Like many Fine Gaelers, Naughten seemed mesmerised by the wealth and influence of a billionaire
DENIS NAUGHTEN is neither a knave nor a fool but he is, at best, naïve. And his resignation this week was prompted by an inherent trait he shares with others from the Fine Gael tribe. As a minister he was mesmerised by the enormous wealth and influence of billionaire David McCourt, the sole remaining bidder for the National Broadband Plan. He clearly surrendered his judgment and made his department available to McCourt when they privately discussed the biggest contract ever awarded by this Government.
Pat Breen, a Fine Gael junior minister colleague, arranged for Naughten to meet McCourt for the first time last summer and then joined them for dinner in his billionaire neighbour’s castle.
Did they forget about the biggestever business/political scandal when another Fine Gael minister helped get the biggest Government contract ever awarded up to that time for Denis O’Brien?
Michael Lowry set the template for disgraceful Fine Gael ministers but recommendations made after the second mobile phone licence scandal were to ensure it never happened again.
Unlike Lowry, there is no suggestion that Naughten acted dishonestly but his behaviour was reckless and foolish. Naughten dozed through lessons on departmental protocols and him ignoring the rules has put the vital broadband roll-out at grave risk.
His unseemly rush to please rich and powerful business interests manifested itself back in April when he gave INM newspapers the inside track on his department’s thinking about a merger, which was that it wanted to refer it to the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland. He was given a fool’s pardon but did nothing to amend his irresponsible behaviour.
Naughten was extremely reluctant last week to tell the Taoiseach about his series of secret meetings with McCourt. Why?
As communications minister he showed zero awareness of potential conflicts of interests that arose from his inappropriate meetings with people doing business with his department.
AND his apparently compulsive over-familiarity with people he should have kept at arm’s length may well have set back for years the provision of high-speed internet access. Now the Government is desperately trying to get the independent auditor for the process to agree that the minister’s gauche over-familiarity has not fatally contaminated the bidding process.
Sadly, the omens for saving the current process are not good.
Naughten was an extremely powerful minister: he had ultimate responsibility for recommending the winning bidder of the broadband contract to the Cabinet. He was desperately wooing an apparently reluctant consortium of career negotiators who smelled his fear of their bid collapsing.
THE minister, a former food scientist, did not have the skills or guile required to deal with business tycoons whose consortium kept changing and confusing everyone. The Lanigan’s Ball element of the latest grouping – where Enet plucked the ripe plums and lost interest with SSE and John Laing to be replaced by Denis O’Brien’s Actavo – is bewildering.
The Taoiseach should have moved decisively and removed Naughten as soon as his breaches of tendering protocol became known.
Naughten may be a decent man who acted honourably but the shambles he left behind is a damning indictment of his judgement and fitness to serve as a minister.