My thesis

I’ve been interested in the Mahon inquiry into corruption for some time now. The relevance of this story to modern Ireland is pointed because it affects what we see around us, or rather, what we see built around us.

The planning process in Ireland to develop land for commercial, domestic or other uses affects us as citizens profoundly.

I’m started an online thesis project. Delivering daily, up-to-date, reportage of news coming from Dublin Castle.

I haven’t got a comments option going yet, so post any comments here if you like ,

slan

CitiZenJon

started up a new blog,

http://citizenjon2008dublincastle.wordpress.com/

J.

Bertie Visits the Tribunal

Last week at the Tribunal the Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern responded to questioning from Des O’Neill SC, leading counsel for the Inquiry into planning corruption.

Day one of the two day attendance saw little initial public enthusiasm that did his two previous attendances on December 21 and 22. Similiarly the commencement of questioning was reported by some in the public gallery to be almost polite.

That was to change as the day progressed, with opposition coming from both the Irish leader and his legal team lead by barrister Conor McGuire SC to the line and tone of questioning.

At 11:36 things started to heat up as the Taoiseach answered questions concerning two lodgements of 5,000 pounds and as to whether or not these sums were believed by the Taoiseach to be political donations or personal gifts.

O’Neill SC: Was it your belief that somebody had given you two 5,000 pounds gifts?

Ahern: No

O’Neill: And you thought you knew the company that had given it?

Ahern: Yes. And the individual. But when I went back to the company, and I have to say they have been very helpful, they could not verify that the individual I thought had given it to me had given it to me. So I was not able to prove that.

O’Neill: but was it a political donation?

Ahern: Sometimes I think you don’t listen to me […] it was a political donation for my personal use.

Mr. Ahern spent most of the day prevaricating and dodging precision at every verbal turn. It wasn’t pretty, but it was effective and stymied the relentless Senior Counsel’s questioning. At one stage Ahern refuses to answer a question concerning a payment received into an account connected to Ahern in October 1992, he ignores the question five times by going off on a tangent.

A peculiar tell of Ahern’s is his habit of ducking his head behind the witness box monitor. He does this in response to certain questions and does it now in response to the production of a compliment slip from Davy Stockbrokers, it reads “Best of luck in the election Bertie.” Signed by Robbie Kellegher it is evidence of a 5,000 ‘contribution’ paid into the ‘B/T’ account administered by his close friend Tim Collins.

Mr. Ahern revealed for the first time that his lover Celia Larkin had withdrawn 30,000 pounds from the account to purchase property in his constituency.

McGuire SC calls for a recess, but judge Mahon denies his request.

A Tribunal of Inquiry

It is an arm of state, granted legal status, by an Act of Parliament in 1921. During the war for Independence English legal sovereignty extended to the second city of its empire. The act which consolidated about 30 others on Inquiries provided for a Tribunal to investigate “matters of urgent public importance”.Being a statutory body, equal to the High Court, it has the power to enforce the attendance of witnesses on oath, and to attain documents from any source. The Act could also find a witness guilty of contempt for not complying with its orders. The Tribunal must also be administered in public, except where it judged it necessary to be in private.As was the case when Bertie, made his first appearance at the Tribunal.The maintenance of this privacy was another matter. Certain details from the Irish leader’s statement, were made public in September 2006, they featured his explanations about sums of money that he received in the mid-90s, he was subsequently cross-examined in public. I attended all of those appearances; save 2 hours when I was in college for ‘newsday’.

credit to photograpr

credit to photographer

Mr. Ahern’s comments were dissembling and obstructive, to the Tribunal’s inquiry. We heard how his legal team delayed repeatedly over a long period in replying to the Tribunal’s communications. We heard the Taoiseach give conflicting evidence concerning the money he received in 94 and 95.By the time his sessions had concluded, he had changed his recollections concerning certain monies he had recieved several times.However, as the Tribunal’s terms of referance state, that it can impose no sentence nor administer any punishment, being essentially a fact finding excercise reporting to the government.That said, if revelations continue as thick and fast as they did this week about Bertie’s ‘manchester dig-out’ then the court of public support may continue its deterioration. Bertie’s supposed ‘friends’ seem to be few and far between.