Ahern facing critical test today

Yesterday's man has come back to haunt Bertie Ahern. The Taoiseach will be forced to run the gauntlet of Fianna Fail's troubled history when John Bruton, Ruairi Quinn, Proinsias De Rossa and Trevor Sargent demand answers concerning his own behaviour and that of his former Minister for Foreign Affairs in the Dail today.

The initial focus will be on Mr Ray Burke and on the extraordinary political donations he accepted from private sector companies while he was Minister for Communications between 1987 and 1992. An acknowledged £60,000 in political baksheesh during 1989 has made the opposition parties wonder how much more the Minister might have received.

Under opposition pressure, those questions fell to the Flood Tribunal to answer. But it deals only with planning matters. And the parties will now look for any other motivation behind the payments, and for possible ministerial favours done, when they move a new Tribunals of Inquiry Bill.

Mr Bruton will lead the charge. The Fine Gael leader will ask the Taoiseach why he did not set the Dail record straight when he learned about the Burke payments; why did he not tell Mary Harney about them until the last moment; and why his investigations into these matters had been so inept.

The inquiries instituted by the Taoiseach into Mr Burke's financial affairs will be examined in all their shambolic detail. And Mr Bruton will dwell on what precise information was forwarded to the Flood Tribunal.

But it won't stop there. Last night, Pat Rabbitte of Democratic Left indicated he will have questions for Mary Harney about £3.4 million in IDA grants which were sanctioned, but not paid, to the Fitzwilton subsidiary, Rennicks, within months of the political donation being made to Mr Burke.

Why, Mr Rabbitte asked in a statement, had no reference been made to this matter last week in a report prepared for the Tanaiste? Difficulties over planning permission and other matters had prevented the project going ahead. But why had small grants been itemised and this potentially huge one ignored?

Ruairi Quinn will pursue the Taoiseach over his Dail statement that "I knew nothing about Rennicks until we were in the course of preparing the affidavit (last March)". What about his conversation with Dick Spring, during the previous September, when the contents of a letter was brought to his attention which linked Mr Burke to a £30,000 donation from Rennicks?

The Taoiseach's decision to authorise the Attorney General to talk to the two tribunal chairmen to see if they would investigate these matters will also be questioned. This approach runs directly counter to Mr Ahern's previous position that terms of reference could be changed only at the instigation of a tribunal itself. The Government even passed a law, only recently, to give effect to this interpretation. The set-piece, three-hour, session could be an anti-climax. But don't bet on it. With Tony O'Reilly's name up in lights as the linking force between Fitzwilton (Rennicks' parent company) and Independent Newspapers (Princes Holdings/MMDS), it seems unlikely.

Last week, Mr Bruton asked tough questions about a possible connection between a £30,000 donation by Rennicks and favourable treatment granted by Mr Burke to Princes Holdings, in which Independent Newspapers has a 50 per cent stake. The parliamentary question caused outrage in Middle Abbey Street and generated a flood of anti-Fine Gael editorialising. Fine Gael has already sought safety in numbers by sharing its private members' time with potential Rainbow colleagues. But after the drubbing Mr Bruton and his party has received there is no great appetite within the Labour Party to get on the wrong side of the Independent. Mr Burke and his doings are a different matter, however

On the Fianna Fail side, backbenchers are hoping for a better performance from the Taoiseach. Last week, he was reduced to rambling uncertainty by a question-and-answer session across the floor of the Dail involving what he knew, when he knew it and what he did about it.

Today, everything will be carefully scripted. The Taoiseach's minders will make whatever accommodations circumstances demand, but they will not stir outside the stockade. And much of it will depend on the reactions of Mary Harney.

The relationship between politics and business has been generally off limits in the Dail. Asking searching questions, no matter how embarrassing to powerful vested interests, is a basic requirement within a properly functioning democracy. It is a privilege that is sparingly used in Leinster House.

Who would have expected John Bruton to link Independent Newspapers, and the name of Tony O'Reilly, to a payment of £30,000 made by a Fitzwilton subsidiary to Ray Burke in 1989? This is a former Taoiseach who leads one of the most cautious political parties in the State. He is not given to jumping at shadows. But he was determined that the issue should be investigated by a tribunal.

It would seem that the Attorney General, David Byrne, agrees that aspects of Mr Burke's decisions, in granting MMDS licences and letters of comfort to Independent Newspapers, requires further inquiry. Following a trawl of the files, last Thursday and Friday, he consulted the two tribunal chairmen at the weekend to see which of them would do the work.

The Cabinet is expected to sanction the outcome of those contacts today and propose fresh legislation. And a spokesman for the Government said Mr Ahern was determined the issue would be dealt with comprehensively and as soon as possible.

About time too.