Arthur Morgan (Louth, Sinn Fein)

No one was surprised at the findings of the report of the Moriarty tribunal on the personal finances of the late Mr. Charles Haughey. The manner in which he conducted himself while holding high office has been well exposed before now and is confirmed by the report. Equally, if not more important is the light the report sheds on the relationship between privileged people in politics, and big business and financial services. Charles Haughey benefited from this relationship. While small customers were treated by AIB with the utmost severity, the privileged, such as Mr. Haughey were allowed to default on huge debts. As a beneficiary of the Ansbacher scam, the late former Taoiseach was one of a select few wealthy people facilitated in hiding their money offshore and evading tax in the late 1980s.

Let it not be forgotten that companies that aided the Ansbacher rip-off of the ordinary taxpayer included Cement Roadstone Holdings, from whose head office the scam was run. CRH is still one of the most powerful players in the Irish economy, with a virtual monopoly on the construction material market. It has benefited hugely from the speculator-driven and anti-people planning and development policies of Fianna Fáil and the Progressive Democrats in Government for the past decade.

While legislation has made it more difficult for politicians to benefit personally from the types of dealings exposed by the tribunal, a golden circle still exists. Without doubt decisions have been taken by Government that were against the public interest and in the interest of its friends in big business. A classic example is the changing of Part V of the Planning and Development Act after intensive lobbying by developers. The original Part V required developers to provide 20% social and affordable housing in all developments. This was changed by the Fianna Fáil-Progressive Democrats Government at the developers' behest to allow them to buy their way out of their obligations by paying money to local authorities. As a direct result, low-income families have been deprived of homes.

We have seen the granting of major tax concessions to the developers of private hospitals. The former Minister for Finance, Mr. Charlie McCreevy, admitted he introduced this concession after lobbying by a private hospital developer in his constituency. The Minister for Health and Children, Deputy Harney, has extended the concession by making public hospital land available to developers of private hospitals. Just as scandalous as anything in this report is the ongoing robbery of our natural gas and oil by multinationals which were handed these resources by successive governments.

What of the role of the former Minister, Mr. Ray Burke, and other Ministers still with us in making and maintaining sweetheart deals with the multinationals? Do they not warrant an inquiry? Instead the Government has ridden roughshod over the community in Rossport and robbed this and future generations of what are rightly ours. Why have we not had a tribunal on the privatisation of Eircom to the benefit of multi-millionaires such as Tony O'Reilly and at the expense of many thousands of small shareholders who were conned? As a result we have a substandard telecommunications infrastructure in the hands of a private monopoly. Far from regretting this, Fianna Fáil and the Progressive Democrats went on to privatise the national airline, Aer Lingus. All of these measures are legal, but against the public interest and in the interest of a golden circle that still exists here.

The report of the Moriarty tribunal states that the conduct of Charles Haughey "devalued the quality of modern democracy". That devaluation continues to this day and never more so than under this politically bankrupt Government. Efforts should be made to retrieve the taxpayers' hard-earned funds.

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