Ministers face challenge on links with Haughey

The opposition parties will criticise the mechanisms used to fund Mr Charles Haughey's lavish lifestyle as Taoiseach when the…

The opposition parties will criticise the mechanisms used to fund Mr Charles Haughey's lavish lifestyle as Taoiseach when the Dail meets on January 28th.

They will also seek to expose and damage any Fianna Fail Ministers who co-operated with Mr Haughey in possible irregularities.

Opposition parties have renewed their demands for full discovery of all relevant information.

The Fine Gael leader, Mr John Bruton, said all stockbroking contracts for 1987 to 1992 should be examined and any of the Ministers involved who were currently serving in Government should make personal statements to the Dail on the procedures followed.

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The Labour Party leader, Mr Ruairi Quinn, called on the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, to clarify whether Mr Dermot Desmond had raised funds for Fianna Fail in the late 1980s - as had been suggested in Magill magazine - and he called for a full examination of the Ansbacher accounts.

The Democratic Left spokesman on finance, Mr Pat Rabbitte, said Mr Desmond's name had "popped up with startling regularity" in many of the controversies associated with the Haughey government.

In rejecting suggestions of any wrongdoing last night, Mr Desmond promised to co-operate fully with the Moriarty Tribunal. He denied receiving any favourable treatment in relation to his involvement in the International Financial Services Centre and said he was "not aware of having received any political favours from any party on any matter."

Mr Desmond also denied collecting or soliciting money for or on behalf of Fianna Fail, and said he had never been a beneficiary of the so-called Ansbacher accounts.

The Opposition parties are likely to await the outcome of next Monday's High Court challenge by Mr Haughey to the terms of the Moriarty Tribunal before deciding on a medium-term Dail strategy.

Based on that court judgment Fine Gael, the Labour Party, Democratic Left and the Green Party will examine the possibility of broadening the terms of reference of the tribunal so as to identify any owners of Ansbacher accounts who had evaded tax or breached currency controls.

The matter is likely to be discussed at a meeting of the Committee on Procedure and Privileges before the Dail resumes. But the Government has insisted that because the tribunal has already begun its work, it is not now possible to amend its terms of reference.

That view is contested by the Opposition parties.

The Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, is due to return from a foreign holiday today. He may then reply formally to Opposition requests that the terms of reference of the tribunal be changed to eliminate unnecessary delays from judicial challenges.

While the financial activities and political actions of the former Taoiseach - and those of the former Fine Gael Minister, Mr Michael Lowry - form the basis of the Moriarty Tribunal inquiries, it is clear that Fine Gael is determined to link former Fianna Fail Ministers to any detected abuses under the heading of collective Cabinet responsibility.

The Fine Gael leader, Mr John Bruton, recently identified two key controversies - the Beef Tribunal and the sale of Carysfort College - and said that neither Mr Bertie Ahern nor Ms Mary O'Rourke had "done their jobs properly" when Cabinet decisions were taken.

Every Minister who sat at Cabinet was responsible for those decisions, Mr Bruton told the Dail, and "that collective responsibility cannot now be evaded by placing it all on Mr Haughey's shoulders."