Bertie Ahern thinks it's time we stopped asking why he appointed Ray Burke to the Cabinet in 1997. Michael McDowell wants us to stop asking about the Flood report which was published last week, writes Dick Walsh
Only the other day, Mary Harney said Ahern should not have appointed Burke. Well, if not, why not? And the answer shouldn't be the kind of stuff regularly trotted out by Fianna Fáil: if we'd known then what we know now. If the Taoiseach had had the papers and the power that Flood had ...
Balderdash. They knew. Dublin County Council was notorious for its rezoning scandals for decades. One of the most profitable locations was called Fortunestown. When Burke himself announced in Buswells that he figured in the Magill Book of Politics as the deputy most interviewed by gardaí, someone said he should sue. "How could I?" said Ray. "Tis true."
Labour, Fine Gael, the Greens, Sinn Féin and the Independents want to ask about this in the Dáil next week. Fianna Fáil and the Progressive Democrats would prefer to confine the exchanges to formal statements. Harney, McDowell and their colleagues would prefer to sit and smile bleakly as Ahern, McCreevy and the rest bumble through the answers they've been giving since the Flood report was published. Hoping against hope that the public and press will get tired of events which Harney once assured all and sundry would be forgotten in a matter of months.
But the questions to be raised first spring from Bertie Ahern's knowledge of Burke's financial activities - the donations he received, some described as corrupt by Fergus Flood, others yet to be investigated. Harney now says Burke should not have been appointed, yet she seemed satisfied by Ahern's answers and assurances when questions were first raised.
She took note of the crowd lining up in 1997 to tell Ahern that Burke should remain outside the Cabinet, which is where Albert Reynolds had left him. Ahern climbed every tree in north Dublin and took him in. Ahern is still reluctant to discuss the question in the Dáil.
Two other tantalising issues are bound to be raised by the Opposition. One has to be with the fact that among the companies which contributed handsomely to Burke's funds was Rennicks, which is part of O'Reilly's corporate family in Fitzwilton.
Then there is the challenge thrown down by an erstwhile contributor to the Sunday Independent, Michael McDowell, to journalists generally and columnists in particular.
McDowell complains that journalists have indulged in a feeding frenzy since the Flood report was published, argues against the publication of rumours and speculation about the involvement of another member of the Cabinet and urges journalists with information to present their evidence to any member of the Government. McDowell's intervention has the authentic ring of panic: Sewer Crisis Deepens, Minister Steps In.The real ambition of the troublemakers is to get the Progressive Democrats out of government and Michael himself out of the Department of Justice.To achieve this sedition the conspirators in the Opposition and the media must get at Ahern, Harney and the coalition parties which first appointed McDowell attorney general and now have him in Cabinet.
Indeed, since he was one of the politicians to whom James Gogarty supplied information and appealed to for help (when Burke's appointment was imminent), he will be well placed to make an eye-opening contribution to the Dáil debate for which Enda Kenny, Ruairí Quinn and their colleagues have appealed.
McDowell would have had a special place in the queue of those hoping to warn Ahern and Harney about Burke's affairs. But, when it came to action, it was that patriotic duo Colm Ó hEochaidh and Michael Smith who really got down to business, found out what was going on and, with the help of Frank Connolly and the Sunday Business Post, shed light in some of the murkier corners of Irish life.
All the while, the usual suspects - not just officials but ambitious young Ministers like Mary Hanafin and Martin Cullen - were out and about trying to persuade each other, their edgy backbenchers and the public at large that, whatever may have happened in the past, we're all in the clear now.
None of them seemed to have noticed that on the day that Flood's report was published, the comptroller and auditor-general, John Purcell, issued a report on the failure of the Revenue Commissioners to find - let alone collect taxes from - some enterprising developers, including a family whose assets ran to apartment blocks, town houses and shopping centre worth €125 million.
And this was one of a number of cases where tax bills were written off in what seemed to be curious circumstances.
One of the oddities of Irish politics is how some people can be sure there's nothing amiss these days, when in the not so distant past the country appeared to be riddled with suspicious inconsistencies and official failures.
Even someone as loftily engaged in legal affairs as the Minister for Justice must be aware that the cost of these shenanigans are borne by those who have to depend on the public services. They are the people to whom McCreevy's codology about miracle-working and Ahern's smiling assurances that it'll all come right on the night are most insulting.
If they want to discover what articulate backbenchers think of them they should have another look at the interview published in this week's Kilkenny People by local Fianna Fáil TD John McGuinness. He calls on McCreevy to come clean and tell the truth about the economy; on Ahern to recognise that they had lost the goodwill of the people. Out of the mouths of worried backbenchers...