Pat Rabbitte (Dublin South West, Labour)

I am sure the Ceann Comhairle will agree it was difficult to watch the interview last night and it must have been particularly difficult for the Taoiseach to give it. Nobody wants to intrude into the domestic or family affairs of any member of the House and nobody on these benches has ever mentioned the Taoiseach's personal life, let alone probed it. It would be helpful in clarifying the matter if this were acknowledged. It would be helpful if we could set it aside because we are not interested in the Taoiseach's private life.

The leak may well have been for the vindictive motivation that the Taoiseach says it was for. All I can say is that nobody on these benches is responsible for it. We did not know the information.

It would also be helpful in achieving clarity if there were a little less of the common man routine. It is a long time since the Taoiseach was a common man. He has been driven around this country since 1987 and he never put his hand in his pocket at a forecourt to fill the car with petrol. He is earning more than €250,000 per annum and therefore there is no point in comparing himself to the man on Hill 16 who got into a bit of trouble and had a whip-round. Mr. Haughey's collection started with a whip-round also and it was purely an accident that the matter entered the public domain.

The issue in question is the Taoiseach's acceptance, for personal use, of €50,000. He said The Irish Times was off the wall but it was not in that it referred to a figure between €50,000 to €100,000. It is important that the Taoiseach now take this opportunity to clarify whether there is any more money.

We now have standards in law and practice. The Taoiseach himself has interpreted them before this House for officeholders and Members. He said no Member of the House and certainly no officeholder should accept money that places him or her under any financial obligation. Why does the Taoiseach believe he can articulate standards for the rest of the Members of this House while not having to comply with them himself? He said that moneys he accepted in 1993, amounting to €50,000 and which have not been paid back 13 years later, and on which no interest was discharged, comprise a loan. However, when it was suggested during the Deputy Lowry affair that the money in question might have been a loan, the Taoiseach said he would require incontrovertible written evidence of that arrangement and the amount of the repayments at the time. Why would the Taoiseach apply this standard to Deputy Lowry and not to himself? Is he telling the House that he, as a former Minister for Finance and accountant, committed no aspect of the arrangement in question to paper?

Is there any written evidence that the people in question gave the Taoiseach the money? Was the arrangement scribbled on the back of a beer mat when the transaction transpired? Why is it that standards the Taoiseach articulated in the House at the time of the McCracken report and the Haughey, Ray Burke, and Michael Lowry affairs, as well as in the case of the former junior Minister, Deputy Callely, are articulated for others, but he now comes in here to tell us, that he, the most senior office-holder in the land does not have to comply with those same standards?

See this speech in context