Saving our cents with tribunals may cost us countless euro
The tribunal has spent all year investigating if any of his property dealings involved some kind of pay off for giving the second mobile phone licence to Denis O'Brien's company. O'Brien had no real track record in the telecom sector, yet he landed the lucrative mobile contract against experienced international competition.
If the Tribunal unearths evidence that indicates there was a corrupt deal, then the other bidders could sue the State for over one billion euro. Thus we are either just wasting a fortune funding the Moriarty Tribunal or we are spending the money so that we can be sued for an even greater fortune.
If there is corruption, we should not turn a blind eye to it, but neither should we compound the hurt by victimising innocent people. If any people are engaged in criminal activity, they and not the taxpayer should pay. We seem to be developing the crazy notion that anybody who can show that they have been wronged can claim money from everybody. This may be great for the legal vultures that have formed a new golden circle, but society is being bled dry and the whole thing is a perversion of justice.
It started as part of that tedious political game gutting Charlie Haughey. Ironically, he was hardly mentioned during the week, though we were told that when the tribunal finishes with Lowry and O'Brien, it will examine whether Haughey provided any improper favours in return for the money he received. Anybody who thought that they could buy favours from Haughey didn't know him, Terry Keane argued. He would have thought that the money given to him was his by right.
"It would be like the three wise men putting gold, frankincense and mir in front of the Saviour and that he would have no obligation because they were a gift," she contended.
Charlie's good friend John Byrne was in the news this week when the High Court ruled that he can try to quash a number the Ansbacher Report's findings. The authors of that report were merely expressing an opinion on the strength of their investigations. It was not a conviction and Byrne is exercising his right to challenge their findings. That will be for the courts to decide.
Byrne, a Kerry man who had made his money in construction and Irish dance halls in Britain during and after the second world war, returned to Ireland in the Lemass era. Byrne, Matt Gallagher and others were persuaded to come home to help develop our economy. It wasn't philanthropy; it was business. And it was good business because it led to this country's first great economic boom.
Frank Barry of the Economics Department, University College Dublin, expressed the view in the most recent ESRI quarterly report that the multi-national sector was primary responsible for the recent economic success. My earliest memories of growing up in the 1950s was of the families of school friends being uprooted due to an economic depression in this country. Whole families were compelled to emigrate because there were no jobs here, while the rest of the world was enjoying an economic boom. The first step in turning the economy around was in persuading expatriates like John Byrne to show their confidence in the country. He was responsible for the construction of a number of prominent buildings in Dublin such as O'Connell Bridge House, D'Olier House and Parnell House. Those buildings, whatever their architectural merit, were an expression of confidence that helped to lift the derelict image of Dublin.
We are all products of our own environment. Byrne certainly made a great contribution to changing the economic environment that I witnessed as a youth because he was primarily responsible for building the Mount Brandon Hotel in Tralee, which played a major role in putting the town on the tourist map. Of course, he made a lot of money in the process, but society has undoubtedly benefited. He also made money leasing office space to the State. His critics wouldn't have batted an eyelid if foreign entrepreneurs had constructed those buildings and took their profits out of the country. After George Colley became Minister for Finance in 1970, he blocked any further State deals with Byrne. Colley later enlisted the help of the Fine Gael leader, Garret FitzGerald, to forge an alliance between Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael in Dublin County Council to block planning permission for any development on what had been Baldoyle Race Course after Byrne bought it.
Did Colley and company block the development of Baldoyle because it was socially desirable or was it just pure spitefulness, getting at Haughey by hurting anyone who was friendly towards him. Byrne's friendship with Haughey was a distinct handicap in the 1970s and the chances are that he would not be in court now were it not for that friendship. In his early years in politics, Haughey projected a high public profile but was quiet about his business dealings. He appeared to amass a fortune at a time when politicians were not particularly well paid. He had a number of outside interests such as Reema (Ireland) Ltd, a property company with Donagh O'Malley as the chief executive and Haughey as secretary.
Reema bought up property around Limerick on the road to Shannon airport. At the time, questions were raised about them possibly using inside knowledge.
The Progressive Democrats never seemed to tire of asking questions about Haughey's dealings, but isn't it curious that they have been very quiet about Reema. There is no tribunal investigating that company.
Could it be because Des O'Malley's uncle was involved? Haughey initially lived in a semi-detached house in a Raheny housing estate, but in 1957 he and his young family moved to Grangemore, a large Victorian mansion on a 45-acre site in Raheny. Matt Gallagher advised Haughey to splash out £13,000 to buy the house in Raheny, with the promise that when the time was right and planning permission had been secured to build houses on the property, he would buy it from him, which he did for over £200,000 a decade later. Haughey then bought Abbeyville in Kinsealy. His political career took off after his father-in-law, Seán Lemass, became Taoiseach. Singled out as a likely successor, Haughey became the object of an endless stream of unflattering rumours about his private life and business dealings as he lived in ostentatious opulence, flaunting his wealth to generate an aura of achievement.
In ancient Celtic folktales, the hero was a man of great sexual prowess. Daniel O'Connell arguably the most famous Irishman of all time was reputed to have had a voracious sexual appetite. He actually had a loving relationship with his wife Mary and there was no truth to the unseemly rumours.
There were, however, real similarities between Haughey and O'Connell. Both lived beyond their means and were dependent on the generosity of supporters. In 1843, just a couple of years before the outbreak of the Great Famine, O'Connell pocketed over £50,000 in public subscriptions from the ordinary people of Ireland. Haughey, on the other hand, got his money from some fabulously wealthy friends.
Did he provide improper favours? We have a right and a need to know, but let's keep the whole thing in perspective.
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