Dáil debates

Tuesday, 3 October 2006

6:00 pm

Photo of Brendan HowlinBrendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)

The Taoiseach reminded the House that at the time he received these moneys he was a serving member of the Labour Party/Fianna Fáil Government. He said that the ethics and electoral Acts did not apply because they had not been enacted when he received the moneys. He will recall that, over Christmas 1992, he and I were part of the negotiating team that agreed that Government's programme for government, which included those legislative measures. He would, therefore, have known the standards that were expected of office holders in that Government, given that they had been agreed and set.

Leaving all else aside, does the Taoiseach consider it acceptable for a serving Minister for Finance to have accepted €60,000 for personal use? The answer given is that it was not connected and that there is no proof of benefit given. Would the Taoiseach not accept that this is a criminal standard of proof, that is, proof of a crime? What is being asked here of members of Government, then as now, is not a criminal standard of whether he committed a crime but whether he had an acceptable standard for an officeholder when he knew what was set?

I refer to the Taoiseach's contribution as leader of the Opposition to the debate after the resignation of former Minister, Deputy Lowry, when he set the standard that if it was alleged that any moneys given to a serving Minister were a loan, he would demand incontrovertible proof of the terms of the loan in writing at the time the loan was taken out. In respect of the two sets of loans, details of which the Taoiseach has put on the record, is there incontrovertible proof that they were loans? What terms and conditions were agreed? Where is the written evidence of those conditions?

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