Labour and FG to press Ahern on Duffy affair

Opposition politicians have insisted the Taoiseach still has questions to answer in the controversy surrounding the resignation of his former special adviser, Mr Paddy Duffy.

Fine Gael said it would table questions when the Dail resumes next week, while the Labour leader, Mr Ruairi Quinn, said Mr Ahern must explain why "three months after he was obliged to do so by the law, he has failed to lay the declarations of interest of his advisers before the Dail".

Mr Quinn said the obligation to comply with the relevant section of the Ethics in Public Office Act was "the Taoiseach's, nobody else's", and added: "In his efforts to distance himself from the Haughey era, this Taoiseach continually refers to new ethics legislation for politics. However, if the Duffy affair is anything to go by, he has some difficulty living up to his existing legal obligations."

A Government spokesman conceded that while the returns had been filed with the Public Offices Commission, copies had not yet been placed in the Dail library, as required. But he added that there was no time limit for that to be done.

The spokesman also rejected suggestions by Fine Gael's public enterprise spokesman, Mr Ivan Yates, that somebody in the Taoiseach's Department should have been aware of Mr Duffy's links with Dillon Consultants, given that the firm was advertising his involvement - and its resultant access to Government - on its website.

The Government spokesman said there was no reason for anyone in the Taoiseach's Department or elsewhere in Government to be aware of the website. In his resignation statement, Mr Duffy had admitted making mistakes, both in completing the 1999 return for the Public Offices Commission and in advising the Taoiseach and the Minister for Public Enterprise of the facts surrounding the matter. It was "ridiculous" to suggest the Government should have known about his involvement with Dillons when he himself did not declare it.

Mr Duffy, who resigned as special adviser on Friday after The Irish Times revealed that he was a director of the consultancy firm which had advised the successful bidder for Cablelink - US firm NTL. Although he spent yesterday at his north Co Dublin home, he was unavailable for comment and did not return calls from this newspaper.

Mr Yates pledged to table questions on the matter when the Dail resumes after the European and local elections. He said: "We have been asked to believe a whole series of quite improbable and contradictory claims in this matter."

He said there had been a determined effort to "ring-fence" the controversy around Mr Duffy's resignation, but claimed it was "the Taoiseach's judgment which is ultimately in question".

He also insisted that while the sale of Cablelink had been found valid and would be "legally very difficult to unravel" at this stage, the controversy would only add to the suspicion that the process had not been fair. "Apart from anything else, none of the other tenderers had this kind of insider involvement - an involvement which was being marketed on the internet by Dillons - and that in itself is unfair."

The Minister for Public Enterprise, Mrs O'Rourke, reiterated her satisfaction that there had been no improper influence in the sale. She said that, "regrettably", Mr Duffy appeared to have misled both her and the Taoiseach, and had now resigned. That was the end of the matter.