Kenny: Taoiseach is 'the great evader'
FG leader, Enda Kenny, launched a fierce attack on Taoiseach Bertie Ahern during the debate on the cash donations Mr Ahern received in Manchester while Finance Minister in the early 1990s.
“This is supposed to be accountability day. This is supposed to be the day when standards are defined and standards are adhered to,” Mr Kenny said.
“This Taoiseach is still the great evader, still the great evader.”
The Fine Gael leader said Mr Ahern had displayed radically different political attitudes to himself and other members of the opposition benches.
Mr Kenny said the Taoiseach’s combined apology and defence harked back to a culture espoused by disgraced politicians such as late Taoiseach Charlie Haughey and former minister Ray Burke, whose careers foundered after they were found to have taken payments from big businessmen.
“Does this sound familiar?” Mr Kenny asked, before quoting Mr Burke’s speech to the Dáil in 1997 where he denied receiving payments.
He said: “‘I’m taking this opportunity to state unequivocally that I have done nothing illegal, unethical or improper’.
“They are the words of Deputy Burke in this house on September 10 1997. Same words, same standards, different application.
“I thought that this country had moved on from that period. I thought we had moved away from the Haughey era of the 80s, but apparently Fianna Fail resurrects the same old standards in the same old way.”
Mr Kenny said regardless of the Taoiseach’s defence that he had broken no ethical codes, he was wrong to accept money while holding a powerful ministerial portfolio.
Mr Kenny said by putting his hand on the money he had diminished the status of his office.
Labour Party leader Pat Rabbitte backed his opposition partner Mr Kenny, insisting that accepting the gift was wrong and that backbenchers were defending the indefensible.
“Can we do more than highlight the absolute impropriety of a serving Minister for Finance accepting payment for a nixer outside the State?
“Never mind the ‘no law was broken’ defence. By any standards it was wrong,” Mr Rabbitte said.
And he accused the Taoiseach of trying to pass off the entire affair as some sort of fairy story.
“You believe in the tooth fairy if you believe that businessmen happen along to a function in a posh hotel to listen to any old Joe Soap talk to them about the Irish economy and then organise an impromptu collection to give him something for himself,” he said.
Mr Rabbitte added: “If anything demonstrates why this country needs a change of government it is the media parade of your Ministers, blind to standards, defending the indefensible.”
