Fianna Fáil withdraw whip from Flynn
Beverly Flynn TD, who failed in a libel action against the RTE broadcasting service, tonight lost the parliamentary whip of the Fianna Fail main Dublin coalition government party.
The 116-strong parliamentary party accepted, without a vote, a motion proposed by leader and Prime Minister Bertie Ahern to take the whip from Beverley Flynn, who represents the Mayo constituency in the Dail.
In a unanimous ruling last week, the five judges of the Supreme Court upheld a previous High Court judgement that Ms Flynn – formerly known as Beverley Cooper-Flynn – had encouraged clients of her bank employers to evade paying tax.
The Supreme Court reaffirmed that the politician’s reputation had not been damaged by an RTE programme’s allegations that she advised customers of her National Irish Bank previous employers on moves that could lead to evading the payment of tax.
A report on the bank by High Court inspectors, who have been investigating the company, is due to be published in June, and detail how the bank sold insurance policies in a manner that encouraged tax evasion.
Later this week, Ms Flynn faces a bid – also being urged by Mr Ahern – to dismiss her from the Fianna Fail organisation completely.
She claimed at tonight’s meeting that she had been singled out for unfair punishment and that she had been a junior official of the bank carrying our her employers’ wishes.
There were only two speakers at the party gathering – Mr Ahern and Ms Flynn, he 36-year-old daughter of former Irish cabinet minister and European Commissioner Padraig Flynn.
Afterwards Ms Flynn said she was gravely disappointed at the development.
She had made the same arguments to her colleagues that she had been making publicly since the party decided to table the motion.
She accepted that her parliamentary colleagues felt that the sanction of withdrawing the whip was appropriate, and for that reason she had not lobbied any of them.
But Ms Flynn made it clear she would continue her fight at the meeting of the party’s national executive on Friday by vigorously contesting the motion to expel her from the Fianna Fail party as a whole.
