Last Saturday week, the Abbey Theatre held its annual general meeting. It was not an important news event. Everyone in the media business was concentrating on the Flood report which had been issued two days earlier. The burning questions were the fate of P.J. Mara, Fianna Fáil's director of elections,and the need for the Government to show that it took the whole business of ethics in public office seriously, writes Fintan O'Toole
The Abbey is held in trust for the Irish public by a group of shareholders who constitute what is now called the Advisory Council. The council includes the Minister for Art, Sport and Tourism,John O'Donoghue, and the Minister for Finance,Charlie McCreevy.
There was a vacancy on this body. One candidate was nominated, and since no other name was put forward, the nomination was accepted.
Thus it was that two days after the publication of the Flood report Paddy Duffy joined the small group of trustees charged with maintaining the integrity of an important national institution.
Paddy Duffy's name doesn't mean much to most people, but he has long been an important behind-the-scenes influence as a member of Bertie Ahern's kitchen cabinet. He was appointed as a special adviser to Ahern as Taoiseach in 1997.
More pertinently, he resigned from that position in June 1999 after it emerged that he was a director and shareholder of a public affairs company,Dillon Consultants, which advised the communications company NTL on its purchase of the State-owned Cablelink cable company from RTÉ and Telecom Eireann.
At the time, Mary Harney described his directorship of Dillon Consulting as "totally unacceptable" and "a dangerous conflict of interest". While Paddy Duffy was still the Taoiseach's special adviser, Dillon's website listed Mr Duffy on its page headed "Our people". It also listed him as a director, saying he had "25 years experience as political adviser at the most senior levels of government". This bolstered the company's claim to "access and influence at the highest levels of decision-making".
Paddy Duffy himself explained that he had originally intended to leave his post as special adviser to Bertie Ahern in December 1998 and came to an agreement with Dillon Consultants at the time. However, he explained, he then changed his mind, but "through a series of misunderstandings on my part, I was still registered as a non-executive director".
Bertie Ahern told the Dáil that Mr Duffy's explanation was " so stupid it is probably believable". Paddy Duffy was nevertheless a director of the company while Dillon Consultants was organising a series of meetings between senior NTL figures and what an NTL spokeswoman called "key influencers in the country". These meetings included one with the Taoiseach himself.
PADDY Duffy accepted that he had done wrong. "I should have resigned before becoming a non-executive director of Dillon's. I should have confirmed that my name was not listed as being a non-executive director before completing my Jan 99 return to the Public Offices Commission. I should have informed the Taoiseach and Minister Mary O'Rourke of the full facts of my contacts with Dillon's."
Paddy Duffy is one of the very few people found by the Public Offices Commission to have breached the terms of the Ethics in Public Office Act. In its report for the year 2000, the Commission found that Mr Duffy "fell short of compliance" with the requirements of the Act on three different grounds.
It found that Mr Duffy did not declare his directorship of Dillon Consultants, as required. In addition, he "fell short of compliance" with the requirement that he declare any material interest in a matter to which his function related. He also breached the rule that he not engage in any trade or profession, paid or unpaid, "which might reasonably be seen to be capable of interfering in, or being incompatible with, the performance of his functions as a special adviser".
Paddy Duffy's dual role as a director of Dillon's and an adviser to the Taoiseach raised a potential conflict of interest in the specific area of arts policy. Dillon's prepared a submission to the State's Millennium Committee on behalf of the Gaiety Theatre, which was looking for public funding. Paddy Duffy was a member of the Millennium Committee. He insisted, however, that his involvement in the Gaiety Theatre proposal was proper and above board.
At the time of Paddy Duffy's resignation, Bertie Ahern told the Dáil that lessons would be learned. "From the point of view of public ethics, that legislation is still in its infancy. We can all learn from the experience and I believe that there may be cautionary lessons which have an application that go far beyond the individual involved."
One of the cautionary lessons might have been that someone found to have breached the Ethics in Public Office Act should not act as a trustee of the public interest in a publicly funded institution. This very concern was raised by some Abbey shareholders when Paddy Duffy's name was put forward.
Neither John O'Donoghue nor Charlie McCreevy, who are represented on the shareholding body, nominated any other candidate and Paddy Duffy was elected by default. The only conclusion is that inability to abide by the requirements of the Ethics in Public Office Act does not, in the eyes of the Government, debar anyone from public office.