Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

I did pay capital gains tax and gift tax, and I provided all the details on those issues. I gave comprehensive reports. Not only that, but all the people involved went before the tribunal, gave their evidence under oath and were cross-examined. All these issues have been dealt with. Deputy Gilmore can say, from a political point, that it is not a constitutional issue, but that is not the advice I have received. In the Attorney General v. Hamilton case, former Chief Justice Thomas Finlay stated: "the attempt to compel [Deputies Dick Spring, Pat Rabbitte and Tomás MacGiolla] to answer questions before the Tribunal is an attempt to make them amenable to an authority other than the Dáil". He also stated: "This is precisely the conduct which is outlawed by the express provisions of Article 15.13 of the Constitution, and the jurisdiction of the tribunal to compel answers to those questions was accordingly ousted". This is a case in which three Deputies were seeking to rely on the protection of utterances in the House. Away back, when the terms of reference were built into utterances in the House, it was dealt with in a different way. In the Hamilton case, counsel for Dick Spring argued that Article 15.13 must be construed in accordance with the fundamental principles of democracy in order to enable Members of the Oireachtas to exercise their freedom of speech. Parliamentary privilege is enshrined in Article 15.13 of the Constitution, but the reality is it is far older than that. Many argued that Members of the Dáil and Seanad should have the absolute right to free speech so they would not have to look over their shoulders.

I have answered these questions in the House, outside the House and in the tribunal. However, what is not allowed in the Constitution — I have been advised and I have checked this carefully over a long period, because I tried to avoid taking any action — is that it was wrong for me to do this.

I heard Deputy Gilmore on the radio this morning saying he was not disputing a person's right to go to court if he or she thought a tribunal was going too far. I accept this. However, I am sure he recognises that I am only doing what two former members of his own party — three, if he includes his previous party — have done. I am entitled to do so. Perhaps, for political reasons, Members will want to say that this is not in defence of Article 15.13. I am well able to look after myself. I am well able to deal with the learned members of the tribunal and I have been doing it for a long time.

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