Ahern loan crisis - Odds are McDowell will be appeased
Given that those standards are now tinged with a political expediency, which leans towards the Progressive Democrats continued participation in government, the odds are that Tánaiste and Justice Minister Michael McDowell will be appeased.
The “debt of honour” which formed part of the Taoiseach’s financial discomfort will probably become some perverse code of honour now that the original loan, and interest, has been discharged.
Mr McDowell, as leader of the junior partners in government, has declared: “All we have asked for is accountability in the Dáil. That is what the people want.”
The minister seems to equate his ideals with those of the people, yet his code is the only one that will prevail today. To ultimately evince what the people want would be to acknowledge the truth of Labour’s Eamonn Gilmore, when he said that the only way for this matter to be resolved now is to call a General Election.
Even if Mr McDowell decides it is incumbent to withdraw from the current arrangement with Fianna Fáil, the prospect of a general election is still a distant one — as Mr Ahern’s party could remain in government, without PD support, aided and abetted by Independent members of the Dáil.
Foreign Affairs Minister Dermot Ahern obviously believes that the concerns about payments to the Taoiseach are not sufficient to bring down the government with the PDs. Moreover, he agreed with the weekend statement by Mr McDowell relating to the need to retain a sense of proportion.
He has no doubts, like other senior ministers, that the coalition of Fianna Fáil and the PDs will survive today and will run its course. Otherwise, the reality is that the PDs would occupy a lengthy political limbo, sandwiched between the Government they rejected, and a derisory opposition.
The likelihood is that the PD leader will declare that a contrite Taoiseach Bertie Ahern has managed to cross the threshold of Mr McDowell’s accountability standards to sufficiently assuage his qualms.
Those misgivings have, confusingly, swung between the somewhat innocuous “honest error of judgment” remark, to the “very serious matters of concern” and back again, to the rather modified statement that Mr McDowell was not interested in “heads on plates” — especially his own, one presumes.
It should be remembered, too, that it was his deputy leader, Liz O’Donnell, who first suggested that Bertie Ahern should clarify his conduct to the Dáil.
It should also be remembered that Fiona O’Malley who was the first PD parliamentarian to support the opposition in their demand for proper and sufficient Dáil time in which to debate the Taoiseach’s payments, even if that support came almost at the eleventh hour.
Belatedly, Mr McDowell also backed that view because it was quite obvious that the 35 minutes to which Fianna Fáil was intent on confining the debate, was utterly and completely ludicrous. So little time to comprehensively deal with the payments to the Taoiseach would add nothing to the concept of accountability.
Whatever about his total dismissal of a secret deal with the Taoiseach, both men spoke on several occasions yesterday. It would be completely naive to believe that Mr McDowell is not acquainted with the tenor, at least, of what the Taoiseach intends to put forth.
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