Ben's affidavit still casting a shadow

FROM the beginning, political games have been played with the content of the Price Waterhouse report which dealt with "irregular payments" by Ben Dunne to a range of persons, including politicians and public officials.

Dunnes Stores commissioned: the report in 1993 as ammunition in a threatened legal battle following the removal of Mr Dunne as an executive director of the company. The report, and an affidavit setting out Mr Dunne's side of the case, was never used in court.

But last November an element of the report dealing with financial transactions between Mr Dunne and Mr Michael Lowry was "leaked". Cheques and working kind on the Tipperary home of the then Minister for Transport and Communications, amounting £280,000, were listed. The opposition parties screamed blue murder. The political roof came in.

Mr Lowry maintained he had done nothing wrong; that there was, no question of political favours being purchased and that the payments related to work done for Dunnes by his company, Streamline Enterprises. It was not, enough. Having failed to satisfy John Bruton and his Government colleagues that his income tax affairs were in order, Mr Lowry resigned.

Opposition, 1: Government, nil. And suddenly the waters became very murky indeed. The Price Waterhouse report was transformed into a long list of people on the make and on the take. Allegations began to fly like snuff at a wake. A former Fianna Fail minister was said to have received £1.1 million. Reports appeared of "100 names" being listed. It seemed that a great number of politicians were on the take, along with public officials and their spouses.

Politicians and political parties began to come out with their hands up. The Labour Party confessed to receiving £15,000 for Mary Robinson's presidential election campaign. Fine Gael admitted to £180,000 being received by head office, with a further £9,000 being received for the election expenses of John Bruton, Michael Noonan and Ivan Yates.

Fianna Fail caused a small sensation by announcing it had received nothing for the previous 10 years, although three individuals admitted to election contributions. The Progressive Democrats and Democratic Left said they had got nothing.

POLITICAL donation's have fuelled politics in this country since the foundation of the State and, until the recent Ethics in Public Office Act and the Electoral Bill, no effort had been made to regulate funding or to keep a public register. All the donations declared were perfectly in order.

Of particular interest was the fact that the report documented only a few of these payments: those made to Mr Lowry and a further £85,000 - rather than £180,000 - made to Fine Gael. The only other political payment uncovered by Judge Buchanan was £20,000 paid towards the election funds of Mr Charles Haughey in 1989.

There appeared to be less to the controversy than had originally met the eye. But the affidavit sworn by Ben Dunne was still hanging fire. It was said to identify a senior Fianna Fail politician as the ultimate beneficiary of payments amounting to £1.1 million.

Fine Gael and the Government parties spent a month on the political rack before Michael Lowry was forced into the Dail to apologise and tell all. It was a tawdry episode: the Government's popularity plummeted.

As the controversy ground on, it was Fianna Fail's turn to sweat. With a general election coming down the line like an express train Bertie Ahern demanded the establishment of an early judicial inquiry. The Fianna Fail leader wanted full disclosure, and fast.

He didn't want a drip drip inquiry which would feed into an election campaign. Mr Ahern was so understanding of the Government's difficulties that he broke with the Progressive Democrats in urging a sworn inquiry into the Price Waterhouse report and related documents (including Judge Buchanan's contribution), rather than into "the truth or untruth of newspaper reports".

There was no future, he felt, in asking journalists to identify their sources. And no political gain in seeing them sent to jail for contempt.

Last night, buoyed by recent opinion poll findings, the Government finally moved. It cut the Dail sub committee of Procedure and Privileges out of the equation and went directly for a sworn inquiry. The second part of Judge Buchanan's inquiry into the involvement of public figures in the Ben Dunne controversy will be available within weeks. It, too, will fall within the remit of the sworn inquiry which will be announced to the Dail this morning.

Around Leinster House, the hot money is now on a pre June election. And the Electoral Bill, allowing for State funding of political parties, should become law before Easter.