TÁNAISTE EAMON Gilmore said there was no comparison to be drawn between disquiet at the Mahon report and the Taoiseach’s appearance this week with businessman Denis O’Brien who was criticised by the Moriarty tribunal.
Mr O’Brien ranked among Irish business figures with Enda Kenny on Monday when he opened the New York Stock Exchange to mark St Patrick’s Day.
Mr Gilmore said this was an “entirely different” matter to the findings of the Mahon tribunal, which he described as a watershed in Irish life. “It’s not comparable,” he told reporters on the fringes of an EU meeting in Brussels. “You can’t always choose who’s in the photograph.”
The Moriarty tribunal found that the then minister for communications Michael Lowry “secured the winning” of the 1995 mobile phone licence competition for Mr O’Brien’s company Esat Digifone.
The Moriarty report also found Mr O’Brien made two payments to Mr Lowry in 1996 and 1999, totalling approximately £500,000 and supported a loan of stg£420,000 given to Mr Lowry in 1999.
Mr O’Brien rejected the Moriarty report and insisted he had not given “one red cent” to Mr Lowry.
The Tánaiste was asked about Mr O’Brien’s appearance on the stock exchange podium with Mr Kenny after he said it was clear from the Mahon report some TDs and councillors were “bought” by developers. “I think it is a damning indictment of those who have been found in the tribunal to have broken the trust that the public put in them to exercise their public duties dispassionately,” he said of the Mahon report.
Asked whether the public had reason to have anxiety about Mr Kenny’s appearance with Mr O’Brien, Mr Gilmore said the matters were separate.
“What you’re asking about is: who do you get photographed with? Who do you find yourself sitting beside in Croke Park or whatever?I think that’s an entirely different issue to taoiseachs of this country not being able to provide straight answers to a tribunal, as happened with Mr Ahern.”
Mr Gilmore argued against “trivialising” the issue when asked if he would feel any discomfort if the Taoiseach was photographed with developer Owen O’Callaghan, who was criticised by the Mahon tribunal. “One of the lessons we need to learn from this whole episode is to distinguish between what are really serious offences against the public that are committed by politicians and what are matters of appearance really,” he said.
“The issue here is not about who you get photographed with. The issue here is who you take a bribe from and the present Taoiseach has not taken a bribe from anybody.” Mr Gilmore drew a link between the State’s present difficulties and the practices criticised in the Mahon report.
“Very bad planning decisions made and people who are living in housing estates that were badly planned have been living with the consequences ever since,” he said. “It is not unconnected with the banking mess that we’ve ended up with. Remember what was going on over those decades: You had a property bubble for which Anglo was the piggy bank.
“And the property bubble in turn was based in some cases on corrupt planning decisions where some people in public life were being bought – literally bought – by private developers and their decisions being bought by private developers.” It was nonsense to defend corruption on the basis that “everyone” was engaged in the same practice.
“From the time that Mr Haughey became leader of Fianna Fáil to the time that Mr Ahern stepped down was a period of almost 30 years and all of the Fianna Fáil leaders over that 30 year period have been found wanting in one tribunal or another.” Mr Gilmore pointed to the atmosphere at the time of his election to the Dáil in 1989.
“You look at who were the big powers in the land at that time: Mr Haughey was taoiseach; Mr Reynolds was minister for finance; Mr Flynn was minister for the environment; Ray Burke was minister for justice; Bertie Ahern was minister for labour; and Liam Lawlor was a big beast on the back benches,” he said. “He was one of the big political figures of the time. That is a world of a difference from what we have today.”
