Bertie’s foot-dragging leaves him out of step with other politicians

WE have had in Ireland a government that, by any standard, was the most corrupt in modern European history.

The head of that government and one of its most senior members have already been publicly disgraced. Half a dozen of the backbenchers who supported it have had the most serious questions to answer about sleaze. One of its loudest and most articulate members is now accused of involvement in systematic tax evasion trying in the process not just to hide a "political donation" from his party and the world, but also seeking to evade the tax he should have paid once he decided to regard it as his own.

I'm talking about the minority Fianna Fáil government of 1987-1989. Led by Charles Haughey, with Burke and Flynn among its most prominent members.

The opposition will raise the latest scandals left over from that government in the Dáil this week, and the Government will try to pursue normal Dáil business. If they get away with it, they will have succeeded in making a complete mockery of any pretence of parliamentary democracy.

But you know what they're going to do. Publicly, the Government and especially the Fianna Fáil end of it will try to see these allegations pushed off to be dealt with in the Mahon Tribunal.

I'm a great believer in tribunals (with some exceptions) but sending all this stuff off to Mahon means that another two years will elapse before any judgement is passed on it.

Privately, Fianna Fáil will keep repeating the mantra that has stood it in very good stead "they're all the same."

You'd think they'd be ashamed to say it, but the only defence they have against all the sleaze, all the corruption, is to pretend that it has affected all politics.

It's not true, of course. It never was. Many of us are almost afraid to sound po-faced or pious on this subject, but it's about time that the rest of politics pointed the finger of sleaze where it truly belongs at the heart of the Fianna Fáil party and nowhere else.

Many decent Fianna Fáilers know that already. So do the PDs, and they're getting more uncomfortable by the day (the ones who haven't forgotten what independence means, anyway).

I don't know how many more attacks can be launched on the integrity of our political process without doing irreparable damage.

It seems to me that one thing we cannot afford now is to await the deliberate and painstaking approach a tribunal must take. The story that has emerged about Padraig Flynn and his daughter is a story, if it is true in every detail, of breathtaking arrogance and greed. When Padraig Flynn was given that money, it would have bought several good houses in any part of Mayo. The decision to keep it for himself, and to launder it in off-shore accounts, was a fundamental betrayal of the republic he was chosen to serve.

It's time to stop hiding behind procedures and muttered mantras.

It's time for Bertie Ahern, today, to come into the Dáil and give a full account of everything he knows about this and when he knew it. And he must address the equally serious allegations in one of yesterday's papers that he has been withholding necessary documentation from the Mahon Tribunal for several years.

He cannot hide behind procedure or any obligation of confidentiality to the tribunal. The public interest must override any considerations of that kind. He should remember that the Dáil has not only a responsibility to the public interest, it is also charged with regulating the behaviour of its own members in accordance with a written code of conduct (which specifically deals with compliance with the law and all public bodies, and cooperation with tribunals of inquiry).

The Taoiseach must be prepared to answer questions about the issues involved, especially as they relate to his knowledge and his duty of disclosure to the tribunal in relation to Padraig Flynn, a former close cabinet colleague of his own, and Beverly Cooper Flynn.

The Minister for Justice has already told us that he has been aware of allegations surrounding these two people, even though they have not been in the public domain, for some considerable time. How long has the Taoiseach known of them? What steps has he taken to establish their accuracy? What steps did he take to ensure that these allegations, and any information in his possession, were also in the possession of all relevant authorities including the tribunal? On what basis did he campaign with Padraig Flynn in Mayo on behalf of his daughter, and on what basis did he allow her to be readmitted to the Fianna Fáil parliamentary party?

IT is surely no longer acceptable for the Taoiseach to admit that he was aware that a deputy of his party was assisting a former Fianna Fáil cabinet minister with tax evasion and fraud, but chose to stand idly by in the belief that the Mahon Tribunal should do its work. It is surely not acceptable for the Taoiseach to keep shovelling all new allegations back in the direction of the tribunal such as, for example, the allegation that Padraig Flynn opposed attempts by his officials to have the Gardaí investigate allegations of corruption in the planning process.

I said it earlier. The 1987/89 Fianna Fail government, led by Charles Haughey and in which the present Taoiseach was a close and loyal member, has emerged as the most corrupt government in modern European democracy.

It is long past time that the present Taoiseach and his partners in Government faced up to the need for full disclosure and honesty in our parliament, instead of constantly hoping that the passage of time necessitated by tribunals would succeed in tarnishing the entire political system any more than it already has.

Do you know what that means? It means that Bertie Ahern and his colleagues have to stop telling us that they are cooperating with the tribunals, when what they really mean is that as long as the tribunal keeps thinking of the right question to ask they'll get an answer.

It means they have to start volunteering information, offering to lead the tribunal to the truth in whatever way they can. The way they have behaved up to now is little short of a filibuster, forcing the tribunals to go on fishing expeditions and then complaining that they are out of control. But the only consequence of all this is that they are dragging politics deeper and deeper into the mud.

Because we're not all the same.

Some politicians fought tooth and nail against that corrupt government in the late '80s. Some fought to expose the deeply unhealthy relationship they could see emerging between FF politics and the world of a certain kind of business. Those politicians fought for the integrity of politics, against the greed and venality that we now know surrounded Charles J Haughey.

Those politicians (some of them in Fianna Fáil) still believe that politics can be a place of integrity and service. And they are entitled to demand that Bertie Ahern should stop hiding behind weasel words, and finally begin to do his duty.