Just as the Taoiseach exhorts his Ministers and Ministers of State to put "the O'Flaherty affair" behind them and to move on to other things, further Machiavellian manoeuvrings are revealed. Details begin to emerge of a scheme to get the chairman of the Public Accounts Committee and Fine Gael TD, Mr Jim Mitchell, to take the position of vice-president of the European Investment Bank. The circumstances surrounding what can only be seen as an abortive stroke are bizarre and distasteful. Furthermore, the manner in which the approach was made to Mr Mitchell raises continuing questions for the troika whose misjudgement led in the first instance to the nomination of Mr Hugh O'Flaherty and whose subsequent brazen arrogance sustained the controversy. Initial attempts were made by Government spokesmen to suggest that it was Mr Mitchell who had taken the initiative by advancing his own name for this post. It is surely implausible that Mr Mitchell would put forward his name for the job last Wednesday only to find on Monday that he had to eliminate himself on grounds of ill-health.
Last night in New York, the Taoiseach, in a now-familiar mode, sought to distance himself from the whole issue. A number of people were sounded out, he suggested, but Mr Michael Tutty, the career civil servant, was always the second choice for the nomination. The Tanaiste and the Minister for Finance, however, now appear to have been aware that Mr Mitchell was sounded out on the position. They have not denied that the wealthy businessman, Mr Ulick McEvaddy, who hosted Ms Harney and Mr McCreevy in his villa last year, was the intermediary through which the approach was made. They have yet to offer an explanation as to why a business figure with a vested financial interest in the Government's air transport policies should be the conduit for the nomination to a vice-presidency of the EIB.
If questions still remain about the circumstances of the approach to Mr Mitchell, the same must be said for the motivation behind it. The appointment of Jim Mitchell to a senior position would be warmly welcomed on all sides of Leinster House. Worthy though he may be, however, it would be stretching credulity beyond the limit to suggest that the Government was motivated by a new mood of bi-partisanship towards Fine Gael. Most observers would go past a natural sympathy for a man who is awaiting a liver transplant and see a tawdry political opportunism in the attempt to award the £147,000 a year post to Mr Mitchell.
In the wake of the controversy surrounding the nomination over the last four months, it is little short of astonishing that the Government should try such a stratagem at the eleventh hour. Given the public's focus on this issue, did the Government not realise that every aspect of its actions would be analysed and exposed? The Taoiseach acknowledged in New York that the nomination of Mr O'Flaherty had damaged the Government. He and his Ministers want to put the whole affair behind them. But this latest twist in the saga suggests that the administration has failed to recover whatever sense of judgment or propriety it may once have had and that the controversy will continue.