The Fianna Fail leader, Mr Bertie Ahern, was at his measured best on radio yesterday as he raked over the details of the Lowry affair. His comments went to the heart of the matter the facts presented to the Dail by Mr Michael Lowry represent no more than one version of events. Further enlightment is keenly awaited from Mr Ben Dunne and indeed from the Taoiseach, Mr Bruton.
Mr Ahern's suggestion that legislation might now be necessary to compel Mr Dunne to appear before the Dail inquiry much as special legislation was introduced to facilitate the investigation into the circumstances which culminated in the fall of the last Government is timely. The continuing silence from Mr Dunne is intolerable, given the degree to which very unorthodox business dealings have poisoned the body politic and, indeed, cast a shadow over the business community. Mr Dunne, apparently, takes some pride in his depiction as something of a rough diamond in the smooth world of Irish business. But he also has wider obligations to the State and to the laws of the land. If he is unwilling to make himself amenable to a Dail committee, the Government must have no hesitation in using the legislative means at its disposal to compel his attendance.
This newspaper has already proposed such legislation as a means of getting to the truth of another aspect of the Dunnes affair the payment of over £1 million to a senior Fianna Fail figure. The inadequacies of what is now in train an examination by a subcommittee of the Committee of Procedures and Privileges without any of the necessary legal instruments has been further exposed by Mr Lowry's statement, which only served to raise more questions. The Government hardly has much choice but to pursue the approach favoured by Mr Ahern the alternative is nothing less than a full judicial inquiry.
Mr Bruton, meanwhile, has much to explain this weekend. He has now confirmed that Mr Lowry told him of how he had availed of the tax amnesty one month after his appointment as a Minister two years ago. But it seems clear that Mr Bruton did not explore, in any serious way, the full circumstances in which Mr Lowry used the amnesty. Mr Bruton must also address a wider question why was he content to leave Mr Lowry in one of the most economically sensitive posts in Government, when he knew that his Minister had availed of what Mr Bruton himself had depicted as a charter for tax cheats?
Mr Bruton, in mitigation, has regained some lost ground in the past 24 hours with his criticism of Mr Lowry's behaviour and his very deliberate effort, in last night's statement, to distance himself from his former Minister. But he is still vulnerable to the charge that he allowed his close personal relationship with Mr Lowry to colour his judgment. He has not been well served by his former lieutenant. It seems clear that Mr Lowry did not make a full disclosure to the Taoiseach on his appointment. But, after weeks of dithering and defensiveness, Mr Bruton's task now is to regain some of the high moral ground that he once liked to call his own and to put himself in the vanguard of those seeking the full truth.