Gormley signals that Lenihan backs inquiry

GREEN PARTY leader John Gormley has said Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan is “very much in the same space” as himself on the need for a banking inquiry.

Until Wednesday night, when the Government indicated it was willing to establish an inquiry this year, senior Fianna Fáil figures repeatedly said such an investigation was not an immediate priority for the administration.

Mr Gormley was the only Minister to speak publicly in favour of an early inquiry. When asked if he had pushed for this at Cabinet level, given Taoiseach Brian Cowen’s apparent reluctance to commit to such a position previously, Mr Gormley replied that Mr Lenihan had understood the importance of the issue.

“You’d have to talk to the individuals in question. I found in my discussions with Minister Lenihan that he was very much in the same space as I was. I got that clear impression. He understood how important this was”, he said.

“The very justifiable public anger out there about what has happened needs to be assuaged in some way, in that we should be showing people we’re capable of dealing with the public finances, dealing with the banking crisis, but also we want openness and transparency.”

He said the Government would get to the bottom of the circumstances that led to the banking crisis and show who was responsible.

An inquiry was “certainly” going to happen. “I’ve spoken to Mr Lenihan about it. I think he agrees with my assessment that it is absolutely necessary.”

In an interview with The Irish Timesat the Green Party's "think-in", which continues in Clane, Co Kildare, today, Mr Gormley revealed he had complained to Mr Cowen following a Fianna Fáil TD's remarks about his departmental official in charge of the severe weather crisis.

Backbencher Seán Fleming this week claimed that Seán Hogan, as a principal officer, was of too low a rank to have been appointed chairman of the National Emergency Response Committee.

“I’ve a very good official in my department, Seán Hogan. I was very irritated that he was criticised by Deputy Fleming the other day. It was completely out of order, in my view, and I said so to the Taoiseach,” Mr Gormley said.

Mr Fleming made his remarks on Tuesday at the Oireachtas environment committee he chairs. He said he was “appalled” a civil servant of secretary general level had not been given the task.

Mr Gormley described Mr Hogan as a very dedicated civil servant.

Asked how Mr Cowen had responded to his complaint, Mr Gormley said: “He agreed that it wasn’t . . . he was very surprised that he [Mr Fleming] had used those words.” Speaking generally, the Green Party leader said he and Mr Cowen had a “reasonably good understanding”. They spoke and met regularly and had a good working relationship.

“Politics is very much a business relationship. There are very few close relationships. I don’t have a personal relationship as such. It’s a working relationship but that’s it, you know, you meet.

“But I mean you could say the same for football teams or whatever, you know what I mean? You’re there to do a job and you just get on with it. But I mean I wouldn’t categorise it either as a relationship that is just completely cold, it’s not. I think there’s a reasonably good understanding there.”

Mr Gormley said he was committed to introducing a property tax, most likely in the form of a site value tax, and water charges based on metering as part of local government finance reform.

He acknowledged that the local and European elections last June had been “brutal” for the Green Party.

However, a sense of resilience and realism remained, and party members knew the reason the Greens did badly was because they were in Government during an unprecedented economic downturn.