McDowell warns against financial penalties for ‘abuse of Dáil privilege’

MARIE O’HALLORAN

Independent Senator Michael McDowell has expressed his opposition to the introduction of financial penalties in the Oireachtas to “preserve the privacy of important people”.

He was referring to comments by Ceann Comhairle Sean Ó Fearghaíl about whether it would be necessary to introduce a system of fines to strengthen his powers to prevent the abuse of Dáil privilege.

Mr McDowell said he did not believe members of the Seanad “are disposed to abusing their privilege at all, nor do I believe the use of financial penalties to preserve the privacy of important people (in) the Irish political and economic environment, should be permitted by this House”.

The former Cabinet minister and Progressive Democrats leader said “I do not believe we should go down that road. It is for the other House to make up its own mind on fines for its members”, in reference to the Dáil.

But he reminded the Seanad that the Oireachtas was a defendant in a court action brought by entrepreneur Denis O’Brien. “He has sued the institutions of this State. He has also sued individual members of these Houses on occasion and has threatened to do so on many more occasions.”

Mr McDowell said “free speech is very important”.

He was speaking during a debate on legislation to give additional powers to the inquiry investigating sales by the former Irish Bank Resolution Corporation (IBRC).

Work on the Cregan commission of investigation was stalled because of issues around what Fianna Fáil Senator Diarmuid Wilson described as “legal privilege, professional secrecy, confidentiality and conflicts of interest”.

The inquiry was looking into sales of assets by State-owned IBRC where the loss to the corporation in each sale was at least €10 million including the sale of Siteserv to a company controlled by Mr O’Brien with a loss to the State of €119 million.

The Commission of Investigation (Irish Bank Resolution Corporation) Bill will specifically deal with these issues and allow the commission to obtain and admit certain information and documents into evidence, according to Minister of State for Justice David Stanton. He said it would also deal with issues liked to potential conflicts of interest.

The Bill also provides for the commission to take a modular approach with a first phase focus on the Siteserv sale.

Mr McDowell asked who organised the campaign of intelligence-gathering by Mark Hollingsworth, whom he said passed himself off as a journalist, talking to TDs, and seeking to identify the source of leaks about Mr O’Brien’s dealings with IBRC.

The Senator said it was particularly relevant because of a report in The Irish Times that a major British security firm was the recipient of the material collected.

He said there was “elaborate industrial espionage and surveillance in the context of the takeover of the Independent News & Media (INM) group at the time between the O’Reilly interests and the O’Brien interests”.

He said newspaper reports indicated that “11 operatives operating from a Dublin hotel were engaged in fairly extensive surveillance of the then managing director of INM” for an English firm called Esoteric.

Mr McDowell also expressed concern about a contract concluded by Irish Water with an Isle of Man company chaired by an associate of Mr O'Brien, Leslie Buckley, and in which Mr O'Brien was a large investor.

The company was “to advise Irish Water against hacking of its sites” and it was suggested an estimated €1.2 million was spent on this type of activity by Irish Water over five years.

And he noted in the Siteserv controversy that the former IBRC chairman said a Mr Woodhouse was kept out of discussions regarding Siteserv because he personally handled Mr O’Brien’s relationship with IBRC. The chairman said a Mr Hunersen handled the Siteserv transaction.

He said Mr O’Brien was reported in 2014 as having made a major investment in a Massachusetts-based IT firm in which Mr Hunersen was “one of the moving parties”.