Madam, – I refer to the article by Fintan O’Toole (Opinion, March 29th) about Fine Gael, in the course of which he refers to my evidence on my involvement in party fundraising. My evidence to the beef tribunal was mainly about dealings with export credit and my time as minister for industry and commerce in the government of Dr Garret FitzGerald. A question about party fundraising came up, almost casually, at the end of a long series of questions about Industry and Commerce matters.
The question was, “Are you, or other politicians within your party, made aware of particular political contributions made by a company or person?” I understood I was being asked what would be normal practice in normal times. I answered, correctly, that politicians would not normally be made aware of donations received. That was, and I believe is still, the case. I added a reference to donations that might be sent to me personally at home during elections which would have been, in my case, unsolicited.
In the McCracken tribunal I was answering about exceptional periods, in 1991 mainly and in 1994, when the party faced an acute financial crisis and it was necessary for me to involve myself, as leader, more directly in fundraising. This was not normal. It was necessitated by a particularly difficult financial situation which had meant staff redundancies at the time. In those circumstances, I would have been aware if a donation had been received from someone I had approached, and also of some other donations obtained through the good offices of other party trustees.
As Mr O’Toole acknowledges, there was no intention on my part to mislead in my earlier answer to the beef tribunal. – Yours, etc,