Report ‘laid bare culture of greed in public life’

A CULTURE of fanatical greed in Irish public life has been laid bare by the Moriarty report, Enda Kenny told the Dáil.

The Taoiseach said it had exposed “breathtaking attempts to acquire, use and access privilege”.

However, the Fine Gael leader failed to shed any new light on why it took his party three years to return a donation of $50,000 given to it by the winners of the mobile phone licence just two months after the contract was awarded.

The money was only returned after it was exposed in the media, after Fine Gael failed to inform the tribunal about its existence.

Mr Kenny said Fine Gael had been acting on the advice of a senior counsel that the donation did not fall within the realm of the inquiry.

The Taoiseach admitted that the way the donation had been handled was “wrong”, and had increased his determination to bring in political reforms such as banning corporate donations and introducing a whistle blowers charter.

Mr Kenny added the report would be “way too much” for people as they “watch their own lives imploding, the future they had planned disappearing.

“I believe this report will weary and bewilder people more than others. In these straitened times, when people are hurting and suffering so badly what the report exposes is all the more galling, damaging and worrying,” he said at the opening of a two-day Dáil debate into the findings of the tribunal probe.

In a strongly worded attack on the conduct of previous Taoiseach Bertie Ahern, Mr Kenny said: “I say incalculable damage has already been done because of a culture of ‘thanks very much big fella’, ‘walking-around money’, ‘whip-arounds’, ‘luck on the horses’ and of a Taoiseach degrading our nation and this office by trousering after-dinner tips.”

Mr Kenny warned that the fact a modern democracy would require tribunals into payments to politicians was “proof of the degradation of politics, the decline of civic virtue”.

In a swipe at the attacks on Mr Justice Moriarty launched by business tycoon Denis O’Brien and Independent TD Michael Lowry since the publication of the report, Mr Kenny said: “The tribunal finds seriously, and serially, against Deputy Michael Lowry and others who are major players in Irish business and public life.

“The Minister for Justice has already addressed the arrogance, unseemliness and danger of their public reaction.”

Mr Kenny said he intended to bring a “new life giving morality to Irish public life” in the aftermath of the tribunal report and other national scandals such as clerical child abuse.

Mr Kenny drew criticism from opposition benches for stating that he would only take questions at the end of the debate relating to matters involving the Fine Gael party, while Communications Minister Pat Rabbitte would deal with the inquiries finding into the mobile phone licence itself.

Earlier, Mr Kenny revealed the tribunal had cost the state nearly €42 million, excluding third-party legal costs.