Here’s one antidote to cynicism — zero tolerance on election day
It’s no wonder that he would be so sceptical that somebody could make such serious allegations and still be waiting to testify more than five years later.
A primary duty of any government is to ensure that laws are enforced. Indeed, Fianna Fáil’s big promise when it came to power in 1997 was zero tolerance, but that was as phoney as their financial promises during their last general election campaign.
We have been witnessing the most extraordinary tolerance on the part of the current Government. Serious allegations have been made against some of the most senior members of Fianna Fáil.
Ray Burke admitted that he had an account with over £100,000 belonging to Fianna Fáil, but has the party made any effort to recover this money?
Bertie Ahern was informed about allegations made against “Rambo” Burke but rather than investigate the matter, he went off looking up trees in north Dublin for God-knows-what. He then proclaimed Burke clean and appointed him as Minister for Foreign Affairs.
Tom Gilmartin said that he gave P Flynn £50,000 for Fianna Fáil and added that he told Bertie Ahern about this as far back as 1989. Ahern cannot remember the conversation but he now accepts that it probably took place.
In fairness, even though the size of the donation should have registered, Flynn was party treasurer at the time, so Bertie could be excused for not suspecting that something was amiss back in 1989.
After Gilmartin made his allegations public in 1998, he became so disillusioned with the way things were being handled that he announced that he would not return to Ireland to testify before any tribunal. Then P Flynn went on the Late Late Show and suggested that Gilmartin was “not well,” and that his wife was not well, either.
Gilmartin was so irate over this that he announced that he was prepared to come over from London to testify after all.
That was more than five years ago. He has accused a minister of pocketing £50,000 that was contributed for Fianna Fáil and nobody seems to give a damn in Fianna Fáil! The statute of limitations is rapidly running out on this matter and whether this was a criminal offence or not will become immaterial because it will not be possible to charge anybody.
Was the tribunal initiated to get to the truth or to bury it? Fianna Fáil people keep saying that Bertie Ahern’s hands are tied on these matters because he has to wait on the tribunal report. That is a cop-out, because Bertie’s record suggests that he will not do anything until he is compelled to act. That is not leadership. If it was just Ray Burke, or just P Flynn, one might understand Bertie’s dithering. But there is both of them and also Charlie Haughey, who received contributions of £100,000 each from Edmund Farrell of the Irish Permanent Building Society and Mark Kavanagh of the Financial Services Centre, and £60,000 from Michael Smurfit. Yet most of that money was not forwarded to Fianna Fáil.
Farrell handed over two cheques for £50,000 each. Both were made out to Fianna Fáil, but Haughey endorsed each on the back and deposited them in the party leader’s fund. This was established in the 1930s to provide for a party secretariat and to fund political research. From 1984 to 1992 the state contributed £1.05m to this fund, and Haughey topped it up to £1.5m with money donated to Fianna Fáil, or contributions towards the medical expenses of the late Brian Lenihan for his liver transplant in the United States.
People have testified that they provided £155,000 to cover Lenihan’s medical expenses. Haughey paid £83,000 out of those funds, leaving over £70,000 to be otherwise accounted for.
All cheques drawn on the account had to be signed by two senior party members. They were all co-signed by Haughey and by either Ray MacSharry or Bertie Ahern. Ahern signed most of those cheques in an accommodating and utterly unquestioning manner. Despite his own accountancy background, he signed most of them blank. One cheque dated June 16, 1989 was subsequently made out to cash for £25,000. This was deposited in Haughey’s own account, as well as three other cheques made out in 1991. In February of that year Ahern signed a whole book of blank cheques, which totally negated the control element of having two people sign.
AMONG the cheques that Ahern co-signed in 1991 were two for a total of £15,832 for Haughey’s Charvet shirts, and there were three other cheques made out simply to cash for a total of £22,500. Those three were deposited in Haughey’s own bank account. Of course, he claimed that these were to cover legitimate expenses, such as entertaining in his own home.
But then, as Mandy Rice Davies (who was back in the news this week) said in court, “he would say that, wouldn’t he?”
Fianna Fáil suffers from a collective persecution complex, a hangover from the civil war. Members of the parliamentary party tend to rally around colleagues accused of wrongdoing. They proclaim that nothing has yet been proven, and that we should wait for due process, which becomes ever more protracted.
The promise of zero tolerance would suggest that the gardaí would investigate serious matters like the misappropriation of tens of thousands of pounds, and that the state would prosecute the culprits. But instead the government seems content to delay interminably.
The Progressive Democrats went into government promising to keep an eye on Fianna Fáil. Initially it looked like they were going to break the mould, but they were really only settling old scores.
Instead of keeping Fianna Fáil honest they have provided cover for the discredited tactics that they were supposed to end. The PDs were proud that they compelled Fianna Fáil to abandon its so-called core value on coalition, but now the party seems to have no principles at all.
During a by-election rally in Cork in the summer of 1956 Eamon de Valera criticised the second inter-party government. When the Irish Times took him to task in an editorial next day, he responded with a letter that seems to have particular poignancy in the current political climate.
“I asked the electorate to pass a judgement of condemnation on the coalition parties, not because I wanted to suggest that it was possible for them to carry out the promises they made, but because at the time these promises were made those who made them knew full well that they could not be carried out,” de Valera wrote.
“My appeal to the electorate was that they should teach political parties, in the only way in which they can be taught, that deception does not pay.”
If Dev is as close to God as the FFers think, they are going to be in deep trouble!
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