The media was criticised this week for how they responded to the Flood report. But as the Government is now discovering, old questions don't fade away, they just come back to haunt you, writes Paul Cullen
When James Gogarty first revealed his tale of corruption, he was ignored, then abused and subjected to personal slurs. Seven years on, he was finally vindicated in last week's Flood tribunal report.
When Tom Gilmartin started to sell a similar story, he too was abused. He was bankrupted when someone leaked damaging information to the revenue services in Britain. Then former EU Commissioner Padraig Flynn told a Late Late Show audience that Gilmartin "wasn't well".
The Sligo-born developer's allegations put paid to Mr Flynn's career, but proper investigation was farmed out to the tribunal. Mr Gilmartin was told to wait his turn while the Government carried on regardless.
Until now, at least. In the wake of the tribunal report, all the unanswered questions have come flooding back. Shocked by the verdict Mr Justice Flood delivered on Ray Burke, the public is prepared to think the worst of his former comrades-in-arms. For a start, they still want to know why Bertie Ahern appointed him to the Cabinet in 1997.
Now a new claim has entered this highly charged atmosphere. The tribunal is investigating an allegation that a current Government minister took corrupt payments totalling £80,000 from a developer in 1989 and 1992, last week's Ireland on Sunday reported.
The claim is hearsay. Its source is Tom Gilmartin, who is alleged to have been told this information by another developer. Presumably, therefore, Mr Gilmartin himself has no direct knowledge of the payments.
On the other hand, the story tallies with some of the rumours that have been going around media circles in Dublin for years. The Irish Times has already reported that the tribunal is investigating the circumstances in which sites received tax designation in the early 1990s. Most newspapers have ignored the story, knowing of no way to "stand it up" independently.
Tom Gilmartin's grievances were regularly aired in Sunday newspapers a few years ago, without this allegation ever being mentioned, neither did it feature when Gilmartin gave evidence in a libel trial last November.
The media were also conscious of having been down this road before. The last time matters reached such a fever pitch was in May 2000, after Frank Dunlop revealed he had made a series of payments to politicians.
Open season on politicians was declared, and the Sunday Business Post ran a story claiming that an obscure Cork builder, Denis "Starry" O'Brien, had paid £50,000 to Bertie Ahern in a hotel car park (Ahern wasn't named in the story but was readily identifiable). The story wasn't true, O'Brien was a liar and Mr Ahern sued successfully for libel.
The writer of both stories is the same, journalist Frank Connolly, yet Connolly is the man who first put James Gogarty's allegations into print, thereby paving the way for the setting up of the tribunal.
One man who didn't spot the real story behind Gogarty's general gripes was Michael McDowell, who was an Opposition TD when he was contacted by the pensioner in the mid-1990s. This didn't stop Mr McDowell, now Minister for Justice, from complaining this week about a media "feeding frenzy" after the publication of the tribunal report.
You could sympathise with the Minister when he said he could hardly defend himself against something about which he knew nothing, yet the public has seen how long Burke was allowed to stay in the Cabinet beyond the limits of political decency; now people wonder if others are being similarly protected.
Only the tribunal can provide the answers and that is likely to take some time.
The Minister for Justice, Mr McDowell, has arranged to meet a journalist about his report that the Flood tribunal is investigating whether a serving cabinet minister received £80,000 in bribes.
Mr McDowell made the offer to Ireland on Sunday journalist Frank Connolly during an RTÉ interview.
The Progressive Democrat minister said he was tired of journalists asking him to comment on allegations that a senior politician had received £50,000 in 1989 and £30,000 in 1992 when journalists would not name the politician.
"Would he [Frank Connolly] mind telling me in private - there would be no libel law because it would be an occasion of qualified privilege," Mr McDowell said.
Mr Connolly replied "I'll meet you for a pint any time, Michael, and have a chat about it".