Truth takes a circuitous route in Dáil theatrics

Aftershocks from the Lowry scandal sparked a Mexican wave of accusation and innuendo as party leaders rose one-by-one in rapid succession to attack each other for being tainted by association with all manor of financial shenanigans.

Gerry Adams provoked uproar when he branded Fine Gael’s strangely routed acceptance of $50,000 from Esat two months after the outfit won the mobile phone licence as “money laundering”.

This was considered to be a slightly, shall we say, explosive, choice of words from the Sinn Féin leader by deputies on the Government benches who lapsed into an orgy of rather theatrical laughter after he delivered the line.

A barrage of references to the Northern Bank robbery then flew across the chamber as the Ceann Comhairle struggled to restore order.

When the melee subsided, Sinn Féin returned fire noting that the “counterfeiters had laughed loudest” — thought to be a reference to that rather unfortunate business in the 1980s linking the then Workers Party to some dodgy fivers. The Labour benches bristled with disdain.

Mr Adams, who often looks like he’s wandered into the chamber by accident from a tourist trail of Leinster House and isn’t quite sure where he is, was taken aback by the rough and tumble of the occasion, but was soon joined in outrage at the Government antics by an unlikely ally in the shape of Micheál Martin.

Could this really be the same Fianna Fáil leader who so ruthlessly slapped the Shinner down in the five-way TV debate for daring to comment on public standards in the South after his “history” up North?

Mr Martin really is quite the political acrobat, as he went on to prove by pitching Fianna Fáil’s tent on the sunny uplands of donation probity — but unfortunately, as that tent was last rolled out on the slippery slopes of the Galway races it was quickly blown away by Enda Kenny who has developed an unexpected knack for light comedy in his Dáil tussles since becoming Taoiseach.

As when he admitted — a full day after the scathing Moriarty condemnation — that it was indeed “wrong” for Fine Gael to have accepted the $50,000, adding he “regretted the circuitous route it had taken before it was returned”.

That route saw it first turn up at a swanky New York dinner for Fine Gael cabinet ministers just after the Esat deal in 1995, before it was bundled out of sight under the cloak of being dressed up as a consultancy payment to a fundraiser, then carted off to “rest” in a nice little off shore account where it could kick its heels while Fine Gael fretted about anyone finding out about until it was finally returned.

But, oh, no one in Fine Gael thought any of that was worth telling the tribunal until the whole squalid affair was uncovered by the media some years later.

A “circuitous route” to redemption indeed, Mr Kenny.

So, would Labour be the watchdog that wags the truth out of the Blueshirts over their Esat cash rollercoaster?

On the third asking of whether Fine Gael had serious questions still to answer on the $50,000, Eamon Gilmore ambiguously noted that “well, there will be questions, there will be a Dáil debate”. As an evasive response it was almost John Gormley-esque in its meaninglessness. Not a good omen.

The last thing this country needs is yet another dog that won’t bark, Eamon.