The inquisitor continues his campaign for Costello's Just Society

Late last Tuesday evening a weary Jim Mitchell walked the few short steps from Kildare House to Buswells Hotel to join his colleagues…

Late last Tuesday evening a weary Jim Mitchell walked the few short steps from Kildare House to Buswells Hotel to join his colleagues on the Dail Committee of Public Accounts for a well-earned drink following the close of the inquiry into the Deposit Interest Retention Tax controversy.

Mitchell was able to enjoy the end-of-hearing party knowing he had achieved what many, including members of his own DIRT sub-committee, thought impossible - overseeing the hearing of hundreds of hours of evidence and working through over 40,000 documents in just 26 days.

That Mitchell met his own deadline while battling a serious back complaint made his achievement all the more remarkable and reflected the single-mindedness and determination of the man. So bad was the back pain at one stage that Mitchell was urged by his consultant to opt out of the hearings altogether.

Undeterred, he carried on with the help of an orthopaedic chair which was custom-built for him in a record 24 hours. The only break in the DIRT hearings was for a week to accommodate his hospital stay for a back operation.

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While his work and that of the sub-committee is by no means finished, there is no doubt that he will regard the hearings as one of the highlights of his long political career.

It was he who pushed for the Dail Committee of Public Accounts to be given full powers of privilege and compellability to conduct a High Court-style investigation. It was he who fought for the hearings to have the constitutional and legal powers to direct witnesses from the financial institutions, the Revenue Commissioners, the Central Bank and the Department of Finance to appear before it.

Few connected with the committee escaped Mitchell's clutches in his dogged preparations for the hearings in July and August. Many, including Mitchell himself, had to sacrifice cherished family holiday time in the process.

The committee's legal adviser, senior counsel Frank Clarke, received a phone call from Mitchell while he was on holiday in Italy in July. It had occurred to him that if the cross-examination of witnesses was left until the end of the giving of evidence, it would save time.

Frank Clarke thought that was a great idea, and this strategy was a key factor in the committee meeting its deadline.

Mitchell, who is 53, comes from an old Inchicore family. His father died when he was 10, and at the age of 14 Jim followed in the family tradition and successfully took the Guinness examination. The brewery allowed him to finish his Leaving Certificate and he went on to do computer studies by night at Trinity College.

There was no strong political tradition in the Mitchell household, although it has produced two TDs, Jim and his younger brother Gay, the Dublin South Central Fine Gael Deputy and front bench spokesman on foreign affairs.

The Attorney General and former Progressive Democrat TD, Michael McDowell, once famously referred to Gay Mitchell as the "evil of two lessers" during a Dail exchange.

The seventh in a family of 10, Jim Mitchell had his first taste of the hustings when, at the age of 10, he delivered leaflets and held up placards on the backs of lorries for Clann na Poblachta.

He was drawn to politics because of "the injustices of Irish society against working-class people" and was attracted to Fine Gael through Declan Costello's Just Society, a policy document which made a huge impact on young people at the time. He was elected to Dublin Corporation in 1974 and had his first Dail victory in 1977 in the three-seat constituency of Ballyfermot.

Following constituency boundary changes he was elected for Dublin West in 1981 and was returned in each election until 1992. In that year he switched to Dublin Central, where he has held a seat since.

In the dog-eat-dog political school that is Irish politics, Mitchell has a reputation of being unselfish. Unlike others who guard their territory jealously, he has allowed other Fine Gael candidates into his constituency.

For example, in the 1982 Dublin West by-election he helped organise a famous coup when Fine Gael candidate Liam Skelly came from nowhere to take the seat left vacant by Dick Burke's appointment as European Commissioner by Charles Haughey.

In 1973 Mitchell, at the party's request, agreed not to contest the general election for the Ballyfermot constituency to make way for Declan Costello to run. His time came four years later.

Mitchell has held several ministries. He served in justice in the short-lived coalition from June 1981 to March 1982 and was minister for transport and for posts and telegraphs between 1982 and 1984. He held the post of minister for communications between 1984 and 1987.

He has been his party's front bench spokesman on social welfare, environment, labour and justice and became the youngest Lord Mayor of Dublin at the age of 29 in 1976. He has been chairman of the Committee of Public Accounts from 1993 to 1995 and from 1997 to date.

Mitchell is known to be a hard worker. Outside his family (he is married with five children), he is totally devoted to politics. He holidays every year in Schull in west Cork and is a good friend of the millionaire businessman, Ulick McEvaddy.

When controversy erupted over Mary Harney and Charlie McCreevy holidaying in McEvaddy's villa in August, Mitchell confirmed that he too had stayed in the villa on one occasion when Fine Gael was not in power.

Mitchell has not always enjoyed the best of relationships with the Fine Gael leadership. While it was nearly all sweetness and light during the Garret FitzGerald years, the same cannot be said for his successors.

In 1987 the then leader, Alan Dukes, came in for stinging criticism from Mitchell for the so-called Tallaght Strategy, the controversial policy which saw Fine Gael promise not to oppose the tough fiscal measures taken by the Haughey-led minority Fianna Fail administration.

But Mitchell saved his best for the current leader, John Bruton. In 1994 he rounded on him and said his leadership should be reassessed if the party fared badly in the Dublin South Central and Mayo by-elections. He also voted against Bruton in a 1994 leadership challenge, but backed the wrong horse.

He found himself in trouble with his leader again when he famously claimed Bruton suffered a "charisma deficit".

In a recent interview in Ireland on Sunday, he said he still stands by his "charisma deficit" remark even though it caused great hurt to the Fine Gael leader and deepened the rift that was already forming between them.

Mitchell was prepared to concede that Bruton blossomed in the office of Taoiseach, "but the authority of Taoiseach suits him better than the role of opposition leader."

However, the Fine Gael leader can be grateful for one Mitchell U-turn of recent years. He had announced before the last general election that he was going to retire from politics. He had offers of directorships in the private sector.

He was prevailed upon to run for the sake of the party. A frequent poll-topper, he had to wait until the last count to be elected this time.

Earlier this year he reluctantly allowed his name to be put forward for the European elections. Success eluded him but many weak-kneed witnesses leaving the committee hearings in Kildare House over the last month are probably cursing themselves for not voting for him last June.

Europe's loss has certainly been the committee's, and the public's, gain.