Ahern says he should have told PDs, and `perhaps' House, of information on further Burke payments

The Taoiseach admitted he "certainly should have" told the Progressive Democrats, his partners in Government, and he "perhaps" should have informed the Dail about the information he got about subsequent payments to Mr Ray Burke.

Mr Ahern told the Dail he regretted Mr Burke was not more open and frank "about the extent of the difficulties he needed to address".

He also accused the Labour Party leader, Mr Ruairi Quinn, of seriously misinforming the House last week and making an allegation that was "damaging to me and unfounded".

This referred to the anonymous note which Mr Quinn said his predecessor Mr Dick Spring had given to Mr Ahern stating that Mr Burke had demanded and received £30,000 from the Rennicks company. Mr Ahern said he was now satisfied he was never given any such note and Rennicks was not mentioned to him "though some concern may have been expressed to me in more general terms on foot of anonymous information".

In a heated three-hour debate on the Burke affair, Mr Ahern said he freely admitted "with the benefit of hindsight" that he seriously underestimated the degree to which the controversies about payments to Mr Burke would dog the Minister and eventually make it impossible for him to carry on, notwithstanding the good work he was doing at Stormont.

There was some laughter when the Taoiseach said "it would appear, to put the most charitable interpretation on it, that Ray Burke was embarrassingly good at political fund-raising and at building up a large personal political war-chest. Only a certain portion of what he was able to raise, or of what was given to him was remitted, it would appear, to party headquarters.

"I discovered in late March that in 1989 he was given another election contribution of £30,000 from Rennicks. Like most members of the party, I am surprised and disappointed at the picture which is now emerging. I deeply regret that deputy Ray Burke was not more open and frank with his colleagues and with this House, about the extent of the difficulties he needed to address.

"It seems to me as a general principle that those who have enjoyed the trust and support of ordinary party members, of the electorate and of this House, and who have achieved over a number of years high office and positions of great trust, owe a full and frank explanation to the country, that should not have to be extracted from them by Tribunals of Inquiry."

The first question Mr Ahern said he was asked was why he appointed Mr Burke as Minister for Foreign Affairs. "Ray Burke was an experienced and capable Minister, who had participated in an earlier phase of the talks process and in the work of the Anglo-Irish Intergovernmental Conference." The Taoiseach added that Mr Burke was eminently suited for the job.

He was aware before appointing Mr Burke there was ongoing controversy seeking to link him to decisions on rezoning vast tracts of land in north County Dublin. "To call a spade a spade, there were people insinuating that Deputy Burke was corrupt."

The Taoiseach said he sought to establish whether there was anything in the allegations and he made inquiries of his own in relation to this matter, including the inquiry by the Minister for Social Welfare, Mr Ahern, in London "which failed to substantiate the claims that were being made, or indeed to elicit confirmation of any donation by the company itself".

On more than one occasion prior to last June, when the Taoiseach questioned Mr Burke "I was assured by him that there was nothing troubling him or that he could not stand over".

The size of the single £30,000 donation from JMSE to Mr Burke caused considerable disquiet and unease. "He himself acknowledged that in hindsight it was imprudent of him to have accepted so large a sum, as the motives were likely to be misrepresented. When he said this was the largest sum he received, it could have been reasonably assumed that there must have been a number of smaller sums, but not that he had accepted a further donation of an equivalent size."

The arguments against acceptance of these kinds of monies "even if perfectly legal, is one of general principle, with which most if not all of us now agree".

"All of us, including Fianna Fail, have found ourselves in politically-embarrassing situations or controversies, from which lessons have had to be learned."

There had been attempts, "so far unsubstantiated", to link the Rennicks contribution to decisions made by Ray Burke as Minister. Mr Ahern said there were demands that the former minister's decisions should be investigated and trawled through to see if he was influenced by financial considerations in his political decision-making. "There is to date no hard evidence for any of that. Any questions raised by material available so far, on a preliminary trawl of files, will be for the [Flood] tribunal assuming that it takes on the task to investigate." The tribunal would have full Government and departmental co-operation in its inquiries.

Mr Ahern said he had been asked why he was not aware earlier of the Rennicks contribution. He said party headquarters confirmed that £10,000 had been paid to it which was all that concerned him at the time. "More complete information would have been available in records going back to 1989 held at headquarters, but I regret that it was not brought to my attention until March."

He said he accepted Mr Burke's explanation in good faith, as did other members of the House. "If my statement is to be construed as inadvertently misleading the House, then I certainly regret that."

He said the order of discovery from the Flood tribunal requested "all statements of account, correspondence, receipts, deposit slips and any other records or documents of any description whatsoever relating to the payment of any sums of money by Raphael P. Burke to the Fianna Fail National Organisation since the 1st of January 1989".

The Taoiseach said the party complied fully with that order of discovery. "The party records only showed a receipt for £10,000 made out to Rennicks, a cash book entry for the same amount, and a compliments slip from Rennicks with Ray Burke's name on it."

Mr Ahern said he wanted to place on record the communications between Mr Des Richardson, the party's fund raiser, and representatives of Rennicks.

The Taoiseach said that when he learned of the £10,000 receipt he instructed Mr Richardson to inform Rennicks this would form part of the party's affidavit. The chairman of Rennicks conveyed his thanks to him for that courtesy.

The first reaction of the company's representative was to deny that any money had been given to Rennicks and threaten Fianna Fail with an injunction if the affidavit was proceeded with.

After his initial contact with Mr David Byrne, who was acting on behalf of Robin Rennicks, in the next conversation Mr Richardson was told of a £30,000 contribution but not routed through Mr Burke.

The receipt for £10,000 could not be traced by Rennicks. Mr Ahern said he regretted he was mistaken in one particular aspect of the account he gave to the Dail last week.

"It was Mr Byrne himself, not Mr Rennicks, who corrected the original information that he had given us, and I wish to correct the record of the House in that respect, and apologise to Mr Byrne for any distress caused in that regard. But Mr Richardson is quite adamant that the full information was only conveyed in a subsequent conversation.

"In response to the request for records of payment by Ray Burke, we brought the Rennicks payment to the attention of the tribunal. This was new information, of which they showed no prior knowledge or confirmation and the Rennicks payment was not the subject of any specific request by them, despite some impression given to the contrary."

"Rightly or perhaps wrongly, I considered that any further questions to be answered relating to his conduct and to records in the party's possession were not a matter between the party and tribunal until such time as the tribunal would report."