Information on Burke set alarm bells ringing

WHILE the sensitive information Albert Reynolds and others passed to Bertie Ahern over Ray Burke’s practices were not solid proof, it was enough to set alarm bells ringing.

The former Taoiseach has said he was "surprised" that Mr Ahern went on to appoint Mr Burke to Cabinet in 1997 given the cloud of suspicion over the North Dublin deputy.

Much of the information centres on Department of Justice files on Mr Burke's handling of the passports-for-sale controversy.

Mr Reynolds said there were serious irregularities with the file on the issue of passports handed to a Saudi Arabian prince, Sheikh Khalid bin Mahfous, in return for a £20m investment.

Sheikh Khalid Mahfous was issued with 11 passports when Mr Burke was Minister for Justice in 1990.

When Mr Ahern went about forming a Cabinet in November 1994, Mr Reynolds said he told the new Taoiseach to acquaint himself with the Mahfous file in the Department of Justice before giving Mr Burke a ministerial post.

Máire Geoghegan Quinn, the then Justice Minister, lodged a memo on the Mahfous files just before she left office on November 29th, 1994.

In is she stated that she was "very concerned and alarmed" about its contents. She said details of the case were "highly unusual" and a note about the promised investment was "extraordinarily scanty by any standards".

The memo added: "I have serious concerns about the granting of naturalisation to the 11 persons in this case. If full, thorough and satisfactory answers to these concerns are not available, I am of the view that the certificates of naturalisation should, if possible, be revoked in each of the 11 cases."

Mr Ahern went on to tell the Dáil that he felt normal procedures had been followed and, given the proposed level of investment, the decision to issue the passports was reasonable.

During yesterday's visit to Cork, Mr Ahern said the files did not raise any alarm bells and were being investigated by the Moriarty Tribunal. He said he felt assured that Mr Burke was a suitable member for Cabinet.

"I wouldn't have appointed him if it did (raise alarm bells), and the fact is that if we knew all of these matters that we now know, five years later, we would be in a different position," Mr Ahern said.

Separately, Mr Ahern was also offered information relating to an investigation by Mr Reynolds into the Ray Burke and planning issues in 1992.

Mr Reynolds says he asked his ministerial colleague Michael Smith to carry out the probe before deciding whether to appoint Mr Burke to his Cabinet.

Mr Smith's investigation did not turn up any solid proof of corruption but he did famously say that "land re-zoning in the Dublin area was a bankrupt currency" after his investigation.

The then Taoiseach Mr Reynolds subsequently decided not to put Mr Burke in Cabinet because it would be an "unwise appointment".

He later told Mr Ahern of his views regarding Mr Burke in 1994 when Ahern set about forming a Cabinet and told him "everything I knew".

Mr Ahern yesterday confirmed that he had received this information from Mr Reynolds but again insisted there was no proof to suggest Mr Burke was in any way corrupt when he was appointed to Cabinet in 1997.