Dear Phil, all talk and no action is no good

It’s a pity Mr Hogan didn’t listen to the Taoiseach’s stirring rhetoric and come clean about Mr Lowry, writes Political Editor Paul O’Brien

WHEN Enda Kenny rose to his feet in the Dáil on Mar 29 last year to respond to the findings of the Moriarty Tribunal, he said his administration intended to “restore public confidence” in politics and government.

The report had found that a former Fine Gael minister, Michael Lowry, had secured the winning of the State’s lucrative second mobile phone licence for businessman Denis O’Brien in the 1990s.

Mr O’Brien had in turn provided payments and benefits running into hundreds of thousands of pounds to Mr Lowry, according to the tribunal.

It wasn’t just about Mr Lowry, however. The tribunal also raised questions about Fine Gael fundraising in the same period.

In particular, it labelled “regrettable” the fact that nobody in Fine Gael had disclosed a secretive $50,000 donation the party received from one of the partners in Mr O’Brien’s winning consortium.

Although the then taoiseach John Bruton, upon learning of the donation, ordered it to be returned, Fine Gael never informed the tribunal of the secretive payment. It was journalist Matt Cooper who revealed the details of the clandestine donation, not Fine Gael.

This was the backdrop against which Mr Kenny was addressing the Dáil, a week after publication of the report. He made it clear that to restore public confidence, as intended, politicians needed to go beyond legal opinions, rules and legislation.

“To recreate political virtue, rebuild public trust and restore our reputation, it is no longer sufficient to do what is correct. To achieve even a fraction of that, we must do what is right,” Mr Kenny said.

“While what is correct starts in legal opinions and rules and legislation, what is right starts here in the human heart, in our conscience, in respect for our neighbour, and in the values that define who we are and what we want to be. If this is how we try to live our lives, this is how we should practise our politics. I speak for the entire Government when I say this is what will inspire and drive our tenure in office.”

It was stirring stuff — or at least, it was meant to be. But inevitably with rhetoric, not everybody listened.

The following day, it was the turn of Environment Minister Phil Hogan to give his response to the tribunal report.

Had he taken Mr Kenny’s speech to heart, Mr Hogan would arguably have made clear that, just two days before, he had met with Mr Lowry. He would have explained why — that it was a meeting facilitated to allow a business express its concerns about regulations — and that no discussions took place about the Moriarty Tribunal.

He could have said that a department official was present at the meeting, and that everything was done in accordance with the Cabinet handbook, as his department insisted yesterday. He could have said that, even if it looked bad politically, the timing of the meeting was entirely coincidental and there was nothing improper about it.

But Mr Hogan did none of this. He didn’t bother to mention the meeting with Mr Lowry — presumably because he foresaw the likely reaction from the Opposition benches had he done so.

INSTEAD, after making clear he accepted the findings of the report and that this department would act on its recommendations, Mr Hogan sought to deflect attention elsewhere.

He devoted a large chunk of the speech to criticising the opposition, and Fianna Fáil in particular, a party which, he said, “had the franchise on debasing Irish politics and public life”.

The speech was politically pragmatic from Mr Hogan’s view — the omission of mention of the Lowry meeting being pragmatic too. But that omission was hardly in keeping with Mr Kenny’s high-blown rhetoric about restoring trust.

Yet it is not just Mr Hogan alone in Government who can be accused of demonstrating a tin ear for that rhetoric.

After all, Mr Kenny himself seemingly saw nothing wrong with his administration inviting Denis O’Brien to last October’s Global Irish Economic Forum in Dublin Castle.

After significant political pressure — including from some of the Labour ministers in Cabinet — Mr Kenny has recently said the Government will “reflect” on the issue of invitations for the next forum.

But he has gone no further than that.

Rhetoric is all well and good, but as the cliché goes, actions speak louder than words.