The Minister for Justice, Mr McDowell, told the Dáil yesterday that the granting of 11 passports and naturalisation applications to non-national businesspeople in 1991 in return for investment in Irish businesses "bypassed usual formalities" and ignored the applicants' failure to comply with documentary requirements.
"It seems the passports in question were prepared in advance of the completion of the applications for naturalisation and it has been reported they were handed over to the applicants by the then taoiseach (Mr Charles Haughey) at a lunch hosted by them in a Dublin hotel."
No departmental file was likely to carry explicit evidence of gross impropriety or corruption on the part of a member of Government, said Mr McDowell, in reply to Mr Pat Rabbitte, the Labour Party spokesman on Justice. Nonetheless, Mr McDowell continued, serious questions could be raised concerning the role of Mr Haughey, "with the benefit of hindsight".
Mr McDowell said he could not explain "the then taoiseach's apparent interest in having the case processed with unusual haste". He added: "These may be matters on which the Moriarty tribunal may be able to cast useful light."
Mr Rabbitte asked: "Is it correct to state the practices applied were irregular and unusual and that the hawking of 11 passports across Stephen's Green - the naturalisation orders being signed in Mr (Ray) Burke's home after the passports had been issued - was a cause for alarm?"
Earlier, Mr McDowell had explained that the file containing a report on the controversial passports affair had been commissioned by the former minister for justice, Ms Maire Geoghegan Quinn, from a senior departmental official. She had subsequently written a memorandum to the then tánaiste, now Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, at his request, outlining her concerns.
"Both she and the Taoiseach resigned their respective offices shortly thereafter, but, of course, that had nothing to do with this particular case." The inquiry proceeded under the incoming minister for justice, Ms Nora Owen.
When Mr Burke was initially appointed to the cabinet in July 1997, said Mr McDowell, "nobody on any side of the House" revisited the passports issue in the context of his suitability for office.
"Whether that is explained by an assumption that the substantial responsibility rested with Mr Haughey rather than Mr Burke or whether the file's contents only resumed importance in the context of the Gogarty allegations, I do not know."
The file was now back with the Moriarty tribunal. There were no circumstances in which he would recommend to the Government that Irish citizenship could again be bartered for economic reasons.
There was little point in the Minister referring to the fact the Opposition had not raised the issue of Mr Burke's appointment in 1997. Mr Rabbitte replied: "It was the Government side of the House that ought to have been concerned about it."
Questioned by Mr Rabbitte on the Programme for Government commitment to increase the strength of the Garda by 2,000, the Minister said this would require the Templemore training college to increase its capacity to about 840 places over the five-year period 2003-7. The commitment was that this would be achieved.
Mr Rabbitte insisted that the Minister did not have "a hope in hell" of delivering the requisite numbers.