Seanad debates

Tuesday, 12 November 2002

Second Interim Report of the Tribunal of Inquiry into Certain Planning Matters and Payments: Statements.

 

It would be very simple to relieve much of the concern. There is a Freedom of Information Act, which came into force some time in 1998. It would require nothing more than a ministerial order to allow it to apply retrospectively to all matters in which Mr. Burke had influence. That would be in the area of communications and in the area of the distribution and sale of passports and things like that. It would let the public see that nothing else that was done was wrong or influenced by anything untoward. It would be simple to do and would not take major legislation. If we want to do more than respond to existing public concern and if we are really concerned to cut this particular offensive canker out of the political system, I would invite Fianna Fáil to commit themselves to that because it is not just about one person. Let us see what is in the file on passports. Let us see the records, not of the slightly diluted interpretations of the Minister but of the area of developing communications even before the tribunal investigated them. I suggest this because one of the aspects which has intrigued people is the way Mr. Burke carried the portfolio of communications with him wherever he went. That portfolio was enormously influential and full of possibilities for the future.

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