Fianna Fail spin doctor quits after censure in Irish corruption report

The head of the Irish government's campaign to secure a vital European vote resigned yesterday after he was judged to have failed to co-operate with a corruption tribunal.

PJ Mara, who masterminded the Fianna Fail party's victory in the general election earlier this year, became the first political casualty of a devastating report into illegal financial practices.

The report further found that the former Irish foreign affairs minister Ray Burke had over a period of decades received corrupt payments and benefits amounting to millions of pounds from builders and other businessmen.

Although it came as hardly a surprise to an Irish public which for years has been hearing an unending stream of revelations of sleaze, it never the less represents a blow to the coalition government at a particularly delicate time.

The coalition is headed by Fianna Fail, which was triumphantly re-elected to office by playing up the feel-good factor generated by Ireland's unprecedented recent prosperity.

But the government has already taken a battering as it has introduced a series of post-election austerity measures, its critics claiming that it had deceived voters into thinking that the country's finances were sounder than they were.

Its most immediate difficulty lies in securing a "yes" vote for the Treaty of Nice on European Union enlargement when a referendum is held on 19 October. The electorate has already voted "no" in a previous plebiscite. There is a possibility that it will do so again, partly on the European issue and partly to punish Fianna Fail.

Mr Mara, who was immortalised by a satirical radio series which portrayed him as the grovelling sidekick of the disgraced former taoiseach Charles Haughey, was said in the report to have failed to co-operate fully with the tribunal.

In resigning yesterday the former Fianna Fail spin doctor said the Nice referendum was fundamental to the future of both Ireland and the EU, and that he was determined that nothing relating to him could be used in an attempt to damage its chances of success.

The Irish Foreign Minister, Brian Cowen, said it was very important that the referendum campaign be concentrated on the Treaty of Nice and should not be diverted away from it.

The reaction of the Taoiseach, Fianna Fail's leader Bertie Ahern, has been to present the episode as essentially a piece of history rather than a current political issue.

Opposition parties are making much of the fact that in 1997 Mr Ahern promoted Mr Burke to the post of Foreign Minister, despite a veritable blizzard of rumours concerning his personal corruption.

Mr Ahern famously said that he had been "up every tree in Dublin" investigating the rumours and finding them groundless before appointing Mr Burke. He decried "the persistent hounding of an honourable man". The tribunal hearings, before Mr Justice Feargus Flood, were marked by claims of amnesia from many of those involved as well as much obvious blustering, obfuscation and concealment.

This had led to speculation that the judge's report might be a confusing document. Instead, it has been hailed for its clarity and directness.

The Irish Independent journalist Miriam Lord, who attended many of the tribunals, wrote: "Flood has well and truly nailed the lying toads who sat smugly in the witness box telling barefaced untruths as they arrogantly played their audience for fools. They came in with good suits and expensive lawyers and came out with a pack of lies, making a mockery of the tribunal. Their clumsy efforts are dismissed briskly in the Flood report."

Years of disclosures mean that many in the Irish Republic are suffering from tribunal overload, given that so many different inquiries are going on into corruption in politics and business. The judge who delivered this report – which is only an interim judgment – answered the criticism that too much money was being spent on raking up the past. He said that while the tribunal has cost €21m (£13m), the tax authorities have recovered €34m as a result of its investigations.

From an editorial in 'The Irish Times'

The former Fianna Fail minister, Ray Burke, along with those wealthy individuals who made corrupt payments to him and who lied to and obstructed the Flood tribunal, must suffer the full rigours of the law.

Unless our increasingly wealthy society becomes convinced that white-collar criminals will automatically join their working-class counterparts in jail, we will invite the spread of corruption. Already, international business surveys are charting a fall in Ireland's rating for honesty. That rot must be stopped.

Mr Justice Flood spent five years examining allegations of corruption against Mr Burke and other politicians, and has published a damning interim report. The fiction of "political donations", created to explain an estimated £200,000 given to Mr Burke by builders and businessmen over three decades, was swept aside. These were categorised as "corrupt payments" designed to influence the then minister's political actions in favour of the donors. The director of public prosecutions will be expected to initiate criminal proceedings.