Promise to 'sever links' from politics to business

GOVERNMENT departments have been directed to respond within a month to recommendations made in the Moriarty report, Taoiseach Enda Kenny has said.

He also told the Dáil the Government planned “further direct action to sever the links between politics and business once and for all”.

The Government wanted to “stop the further pollution of our society, re-establish a moral code and order to public life and through that restore public confidence to politics and to government”.

Opening a two-day debate on the Moriarty report, Mr Kenny said the Cabinet discussed the report and “directed the relevant departments to provide a comprehensive report to the Government within four weeks on the report’s recommendations so that appropriate action can be taken”.

He reiterated Fine Gael’s pledge to “ban corporate donations to political parties”.

The Government was committed to “reducing the limits on donations to political parties and candidates, and requiring disclosure of all aggregate sums above a limited threshold”.

A statutory register of lobbyists would be introduced with rules governing the practice. Whistleblowers legislation would be introduced and the Government would “return the Freedom of Information to where it was before the 2003 Act”.

A referendum would be held to reverse the Abbeylara judgment and allow Oireachtas committees to carry out full investigations.

The Government would provide a “comprehensive reform and consolidation” of current laws on tribunals and would implement the Law Reform Commission’s recommendations, particularly on “the more efficient management and operation of public inquiries”.

They would “amend the Official Secrets Act, retaining a criminal sanction only for breaches which involve a serious threat to the vital interests of the State”.

There would be a two-year ban on ministers and senior officials working in the private sector in areas involving a “potential conflict of interest” with their previous work in government.

New guidelines would be introduced for civil servants giving evidence to Oireachtas committees to “reflect the reality of the authority delegated to them and their personal accountability for the way it is exercised”.

The Moriarty report found that former minister for communications Michael Lowry “secured the winning” of the 1995 mobile phone licence competition for Denis O’Brien’s Esat Digifone.

Defending the then government, the Taoiseach said the report “exonerates the members of the then government of any wrongdoing” in the award of the licence and it “asserts that the normal decision-making procedures were bypassed in that case”.

He said the tribunal “finds seriously and serially against Deputy Michael Lowry and others who are major players in Irish business and public life”.

When the first issue of Mr Lowry’s conduct arose “Fine Gael acted immediately to remove him first, from government and then from the party itself”.

On a $50,000 Telenor donation to Fine Gael, Mr Kenny said the party took legal advice about the relevance of the donation to the tribunal, which found that it “did not fall within the tribunal’s remit”. He would publish the legal advice and told the Dáil “the failure to override the legal opinion was in hindsight wrong”.

The clandestine way the cheque was routed was wrong and “resulted in the then party officials not being initially aware of the true source of the donation”.

The reforms would “ensure that trust is restored in our democratic institutions, and that the concerns of citizens, rather than the elites, are placed firmly at the centre of government”.