Mr Liam Lawlor, TD for Dublin West, is behind bars. He wakes up in a cell in Mountjoy Jail today, the first morning of his sentence for "blatant defiance" of High and Supreme Court orders requiring him to co-operate with the Flood Tribunal. He must pay a £10,000 fine and serve seven days of 24 hours each out of a suspended sentence of three months. Mr Justice Thomas Smyth of the High Court found that his non-compliance with court orders was not unintentional. "That he did so as a citizen is a disgrace; that he did so as a public representative is a scandal."
Truly, something of a watershed in politics and the course of the tribunals has been reached with Mr Lawlor's imprisonment. He has not been convicted of a criminal offence. However, he clearly has been found guilty, by implication, of conduct unbecoming a citizen and TD of 23 years' standing in his defiance of the Flood Tribunal. Yet nobody in the leadership of the party, in which he served until seven months' ago, has condemned it as conduct unbecoming a former member of Fianna Fail.
In the immediate aftermath of Mr Justice Smyth's judgment on Monday afternoon, the Minister for Agriculture and Food, Mr Walsh, and the Minister for the Environment, Mr Dempsey, were mealy-mouthed in their response. The Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, said that the court decision to jail Mr Lawlor was "unfortunate for Liam on a personal basis". It was only after the Progressive Democrats stated that the Dail could remove Mr Lawlor from the Oireachtas committees on which he still served as a Fianna Fail nominee that the Minister for Social, Community and Family Affairs, Mr Dermot Ahern, uttered the first criticism of Mr Lawlor: "I accept fully what the judge said. It is a scandal . . . Fianna Fail fully accepts that."
Only a full 48 hours after Mr Justice Smyth's judgment did the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, move to address the issue. Mr Lawlor was already in Mountjoy. Journalists had been notified that the Tanaiste, Ms Harney, would have something to say about him at 1.45 p.m. A spokesman for the Taoiseach said, ten minutes beforehand, that Mr Ahern had always taken the view that he would restore the full complement of members to the committees. That was followed up last night with a further statement that the Taoiseach agreed with the judge.
The prodding from the PDs and the Opposition leaders has forced the Taoiseach into action. The Government will table a motion in the Dail on its return at the end of the month to remove Mr Lawlor from membership of the committees to which he was nominated: Finance and Public Service, Public Enterprise and Transport and a sub-committee of the Dail's regulatory Committee on Procedure and Privileges.
The Taoiseach's hesitant response to the incarceration of a former Fianna Fail TD is a reflection of the culture of denial within the party. It is not wholly unique to Fianna Fail, let it be said. Mr John Bruton's pussy-footing over Mr Michael Lowry's behaviour should not be forgotten. But the suspicion must form that Fianna Fail is anxious not to provoke its former TD too much lest he should retaliate by singing too loudly for the good of others within the party. Considerations of self-preservation should be put aside. There should be a cross-party call upon him to resign his seat.