The former minister for foreign affairs, Mr Ray Burke, was yesterday accused at the Flood tribunal of applying most of the £30,000 political donation from JMSE for his personal use.
"You saw it as a bribe, a payment for favours or perhaps an illusory promise of favours," Mr Frank Callanan SC, counsel for Mr James Gogarty, insisted.
"I absolutely reject that," Mr Burke responded.
The former minister had accepted the JMSE money, said counsel, as the self-styled Fianna Fail "standard-bearer" in the constituency of Dublin North for the benefit of the Fianna Fail organisation and party in the area. But that was not the purpose to which the monies had been applied, he said.
That was not correct, Mr Burke retorted, adding that there were Revenue considerations involved here. Earlier he had told the tribunal that his legal advisers had informed him as to the rights he was entitled to as a private citizen on Revenue matters. But he continued: "Part of the money was spent - about £7,000. Parts were lodged and parts remain to this day of the monies lodged in June 1989 in the Irish Nationwide untouched."
Two special savings accounts existed at the Irish Nationwide and one reserve account at the Ulster Bank, containing in all a political fund of £118,000. The fund, he said had been "consolidated" with various charges for interest and other purposes "during the 1989 period right though until 1994 when finally it was put into that form where it has been untouched since".
Asked at what point he decided that there should be a political fund that he would not have recourse to, Mr Burke said: "When I resigned from public life. (I resolved that) this money would not be available to me".
"Were you acting on professional advice?"
"These were my own standards and ethics."
As regards the JMSE money, he did not think it exceptional that a company with which he'd had no previous dealings should donate £30,000 to him and expect no favours. He was responding to Mr Callanan's assertion that it was an "inexplicable action".
It was the way the system worked, he told the tribunal. The scale of such political donations was different in 1989, when he received the money from JMSE, but basically the same system operated to this day.
"You're saying you received £30,000 from a company with which you'd had no dealings in the past?" "And no dealings with since, either," Mr Burke replied.
JMSE's choice of Mr Burke as the recipient of its largesse was due to the intervention of Mr Michael Bailey of Bovale Developments, he explained in response to a question from the tribunal's chairman, Mr Justice Flood.
JMSE had indicated through Mr Gogarty that it wanted to make a contribution to the election campaign, he said, which would reflect its support for the type of policies being promoted by Fianna Fail as the party in government. Mr Bailey had indicated to the company that the donation should be made to Mr Burke as "standard-bearer" for Fianna Fail in the constituency. "I was not an inconsiderable player on the national scale. I was minister for industry and commerce at the time. They were an industrial company benefiting from the policies we were following." When Mr Bailey and Mr Gogarty had visited Mr Burke at his home in June 1989 it was indicated that he had been chosen as the "standard-bearer" of Fianna Fail. He did not know the circumstances of the timing of Mr Bailey's suggestion.
Asked by Mr Callanan whether he had received any political donation from JMSE for the 1992 general election campaign, Mr Burke replied: "I received no payment. We were no longer in government. I was languishing on the back benches."
"Why did you not look for funding (from JMSE)?".
"I never went looking for funds."
"Extraordinary! These were your major political backers."
"I never asked for funds for a general election."
As he was no longer minister for industry and commerce, he clarified, he could not reasonably have expected political contributions from companies such as JMSE.
The tribunal chairman sought to tease out further the motivations for companies making such political donations. He wondered why someone who was minister might be more attractive than "someone who was a front-runner for Fianna Fail".
Donations might be given to a senior minister on the basis that the donors did not want it known they were contributing, Mr Burke suggested: "On the possibility they would want to come to see you for something in the future." "Why?" Mr Flood asked. "They would want to make contact with the government of the time," Mr Burke answered. "This goes on all the time. It's a question of access."
Asked what "access" achieved for the donor, Mr Burke replied: "Very little". Within a small community of 3.5 million such as Ireland, in practice everyone had access to ministers if they wanted. As to why business continued to donate, he said this had been the practice since the foundation of the State: "It's now more regulated than it was but that has been standard practice to this day."
Politicians of all parties received donations at election times from business communities, individuals, the legal profession, "different sources at different times".
Very few of these donations exceeded £30,000, Mr Callanan suggested. If this was a donation from a business anxious to show its approval of Fianna Fail's economic policies, why should it make any difference whether the party was in or out of office? In response, Mr Burke pointed to Fine Gael's experience. Prior to taking office in 1994 that party's coffers were in a parlous condition, but improved substantially afterwards: "It's a fact of life. It may not be nice, but that's a fact of life."
Such political donations as were received went to the Fine Gael party, not individual politicians, countered Mr Callanan.