Greens oppose appointment

The Green Party has said it has serious misgivings about the appointment of the Attorney General, Mr David Byrne, to the post of European commissioner.

Mr John Gormley TD said it was "patently obvious that Mr Byrne lacks the necessary political experience at national and European level, which is a job requirement".

He said his party was also "extremely annoyed with the Attorney General's unprofessional handling" of the appointment of Mr Justice Moriarty as sole member of the payments-to-politicians tribunal.

The tribunal chairman said last week he understood that all the political parties had been informed by the Attorney General of his £500,000 shareholding in Cement Roadstone Holdings which precluded him from investigating the company or its controversial private purchase of State lands at Glen Ding Wood in 1991.

In fact, the Greens were never told of the shareholding, despite having sought in the Dail the broadening of the tribunal's terms of reference to cover the Glen Ding affair.

"We still do not know why the Attorney General or the Taoiseach's office failed to inform us of this extremely significant and sensitive piece of information," said Mr Gormley.

"We are the one party which does not get funding from CRH and we were the one party which was not told about this. It raises the question whether Moriarty was appointed in the knowledge that he would be precluded from investigating not only Glen Ding, but CRH."

Before being appointed Attorney General, Mr Byrne represented CRH in a 1997 High Court case where the Blessington Heritage Trust challenged the rezoning of Glen Ding from amenity to quarrying.

The issue is due to be raised by Green MEPs when Mr Byrne faces the European Parliament. The Greens have already expressed their concern about Mr Byrne's appointment to Mr Romano Prodi, the Commission President-designate.

The Socialist Party TD, Mr Joe Higgins, also said that Mr Byrne had questions to answer about the Glen Ding affair.

"Mr Byrne was acting for Cement Roadstone up to a few weeks before he was appointed Attorney General. Before he gets any new appointment there should be a full statement to clarify what happened," he said.