Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)

Yesterday, a deeply disturbing report was issued on the award of the most valuable commercial licence given by any Government in the history of the State. By any objective measure, it is a profoundly disturbing report, yet the principal response of the Government has been to not comment publicly while privately briefing that it is only really relevant to the actions of one man. This Government is made up of people who have spent years, and made careers from, jumping to their feet in the House and demanding urgent responses on real and imagined transgressions far less serious than the matters dealt with by Mr. Justice Moriarty. However, yesterday not a single statement on the report was issued by the legions of Deputies on the Government benches.

Fine Gael has no difficulty privately briefing that it has no concerns about this report but it has still refused to make a spokesperson available to any of the main media or political programmes on this issue. The Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, Deputy Rabbitte, managed to deliver a statement on the report in the House yesterday without using the two words "Fine Gael". The Taoiseach said yesterday that he had not read the report and Deputy Rabbitte said he had not read it in its entirety but said he believed the licence process had been hermetically sealed, or at least he was led to believe it had been so. The Labour Party's silence on this issue today has been truly deafening.

Yesterday, the Taoiseach avoided all questions, pleading no knowledge of the report's findings. As Taoiseach, Leader of Fine Gael, a participant in the fund-raising practices detailed in this report and as a member of the Cabinet which awarded an immensely valuable licence, he must have seen by now the report's findings as they relate to his party. He must have seen the evidence, for example, about the concealed donation of $50,000-----

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