Anti-corruption laws to clear Dáil of crooks

FOUR ministers have been handed a deadline of just a month to draw up tough new anti-corruption powers in the wake of the damning Mahon report.

Alan Shatter, Brendan Howlin, Leo Varadkar and Phil Hogan will have to deliver their plans to the Cabinet by the end of April.

The aim of Labour and Fine Gael is to implement as many as possible of the tribunal report’s 64 recommendations – contained in a chapter running to 200 pages – including a reform of a 123-year-old law.

The 1889 Public Bodies Corrupt Practices Act says civil servants can lose their pensions for corruption but crucially there is not a word about politicians on the take.

Deputy Joe Higgins told the Dáil yesterday that ‘those who crashed our economy are swanning around the world on pensions of €150,000’.

The deadline comes as former FF councillors GV Wright and Don Lydon quit Fianna Fáil, so motions for their formal expulsion will be withdrawn from a party meeting on Friday.

Finbar Hanrahan is now the only FF figure who has not yet resigned.

‘Incompetent are on €150k pensions’

Environment Minister Phil Hogan said the Government’s moves were ‘urgent and active’ so that what had been revealed could not happen again.

He also insisted he had not cancelled investigations into alleged planning malpractice i n other regions, describing such claims as ‘shameful’.

Investigations into allegations about six local authorities, including Dublin and Cork city councils and Carlow and Galway county councils, were announced by John Gormley in 2010 when he was environment minister. But Mr Hogan said last night Mr Gormley had left office ‘having instituted nothing’.

He confirmed inquiries were under way and a decision would be taken ‘in a few weeks’ on whether they merited deeper investigations.

The announcement of new anticorruption laws and investigations came as the Dáil began a debate on the Mahon Tribunal report.

Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore rounded on Fianna Fáil for standing by Bertie Ahern even as he made bizarre explanations over his finances as far back as 2006. Mr Gilmore said FF had supported Mr Ahern as taoiseach even though his evidence did not account for substantial amounts of money he received.

The Labour leader said: ‘His explanations were little short of bizarre. That was obvious to anyone who read or listened to his evidence.

‘There was a widespread view in the country at that time that his evidence was not believable – it was clear for anyone to see that he was not co- operating with a sworn inquiry established by the Oireachtas. It should have been also clear that this placed him in an impossible position as taoiseach.’

He indicated Fianna Fáil should have toppled Ahern as their leader but instead the party attacked the tribunal. Three leaders of Fianna Fáil from 1979 until May 2008 – all of whom became taoiseach – had been disgraced by tribunals, he suggested, including the Beef Tribunal, the Moriarty Tribunal and now the Mahon Tribunal.

‘It is a chronicle of betrayal, ignominy and disgrace,’ he said.

Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin said the key lesson of the report was that everyone in public life had to keep high standards.

He said: ‘It is a wide-ranging report which deals with the specific matter of the corruption of planning in Dublin as well as the broader facts of the behaviour of specific individuals and fundraising by national parties.’ Mr Martin used the debate to attack Fine Gael over the Moriarty report into the granting of a mobile telephone licence to a consortium.

He said: ‘During last year’s Moriarty debate a succession of ministers came to the Dáil and chose to

‘Betrayal, ignominy

and disgrace’

cherry-pick the more convenient parts of the report for comment.

‘I believe the evidence uncovered by the tribunal and independently available to the DPP is more than sufficient for a number of people to face serious charges. I hope that this will be progressed urgently.’

The Cabinet decided yesterday to set up a dedicated legal costs unit within the State Claims Agency to deal with fees racked up at the Mahon and Moriarty tribunals.

Mr Hogan is also writing to the Mahon tribunal to stress it should reduce administrative costs and minimise the burden to the taxpayer as it fulfils its remaining duties.

The Comptroller and Auditor General in 2008 estimated such costs at up to €104million while the tribunal previously put them as high as €147million.

The Government would be taking steps to limit future costs, he said.