Qualms in Labour over FF curious

Ruairi Quinn's hand-wringing on whether to return to government with Fianna Fail after the next election is curious. What is there about Fianna Fail which is repellent to Mr Quinn's Labour and what is it about Fine Gael which makes it attractive to Mr Quinn's Labour?

The truth, of course, is that if Ruairi Quinn had his way he would probably favour a resumption of government with Fianna Fail but his front-line and back-line troops won't have it and his supporters won't have it. They regard Fianna Fail as morally tainted in a way they believe Fine Gael is not.

Bertie Ahern certainly has questions to answer. How is it that he was unaware in August 1997, for instance, that Ray Burke had got £30,000 from Fitzwilton when his party general secretary knew that at the time, when Sean Fleming, the Fianna Fail TD for Laois Offaly, knew it, and when his then close adviser, Des Richardson, probably knew it.

Mr Ahern has also to answer how it was that he never asked, and nobody ever told him, of the amount of money (£100,000) which businessman Mark Kavanagh gave to Charles Haughey in June 1989, even though Mr Kavanagh had complained in 1996 about never having got a receipt for the money?

There are also questions to be answered about the party leader's account, on which Mr Ahern was a cheque signatory, and what, if anything, he knew of the money raised for Brian Lenihan's operation in 1989.

Yes, reasons for concern but why should Labour worry about these questions when similar questions arise for Fine Gael and for Labour?

The key question which arises for Fine Gael concerns the most spectacular enrichment of a political party in a single year that has been witnessed in Irish politics. The year was 1995 and during that year Fine Gael went from the verge of bankruptcy to opulence. Could this have had anything to do with its return to government at the end of 1994? If it had nothing to do with its return to government, how did it suddenly come into such money in 1995 when it had failed to meet even day-to-day expenses in the five years before then?

And if it had to do with its return to government, how come questions do not arise about the propriety of this enrichment, similar to the questions which arise for Fianna Fail?

Indeed, nothing as serious arises in the case of Fianna Fail. One cannot point to any sudden enrichment of that party that we know about. So, if for Labour Fianna Fail has questions to answer, how is it that Fine Gael does not have questions to answer?

In any event, isn't it a little prissy of the Labour Party to be professing such rectitude when it has questions of its own to answer?

Mr Quinn has had to admit to two pieces of questionable behaviour. One concerns the practice of "pick me up" used by Labour and by other political parties. This was a straightforward tax scam, the evasion of VAT. Labour got up to it, as Mr Quinn has acknowledged. This is not just a matter of questionable behaviour. This doesn't raise questions, it answers questions. And the answer is that it is illegal.

Labour did it, as did the other parties, and so far they have all got away with it.

Another piece of questionable behaviour relates to Mr Quinn's campaign for the Labour leadership in 1997. He asked his friends in Independent Newspapers to do him a favour, a favour which if it did not win him the leadership it certainly proved a help. This was the opinion poll which he got the Indo to conduct in the days immediately before the leadership election, having good reason to believe that it would swing the leadership for him.

If a powerful media organisation had done such a spectacular favour for Charles Haughey when he secured the leadership of his party in 1979 just think of the hullabaloo there would be about that at the Moriarty tribunal? ail leadership just think of how morally outraged the stalwarts of Labour would have been?

So, what is the difference? Labour has been involved in financial irregularities, as have the other parties. Labour's leadership was nailed down with a favour at least as great and a good deal more crucial than any favour obtained from vested interests by anybody in Fianna Fail.

The only factor that should determine who Labour should return to government with is policy. Labour supposedly stands for more fairness in Irish society, although its record in achieving fairness while in office is spectacularly bad.

In the years during which Labour was last in power, 1992 to 1997, inequality grew in Irish society. Note: I am not saying that poverty deepened, I am saying that inequality widened. And inequality widened not because of any chance occurrence but because in every one of the budgets introduced during those years, the rich were favoured over the poor. And this included the budgets introduced by Mr Quinn.

There is also another damning legacy of Labour's last stint in office: the tax amnesty. At a stroke, criminality far more serious than that which graces most of the columns of the Garda crime statistics was forgiven in a way that the criminals could not even be identified. It wasn't as though Labour had to agree to this so as to remain in office to achieve some greater good - the Mary Harney argument for now remaining in power with Fianna Fail.

The then Fianna Fail minister for finance, Mr Ahern, was desperately seeking allies to prevent the introduction of the tax amnesty and Labour remained mute.

Not only that but Labour ministers prevailed on Bertie not to resign over it - they were not prepared to resign on a matter of principle and they persuaded someone else from doing the honourable thing.

Labour should stop the moral posturing and get back to what it is supposed to be about: the creation of a fair society. It should work out how that can be best advanced and then seek to do the best deal with whatever partners are available. Spare us the moral posturing.

vbrowne@irish-times.ie