FF at greasy till on the day it buried Jack Lynch

On the afternoon of Saturday week last the third president of Fianna Fail, Jack Lynch, was laid to rest in Cork. The occasion afforded the party an opportunity to pay its respects to a leader whose legacy was one of dignity and integrity at a time when the legacy of its fourth president was being trawled through by a tribunal of inquiry and, soon to be, by the Circuit Criminal Court.

As the back page notices in this newspaper attest daily, it is usual when former presidents of organisations die for the activities of that organisation to be suspended, at least on the day of the funeral. One might therefore have expected Fianna Fail to close shop for the day of Jack Lynch's burial, especially as the party had been less than generous in acknowledging the contribution he had made to it and to the State.

Fianna Fail did not close shop on the day of Jack Lynch's funeral. Instead, the Fianna Fail national organisation went ahead with a fundraising function at Leopardstown racecourse. A Fianna Fail press officer told me yesterday that this was "a low-key affair", rather like golf classics and the annual function at Galway races. Asked which ministers attended, he said he did not know and it was not possible to find out, but that they would have arrived late. Asked why they arrived late, he said he didn't know.

It couldn't be, could it, that ministers bolted from the graveside of their lost leader to a "low-key" fund-raising function at Leopardstown racecourse? Could it be that Fianna Fail could not bring itself, even for that day, to stop fumbling in the greasy till?

And that till is very greasy indeed, so greasy that Fianna Fail does not wish to look into it too closely. Millions of pounds were raised in the 1980s for the party and a great deal went missing, and nowadays nobody wants to know.

We know for a certainty that in 1989 more than £100,000 was given to two ministers, intended at least in apart for the party, and only £10,000 got into the party coffers. The money from Fitzwilton (£30,000 to Ray Burke), JMSE (£30,000 to Ray Burke) and Tom Gilmartin (£50,000 to Padraig Flynn). Ray Burke handed over £10,000 he got from Fitzwilton and kept the other £50,000. Padraig Flynn has still to explain fully what happened to the £50,000 he got.

We know for certain also that Exchequer monies intended for the party were used to finance the purchase of fine shirts and expensive dinners and that some of the money found its way into the private helicopter company of the son of the then leader of the party.

Is it remotely believable that all other monies given to senior figures during the 1980s and intended for the party were in fact handed over? People involved in the money-raising business for the party during that time know full well that a great deal of money went missing. And yet, apparently, there is not a scintilla of concern about this by the party.

If Fianna Fail was worried about being ripped off so massively, wouldn't you think they would have instituted some sort of inquiry into what went on, an inquiry of its own independent of any other inquiry going on?

The Institute of Chartered Accountants instituted its own inquiry into the conduct of one of its members arising from evidence given to the McCracken tribunal. It did not feel the need to await the outcome of any other tribunal. Yet Fianna Fail seems content to sit on its hands, claiming it can do nothing until the Flood and Moriarty tribunals make known their findings.

The only inquiry was the famous "up every tree in Co Dublin" one in June 1997. That was the purported inquiry into allegations that Ray Burke had got a packet of money from JMSE in June 1989. Bertie Ahern sent Dermot Ahern to London to ask Joseph Murphy jnr whether there was any truth in the allegation that Burke had got money. A week or so later he advised Dermot Ahern to meet Murphy again, this time in Fitzers restaurant in Dawson Street, Dublin, again to find out whether Burke had got any money from JMSE. And all the time Bertie Ahern knew full well that Ray Burke had got £30,000.

SO what was the point in getting Dermot Ahern to make these inquiries or why didn't Bertie Ahern tell Dermot Ahern what he already knew before sending him on the inquiry mission?

And wouldn't you think that Dermot Ahern would have said to Bertie Ahern - once it became known that Bertie had known of the £30,000 JMSE contribution to Ray Burke all along - "why did you not tell me about this before you sent me to London and sent me to Fitzers?" But he didn't.

A Fianna Fail backbencher, Sean Fleming, the party's former director of finance, knows more about its finances than perhaps anybody else. But he sat silent while Ray Burke told the Dail untruths in September 1997, and nobody bothered to ask him what he knew about the goings-on in June 1989.

Fianna Fail is frantic to forget what went on in the 1980s and early 1990s and it is not just because of an embarrassment over the actions of a former leader, nor even mainly because of that. You would think therefore that it might lay off the money-raising business a little, especially on the day it was burying the last leader it had whose record is not now under scrutiny - and before Albert Reynolds reaches for a lawyer, what I have in mind is his curious management of the export credit insurance facility from 1987 to 1989, which surely must surface again as an object of attention.

Postscript: A former gauleiter of Fianna Fail, Frank Dunlop, took time off from an otherwise busy weekend to write a piece for the Sunday Times in part about my column here last week about Jack Lynch and the 1970 Arms Trial. Dunlop was abusive ("personalised journalism masquerading as historical fact"), precious (an insult to the intelligence of him and his likes who know the real story) and wrong (Jack Lynch did speak to me about the Arms Crisis - in October 1979 and April 1980).

Curiously, Dunlop was unforthcoming. Not a single example of how anything I wrote was mistaken, let alone how my overall argument was flawed. It is to be hoped the next time Dunlop is due to reveal what he knows he will be more forthcoming.

Vincent Browne can be contacted at vbrowne@irish-times.ie