A shameful episode that has left Noonan with self-inflicted wounds
MICHAEL Noonan is “in fierce bad form”.
The Finance Minister got himself into hot water in the Dáil on Wednesday night when he went on the attack.
Those in his line of fire were the members of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) but most specifically its chairman Sean Fleming.
This was because the Dáil was debating the PAC’s report into the controversial sale of Nama’s Northern Irish loan book, a process known as Project Eagle.
As detailed in this column two weeks back, the report was deeply critical of Noonan over his meeting with US investment fund Cerberus 24 hours before their bid was accepted.
Noonan had objected to the findings ahead of its final publication and his anger caused a split on political lines within the PAC for the first time in its 94-year history.
The four Fine Gael members — Josepha Madigan, Peter Burke, Noel Rock and Alan Farrell — sought to amend the wording of the criticisms of Noonan.
Despite being prepared to accept that it was “not advisable” for Noonan to have the meeting, they forced the vote on the wording that it was “inappropriate”. They lost 9-4 and 8-5 on a number of votes.
So when the report came to be debated in the Dáil on Wednesday, Noonan took aim and went for the jugular.
“I and my department refute absolutely the claims in the report that I and my officials acted inappropriately in meeting with Cerberus in March 2014. I wrote to the chairman of the Committee of Public Accounts outlining my strong objection to any such finding against me or my officials. I remain shocked that the Committee of Public Accounts disregarded due process and did not offer me or my officials the opportunity to discuss the committee’s concerns even after I requested such an opportunity prior to the report’s finalisation,” he said.
“Indeed, I want to take specific issue with comments made by the chairman of the Committee of Public Accounts in a News at One interview on the day the report was published. Deputy Fleming noted that I ‘chose not to be open and upfront’.
“In his interview, he gave the impression that I had deliberately concealed the fact that I had met Mr John Snow of Cerberus. If the chairman of the committee was doing his job properly, he should have established these facts before he made allegations against me,” Noonan said.
A visibly shocked Fleming hit back.
“It is a little bit rich of the minister to complain that we did not ask him about something when he was the only person in the room who knew about that meeting on that particular occasion,” he said.
Then Fleming ramped up the heat saying Noonan threatened to muzzle the committee’s report.
“We were more than fair to the minister. The minister sent that letter to the committee on 15 February, 2017. I went into the Oireachtas restaurant that evening and the minister asked me to come over to have a chat with him. He told me that I was unfair to him by not inviting him to the committee. I told him he was unfair to the committee by keeping the information for five hours. He concluded the conversation by saying that he can injunct me.
“Shame on the minister for finance for wanting to injunct the Committee of Public Accounts for doing its job. I wrote it down. He said to me, ‘I can injunct you’. For a minister for finance to threaten the Committee of Public Accounts is the most inappropriate thing any minister for finance has done in my lifetime.
“The minister should withdraw that threat here now and apologise to the Committee of Public Accounts. I would go so far as to question the minister’s fitness for office when he threatens the chair and the 13 members of the Committee of Public Accounts with injuncting them for doing their job. We will be here long after he is gone,” Fleming blasted.
Then the two men became embroiled in a heated exchange across the floor of the Dáil.
Noonan: “The man beside Deputy Fleming, Deputy Michael McGrath, knew about the Cerberus meeting for 12 months before the deputy asked me to come in. The Comptroller and Auditor General also knew about it for 12 months. It is up to Deputy Fleming to find out about these things. It was all in the public domain.”
Fleming: “That is called being economical with the truth. The minister gave the game away. He was hiding it.”
Noonan: “It was all in the public domain. You are a disgrace.”
Fleming: “You are unfit for office.”
Noonan: “You should resign as chairman of the Committee of Public Accounts.”
The unseemly spat kicked off considerable criticism of Noonan.
Even admirers of his from the opposition benches said they were appalled at his line of attack and they all rallied to the defence of Fleming.
When the Fine Gael members of the PAC sought to come to the aid of their beleagured minister, they too found themselves receiving short shrift from their fellow committee members.
Shane Cassells, the Fianna Fáil TD for Meath West, let them have it.
“It is worth remembering that the Fine Gael members of the committee, as part of their deliberations on the working document, were prepared to use the words ‘not advisable’ regarding the minister. Let us blow this away. Fine Gael committee members were prepared to say that it was not advisable for the minister to have been at that meeting. That is the bottom line. It is being thrown back into the fire again and it is amazing to hear such comments from the members,” he said.
The following day, Noonan went into damage limitation mode.
Josepha Madigan went on RTÉ radio to debate with Fleming, who was pressed by presenter Cormac Ó hEadhra on Noonan’s threat to injunct.
Madigan said the word injunction was mentioned but the minister told Fleming he would not do so.
Fleming denied this flatly. Madigan conceded that she had not actually spoken to the minister about it but had been fed a line from Noonan’s department.
Later, Noonan’s press adviser sent out a note on the exchange with Fleming.
“The minister had a friendly meeting with the chairman where he shared with the chair some legal advice before the report issued. A process had not been followed and the minister made it clear that although it was possible to seek an injunction that the minister would not be doing so. The purpose was therefore clearly to advise of a broader context to the inclusion of certain elements of the report that had been available via leaks,” the line went.
Into all of this mix came the claim from Fleming that Nama had told him they had a dossier on him and that its chairman Frank Daly said the issue of legal advice was being considered over the PAC report.
Nama has strongly denied this claim from Fleming that any dossier existed.
In the wake of this latest debacle, Noonan stands a wounded figure within Fine Gael and Government with Cabinet colleagues openly admitting his influence is waning.
This was a rather shameful episode and it is hard to escape the conclusion it was one of his own making.
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