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Exercise in hypocrisy
“Er, yes, over the last few years, a number of allegations, half-truths, half-lies, were made against me, er, to both the tribunals [investigating corruption]… that I took a bribe of IR £50,000 in a car park from Starry O’Brien which was meant to have come from Owen O’Callaghan [a property developer] on the all-Ireland final day of 1989, the second one was that I took a bribe from Owen O’Callaghan of £30,000 in 1992; that I had bank accounts [in] the Netherlands, Antilles, Liechtenstein, Jersey, England; that I had £15 million in an offshore account… that I had a bank account in Mauritius and, er, they produced forged documents to show that I had this bank account.”
This is the exhaustive list of allegations recounted by Ireland’s Taoiseach (prime minister), Bertie Ahern, in an interview to the state broadcaster a few days ago. And, yes, it includes fictional bank accounts in Mauritius. Funny how the ‘paradise island’ pops up in the most unlikely (and dodgiest) of places. Remember when Enron went bust in a nauseating cloud of financial fraud at the beginning of the century?
The subsequent investigations revealed the energy company had 881 offshore subsidiaries, 43 of which were located in Mauritius. Our quasi-tax haven status grants Mauritius, a country with a thousand times fewer people, the luxury of being the largest Foreign Direct Investment contributor in the world’s fourth largest economy (GDP at purchasing power parity).
But back to Ireland’s top office holder, who has earned the sobriquet ‘Teflon Taoiseach’, because none of these allegations seem to have damaged him so far. The whole saga started with a tribunal set-up to investigate corruption. Called to present evidence at the hearings, the prime minister duly produced all his financial records. Among them were details of his lengthy divorce proceedings, which stretched from 1987 to 1993.
Since this involved his private life, none of it would have been heard at the tribunal. However, someone (believed to be from his own party) leaked details about a loan he obtained, in 1993, from friends totalling €50 000. It is this sum of money, plus another €12 000 received after a business dinner in Manchester, which are at the centre of the controversy. At the time, he was minister for Finance.
The fifty grand was put together by 12 friends of the Taoiseach and it came in two instalments. In December 1993, a first sum of £22 500 was contributed by eight people. The second payment in 1994, of £16 500, was financed by another four. However, the Standards in Public Office Commission’s rules state that office-holders should “be particularly sensitive about acceptance of gifts or hospitality from friends, or connected persons… where such persons have, or are likely to obtain, a benefit or suffer a loss arising from a decision made, or to be made, by an office-holder or by the government, of which the office holder is aware.”
Debt of honour</B>
However, the prime minister had a get-out-of-jail-free card, which he pulled during his interview on state television and later in Parliament. His excuse was that the payments were in fact not gifts but a “debt of honour”. He financed his divorce costs through a bank loan. However, seeing that he was in a bit of financial bother, his friends decided, unsolicited by Mr. Ahern, to put together the tidy little sum for him.
As such, he can claim that he did not break any rules, seeing that the monies were loans that he had to repay with interest of 3% compared to the 8% that lending institutions charge. Nice friends. 13 years later, the loans have still not been repaid, because, says the prime minister, the friends refused to accept the cash back. Very nice friends indeed. Furthermore, no proofs in writing exist of the loans and their conditions.
However, on repeated occasions, Mr Ahern has made various declarations on the record about the ethics governing the acceptance of monies by public representatives. Here is one example: “The public are entitled to have an absolute guarantee of the financial probity and integrity of their elected representatives, their officials, and above all of ministers. They need to know that they are under financial obligations to nobody, other than public lending institutions, except to the extent that they are publicly declared.”
That was in 1996, three years after the famous loans. This sounds like hypocrisy to anyone refusing to accept the PM’s flimsy alibi. That is especially the case of the opposition, which has been piling the pressure on the beleaguered Taoiseach this week. With elections in less than a year, they know they could deal a mortal blow to the government. Even the junior government partner, in its public declarations, has left the fire exit open in case the situation worsens and the government implodes.
But even more disturbing is one statement that the Taoiseach made in his televised interview. Asked whether the friends, some of whom have sizeable business interests “were in a position to benefit” from decisions he would have made as a minister, he made this startling comment: “Well, you know, all I can say on that, is they didn’t ask me… I might have appointed somebody but I appointed them because they were friends… not because of anything they had given me…” In fact, out of the twelve contributors to the loan, four have served on public boards.
This was an amazing admission of cronyism in the corridors of power. The Standards in Public Office Commission has clear rules that State appointments “should be made on the basis of merit, taking into account the skills, qualifications and experience of the person to be appointed”. It seems that the prime minister did not make the distinction between “skills, qualifications and experience” and friendship, though he “believes” that they had the necessary qualifications.
Thought Mauritius was desperately corrupt? Well, think again.
<B>Diren VALAYDEN</B> <I>Outlook Correspondent in Dublin</I>
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