by, the allegations against Mr. Burke persisted and it became apparent that he could not continue in Government. He resigned both his ministry and his membership of the House. It was also apparent that we needed to get to the truth regarding planning in Dublin, and it was in that context that the Flood tribunal was established by a resolution of the House on the initiative of the Government.

I have said before that one of the true tests of a mature democracy is the ability to expose and confront corruption wherever it arises. Ireland is showing its ability to pass that test. As politicians representing the people, we in the House have established tribunals and inquiries under the Companies Act and we have undertaken investigations through the committees of the Oireachtas.

The Flood and Moriarty tribunals will continue their work. They in turn may spawn other inquiries as the McCracken tribunal did the Moriarty tribunal. There will be more evidence, discoveries, revelations and reports. We will learn more about how things were done in this country through the 1980s and 1990s. We are likely to see more light shed on that shady interface between Government and business where public decisions had the capacity to deliver private wealth for the fortunate few.

All this can be shocking, fascinating and even entertaining for the watching public, but it will be largely pointless unless we are prepared to learn lessons from what is uncovered and take the necessary action to prevent such things from happening again. That is why we have taken such strong and determined action over the past five years to fight corruption and to ensure that everybody in this country plays by the same rules regardless of who they are. We have established the Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement to ensure that our company laws are prop erly policed and to prevent the abuse of the privilege of limited liability. We have given extensive and wide-ranging powers to the Revenue Commissioners to combat tax evasion. We have brought in tight new regulations to govern donations to political parties and to individual politicians. Most importantly perhaps, we have sought to create a new culture and climate for the relationship between business and Government.

The work of the McCracken, Moriarty and Flood tribunals shows that we now have the will and the way to uncover corrupt activity. People engaging in such activity now do so in the firm knowledge that they are likely to have their actions investigated with great thoroughness by a tribunal of inquiry and that, as a result, they will have to face the full rigours of the law.

For more than ten years tribunals of inquiry have been almost a permanent feature of our political landscape. It may be bad that they are necessary but surely it is good that we recognise that they are necessary and are prepared to establish them. In the war against corruption the tribunal of inquiry has become the nuclear deterrent, the ultimate signal of the State's willingness to vindicate the rights of all citizens by exposing wrongdoing wherever it arises.

Corrupt societies are not prosperous societies. If we want to continue to attract job-creating investment we must demonstrate clearly that this is a country in which business is done fairly, openly and above board. We must also demonstrate that the rule of law applies to everyone regardless of who they are. We must demonstrate that there are no golden circles, cosy cartels or inside tracks. We must be resolute in our determination to root out corruption at every level. If we fail to do so, our reputation and our country will suffer.

The publication of this interim report shows that the Flood tribunal is doing an excellent job on behalf of the people. I commend Mr. Justice Flood and his legal team for their sterling efforts and I wish them well in the work that lies ahead.

Mr. Allen:

This debate is not good enough. It is ineffective and will not do justice to the detail and clarity of the Flood tribunal interim report. By structuring the debate in the present format, the Taoiseach and his Fianna Fáil-Progressive Democrats Government are once again refusing to answer direct questions on the contents of the report. I thought that the Progressive Democrats, the so-called watchdogs of Fianna Fáil, would insist that the Taoiseach come into the Chamber and reply to direct questions with straight answers.

My party and the people demand to know what the Taoiseach knew of Ray Burke's affairs before he appointed him to the Cabinet in 1997 and what influenced him in making that decision and other related decisions over a period. The Taoiseach's assertion that he dealt satisfactorily with the Burke controversy is not correct. The Dáil established the Flood tribunal and the Taoiseach owes it to the Dáil and the people to make an honest attempt to clear up the issues raised in this corrupt affair. Today represents yet another page in a sordid chapter of Irish politics. A Fianna Fáil Minister who served in several Fianna Fáil Governments has been found by a tribunal of inquiry to have received corrupt payments. There have also been conclusions of obstruction and of failure to co-operate with the tribunal about friends of Fianna Fáil. These charges are very serious. We have seen a glimpse of the golden circle that exists in Irish political and business life, a circle that has been for so long dismissed as myth, innuendo or mere speculation. This golden circle now stands exposed for all to see.

This could have been a good day for truth and transparency if the Government had faced openly their responsibilities. Unfortunately, it can only be seen as a very bad day for Fianna Fáil, as we see that party, led by Taoiseach Deputy Bertie Ahern, scurrying to pretend nothing serious has happened. This Government shows obvious contempt for the Irish people by treating them as fools.

We are now beginning to realise the importance of the delay in failing to appoint extra judges to the Flood tribunal. This delay surely saved the last general election for Fianna Fáil and the Progressive Democrats. Of course, this is not the only instance where Fianna Fáil tried to fool the people. Before the election, it seemed that everything was in order in the country's finances, but after the election the Minister for Finance, known as Champagne Charlie, decided to release the real economic information to the people.

For a moment, let us consider the circumstances under which Ray Burke was appointed Minister for Foreign Affairs by the Taoiseach. In 1997, at the time of the appointment, there was widespread concern in media and political circles. The Taoiseach could not have missed these warning signs. However, he went against the warnings of his predecessor, former Taoiseach Albert Reynolds, in appointing Ray Burke to the Cabinet and he also went against the warnings of the former Minister for Justice, Máire Geoghegan-Quinn, in making that appointment. All these danger signs, when put together, should have triggered political alarm bells in any politician's mind. However, apparently in the mind of the leader of Fianna Fáil everything was all right. Somehow, I doubt this very much.

Many people see the Taoiseach as one of the most politically astute and gifted political survivors in the country, but incredibly this astute politician appointed Ray Burke to the third highest office in the land. The people are asking what does Ray Burke know about the Taoiseach, Deputy Bertie Ahern?

The Taoiseach asserted that he "Looked up every tree in north Dublin" seeking information on Ray Burke. It is convenient that he failed to look up the one tree that he knew would have given him definite answers, where before there was only rumour and speculation. This appalling lack of judgment and lack of action is damning.

Some current Fianna Fáil Deputies, including the Taoiseach and three current Ministers, were around the Cabinet table when Ray Burke decided to award a national radio licence and then subsequently divert money from RTE and give it to Century Radio. This was against the advice of the Civil Service, was opposed to the findings of an independent study and showed no regard to the protestations of Ray Burke's predecessor, former Deputy Jim Mitchell. If RTE did not perform to its usual public service standards in subsequent years, we now understand where some if not all of the blame must go.

There was also the question of the award of Irish passports, approved by a Fianna Fáil Cabinet. Was all of the agreed investment made or is this just another question that Fianna Fáil is desperately trying not to answer in case there is further damage done to its party's reputation?

The scope of mysterious Fianna Fáil Ministers' decisions does not begin or end with Ray Burke. In 1994, on Fianna Fáil's last day in office, a consortium was given a special tax designation on a green field site for an urban renewal programme, Golden Island, in Athlone Town which greatly enhanced the profitability of that site. Unhappily close ties can be established between Fianna Fáil and the beneficiaries.

Another example of Fianna Fáil's contempt for the intelligence of the Irish people was the Fianna Fáil legislation which made Ken Rohan the sole beneficiary of a section of the Finance Act, 1994 which retrospectively saved that man from a tax bill from the previous 12 years of £1.5 million. The provisions of that legislation meant only one person would benefit from it and the technicalities of the legislation are so specific as to warrant a demand of credible answers to an incredible situation.

Undoubtedly, there is a golden circle in this country, a circle that keeps the rich close to the centres of power and allows them to unduly influence the way in which Government business is done. Unfortunately this culture of big business helping out politicians if they decide certain courses of action is only beginning to come to light. The nod and wink approach that has served the Fianna Fáil Party so well must end here and now.

There are questions raised by Mr. Justice Flood's report about the way in which two key members of Fianna Fáil have behaved. Ray Burke was found out to have taken corrupt payments and P. J. Mara, a less well-known figure, stands accused of not co-operating with a tribunal of inquiry. Leaving that aside, I would bet my last cent that Fianna Fáil has consulted with Mr. Mara about how to handle the Flood report, even after his "just for show" resignation from the Nice campaign. After all, the Taoiseach did not ask him to leave.

Fianna Fáil, which so masterfully out-manoeuvred Opposition parties and the elect orate with talk of continuing good days under Fianna Fáil, was putting plans in place to almost immediately freeze spending once the election was over. These spin doctors who have been active in the past are now working overtime to put Mr. Justice Flood's report in the stale news section of the newspapers. It will be interesting to watch the tactics Fianna Fáil members employ now when desperately trying not to investigate any of Ray Burke's ministerial decisions. They will attempt to discredit the people asking the questions and will dodge the questions by answering completely different questions. They will attempt to deflect the burning issue of the day onto something completely different. Essentially, Fianna Fáil will just refuse to answer questions just like the Taoiseach is doing today and will do tomorrow.

At this stage, I wish to acknowledge the statement made by Fiona O'Malley of the Progressive Democrats on the principle that the Taoiseach is not facing up to his responsibilities in not answering questions here today. It is unfortunate that she is not supported by the Ministers, Deputies Harney and McDowell, of the same party.

There was once a Dublin politician who loved to talk to journalists and wanted his picture in the newspapers everyday. In recent times, he does not like talking to journalists and often refuses point blank to answer legitimate questions on the whole fallout from the Flood tribunal. That man likes to have a small controlled media group around himself everywhere he goes. I refer to the newly appointed Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform and former PD idealist, Deputy Michael McDowell. What has happened to Deputy McDowell? He knows how important this tribunal is to the nation. He used to be highly idealistic in his stance on many issues. Sometimes I disagreed with him, but I did respect him. His assault on the media only proves to me how far down the Fianna Fáil path the Progressive Democrats have gone. Where is his condemnation of a Taoiseach who appointed a very suspect Minister for Foreign Affairs and, to this day, refuses to answer all questions on the matter? I would expect a Fianna Fáil Minister to unquestionably defend a Taoiseach like ours, but not the Minister, Deputy McDowell. Have the lines between the Ministers, Deputies McCreevy and Harney, McDowell and O'Donoghue, been blurred by this desire for power? The people elected the Progressive Democrats as their representatives to keep Fianna Fáil from an overall majority and they are now betraying their mandate.

Mr. Justice Flood, on being appointed, was entrusted with finding the truth but all he got were lies, attempted manipulations and the determined undermining of his task. Thankfully, he has cut through the lies and given us the truth. Now it is our job, the job of Members, to take up the case in search of the truth and to separate fact from fiction and attempted cover-ups.

The Taoiseach should take responsibility for appointing a person like Ray Burke. A Cabinet should accept collective responsibility for having a person like Ray Burke behave in the way he did in awarding a licence to Century Radio. Fianna Fáil should take responsibility for spawning two leaders with serious question marks over them. One received millions of pounds in personal payments and the other signed blank cheques for the first one. The latter also ignored the warning signs and appointed a corrupt politician to one of the highest offices in the land. Now he will not answer any questions.

The failure and refusal of Fianna Fáil to investigate all of Ray Burke's ministerial decisions is obviously good for the party but it is bad for the people of Ireland, who feel betrayed by the Taoiseach's faith in Ray Burke. To pour more salt into the wounds already inflicted by Ray Burke on the body politic, the Taoiseach castigated the media and Opposition for, "hounding a decent and honourable man out of politics." I find it hard to believe that Dessie O'Malley would have stayed on that side of the House as leader of the Progressive Democrats and listened to this story unfold and to the Taoiseach's defence of Ray Burke, but then, Deputy Harney is no Des O'Malley.

Let us remember it is the people that count and they are beginning to see the damage that planning decisions have done to their homes and neighbourhoods, to their counties and to their quality of life. The people see how the culture of greed has badly affected many important decisions resulting in a poor standard of living for Irish people. In light of what Mr. Justice Flood has concluded, and the political situation in which we find ourselves, we have a legislative and moral duty to the people of Ireland. All relevant Ministers must conduct a review of all decisions promoted by Ray Burke in their portfolios. They must give a comprehensive documented account of the order of events in Ray Burke's career and report back to the Dáil with the facts from each Department within a short time. The Taoiseach and Fianna Fáil welcomed the Flood report. Let us see them act on it and prove they are not hypocrites.

We in Fine Gael believe the Minister for the Environment and Local Government must set up an independent land use commission chaired by a High Court judge. We advocated this earlier this year, long before the interim tribunal report was published, and now we demand that it is set up. The commission would have the power to examine all land rezoning decisions made by local authorities to ensure decisions were made in line with local development plans and complied with guidelines pertaining to sustainability and good planning practice. The commission will not undermine the role of local councillors but will be supportive of them by examining and certifying their decisions.

I cannot understand the position of the Minister for the Environment and Local Government in relation to this proposal. I saw him on television recently suggesting that since the Flood tribunal did not have any recommendations in relation to planning in its interim report, no decisions would be made by the Minister until such time as the final report was published. We know enough now to start taking action.

Instead of criticising the Fine Gael land use commission proposal, the Minister should immediately set about preparing legislation to establish the commission. His opposition to this proposal is based on the grounds that the commission would undermine the role of the local councillor. I am adamant that it will be totally supportive of correct decisions and will certify those decisions in an independent way. The recent case of rezoning in Delvin, County Westmeath, which has been referred to already, is one that would warrant investigation by a land use commission. Local councillors overruled the advice of planners to approve massive housing developments in Delvin by rezoning 60 acres on the outskirts of the village. Delvin's population will be ten times its current level when the development is completed, increasing from 358 inhabitants to more than 4,000. The county manager opposed the development on the grounds that planning permission already granted would provide for an increase in population to 600 people and that 163 acres which were already zoned as residential could accommodate an extra 1,400 people. As has been said already, Deputy Cassidy counterclaimed that the land zoned as residential was not available for development and he dismissed county council plans for the development of the village as complete and utter failures, alluding to the 11% decline in the population of the village at a time when the rest of Westmeath was booming. There is a strong prima facie case here for independent assessment of the decision by Westmeath County Council.

The Flood tribunal has confirmed the general public's suspicions of the planning process. If our political system is genuinely turning over a new leaf, it is unsatisfactory to leave radical rezoning decisions of this nature with elected local representatives alone. Surely it is in everyone's interests, including proprietors and decision makers in the planning process in Westmeath, that the propriety of this decision be assessed by a land use commission. We in Fine Gael also expect the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform to establish a permanent anti-corruption office; Deputy Deasy will deal with this.

In light of what has happened, I expect Fianna Fáil to eventually ask the Taoiseach to consider his position sooner rather than later in an attempt to distance themselves from the sleaze. The Progressive Democrats need to decide whether they begin merging with Fianna Fáil or cross the floor of this House before their new backbenchers are permanently tarnished by sitting beside Fianna Fáil. As for Independent Deputies who may be thinking of supporting Fianna Fáil, they are tempting the electorate to vote them out without their political and personal dignity intact at the next general election.

Minister for Arts, Sport and Tourism (Mr. O'Donoghue):

I propose to share my time with the Minister for Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs.

I welcome the opportunity to address the issues which genuinely arise out of the publication of the Second Interim Report of the Tribunal of Inquiry into Certain Planning Matters and Payments and to do so in a structured fashion in accordance with the precedent utilised by this House both in September 1997 when the report of the McCracken tribunal was considered and previously when reports of other tribunals were debated. I also welcome the opportunity to address some of the spurious political smoke which has been contrived by Opposition Members in the aftermath of the report's publication – in particular the concerted effort which has been made by some members of Fine Gael, the newly established Green-Féin Alliance and the third opposition party, the Labour Party, to suggest that the Taoiseach has questions to answer arising out of the publication of the second interim Flood report.

Every person who has read this report is aware of one unassailable and uncontradictable fact. There is not a single syllable of criticism of the Taoiseach contained in the report. It is clear that this is a source of great disappointment to the Opposition. It serves neither democracy nor the tribunal for public attention to be diverted from those who are the subject of damning criticism in this report on to people who are not. I invite the three opposition groupings to focus in this debate on what has been found – not on what they wish had been found.

Mr. Justice Flood has made findings of corrupt and criminal activity. That activity is disgraceful and deserves to be condemned by every Member. Without reservation I accept the findings of Mr. Justice Flood and I commend the work he and his legal team have done. I wish them continued success in their future work. Much remains to be done on many fronts.

It is appropriate for the House to pause and acknowledge the work which has been done to date by Mr. Justice Flood. It is also appropriate that, as Members, we condemn those whom he has found to have behaved in a corrupt and unlawful fashion. It is deeply disturbing that a former Member has been found to have lied to the Dáil and to the tribunal established by the Oireachtas. It is equally disturbing that the same former Member has been found to have accepted corrupt payments and to have behaved in a corrupt and unlawful manner. Our duty is to ensure the fullest investigation possible continues not alone in the tribunal but also among the other State agencies responsible for the detection and prosecution of such conduct.

We do well to remember that what is said in this House and by Members and what is reported in the media in relation to tribunals of inquiry and persons whose actions are subject to scrutiny by tribunals of inquiry can and has had legal consequences elsewhere. It is incumbent on every Member to ensure our utterances in this debate do not improperly impinge on the constitutional rights of others, including the right of the people to have serious criminal wrongdoing brought to trial and determined by the body which the Constitution entrusts with responsibility for determining such issues, namely a jury.

Many Members of the Opposition now feign to have had knowledge in 1997 of the matters which were uncovered by the Flood tribunal. I am more than sceptical of those who now make such claims but who for some inexplicable reason behaved as a commune of Trappists at the time of Mr. Burke's appointment. Why did they not speak out? Why did they not use the opportunity of the debate on the appointment of the Cabinet to give voice to the knowledge which they now claim? Why did they not avail of their constitutional immunity from legal suit to give voice to the knowledge they now claim from within this Chamber? Why, if overcome by diffidence or reticence or inexplicable shyness, did they not write or go privately to the Taoiseach to share with him the knowledge they now claim to have had? There was ample precedent for such action – Mr. Cosgrave, as Leader of Fine Gael, communicated with Jack Lynch as Taoiseach over suspicions which he had.

Many Members of the Opposition now seek to suggest that there was an onus on all politicians who had knowledge of Mr. Gogarty's allegations in 1997 to engage in an independent investigation into their substance. The suggestion which they now seek to advance is that there was an onus to go to him and to make an inquiry. Let us subject that theory to the acid test. The evidence heard by Mr. Justice Flood revealed that in 1996 and 1997 Mr. Gogarty, in addition to making allegations against Mr. Burke, was also making allegations of gross impropriety – allegations utterly without basis or substance – against a senior member of the Fine Gael party. Did that party or any member of that party go to Mr. Gogarty to conduct the type of investigation which they now say the Taoiseach should have? They did not.

Members of the Opposition now seek, with the assistance of hindsight, to apply methods and standards of inquiry to the Taoiseach which neither they nor any of their associates applied at the time.

Their actions in 1997 and the then actions of the Taoiseach are entirely consistent with the constitutional order which existed in this State then as now. As Mr. Justice Brian Walsh of the Supreme Court stated in 1966 when delivering his judgment in the case of The People v. O'Callaghan [1966] IR, reported at page 513, “The presumption of innocence until conviction is a very real thing and is not simply a procedural rule taking effect only at the trial.”

The actions of the Opposition in 1997 indicate clearly that those who now claim to have known, in fact knew nothing. Unsubstantiated rumours which in 1997 were without any presented supporting evidence is as much as was available to the Opposition. They chose neither to contact the Taoiseach about the rumours nor to utilise the parliamentary privilege, conferred on them by reason of their membership of this House, to publicly voice the rumours.

I am sure that with hindsight, Deputy Trevor Sargent, leader of the Green Party, would have refrained from making the following remark on the evening of Mr. Burke's appointment to the Cabinet: "I am glad that two Deputies from north Dublin have been nominated as Ministers. I offer good wishes to Deputy Burke on his nomination as Minister for Foreign Affairs." I am also sure that with hindsight, the then leader of the Labour Party, former Deputy Dick Spring, would not on the same occasion have described Deputy Burke as a "strong-willed and able politician".

The debate on the appointment of the Cabinet in 1997 afforded every Member an opportunity to voice such concerns or reservations as they felt were credibly established in their minds. The Official Report records their actions. Opposition Deputies who now seek to present themselves as parliamentary watchdogs, prepared to bark at the merest hint of the shadow of wrongdoing, were as silent as lambs. Their pretence that things were different serves neither them nor democracy well. That, of course, has not prevented Deputy Quinn from joining the fray for one last futile joust before resigning himself to banishment in the bitter pastures of political defeat. Broken-lanced and bedraggled, his pursuit of obscure political windmills remains undimmed. Some political leaders flounder because they cannot see the wood for the trees. That is something which can never be said of Deputy Quinn because he never got that far; as a leader he failed to see the branches for the twigs. Perhaps having brought the once proud Labour Party to the ignominious position of the third largest opposition grouping, behind both Fine Gael and the newly established "Green Féin" alliance, Deputy Quinn will, in the tranquillity of political retirement, finally come to terms with the popularity and electoral success of the Taoiseach. As he ponders his political legacy as the only leader of the Labour Party in the past three decades to have failed to achieve the office of Tánaiste, the only leader of the Labour Party in the past three decades to have failed to lead his party to electoral success and the only leader of the Labour Party to achieve relegation to the third division of Opposition parties, he must reflect ruefully that political history will remember him as the leader who failed where even Michael O'Leary succeeded. To have brought the Labour Party from Spring tide to electoral stagnation in one disastrous decade is a questionable political legacy.

For the past fortnight Deputy Quinn has been engrossed in an examination of historic twigs. As ever he has missed the big picture. He has sought to associate the Taoiseach with a report in which no adverse comment is made of the Taoiseach. The report must have been a disappointing read for Deputy Quinn. At last, he must have thought, the "Get Bertie Campaign" which he has relentlessly pursued throughout his political leadership might yield some fruit, but the detail of the Flood report returned Deputy Quinn to the familiar political terrain of failure. The report did not contain a syllable of criticism of the Taoiseach, so Deputy Quinn went on a media rampage seeking to suggest that the report suggested the Taoiseach had questions to answer. He was wrong again.

With leadership like this is it any wonder that a stagnant Labour Party has been relegated to the parliamentary fourth division, out of Government, out of sight of the main Opposition party and now trailing the "Green Féin" alliance in parliamentary importance. Latin scholars would agree – res ipsa locquitur.The publication of Mr. Justice Flood's report has had many consequences. The most important is the clear identification of past wrongdoing. The next most important is the transmission of the report to various regulatory and investigative authorities. The publication of the report also serves to show that the institutions of the State, including this House, are strong enough to deal with unsavoury aspects of our recent past. That consequence is a genuine service to democracy. We will be rightly judged on how we follow through on the report's findings. That work must continue unhindered.

Minister for Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs (Éamon Ó Cuív):

Ba mhaith liom treaslú leis an mBreitheamh Flood as ucht na tuarascála breá a chuir sé ar fáil. Cuireann atá sa tuarascáil alltacht orm agus ar pholaiteoirí. Is fíor le rá go raibh caimiléireacht uafásach ar bun agus tá an-dochar déanta aige seo do pholaiteoirí i gcoitinne.

Tá iarracht déanta an tuairim a thabhairt go bhfuil polaiteoirí ar fad mar a chéile. Tá sé tábhachtach go ndéarfaí nach mar sin é agus go bhfuil bunáite na bpolaiteoirí ar gach taobh den Teach seo díreach agus ionraic agus go gcaitheann siad a saol ag obair ar mhaithe leis an bpobal.

Tá an-scéal a dhéanamh anois faoi na fíricí atá i dtuarascáil Flood ar nós go mba scéal nua iad. Is seafóid é seo mar bhí a fhios ag an bpobal faoi na fíricí ón am go raibh na héisteachtaí ar bun. An rud a chuireann seo i gcuimhne dom ná an fheadóg deireannach i gcluiche peile thar a bheith aontaobhach, nuair atá a fhios ag gach duine an toradh a bhéas ar an gcluiche i bhfad roimh ré.

Tá ionsaí a dhéanamh ar an dTaoiseach, ach ceapaim go bhfuil a fhios ag an bhFreasúra nach bhfuil ann ach cath na mbó maol. Is bocht an rud é nuair a bhaintear leas as tuarascáil mar seo le haghaidh cluichí polaitíochta seachas díriú ar an dream go bhfuil sé ráite fúthu go soiléir anois go raibh caimiléireacht ar bun acu.

Bíonn mí-fhoighid ar na meáin agus go minic is tábhachtaí an "soundbite" scioptha seachas an próiseas fada a thabharfaidh torthaí agus freagraí iomlána. Tá gach próiseas fiosrúcháin agus dlí mall. Ní mór dó a bheith cuimsitheach. Ba cheart don bhFreasúra anois a bheith ag obair leis an Rialtas i gcur chun cinn an Bhille ar Chaimiléireacht le go mbeidh sé níos éasca breithiúnas cúirte a fháil in aghaidh lucht caimiléireachta. Ba cheart dóibh díriú orthu siúd a rinne rudaí míchearta agus lán-eolas acu seachas a bheith ag díriú ar dhaoine a chuir muinín i bhfocal daoine ar cruthaíodh ina dhiaidh nach raibh siad iontaofa. Is é an rud atá le déanamh anois ná próiseas na mbinse fiosrucháin a thabhairt go ceann scríbe agus gach áis agus achmhainn, agus reachtaíocht más gá, a chur ar fáil do na hinstitiúdaí éagsúla a bheadh i mbun na daoine a thabhairt chun dlí. Caithfimid bheith thar a bheith cúramach nach ndéarfaimíd aon rud anois a dhéanfadh dochar don phróiseas seo. Chonaic muid cheana an bealach gur féidir le caint mhíchúramach cur isteach ar phróiseas den chineál seo. Idir an dá linn, an fhaid is atá an próiseas seo ar bun tá obair thábhachtach eile le déanamh ag an Rialtas. Nach aisteach, an tseachtain go bhfuil an géarchéim polaitiúil is measa a tharla sa Tuaisceart faoi chaibidil, go bhfuilimid ag caint faoi rudaí a tharla os cionn deich mbliana ó shin agus go bhfuil eolas ag an bpobal fúthu le tamall anuas. Tá sé in am ag an Oireachtas diriú ar riachtanais agus ar phráinn agus ní ar rogha na meán.

It is absolutely extraordinary to think that in the middle of what I consider to be the worst political crisis which has hit the northern part of this country since the signing of the Good Friday Agreement, we are discussing events that happened over ten years ago and which have been public knowledge for some considerable time. The institutions in the North are about to collapse.

Mr. M. Higgins:

An bhfuil cóip d'oráid an Aire le fáil?

Éamon Ó Cuív:

Níl aon chóip le fáil. I use notes. I do not read speeches verbatim. Dá seasfadh gach Teachta suas agus scriopt a léamh bheadh sé chomh maith againn na scrioptanna a chur isteach go dtí an oifig.

We are discussing events which happened over ten years ago and which have been public knowledge for a considerable time. The amazing thing is that the institutions in the North are about to collapse, violence and intimidation persist, lives are being lost and serious allegations are flying in all quarters. We are ignoring all these matters and elevating to a matter of urgency – I am not saying seriousness – a report which has been nearly five years in preparation. What Mr. Justice Flood has given is official confirmation of facts which have already been in the public domain for some considerable time because of the public hearings. We now have a public judgment on those facts. It did not give us any new factual information. However, listening to the Opposition, one would think we had suddenly discovered a whole new body of evidence and that it had only been published in the last few weeks.

What Mr. Justice Flood said made frightening and sorry reading and was a clear indictment of Irish society, including business and politics. I suggest that rather than trying to use this issue to score cheap political points, those of us who are really concerned about politics and who believe in the integrity of the majority of public representatives, should try with steely resolve to pursue whatever course is necessary to fairly and impartially bring these sordid affairs to a finality and to ensure that those involved face the consequences of their actions. It is also important that we are careful in what we say because we have seen in the past how careless statements can prejudice the ability of the independent agencies of the State, which are set up to institute criminal prosecutions and judge on them, to do their work.

All of the people mentioned in the report, the people who have clearly been stated to have been involved in corrupt actions, are of no concern to the Opposition. I do not think the Opposition cares about Burke anymore and the business people who have been named. They are of no interest to it because there is no political mileage to be made out of them. The reality is that it believes there is cheap political mileage to be made at the expense of the Taoiseach and that this is more important than rooting out the serious cancer found in Irish society.

The Taoiseach made it clear he will answer the questions on Flood tomorrow and I will not presume to do so on his behalf. There are, however, two comments I would like to make. If the Opposition knew what it now claims everyone knew years ago, why did it not demur at Ray Burke's appointment as a Front Bench spokesperson by the present Taoiseach, the then leader of the Opposition, in 1995, two and a half years before his appointment as Minister? It did not demur at his appointment as Minister.

On the issue of his appointment as a Front Bench spokesperson, this might point to a very interesting conclusion, namely, that the Opposition does not consider being a Front Bench spokesperson as being a position of trust and importance and that it does not consider it important for someone in that position to have standards. That is the only conclusion to which one can come. When I was in such a position I considered it a position of great trust. It is about time the Opposition explained to us from where it is coming because this did not come out of the blue as all of the Opposition spokespersons were subsequently appointed Ministers or Ministers of State.

Is it now politically unacceptable to take a person at his or her word when there is no clear evidence against him or her? Have we reached a stage where people are guilty by accusation and that their friends are guilty by association? A number of years ago I was involved in the prisoner issue in Britain and it taught me a very fundamental lesson, that is, that there is no short cut to judgment and that anyone who tries to short cut their way to judgment is the begetter of serious miscarriages of justice. The deciding of the verdict before we have the evidence has, in the past, led to great injustices being perpetrated. We rightly condemn the British courts for their convictions of Irish people regarding the Troubles in the North because the begetting of the conviction became much more important than the following of due process. Such a system of hurried justice protects the guilty and condemns the innocent.

Surely, therefore, we should all by now, including the media, have learned the lesson that for the wheels of justice to operate, they must grind slowly and without prejudice. Instead of the present frenzy, would it not be better for us to be employed dealing with the real matters of urgency at hand leaving the issues being examined by the tribunals to them and to the legal process? This is the sane course and the only course which will get real results. It was not Dáil debates and ballyragging across the Chamber which gave us the Flood report but a slow, thorough and systematic analysis of what went on, carried out in a proper form.

I would not like the impression to be created that I do not treat this issue as one of the gravest seriousness, but to claim it as a matter of grave urgency when the only way to resolve it is by slow process, is absolutely absurd. I forecast that in ten years time when the history of this week is being written, the crisis in Northern Ireland and not this debate will be spoken about.

Ms Enright:

I wish to share my time with Deputy O'Dowd. We have heard a lot in the past few weeks and a bit more tonight about how nobody could have known the story surrounding Ray Burke until Mr. Justice Flood issued his report and that the Taoiseach, the Tánaiste and the rest of the last Cabinet had no way of knowing truth from rumour or fact from fiction. We then wonder why my generation is cynical about politics and politicians. It is time to put a bit of perspective on all of this. The first story published, not just whispered, about Ray Burke was in 1974, the same year I was born. This story has taken my whole life time to properly break and we have to ask ourselves why. It is not that it was a once-off newspaper article – it was published again in 1981 and a similar story resurfaced in 1993. The reason this has taken so long to break is that Ray Burke was pampered and protected by a party which did not have the honesty, integrity or moral courage to wash its hands of him – the party which appointed him Minister on eight occasions. We should stop trying to fool ourselves. It does not take a High Court judge nor a tribunal report for any of us to decide what type of people we are or what type of people we want to be associated with. To hide behind the notion of prejudicing a trial is a total fallacy. Only one Member of this House, to my knowledge, has ever prejudiced a trial and I am sure she has learned her lesson. The Taoiseach and Deputy Ó Cuív, the Minister here tonight, are deliberately missing the point. We still care about Ray Burke and his business friends, or at least their actions. We are not here tonight to question Ray Burke who, thankfully, is not a Member of this House anymore. He did not cease to be a Member because he was removed from office by the Taoiseach, but because he eventually decided to go himself. If, as the Taoiseach said on a previous occasion, the Opposition hounded him out, then it was a good day's work as no one over there would have done so.

Tonight we on this side are participating in a charade as we have been denied the opportunity for a question and answer session today or tomorrow and huge play is made of the fact that we got an extra hour and a half tonight. We have more time to make statements but no time to get answers. The Taoiseach promised to answer our questions tomorrow and I will make it easy by making it clear when I am asking questions. The Tánaiste has given no commitment to answer questions but as many questions can be asked of her. We have no choice but to take part in this charade because if we did not, all semblance of democracy would be gone from this House.

I congratulate Mr. Justice Flood on his interim report, which was detailed, definite and courageous, and has been almost a best seller. The fact that almost 100,000 citizens accessed it in one form or other is indicative of how the nation feels about this issue. People want answers and the truth, and this House, not the media, should be their means of getting it.

Éamon Ó Cuív:

I thought it was in the report.

Ms Enright:

This House is the place for us to question the Taoiseach, not through the report.

Éamon Ó Cuív:

I thought that was the purpose of the report.

Ms Enright:

I will attempt to make my points in chronological, even logical, order, but the twists and turns in the admissions and denials are so intricately woven together that it is nearly impossible to do so. In the end the truth will be got at and everyone involved will be caught. That warning is unwritten but clearly evident from the report.

The Taoiseach seems to view this discussion as almost irrelevant. I do not take a swipe at his absence tonight as I fully accept the importance of why he is where he is, but at his attitude earlier today and before. He tells us that he has nothing new to say and that we should look at what he said in 1997 and 1998, which we should do. On 28 May 1998, he was asked by Deputy Quinn if he specifically asked Ray Burke, before Deputy Dermot Ahern went to London, whether he got money from Murphy. He replied that he had not and went on to say that his concern was whether he had got the money. Earlier, in September 1997, in a radio interview the Taoiseach said that Mr. Burke had assured him that he had received £30,000 but that he had done nothing wrong. Perhaps I am missing something but the Taoiseach needs to explain that.

Deputy Dermot Ahern visited London and had a tour of the vegetation of north Dublin. We are told that he carried out all due inquiries that were reasonably possible but discovered no proof that any payment, improper or otherwise, was made. All the time it appears that the Taoiseach and others knew that Mr. Burke had received £30,000. Did the Taoiseach impart this knowledge to Deputy Ahern prior to his wonderful investigation? One of the most serious findings in the report is that the broadcasting legislation which Mr. Burke brought in to cap RTE's advertising revenue was "in response to demands of him by the promoters of Century and was not in the public interest." The effects of that are still being felt by RTE and the staff there must be hoping that the man with their future in his hands has some hidden talents since he is clearly not an investigator.

It is important that while we remember that truth, honesty and integrity were sacrificed for the pursuit of personal gains, there are other real victims, real people. Ray Burke sold the future of Dublin's hinterland to a clique of property developers against the professional advice of planners. Housing developments were voted through against the advice of planners and council officials. People paid high prices for homes – these were not just houses but homes. It was a lifetime investment but there was no proper infrastructure, no shops, schools, churches or public transport. Some houses were of terrible quality and some did not even have proper drainage. These people still have to pay their mortgages and their dreams of becoming home owners have been shattered by the reality of what they purchased. Now they also have to deal with the knowledge that someone other than the developers got rich on their hardship.

The Taoiseach knew that Ray Burke got £30,000 so why did he appoint him to Cabinet? Why did he not act on the information given to him by Albert Reynolds, the former Taoiseach? Did he truly believe, despite what the then Deputy Reynolds told him, despite what Mrs. Geoghegan-Quinn did or did not tell him, that Ray Burke had done nothing wrong? Why did he choose not to look further into the comments of the Minister, Deputy Michael Smith, when he said that zoning in Dublin County Council was a debased currency? Why did he not ask the Minister, Deputy Smith, even in private, what had made him say that? What sort of judgment has the Taoiseach that in spite of all this, he still appointed him to Cabinet? I do not understand how he can protest at the notion in people's minds that there is more to it.

I also have questions for the Tánaiste. She claims that if she knew then what she knows now, the issue of Ray Burke serving in Cabinet would never have arisen, but she knew of the allegations that Mr. Burke took bribes in return for planning permission. She had been told this by a director of JMSE and by the now Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform. She at least knew of the allegations and stated here tonight that she had two choices in 1997, to accept the Taoiseach's assurances or refuse to do so and refuse to accept Ray Burke's appointment as Minister. She wanted to base a new Government on a foundation of trust and partnership, and by any measure that failed. She may have a partnership but she certainly has very little trust.

How could the Progressive Democrats accept fresh assurances from the same Taoiseach only two weeks ago? The self-styled guardian angel of Fianna Fáil has clipped her wings and buried her halo in the debris of north Dublin development in the interests of forming a Government and getting into office. She admitted here tonight that she was willing to accept the Taoiseach's assurances because she was determined to show that the Progressive Democrats could work successfully in a partnership Government. There cannot be a less important reason for forming a Government. Deputy McDowell, the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, conceded that the inquiries carried out were at best very inadequate.

The Tánaiste in 1997 probably thought, like she did on at least one occasion since, that it would all blow over in a few days but this, I assure her, is going to run and run. Like the previous Administration's Independent Deputies, the Tánaiste and her party colleagues seem determined to prop up Fianna Fáil and this Government to keep them in power regardless of what happens. She is its new Jacqueline Healy-Rae.

Both the Taoiseach and the Tánaiste have questions to answer. Did the Taoiseach tell the Tánaiste what Albert Reynolds had told him? Did he tell her that Mr. Burke had confirmed to him before September 1997 that he had got £30,000? Did he tell her the cursory nature of the inquiry he had conducted and that all he had done was to send Deputy Dermot Ahern to ask one man one question? It has taken 28 years to get this far. How much longer is the leader of Fianna Fáil prepared to hide? Until he answers these questions, the Government will live under a shadow, a shadow passed by his cowardice.

Mr. O'Dowd:

Díospóireacht an-tábhachtach í seo ach ó bheith ag éisteacht leis an Teachta Ó Cuív agus leis an Aire a labhair roimhe, is léir nach gceapann siad go bhfuil an díospóireacht chomh tábhachtach agus atá sí. Dúirt an Teachta Ó Cuív go raibh cursaí an Tuaiscirt níos tábhachtaí ná ábhar na díospóireachta seo. Tá an tábhacht céanna ag baint leis an dá ábhar.

Éamon Ó Cuív:

Ní thuigeann an Teachta an méid a dúirt mé.

Mr. O'Dowd:

Tuigim go maith an méid a dúirt an tAire.

Éamon Ó Cuív:

Ní hionann rud a bheith tábhachtach agus rud a bheith práinneach.

Mr. O'Dowd:

Tá sé soiléir do dhuine ar bith a léann tuarascáil shealadach Flood go bhfuil rud éigin bunúsach mícheart le cúrsaí polaitíochta na tíre le blianta anuas, agus le páirtí an Aire ach go háirithe. Sin an rud tábhachtach. Cad a tharla, cén chaoi a tharla sé, cé bhí ag éisteacht agus cé a d'inis agus cé nár inis an fhírinne?

This is a very important debate and I regret the views of the Minister, Deputy Ó Cuív, and the Minister who spoke before him. It is of extreme importance to the people because it is fundamental to how the public regard the running of the country for so many years by Fianna Fáil and the Progressive Democrats. The manners, methods and ethos of Government and politics are at stake here. On this side of the House we reject totally and utterly the corruption, bribery and evil that is at the heart of the Flood tribunal.

As my colleague said, Raphael Burke sold his soul for money, for a free house. Imagine being bought for a house, and thousands and thousands of pounds delivered in taxis by four or five builders. That is shameful and disgraceful. It is a matter of great import to us that this report is before the House and that it be discussed.

As a Senator, I was in this House in the Visitors Gallery when the former Minister, Mr. Burke, spoke about his line in the sand, about how upset he was by what was being said about him and how he was putting all those things behind him. Now we know the truth. We know what a sham and what a lie the whole affair was for him.

As Members we have to address how we look at planning and how to reform the law in terms of inducements that may be offered to elected representatives to vote one way or the other, or to public officials. I agree with proposals from all sides of the House that the process will have to be changed, that there should be an overview and that a High Court judge should look at and vouch for the integrity of each development plan. A more fundamental issue is the transparency at local level of that plan as it is being made. Local authority plans are not made at county council level but at a sub county council level – at a planning meeting for an area. When development plans are being discussed it is essential that, ab initio, the press is present at those meetings—

Mr. M. Higgins:

Hear, hear.

Mr. O'Dowd:

—and that it knows and hears everything that is taking place. That is not the case now. When a plan is made for a village or town once every five or six years there should be a vote, a plebiscite, of that community to accept or reject it in its totality after amendments have been put by the elected members and officials. The reality about planning is that it belongs to the people and not to the politicians and officials. They should stand over the public and say whether they want a particular plan. Planning should go through that process. Given that the planning process is at least a five or seven year cycle I see no reason for not proceeding in this way.

In my county of Louth – this is not a political point in the narrow sense – local councillors in Dunleer have rejected a plan put forward by the planning consultants. They propose to make the village of Dunleer two or three times bigger than the local people wish. This is a disgrace. If and when plans for villages such as Dunleer are put to people to accept or reject, then there will be absolute clarity about what the people want and what the public representatives have to do.

Anyone who regularly reads Sunday newspapers such as The Sunday Business Post, Sunday Independent, etc., knows there will be a planning scandal, that a politician will be named, that some back room boy, as reported last Sunday, was getting £1,000 per week for renting out his integrity to some developer. These scandals are unacceptable. The Progressive Democrats who think they have the moral high ground on these issues should leave the Government and sit with us and oppose what has been going on. It is a charade and it has gone on for years. While that party continues to support the Government it has no credibility left. Prior to the election the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Deputy McDowell, hung up a poster about not having a one party State or a Fianna Fáil Government on its own. Effectively, he is guarantor of that Government. I call on him, if he has not already contributed to the debate, to tell the House what is in the file he read at the weekend. He will not allow us to question him but will he please tell the House what he knows because we have not seen the file.

Mr. M. Higgins:

He is drawing a line in the sand.

Mr. O'Dowd:

Mr. Albert Reynolds also drew a line in the sand when he went on national radio to tell us about this file and what he had asked the former Minister, Mrs. Geoghegan-Quinn, to show to the Taoiseach before he appointed Mr. Ray Burke to office. The bottom line is that we have to clean up our politics, change the planning laws and have debates such as this. There should be no problem in having a question and answer session with the Taoiseach or any other Minister. That is what democracy is all about. It is about getting to know the facts and telling the House what one knows. If one has nothing to hide why not answer the questions?

The bottom line is that young people must not be allowed to lose respect for the political system. It is important for us that young people continue to get involved in politics. It is only by transparency and openness in the planning system and of all our actions and activities that they will be happy to get involved with political parties and will respect those in politics. They will listen to us and we will certainly listen to them. The question I have, which is not for the Taoiseach or the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Deputy McDowell, but the general public, is whether it would buy a used car from the Government. The answer is "no" because it has no credibility, either in terms of the way it has managed the economy or the way it has managed this debate by its refusal to answer the questions.

Mr. P. Power:

I wish to share time with Deputy Devins.

An Ceann Comhairle:

Is that agreed? Agreed.

Mr. P. Power:

The publication of this report is a profoundly significant and welcome event in Irish public life. Mr. Justice Flood has done the State an enormous service by exposing corruption at the highest level. This report has been a success by any standard using those terms. Mr. Justice Flood has single-handedly renewed the public's faith in tribunals as a way of exposing wrongdoing in Irish political life. His record and his service to the State in this regard will stand the test of time.

We have had many tribunals during the past 20 years. Each time a report has been published arising from those tribunals, the public's faith in the ability of those tribunals to deliver a concise and objective judgment has diminished, ending up with the report on the beef tribunal. Mr. Justice Flood has turned that around almost 180º and renewed the public's faith in this method of investigating and exposing wrongdoing in public life. He is to be commended.

Mr. Rabbitte:

That is not fair to Mr. Justice McCracken. He did the same thing.

An Ceann Comhairle:

I ask the Deputy to allow Deputy Power, a new Deputy, to make his contribution.

Mr. P. Power:

I was making a general point. In regard to the past few years I accept the fact that a number of tribunals have renewed the public's faith in their efficacy. Mr. Justice Flood's conclusions are clear, concise, forthright and trenchant in what they say, namely, lest there be any doubt, that extremely wealthy people in this country had no difficulty in subverting the planning process to make huge windfall profits and that, at the same time, there were politicians who were willing to aid and abet them in that process. There were willing people in the professions, not least my own former profession, who aided and abetted this conspiracy to subvert the planning process in this country. That is a serious allegation to make but it is a valid one, and the conclusions of the report substantiate that clear statement.

Arising out of the three points I have made, the greatest success of this report is that it will demonstrate in the clearest terms to people in public life, or those who aspire to serve in public life, that this sort of activity, this sort of corrupt behaviour, will not and cannot be tolerated, and it will be exposed. If one decides to go into public life and if one is predisposed towards this type of behaviour, think again, think twice and think three times about this.

The evidence has been laid bare for all to see, it is clear and forthright. However, we must be careful in how we approach the debate and ensure that Members do not abuse the privilege which is afforded to each and every one of us so as to make possible future trials and convictions unsafe and unsound because of prejudicial statements in this House.

I congratulate the Taoiseach, the last Government and this House for proposing and setting up the Flood tribunal in 1997. Although it has taken a long time for the tribunal to report, it has been worth the wait for exposing the level of corruption and wrongdoing in the planning process. The efficacy of the planning process is central to the way in which we conduct public affairs in this country. Most of us in this House deal with myriad issues in our offices and clinics, but the one issue that consistently comes up in my clinic is planning, from the small extension to the garden shed to multi-unit commercial developments of hundreds of houses. They are the issues which concern the public, and if there is a question mark over that process there is a question mark over public life and over people involved in politics.

Mr. Justice Flood has gone a long way towards cleaning up that process, or at least towards making it more difficult for anybody who may seek to go down that road again. In that respect he has done the State a great service. Mr. Justice Flood has also shown that public tribunals can be very cost-effective. To date, the tribunal has cost €25 million. I am sure that figure will double. I believe it will treble by the time it is finished, but this money will have been well spent for the purposes of exposing serious corruption and wrongdoing. The Revenue Commissioners and the Criminal Assets Bureau have confirmed that, as a direct result of the inquiries made by Mr. Justice Flood, €34.5 million has been recovered. This is a massive vindication, not only of Mr. Justice Flood, but of the officials and the legal team who worked with the tribunal, and of the efficacy of tribunals themselves. The decision of the Taoiseach and the Government to extend the terms of reference of the tribunal has been entirely justified by the interim report of Mr. Justice Flood. For these reasons I welcome the report.

One of the true tests of any democratic society is its ability to deal with serious wrongdoing in public life. Over the past ten years this country has come to terms with that difficult issue in a forthright and honest way. I hate to use the expression again, but there has been a lot done and an awful lot more to do in this regard. The Government has not waited in the meantime for the results of the tribunal, but has introduced its own legislation, including the Prevention of Corruption Act, 2001, the Standards in Public Office Act, 2001, the Oireachtas (Ministerial and Parliamentary Offices) (Amendment) Act, 2001, as well as introducing the Director of Corporate Enforcement to remove the veil of security which corporate entities can give to their beneficial owners.

The publication of the interim report of Mr. Justice Flood and his tribunal is a profoundly significant and welcome development in Irish life. It sounds a clear message – those who act improperly or illegally while engaged in public life can be sure that their actions will be exposed and the law enforced against them. The risk of such exposure is probably the greatest deterrent against people in public life engaging in corrupt and dishonest practices.

I have talked at length about the importance and significance of this report in terms of where it fits into the dynamic of public life in Ireland, and I have repeated myself on a number of occasions. In doing so, I serve to illustrate a central point, namely, that the Opposition has completely missed the import and the significance of this report—

Mr. S. Ryan:

The Deputy is ruining his contribution now.

Mr. P. Power:

In zeroing in on the Taoiseach for its own narrow political ends, it is missing the central importance of this report, namely, that it may, once and for all, stop this sort of activity, this sort of corruption. Focusing on what happened five years ago in political terms, the Opposition fails to recognise that this report is now in the hands of the Garda Commissioner, the Director of Corporate Enforcement, the Revenue Commissioners, the collector general and other enforcement bodies. This report – one of many I hope – will be acted upon. I make these points to illustrate the fact that the Opposition, as Deputy Ó Cuív said, is missing the wood for the trees—

Mr. Rabbitte:

The Deputy would be better off not mentioning trees.

Mr. P. Power:

The Opposition is missing the central import of this report.

Dr. Devins:

I thank Deputy Power for sharing time. I welcome the publication of the Second Interim Report of the Tribunal of Inquiry into Certain Planning Matters and Payments carried out by the then sole member of the tribunal, the Honourable Mr. Justice Flood. This tribunal was set up under ministerial order by the previous Dáil on 4 November 1997. It has taken almost five years to get to this stage in its deliberations.

This is a comprehensive report but it is also a frightening document as it exposes the abuse of power by a former Member and former Minister. As a life-long member of Fianna Fáil, I find it distressing to discover that a member of Fianna Fáil should be found by Mr. Justice Flood to be corrupt. However, I do not believe this is a time for political points scoring because it is much more serious than that.

I have spent the past 27 years working as a family doctor. During that time I have seen a lot of human nature. I believe that a capacity for good and evil exists all the time. That is why, as a State, we have laws so that evil can be punished. Our democracy is a precious thing and the cornerstone of any democracy is not only that things are right in public life but that they are seen to be so. This is not the time or place for equivocation. If a public representative, be it at local, regional, national or international level, receives money or rewards from an individual or a group so that he or she carries out a certain course of action on their behalf which may or may not be contrary to the public good, then that is a bribe. Bribery leads to corruption and corruption attacks the foundation of democracy.

The litany of corruption this tribunal has discovered is frightening. It is a severe shock to our democracy. I welcome this exposure of corruption and I applaud the sterling work of the tribunal to date. I also welcome the forwarding of this report to the DPP so that he can take whatever action he considers appropriate. It is regrettable that the sole member of the tribunal had to conclude that certain parties who appeared before him chose not to co-operate with the tribunal in its task.

As to the future, I hope the tribunal will be speedily completed and I urge all who appear before it to co-operate fully so its final findings can be laid before this House as soon as possible. I look forward also to any recommendations it may make in relation to amendments to existing legislation in the areas of planning, local government, ethics in public office or otherwise.

I have been a Member of this House only since June of this year but I have been a member of Sligo County Council since 1991. In all of that time I have never heard or seen anything to suggest that any level of bribery or corruption occurred. I might add that I have engaged in many discussions with planning officials of Sligo County Council in relation to issues pertaining to planning and at all times I have found the officials to be extremely courteous and fair. They make their recommendations to the county manager, who is the ultimate decision maker. Sometimes I do not agree with those decisions. In particular, I frequently have a problem with decisions made in relation to rural planning. I believe strongly that every effort should be made to retain people in rural areas, but that is a debate for another time. I emphasise that at no time have I ever heard any rumour or story of any degree of corruption, but we must be eternally vigilant. If any member of the public is aware of any wrongdoing, it must be reported to the appropriate authorities.

Our democracy is founded on the rule of right over the evil of wrong. Abuse of a position of authority, be it a public representative or an official, is wrong and must be condemned in the strongest possible manner. The report before the House has exposed corruption and for that we must acknowledge the good work carried out by the tribunal. We must all learn to be extremely vigilant and must ensure that whatever steps are necessary in the future to safeguard our democracy are undertaken. In that regard, I commend the Government for the legislation it has introduced and is introducing which will ensure that what happened in the past, as is detailed in this report, will not be allowed to occur in the future.

There is no doubt that there is widespread anger in the community about the contents of this report, and that anger and disgust is entirely justified. However, I will end this contribution by making a plea that the forthcoming referendum is not allowed to become a focus for that anger. The Nice treaty referendum has nothing to do with the contents of this report. They are separate issues and must be considered as such. I congratulate Mr. Justice Flood on his report and wish him and the new tribunal members every success in the speedy completion of their difficult and demanding task.

Mr. Rabbitte:

I want to share time with my colleagues, Deputies Michael D. Higgins and Seán Ryan, and regret that we have so little time to discuss this matter.

We have heard two decent speeches from two new Fianna Fáil Members and I accept entirely what they have said at face value, although I am amazed at the ability of Deputy Power to make a contribution in such a detached and erudite manner as if all these terrible events took place in some foreign land about which his party would know nothing. It reminds me of the time the Taoiseach fought a three or four day battle to keep the name of Ray Burke out of the terms of reference. Similarly, Deputy Devins's remark that people should report these matters to the authorities was amazing. They did. There were three separate Garda investigations in this matter from 1974, arising out of Joe McAnthony's article, and all ran into the sand for whatever reason.

It is a disgraceful indictment of the Government that this House has been in suspension for the past two weeks when we could have been discussing this tribunal report and getting answers and accountability in a fashion that the report warrants given the amount of work that has gone into it, the €22 million it has cost and the time it has taken, but the report exploded in the face of the Government. For two days the Government parties were traumatised. They did not know what response to make. The Taoiseach was at the ploughing championships and he took refuge in his usual mangling of the English language that has served him so well in times of crisis. The Progressive Democrats were traumatised into virtual silence and the Government parties together were completely taken aback by the anger of the public as they queued at Molesworth Street to buy this report, which is a better seller than Roy Keane's autobiography.

It is worth recording in this debate the reason the Government parties were left gasping for air. After all, the inquiry into Ray Burke's conduct in public office has always been a time bomb ticking underneath this Government and its predecessor, so why were Fianna Fáil and the Progressive Democrats caught in the headlights? The answer is straightforward. They anticipated another whitewash such as the one we got in the beef tribunal. After all, everything that conceivably might have been done to torpedo Flood was done. His inquiry was obstructed and hindered at every legal corner. Stories designed to undermine the tribunal were planted at various critical junctures. Documents were destroyed and withheld and the tribunal treated to fairy tales as well as disrespect. Most seriously of all, concerted sustained efforts were made to ridicule his performance, and the tribunal appeared to go on forever and at enormous public expense.

The result was that, mentally, the Government parties had written off Flood. Fianna Fáil had sawed off Ray Burke like a Coillte worker might saw off a branch of a tree in north Dublin, the climbing of which so exhausted our Taoiseach. The Progressive Democrats, ever to the manor born, are so busy governing an unruly and ungrateful people that they did not want to be distracted from the serious business of Government by what the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Deputy McDowell, called "something that is in the past".

Apparently there was no conviction that the sole member could square the circle. As in the beef tribunal, it was expected that he would summarise the evidence in a complex, impenetrable presentation and avoid making findings of fact or drawing conclusions. The view was that the people were sick of the evidence anyway and was it not in the newspapers and on the Vincent Browne radio programme every day? In other words, there would be nothing new.

When Mr. Justice Feargus Flood decided to call a spade a spade, the Government was so caught off balance it looked possible for almost a week that it would implode. Coming on top of hammer blow after hammer blow that exposed its fraudulent salesmanship on the economy, the Govern ment was, as my constituency colleague, Deputy Conor Lenihan, described it, rudderless. Last year he said that half the Government should be sacked and I said at the time that he was only half right.

The Flood report has been a shock to the Government, the elite in our society and most especially to the golden circle who believed they were untouchable. It has also been a shot in the arm not only for the tribunal of inquiry system, as Deputy Power said, but for the political system itself.

Mention of setting up the tribunal reminds me that when the gravity of Mr. Justice Flood's report dawned on the Taoiseach, Deputy Ahern, he immediately started the mantra, repeated by the Chief Whip, Deputy Hanafin, and others, that he set up the tribunal. Apart from the technicality that it was the Oireachtas that set up the tribunal, everyone knows that public opinion and Opposition advocacy in this House dragged the tribunal out of an unwilling Government and a reluctant Taoiseach. In fact, it was more serious than that. The Taoiseach and his Government resisted the setting up of the tribunal until the Magill story made it no longer tenable to do so. The Government could not be sustained if the Taoiseach continued to resist.

I draw the attention of the House, and I wish I had more time, to page 7 of the report of the tribunal where the sole member draws attention to what happened on the day after Ray Burke's statement in the House on 10 September. He adverts to an amendment I put down which, in the event, was defeated by 76 votes to 69. At paragraph 1-17 the sole member states:

This amendment, if passed, would have included the preliminary investigation into the payment of JMSE's money to Mr. Burke in the terms of reference of the Moriarty tribunal. The amendment was rejected by 76 votes to 69.

In other words, there would have been a preliminary investigation. The Government voted it down. At paragraph 1-19 His Lordship states:

On the 1st October, 1997, in answer to Question 13 put to an Taoiseach by Mr. Pat Rabbitte, T.D, an Taoiseach Mr. Bertie Ahern T.D. informed the House that the Government had decided that a new Tribunal would be established to investigate all matters relating to the parcels of land referred to in Mr. Bailey's letter and any related matters.

On 7 October the Taoiseach advised the House that he had accepted Mr. Burke's resignation from the Government and the Dáil. On the same day Deputy Noel Dempsey moved the motion to set up the tribunal, following detailed discussions with the Whips. I am certain, for reasons which I do not wish to record, that the two events – Mr. Burke's resignation from the Dáil and the setting up of the tribunal – are connected. I believe the Taoiseach gave Mr. Burke an undertaking that there would be no tribunal. When he was forced to set up a tribunal or see his Government fall, Mr. Burke resigned in high dudgeon, feeling betrayed by the man he felt he had made Taoiseach. That was the reason the Taoiseach voted down by 76 votes to 69 my amendment No. 27, that would have required the Moriarty tribunal to conduct a preliminary investigation into the Burke donation to determine whether there was a prima facie case to warrant a full inquiry.

It can be seen, therefore, how misleading it is for the Taoiseach to claim that he set up the tribunal as if to convey that he wanted to get to the bottom of the allegations in the public domain. In fact, he wanted to do the opposite and had given an undertaking to Mr. Burke to that effect. After the Magill story on 25 September, he could no longer hold the line. Indeed, as Whip at the time, I remember the attempt to keep his name out of the ultimate terms of reference.

I adduced these passages in the report to highlight how blatantly misleading is the Taoiseach's claim about who and why the tribunal was set up. His Chief Whip and other Fianna Fáil Deputies have repeated this mantra ad nauseam. The truth is the opposite. Having hidden behind the shield of supposedly setting up the Flood tribunal for the last two weeks, the Taoiseach comes into the House today to argue that he has no responsibility to answer to the House for the tribunal report because he is hardly mentioned in it. Last week he was claiming ownership of it. I notice that the text of the two Deputies' speeches has now changed to refer to the tribunal that was set up by the Oireachtas. For the last two weeks it has been the tribunal set up by the Taoiseach.

Mr. S. Ryan:

By Bertie.

Mr. Rabbitte:

It is this kind of simply unbelievable evasion that has brought politics into disrepute in the eyes of so many citizens. Why, even now, can the Taoiseach not deal with this inglorious chapter in his party's history in an open, straightforward and comprehensive way? Instead he continues to make it up as he goes along, hoping that a debate, disgracefully already delayed for two weeks, will be replaced by other events. He knows and the country knows that he and Ray Burke were political Siamese twins who soldiered together for almost 25 years in Government and Opposition. That is not to allege that the habits of Ray Burke were the habits of Bertie Ahern. It is to state, however, that the Taoiseach, in whatever capacity, could scarcely have escaped knowledge of some of Mr. Burke's financial adventures.

The big question he must answer tomorrow is: why did he insist on appointing Burke to a senior Cabinet office? Why did he send Deputy Dermot Ahern on a fool's errand to London? After his appearance before the tribunal Deputy Ahern qualifies for membership of the UEFA inspection team that recently visited our capital city to inspect one non-existent stadium and another that does not permit soccer and proclaimed itself well pleased with the outcome. Deputy Ahern came back empty-handed and only reverted to Mr. Murphy of JMSE, not for the purposes of finding out whether he indeed gave Ray Burke £30,000 – or £100,000 today – but rather to ask him if he had any dirt on any member of the Opposition that Ray Burke could use when answering questions on 10 September. New members of Fianna Fáil might be shocked at this, but it is all true and checkable.

Helping Ray Burke dish the dirt on the Opposition had become Deputy Ahern's objective by 10 September. Did any Opposition member get a donation of whatever character from JMSE? If one reads the transcript of the tribunal, Deputy Ahern's evidence is, to put it mildly, unedifying. He sought to deny that these phone calls were made until counsel for JMSE produced the logs. The extraordinary question is why the Taoiseach failed to tell Deputy Ahern what he knew before he went to London. More amazingly, we know now from former Taoiseach Albert Reynolds that his successor, Deputy Ahern, was fixed with knowledge since 1994. In a matter of days after being informed of concerns about Ray Burke in 1994 and receiving files from former Minister Máire Geoghan-Quinn, he brought Ray Burke out of the wilderness and onto his Front Bench. It is fair to say that he would have appointed him to the Cabinet if that Government had not collapsed.

The only reasonable conclusion is that the Taoiseach did not want to know. The same conclusion applies in respect of his failure to ask his party treasurer, now Deputy Seán Fleming. Nor did he want to know what Mr. James Gogarty had to say. One man who did know what Mr. Gogarty had to say was the current Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Deputy McDowell. What did he say to his leader, Deputy Harney, before she acquiesced in Burke's appointment? She already had her own troubling information from a JMSE executive who was the husband of a PD candidate. Why did she not put her foot down? Now, five years later, the leader of the cavalry to rescue this Government from implosion is the same Deputy McDowell.

Mr. S. Ryan:

The report of the Flood tribunal is a damning indictment of my former constituency colleague Mr. Ray Burke, who was born and reared less than a quarter of a mile from my own home in Portrane. We went to the national school together, played football together and both ended up in politics, but that is as far as the comparisons go. Hundreds of ordinary, hard-working Fianna Fáil personnel who gave loyal service to Ray Burke and his father before him have been utterly betrayed. While most of them were walking the roads for Ray Burke he was receiving massive amounts of money from builders and developers.

The report outlines a series of payments to Mr. Burke from a number of quarters. It also reveals a sordid and disgusting aspect of public life in the 1980s and 1990s. It is an outstanding and very concise report which has surprised many, particularly the journalists who have been endeavouring to undermine the work of Mr. Justice Flood and his team over the years. In this report Mr. Justice Flood has called a spade a spade. He says there is no such thing as a free lunch and never has been. If people receive substantial contributions it can only be in return for services rendered or for the expectation of services in the future. On the basis of this report many people, such as politicians both national and local and builders, developers and their agents, will be quaking in their boots.

Most of those involved in this process felt they were untouchable. They go as far as to acknowledge receipts of contributions of various amounts, depending on their importance in the chain of events, for election purposes. These contributions were alleged to be in the interests of democracy and nothing could be proven. Previous investigations could not come up with the evidence, but Mr. Justice Flood is a different proposition. Fianna Fáil is endeavouring to send out a message that things have changed since Deputy Bertie Ahern became Taoiseach. The Taoiseach is the person, we should note, who nominated Ray Burke to office when he knew that Mr. Burke had received at least £30,000 from Joseph Murphy and that Mr. Murphy himself had denied making this payment to Deputy Dermot Ahern.

As far as Fianna Fáil is concerned, Ray Burke was the rotten apple in the barrel and things have moved on. As far as I am concerned things have not changed much. Other people named in the report, such as the Baileys, P. J. Mara and John Finnegan, are members of Fianna Fáil or major contributors to the party.

They are all part of the Fianna Fáil family and will continue as such in the future. On a personal basis and in the interests of politics, I am pleased the allegations of corruption to the planning process in County Dublin have been publicly acknowledged. I regret I do not have the time to go into this issue but I was in Fingal County Council at the time when we saw what was going on. We have seen the builders, developers and those mentioned in the report in the chambers endeavouring to bring about change.

Mr. M. Higgins:

In the time available to me I would like to raise some questions which should be answered on the basis of the Flood report in regard to radio, particularly the project called Century Radio. Chapter 9-07 of the Flood report refers to a very specific and worrying phenomenon. I wish the Minister, Deputy Ó Cuív, was here to listen to some of this, which he believes is not important. Níl práinn ag baint leis, to use his phrase. Chapter 9-07 states:

Some RTE personnel learned of a proposal in an informal way at the meeting which took place, on 6th February 1990, with the Department officials. On the 27th February 1990 the matter was raised specifically in the Dáil by Deputy Mitchell, and responded to by Mr. Burke in a manner which could only be interpreted as a denial that any such plans were afoot. A proposal to divert licence fee income was contained in proposed legislation which Mr. Burke laid before the Dáil on the 29th May 1990.

I want to specifically ask a question for answer tomorrow by the Taoiseach. What was in the memorandum for Government for that legislation on the date I referred to in 1990? I was the Minister who lifted the cap on RTE. I knew what I had to do. I had to consult colleagues, I had to consult Ministers in both parties that formed the Government and the officials had to consult other officials. I find it incredible that there was no stated reason in a memorandum for Government in 1990 when the cap was being put on. A number of questions flow from this. Perhaps the Cabinet colleagues were completely conned by arguments that had nothing to do with the promoters of Century Radio who were talking to Mr. Burke. Remember Mr. Burke had met the bankers of Century Radio.

The Minister assured those who were promoting the venture that he could help. What did he put in the memorandum? Did he put entirely specious arguments that conned the then Members of the Cabinet or did he share with his Cabinet colleagues, particularly those who were in the same party, the reason he felt it necessary to maim and destroy the national broadcaster to help people whom the Flood tribunal has heard were offering inducements and for which he was facilitating the award of a national radio licence? There was no recommendation technically or in principle for this radio licence by the Department of Communications which had responsibility in this regard. Perhaps the Minister, Deputy Ó Cuív, thinks there is no urgency in this regard, there is the same urgency there was in keeping the Irish Press in place before it was destroyed as a newspaper. I wish there was not a line in the sand, stopping in 1997, that went right back to the foundation and operation of that paper.

Let me say why Century Radio is important. It is of the utmost importance that this matter is resolved. On what basis was legislation put through this House in which people decided to damage the national broadcaster?

Mr. Rabbitte:

Was the Cabinet complicit?

Mr. M. Higgins:

It was either so naive and stupid as to have been conned or it was complicit. Let us have the answer.

I want to raise other questions. Let us have the answer to questions about other colleagues of Mr. Burke. Did they discuss with him his proposals for changes in the oil and gas regime in regard to offshore licences or were they independent actions also? Did any of them discuss with him their concerns in regard to the issue of passports? I listened to a great number of speeches this evening and one of the charming attributes of many people on the Fianna Fáil Front Bench these days is a brass neck. There was a suggestion, for example, that the Opposition should have gone to the Taoiseach and discussed privately with him what was bothering it. Would it have to queue behind a former Taoiseach, Mr. Reynolds, and a former Minister for Justice, Mrs. Geoghegan-Quinn? Why would he listen to them if he was not listening to his former Cabinet colleagues?

I liked the idea of the Tánaiste, Deputy Harney's pathetic reference that she had to demonstrate her trust. She stated that the reputation had gone around that the Progressive Democrats were pressing too much for heads and so on in government. She said she did so because she wanted to base the new Government on a foundation of trust and co-operation of partnership. In a previous coalition with Fianna Fáil the Progressive Democrats had been branded, fairly or unfairly, as a party that was totally unreasonable and too quick in forcing resignations and blocking appointments. How pathetic. What an admission and how complicit it makes her party in what happened.

Mr. Cassidy:

I wish to share my time with the Minister of State, Deputy Hanafin.

An Ceann Comhairle:

Is that agreed? Agreed.

Mr. Cassidy:

As one of the newly elected TDs to the Dáil it is a great honour and privilege to represent County Westmeath and to do whatever I can to make Ireland a better place for our families and those of us who were born, bred and reared here and who wish to continue to live and work here. One comes into public life with honesty, integrity and a good name, and is tax compliant. I would like to think that when the 55 new TDs finish our term in this House our honesty, integrity and good names willl be intact and that we will continue to be totally tax compliant.

I listened very attentively in my office to the contributions this evening. I want to be part of anything that is good about life in Ireland and I do not want to be part of anything that is not good, whether business, politics or anything to do with family Iife. My name was mentioned in the House this evening by Deputy Cuffe in regard to an action plan for the village of Delvin, County Westmeath. Councillors of all parties in Westmeath are endeavouring to do something about the decline in the population in the north of the county, while everywhere else in the county is absolutely bursting at the seams. Areas in County Westmeath must join together as clubs to get a minor hurling team. Our area is not an attractive place for development. There is no employer in Delvin apart from St. Mary's Hospital. We trusted the council, planners and the very eminent people who have gone on to other local authorities in the past 15 years. None of their proposals for the county plan worked.

Under the action plan proposed for Delvin, the Government has seen fit to make €995,000 available to upgrade the sewerage scheme. This equates to 40% of the cost while the other 60% must come from developments in the area. In an effort to raise these funds we proposed an action plan for the village, all within the speed limit of the village. I was incorrectly named tonight for the first time in the House. Anything I ever did either in public life or as an employer was honest, open and decent. I would like to think that my good name will not be tarnished by a political remark made here this evening. I congratulate all Deputies of all political parties who are doing their utmost, as has the Ceann Comhairle throughout his political life. He has provided us all with a great example in dealing with political matters. I thank the Ceann Comhairle for allowing me to clarify my position because I was upset when the statements were made about me.

Minister of State at the Department of the Taoiseach (Ms Hanafin):

Like other Members, I welcome the findings of Mr. Justice Flood in his interim report of the tribunal. His meticulous work and that of his legal team deserve to be commended because undoubtedly, over many months, there was a lot of obstruction and obfuscation. Mr. Flood experienced a lot of difficulties with many witnesses and he is to be commended for the very clear and concise fashion in which he drafted his report.

However, it is very sad for any Member of this House to have to read those findings. They are findings of disgraceful conduct by a former Member, a person who had the trust not only of his constituents but of this House as a Deputy and as a Minister. There are also findings of disgraceful conduct by members of the business community.

I find it really ironic that opprobrium is being heaped upon the current generation of politicians for the actions of former politicians. After all, we are the generation who, as politicians, set up tribunals, resourced them and introduced new legislation, ethics and standards. We are the people who demand—

Mr. Rabbitte:

A Cheann Comhairle, would it be possible to ask a question?

An Ceann Comhairle:

It is not usual to take questions so early in a Minister's contribution.

Ms Hanafin:

If I am able to answer it I will certainly take it.

Mr. Rabbitte:

Is the Minister of State saying that the present Taoiseach is of a different generation to the former Minister, Mr. Ray Burke?

Ms Hanafin:

I am saying that we in this House are people of high standing who have the faith of our constituents. We stand for public life and all that is good in it. We are here to serve our constituents with the highest of standards and every Member of this House shares in that, as indeed does Deputy Rabbitte. We want to ensure that the conduct of public life is such that we can restore the faith of the public in us as politicians, who are elected to do an honourable job in an honourable way.

We will do whatever it takes to do that. If it means having stronger legislation, we will draft it. If it means setting up further bodies to monitor compliance, we will do that as well. It is not pleasant for a lot of people, but that does not matter because we have to ensure that the essential work will continue and that the work of the tribunals will continue to expose what went on in the past. That is why, when we established the McCracken tribunal, upon which I made my maiden speech just five years ago, I spoke of what we are speaking of today – high standards in high office. We have to be prepared to further resource the DIRT inquiry and Moriarty tribunal if necessary.

It must be very frustrating for the public to find that, as a result of all these tribunals, the reports have no legal effect. It is frustrating that we cannot use them within our constitutional order and that it is necessary for other bodies and other regulating agencies to take matters a step further. Groups such as the DPP, the Garda Síochána, the Director of Corporate Law Enforcement and the Criminal Assets Bureau have to go back and retrace the ground that has already been covered. It is necessary for them to operate within a particular structure. If the findings had legal effect, they would not be operating within that structure.

It would not be acceptable to re-examine the legislation which sets up the tribunals and their terms of reference now, but when the current tribunals are over there will be a case for such re-examination to give them some real teeth so that their findings can be used. Obviously, the ultimate desirable situation would be one where one would have judicial tribunals which would link the rights within the constitutional framework, but that is another day's work.

That is not to say that we will do nothing. As the Taoiseach announced at the Fianna Fáil Ard Fheis, as can be seen in An Agreed Programme for Government and the Fianna Fáil manifesto, and as prioritised this week in our legislation, we will be bringing forward legislation this session to establish a corruption assets bureau. This is to ensure that the findings of this tribunal report can be used where corruption has been discovered to seize assets, freeze assets and put today's value on them to ensure that the public can regain some of the money it has lost. That is something that can be worked on fairly quickly.

While all the other bodies are operating it is very important to ensure that we do not frustrate, hinder or obstruct any investigation or any prosecution of any cases. Obviously, that is why we have to be cautious in our comments, but of course we can make legitimate comments on the findings of the report. We endorse the findings that talk about a former Member of this House, Ray Burke, and say that he was a disgrace to himself and to public office.

In condemning his behaviour, I also question the Opposition, the sole aim of which this evening seems to have been a concerted effort to turn the debate on the Taoiseach. I notice that some Members have the report with them. I challenge them to read the report and every one of its 400 pages. They will find that there is not one word of criticism of the Taoiseach. If they are just seeking to divert attention from the very serious findings in this tribunal report, they are not serving democracy or the tribunals well.

It is a privilege for each of us to serve here. It is a privilege for people to want to serve. Many are called and few are chosen. Each of us stands for very high standards. The type of conduct which is talked about in the report has unfortunately brought a lot of politicians, probably the whole of the political body, into disrepute in the public eye. We need to take resolute action and we have taken it over the past couple of years to show transparency and accountability because we have to reassure people. We have to reassure the public and young people that we are here for decent reasons. We are here as honest people doing an honest day's work. If we do not have the trust of those people, then it will be very difficult for democracy to survive.

The findings of the tribunal report are hard to stomach for a lot of people. They are very critical of people and very serious. The report is a victory for democracy because it shows there is no room for corruption in public, business or political life. Particularly in political life there exists a message that if corruption is one's aim, one does not belong. The message is as clear for Members of this House as it is for local authority councillors, most if not all of whom are doing a very good job representing local communities for no salary or wage. It takes up much of their time and it is important that the public should restore its confidence in them as well.

This is only a second interim report by Mr. Justice Flood, not his final report. However, he does indicate on page 1 that in his final report, when he gets to finish it, he will make recommendations as to further legislation and, perhaps, how the Legislature will be able to move forward to protect society from corruption. I look forward to seeing that and I know we in this House will ensure that we work upon his recommendations and ideas to restore faith in the political process.

As I said, the report is a damning indictment of a former Member of this House and a serious criticism of many top business people. It has shown a type of culture that existed in the past, and it is important now that each of the agencies to which this report has been forwarded undertakes its work and does so speedily and efficiently. The public is anxious for some result from the report, which should not be left to rest. Our job is to ensure that happens also.

Debate adjourned.

Dáil Éireann díospóireacht - Wednesday, 9 Oct 2002

Second Interim Report of the Tribunal of Inquiry into Certain Planning Matters and Payments: Motion (Resumed).

Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Wednesday, 9 Oct 2002