Joe Higgins (Dublin West, Socialist Party)

In view of Mr. Ray Burke being convicted of serious criminality and abusing high office as a Fianna Fáil Minister, can the Taoiseach explain why he appointed him to the Cabinet in 1997 and why he savaged those who questioned him for taking that decision given that he vindicated Mr. Burke in the strongest terms? The Taoiseach must explain because when Fianna Fáil was mired in corruption and sleaze in the 1980s, nobody believes he did not know what was going on. He was the party fixer and the runner for party leader, Mr. Haughey. It is simply not credible that he did not know what Mr. Burke and his team of cronies were up to regarding rezonings and land corruption.

The Taoiseach may have kept his own face out of the feeding frenzy at the speculator's trough but he knew it was there, he knew who was bucketing the swill into it and he knew the biggest snouts who were slurping from it but, unlike when I was a young fellow on a farm in Kerry when we had to take a stick to the greediest pigs, he simply left them at it.

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