‘Ahern wasn’t forced to bring up family issues’

THE opposition objected to the Taoiseach implying that he was forced to divulge his private family business in public because of the questions asked about the money he received in the early 1990s.

Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny said he respected Mr Ahern’s right to a private life and would not stray into that area. “No member of the opposition raised the issue of the Taoiseach’s sensitive, emotional marital circumstances. These were brought into the public domain by himself,” he said.

Labour leader Pat Rabbitte said Mr Ahern had used his family circumstances to create a context in which to explain the “loans” he said he received from friends in 1993 and was now trying to “drag the Manchester money in that same category”.

Trevor Sargent of the Greens said: “This debate is not about the Taoiseach’s private life ... this debate is about trust in politics.”

Enda Kenny also took issue with Mr Ahern’s repeated assertion that he had done nothing illegal in taking the money. “When you put your hand on that money in your capacity as Minister for Finance ... you did wrong,” he said.

He said Fianna Fáil had acted as if the party was bound by the Mafia code of secrecy in failing to condemn the Taoiseach’s actions.

“The only person to break with Omerta was Mr Nolan [Carlow TD MJ Nolan] in the bankbenches, which is probably where he is going to stay.”

Pat Rabbitte also found the Taoiseach’s logic hard to fathom. “In modern life you get gifts from friends and take loans from strangers, but Mr Ahern says he got loans from friends and took gifts from strangers.”

“Why, if he had £50,000 in savings, was it necessary to raise a bank loan? If a bank loan was in place, why was it necessary to have a whip-around to replace it?”

Trevor Sargent said, “The Ethics Act may not have existed in 1994 but ethics certainly did. It was unethical. It was wrong.”

Joe Higgins described the affair as “tawdry” and criticised those who sought to defend it. “They also defend the sleaze, the croneyism, the patronage and the corruption that pervaded Irish politics in the 1980s and 1990s.”

Sinn Féin’s Caoimhghín O Caoláin said it the Government should go. “This Government’s long-standing political bankruptcy ... is something that no whip-around will ... remedy.”