Finlay on stand by in referendum case

THE Tanaiste's adviser, Mr Fergus Finlay, has been requested to be free next week to give evidence in the High Court case contesting the result of the divorce referendum.

The notification that he, together with the Minister for Equality and Law Reform's programme manager, Ms Anne Kinsella and adviser, Mr Richard Humphreys, should make themselves available to appear as Mr Des Hanafin's witnesses came from the Chief State Solicitor's Office yesterday.

Mr Tom Lynch, principal officer in the Department of Equality and Law Reform, will give evidence in the High Court petition today. He was the key civil servant on the ad hoc committee, dominated by Labour advisers, which conducted the tendering process. This led to the recommendation that QMP, part owned by the brother of the Minister for Finance, should receive the £500,000 contract for the Government's information campaign in the referendum.

It also emerged yesterday that the letter from Mr Conor Quinn to Mr Finlay and dated May 16th 1995, which sparked the present controversy, was among the Department of Equality and Law Reform files supplied to the High Court.

Meanwhile, Opposition parties have continued their attack on the Labour Party over the awarding of the contract.

The Fianna Fail spokesman, Dr Michael Woods, said it was quite clear from all the information and exchanges that QMP enjoyed an inside track. The constant official and Ministerial denials until September 1995 that the contract had been awarded seemed in the light of information now available to have been more than "a bit liberal with the truth".

I am astonished that the awarding of a Government contract would be entrusted to a committee consisting almost entirely of unelected Labour political advisers and programme managers with only one permanent civil servant present," Dr Woods added.

The failure of the Government to put forward any Minister to answer questions about the affair was deeply disturbing, the Progressive Democrats spokeswoman, Ms Helen Keogh, said. So much for the Government conducting its affairs as if it were working behind a pane of glass," she added, quoting the Taoiseach's speech on the day of his election.

She would be tabling a special notice question to Mr Taylor next week asking why, given the letter from Mr Quinn to Mr Finlay, the Minister informed the Dail on May 30th and July 4th 1995 that no decision on awarding the advertising contract had been made.