Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance)

If we are to believe the version of events put forward by Deputy Lowry and others in the media, an incredible number of coincidences have occurred. Let us look at one such set of coincidences. The £147,000 which Mr. Justice Moriarty believes was a payment to Deputy Lowry from Denis O'Brien was routed through offshore accounts to keep it from public view. We are asked to believe all the following events are completely unrelated. Denis O'Brien has his accountant, Aidan Phelan, open an account in the Isle of Man in the name of Mr. Phelan. A sum of £150,000 is then paid from this account into an account in the Isle of Man controlled by the late David Austin, a Fine Gael fund-raiser and friend of Deputy Lowry. In a completely unrelated coincidence, Deputy Lowry opened an account in the Isle of Man into which £147,000 is paid from the Austin account. Strangely, £147,000 is transferred back into the Austin account on the day the McCracken tribunal began its investigation into the award of the Esat licence.

I am with the learned judge on this. There are too many coincidences involving people bumping into each other in Croke Park, property deals in Britain involving the same names and the late involvement of Dermot Desmond in the Esat bid. The only conclusion I can come to is that of Mr. Justice Moriarty, namely, that the awarding of this lucrative contract was corrupted by a senior Minister in the Fine Gael-Labour Party-Democratic Left coalition Government of the 1990s, in which nine members of the present Cabinet served as Ministers.

My colleagues have noted the seriousness of this matter. It is no good to indulge in hand wringing and tut-tutting, polite requests for Deputy Lowry to resign and promises of change if we go back to the business as usual of tents, golf classics and private fund-raising dinners.

This is the very process that corrupts democracy by allowing big business and wealthy interests to buy influence and obtain a so-called business-friendly environment - in other words, the light regulation and lower taxes on wealth and profit that were key factors in creating the present economic crisis. It is not just a case of a few bad apples. The system which allows and encourages corporate donations to parties and individuals, while it may be legal, is corrupting the political process itself. This is recognised in the many promises to ban corporate donations. To my knowledge, €12 million was spent by political parties in the 2007 election, most of it by Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, and only €2 million was registered as declared donations under the Standards in Public Office Act. This is much too loose and we cannot tolerate it as a nation.

Deputy Wallace made the point that money comes between democracy and abuse. It is also a fact that the promise of future money comes between democracy and abuse. The former Deputy Bertie Ahern, who led the charge of the corrupt brigade, now has cosy positions in the likes of the International Forestry Fund, which is interested in buying Coillte, one of our precious national assets, although I know the people of this country will fight tooth and nail to stop that from happening.

I will reiterate a point made by Deputy Boyd Barrett. We need a list of all donations given to Fine Gael or any other party in the last election. We need action now, not promises. We need an effective ban on donations, a register of lobbyists, and published annual accounts by all parties represented in the Dáil.

See this speech in context