Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael)

Standards in public matter a great deal to this House. One of our core jobs is to uphold standards with regard to people who take high office. We must ask at what stage do we believe an office holder crosses the threshold and state this person is no longer fit for office. Is it when an office holder accepts huge sums without any documentary evidence of the source of those sums even though they are from private individuals when we know Ministers should not receive money of this nature? Is this when the threshold is crossed? Is it when we find money is treated as a personal gift which the donor believed was a donation to a political party? Is it when moneys are deemed to be loans even though they have lain for years without interest, payment or other sign they genuinely represented loans? Is it when information about transactions crucial to the work of a tribunal are withheld from the tribunal? Is it when the explanations offered are contradicted time and again by records held by the bank? Is it when explanations presented as categorical and clear are changed when confronted by the facts? At what point along that journey does one decide this is no longer acceptable, this person no longer has the trust to remain a fit person to lead the country? I believe that at the first step the line was crossed. When a person holding the position of Minister for Finance accepts private money a line is crossed. Many other lines have been crossed in the meantime. People ask why we have lost confidence and why we are tabling this motion. It is because it is our job to do so. It is our job and, I submit, the job of Members on the other side also to say there are standards that we must insist are upheld and these standards have been transgressed. We have to hold the person accountable and that is what we are doing today.

I have listened to the Fianna Fáil spokesmen and they would have one believe that because the tribunal has not proved a corrupt act that none of this matters. I do not accept that. That is the test of criminal proof — that one attests that someone has committed a crime. That is not the test we apply to the suitability of a person to lead the Government. The suitability of a person to lead the Government hinges on them understanding their obligations not to receive money from people, their obligation to treat tribunals properly, their obligations to have consistent and proper explanations backed up by facts when they present them. These are the tests that have to be applied. This is the test that has been failed. I ask Ministers here if they believe that any of this behaviour would be suitable for them? Do they believe they should be less than co-operative with a tribunal and that they should accept money? I believe many of the honourable Ministers would very definitely say no and would not dream of doing so. Yet they sit there and tolerate it as if it is acceptable.

We are also asked to believe, and the Minister for Education and Science said it, that has all been decided and the people voted in the general election. People voted back Deputy Lowry, Ray Burke and Deputy Beverley Flynn but that did not stop Members deciding that whips should be withdrawn, that they should no longer be members of parties and no longer have posts of important responsibility. People took a different view in this House. They do not believe that simply because one has won an election that suddenly one's obligations of accountability are wiped clear. The reality is that the public did not have the information we now have, nor were they judging on this issue. Rightly, they were told that the last general election was not about the Taoiseach's appearance at the tribunal. We now find that he has not co-operated at the tribunal although they decided they were told he was, that he has not got consistent explanations for what happened although we were told that he had.

The leader of the Green Party came into the House when the Government was being formed and told me he had received explanations from the Taoiseach and was content. Were the explanations he received those that were given at the tribunal and have they not been shredded? The same applies to the leader of the Progressive Democrats. During the election he had marched his troops to the top of the hill and said they should pull out of Government but he marched them back down again because he had explanations that he believed were consistent. I ask the Progressive Democrats if these were the explanations because they have been totally demolished by the tribunal, by the investigative process of following the trail of money, a process the Taoiseach has accepted as the way this should be dealt with. His explanations have been demolished.

This is not the end of the matter. Two thirds of the public do not believe the Taoiseach's explanations. There is still more evidence to be exposed. For example, the issue of the would-be loan donation, disputed by NCB, has still to be unearthed. How is it that something the NCB director believed was a donation to the party became a gift? We still have to see how the house in Beresford was willed by Michael Wall to the Taoiseach. We still have to see how €50,000 was saved to be produced as a deposit. The Taoiseach will be in and out of the tribunal. On the evidence we have seen so far, his explanations will not build confidence that this is a Government handling important issues and led in a coherent way by a Taoiseach in whom the public has trust. That is the ultimate test. We are responsible to the people to give them a leadership in which they can have confidence and trust. That trust has been undermined and destroyed.

This motion of confidence is an important one because we, and particularly those on the other side who have indicated they want to vote against it, will have to decide at what point the line is crossed. I believe the line has been crossed ages ago but the parties and the Independents who are not within Fianna Fáil will have to decide these issues. While Fianna Fáil has said the election has decided it all and that there is still no proof of corruption they are not the issues and the standards we must apply to Members of high office.

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