Curious case of the phantom Dáil debate

Real issues could have been raised during the debate on the Moriarty Tribunal. But the parties left plenty to be desired, writes Michael Clifford

WHAT was that all about? Yesterday, Dáil Éireann passed a motion of censure on one of its members. The motion read: “The Dáil believes the conduct of Michael Lowry set out in the tribunal report was completely unacceptable and calls on Deputy Lowry to resign voluntarily his membership of Dáil Éireann.”

There was no debate on the motion. There was no vote, because Lowry said he wouldn’t give Micheál Martin the satisfaction of opposing it. The motion was passed. Collectively, the members of the House then washed their hands of the Moriarty Tribunal and consigned it to the dustbin of history.

It was all really done and dusted at 7pm on Wednesday at the conclusion of the debate on the report. For seven hours, the House had “debated” a 2,300-page report that touched on much that ails politics and where it has brought us. For all but one hour, the “debate” consisted of reading out prepared statements, nearly all of which concerned political point scoring.

Fianna Fáil used the occasion to make a daring raid on the high moral ground. Fine Gael contributions concentrated on pointing out that the Soldiers of Destiny had banks of dirt under their fingernails when it came to fooling around with money. Labour people did their best to keep the head down. And the smaller opposition outfits used the occasion to berate, with some justification, the links between the Civil War parties and big business.

Such a vacuum was inevitably filled by hot air. It was put about that Lowry is friendless in the Dáil. Yet, Independents Mattie McGrath and Michael Healy-Rae appeared to prefer sitting next to Lowry than being seen in the vicinity of the Fianna Fáil benches. Lowry may not be flavour of the month, but in shallow, populist terms, his corrupt brand of lying, cheating politics didn’t bring the country to its knees. Fianna Fáil did. The other envelope of hot air pumped in to inject life into the moribund debate was the line that the Criminal Asset Bureau (CAB) was on Lowry’s case.

“You can send in CAB, you can send in the army, you can send in who you like to investigate my affairs because there will be no €900,000 found, because it was never there,” Lowry said on Tuesday evening. On that narrow point, he is correct. The report found that there were persistent attempts to enrich him to the value of around €900,000, but ultimately he didn’t benefit from these efforts. CAB’s brief is to go after the money, so they have no business with Lowry on that score.

There may well be scope to pursue him on his failure to make a complete declaration when availing of the 1993 tax amnesty. But that route could have been taken at any time over the last four years, since his final settlement with the Revenue. The CAB’s entry into the debate was at the behest of colour rather than a pursuit of justice.

There were some very salient issues which deserved an airing after 14 years inquiry, at least €250m in costs and the making of legal history. Unfortunately, these matters were useless in political terms and so were given a wide berth.

In the first instance, there was precious little consideration given to the major concerns that had been expressed about the conduct of the tribunal prior to publication of the report.

Judge Moriarty had admitted that two major mistakes had been made, both of which could have been interpreted as giving credence to allegations by Lowry and others that the tribunal was pursing a particular line, irrespective of the evidence before it.

The report was largely convincing in its conclusions, but the dangers of operating a powerful, long-running tribunal requires proper debate in the national legislature. The failure to legislate for a permanent watchdog with proper powers is inexcusable.

Secondly, nowhere in the two day “debate” was there much on the failure of civil servants to hermetically seal the competition for the mobile phone licence. Moriarty found Lowry breached the seal with abandon, and freely disseminated the information he had gleaned. Surely, blame for this must rest with those running the competition.

“The Moriarty Tribunal is the first body in the history of the state to call into question the reputation of the Irish civil service,” Lowry said on Tuesday. The criticism of the civil service in the report was minimal, but maybe it’s time to examine that reputation and see whether it is based on glories that are decades old.

Thirdly, nobody said specifically that Lowry was somebody who should never have been appointed a minister. His attitude to high office and the responsibilities it conferred on him was what one might expect from a wideboy on the make.

His ascent to the Cabinet was largely due to his ability to persuade business people to donate large sums of money to Fine Gael. On such a ticket, this glorified fixer was able to play the system all the way to the top. What checks and balances are in place to ensure that a Lowry clone couldn’t do likewise in today’s system?

Enda Kenny did use the debate to pledge that his Government would end corporate donations and clean up the relationship between business and politics. Yet on Wednesday, he admitted that when he became leader in 2002, he reversed the policy of his predecessor, Michael Noonan, to ban corporate donations to the party. He had “to reach out to people in terms of the party and to drive a modern political party does cost money”.

In other words, Fine Gael was broke in 2002 so it went back to business to replenish its coffers. Now that the party is flush, he’s willing to cut out the stream of funding that comes from big companies. It’s hardly the most solid basis for real reform.

Finally, despite all that Moriarty uncovered, there was no concrete pledge to ensure full transparency about all the income received by political parties.

In terms of properly bookending the Moriarty Tribunal, the debate in the Dáil left much to be desired.