Old friends keep popping up to trouble Fine Gael's ideals

The Government has lacked decisiveness about shunning tainted former party favourites

IRISH POLITICAL values can be very ambivalent at times and owe little to logic. Those contradictions have been apparent as Fine Gael has struggled to put some of its lofty principles into practice.

Yesterday, the Irish Examiner reported that Minister for the Environment Phil Hogan met Independent TD Michael Lowry and the owners of a Tipperary plastics company in March 2011.

The company was lobbying for changes in farm-waste rules. The subject matter and the ease of access were not controversial. It was the timing. It took place within days of the Moriarty tribunal’s damning findings against Lowry, and only 48 hours before Hogan told the Dáil “he held no truck” for those who behaved improperly.

The Government yesterday defended the meeting, saying it was pre-arranged, adhered to the Cabinet handbook and officials were present.

Viewed through the political prism, it was ill-judged in its timing and in the indulgence given to a TD in official disgrace.

If it had been held six months later it might not have caused a stir. But the fact that it took place in the very week of the report made the Minister’s rhetoric sound empty, meaningless.

Fine Gael has promised to make good on tribunal findings and had set about reducing corporate donations and protecting whistleblowers. But it has not been so decisive in shunning former party favourites.

Lowry was a contemporary of Taoiseach Enda Kenny and Hogan. He was a guest at Hogan’s 50th birthday in Kilkenny two years ago. Kenny was present and quipped that he thought he spied a Fine Gael application form in Lowry’s top pocket.

Denis O’Brien was a substantial donor to the party in the 1990s. The Moriarty tribunal, in its final report, found O’Brien, whose company was the successful bidder for the second mobile phone licence, had made payments of some £447,000 to Lowry, then minister for communications. The findings were rejected by the telecoms entrepreneur.

For his part, O’Brien was photographed with Kenny at the New York Stock Exchange and was also invited to the Global Economic Forum last autumn. Now Kenny is saying that he was invited because he was at the first one in Farmleigh.

But last autumn Government sources had been arguing that he had a “valuable contribution” to make.

It’s that ambivalence. It’s a small and familiar society. Lowry is an elected member of parliament; O’Brien is a hugely powerful media owner.

Both have residual links with Fine Gael. And there seems no deep appetite to sever those links.