FG needs to explain its rapid rise to riches

Michael Lowry's £150,000 loan from David Austin in 1996, and the peculiarities concerning it, merely deepen wonderment over Fine Gael's finances in the period it last held office from late 1994 to 1997. This was the time when it became spectacularly wealthy, having been almost broke previously, and it was the same Michael Lowry who was right in the middle of that extraordinary transformation.

We are asked by John Bruton to believe that there was no quid pro quo for the money that poured into its coffers when Fine Gael was in government, the same John Bruton who, barely 18 months ago, offered the most significant quid pro quo that money would buy from a Leader of the Opposition - input into party policy formulation.

Why should it be that a tribunal is asked to inquire into the enrichment of Michael Lowry when he held office and not asked to inquire into the enrichment of Fine Gael when it held office, as precisely the same questions arise and the same person was directly involved, i.e. Michael Lowry?

Of course, questions arise about the funding of other parties and other politicians, but Fine Gael's sole card for a long time now has been its integrity. If Fine Gael's only card turns out to be a bum card, the electorate had better know about it before the next election.

For if Fine Gael is not more honest than Fianna Fail - and it may turn out to be less honest - what, conceivably, would be the reason for voting for it? Fianna Fail is at least as well able to manage the nation's finances as Fine Gael. Fianna Fail is no fairer in office to the poorer, the disadvantaged, the marginalised, than is Fine Gael. Yes, the Charlie McCreevy budgets have favoured the rich massively, but the budgets of the Fine Gael-led government also favoured the rich.

The proposal to build a national stadium is off the wall, but what does Fine Gael want to do about it? The North used to be a point of difference, now the only difference is that Fianna Fail is more to be trusted not to derail a policy that everyone agrees on than is Fine Gael.

It used to be that Fine Gael front-bench people were smarter than Fianna Fail's, but is that the case any more?

SO WHAT is the point of voting for Fine Gael over Fianna Fail if the integrity issue is neutralised? OK, more Fianna Fail types have been caught in the net than Fine Gael types - Charlie Haughey, Ray Burke, Liam Lawlor, Denis Foley, Padraig Flynn and, arguably, Beverley Cooper-Flynn - but if Fine Gael, as a party, the whole shebang, is caught in the net, what then?

There is a way out for Fine Gael. Come clean about the money it got while in office from 1994 to 1997, and then promise to do away with all private donations to political parties. (The present policy of accepting wads of cash from rich people provided they put it through their own accounts, not their company accounts, is just laughable.) Then argue for a much fairer society by a radical policy of redistribution, possibly through the mechanism of basic income for which CORI, the Conference of Religious of Ireland, has argued persuasively for years.

Campaign vigorously on stopping the madness of the national stadium on the basis of there being far more pressing social needs than that extravaganza. And insist on fairness also in all other areas including, particularly, the criminal justice system, refugees, Travellers and other vulnerable groups such as people suffering from mental illnesses.

The point about fairness in the criminal justice system is simply this: all harm to society should be criminalised and penalties fixed on the basis of the scale of those harms. Thus, for instance, crimes of minor harm - such as possession or dealing in cannabis and small-scale thefts - should be treated as such. Major crimes, such as systematic tax evasion, abuse of competition laws, corporate fraud, should be penalised heavily. From a purely electoral strategy perspective, such a course should be better for Fine Gael than its present stance of standing for nothing at all and hoping for a series of Fianna Fail own goals to win out for them.

Jim Hand, who died on Friday night, would have enjoyed Fine Gael's predicament and, even more, Des O'Malley's travails. He was a zealous devotee of Charles Haughey and, incidentally, of Fianna Fail. The zealotry was sometimes unattractive but, for the most part, Jim's company was vastly entertaining. He used to describe himself as "a bit of a tum, a nice smig and a great pers". The reference to the tum did not adequately depict his considerable corpulence, the smig referred to his face and he sure had a great personality.

Many years ago, I offered to introduce Jim Hand to people he didn't know. He declined the offer, saying he was "full up". He said they could come back in a few years, if some current friends had died or been expelled. He had hundreds of friends and, while we will all miss him, we can't be sorry that the bleakness that enveloped his life, since he got a series of strokes 10 years ago, has ended.

vbrowne@irish-times.ie