FG keeps up attack on Ahern over cash payments

Fine Gael stepped up its attack on the Taoiseach yesterday as party leader Enda Kenny accused Bertie Ahern of failing to tell the truth to the Mahon tribunal about his financial affairs.

Mr Kenny said the Taoiseach had lost the moral authority to lead the Government and questioned the integrity of Mr Ahern's ministerial colleagues who have consistently defended him.

However, the Taoiseach hit back at his critics, insisting he never received improper payments from anyone.

He said the breakdown of his marriage was at the "fundamental root" of the tribunal's investigations into specific lodgements to his bank account.

Mr Ahern said he was "disappointed by cheap shots" that he was using his separation in an attempt to win public sympathy.

He said he mentioned it because it was an indispensable factor in understanding why his financial affairs were so difficult and complicated.

"I have explained these matters on a number of occasions to the Irish people and I think people understand the situation I was in, which led to the actions I took," Mr Ahern said in an article written in a personal capacity, published in yesterday's Sunday Independent.

"To many, the way I dealt with these issues seems unorthodox. That is because my lifestyle in that difficult period was unorthodox. Many who have gone through the trauma of marital separation and legal proceedings will understand the position I was in.

"Mine was not a perfect life, nor a perfect family and matrimonial environment, but as I emerged from that period I was assisted by friends who I later repaid in full with interest.

"My situation was normalised over a short period after the con- clusion of my separation."

He added: "There is no smoking gun, just a human story, a private story which concerns someone in public life . . . "

Mr Kenny yesterday insisted that it was wrong, regardless of the Taoiseach's personal circumstances, to receive cash donations while in office.

He also criticised Mr Ahern's colleagues in Government who supported the Taoiseach in accepting money for personal use, yet criticised former TD Liam Lawlor and former taoiseach Charles Haughey for doing the same thing.

"We have a Taoiseach, a head of government, who can't explain why very substantial monies went through his accounts, backed up with blind allegiance from Minister after Minister, from his own party, the Greens and PDs," Mr Kenny told RTÉ radio.

"The message this sends out does down every politician, every person in public life, and does down the country."

Green Party leader John Gormley, under pressure after voting against Fine Gael's no confidence motion in Mr Ahern last week, yesterday accepted that it was wrong for any politician to accept donations.

However, he declined to criticise the Taoiseach directly.

"I'm part of a Government along with the Fianna Fáil party, the PDs and the Independents, now I can't be getting up like a jack-in-the-box every time one of these people commits some kind of misdemeanour, I just can't do that," he told TV3's The Political Party.

While the Mahon tribunal is due to sit this week, it is not scheduled to hear any evidence relating to Mr Ahern's finances.

Senior Fine Gael sources, however, say they plan to maintain pressure on Mr Ahern over his Mahon tribunal testimony by highlighting what they say are numerous inconsistencies in his evidence.

Further Dáil questions are expected this week, although the main issue is likely to be cutbacks in the health service.

A Fine Gael private member's motion in the Dáil this week will propose that any budgetary adjustments required in the health services be focused at administration and bureaucracy and not at the frontline.