Mr John Ellis is coming under considerable pressure to consider his position as chairman of the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture and Food because of the latest controversies surrounding himself and his business affairs. The Fianna Fail leadership is to conduct "soundings" about his continued chairmanship in coming days. Fine Gael members have told him personally that his position is untenable. Mr Ellis's own response to the unfolding controversies is doing little to help him hold on to the prestigious £10,000 a year post as chairman of the Dail's premier farming committee.
In a statement to his local newspaper this week, the Fianna Fail TD for Sligo-Leitrim dismissed legitimate queries about his business affairs in a manner which falls far short of the standards of public accountability now demanded of public representatives. "The facts that have been the subject matter of media frenzy over the past week are matters which have been in the public domain for the past ten years", he said. He apologised to farmers who had lost money as a result of the collapse of his abattoir business in 1989 and accepted that he had a "moral responsibility" to them. He then criticised the Dublin media for "jumping on a bandwagon to embarrass me personally, the party and the Government".
There is an air of self-delusion surrounding some of these statements. It was only last week that knowledge of the representations made to National Irish Bank to effect a debt write-off of £263,540 for Mr Ellis came into the public domain. The bank agreed to settle for £20,000. It was only two weeks ago that the Moriarty Tribunal heard how former Taoiseach, Mr Charles Haughey, gave Mr Ellis almost £25,000 in two instalments from the State-funded party leader's allowance to clear debts at two cattle marts. Both actions were taken to prevent Mr Ellis being declared bankrupt as he would have lost, automatically, his Dail seat. It is only now that the political impertinence of Mr Ellis's decision to settle his company's liabilities with farmers in Sligo and Leitrim is appreciated while creditors outside his constituency were left to whistle in the wind. Granted, the courts found that his company, not himself personally, were liable for the debts.
It is only now that questions are being raised about Mr Ellis's Pakistan connections. Mr Ellis has listed his non-executive directorship of the Karachi-based Indus Bank in the most recent register of Oireachtas members' interests. How on earth did a Fianna Fail TD from Sligo-Leitrim - and his wife - become directors of a small commercial bank in Pakistan at a time when it had no business, so to speak, since it was trying to establish itself on the market? Mr Ellis has declared that it has "no interests in Ireland". Furthermore, what interest had a backbench Fianna Fail TD in successfully promoting the nomination of Mr Haseeb Ahsan as Ireland's new honorary consul to Pakistan?
The Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, made an interesting address to the Supreme Audit Institutions of the EU in Dublin Castle on the night that his most esteemed predecessor, Mr Jack Lynch, died. " I am determined to do all I can to ensure that we build a culture of accountability in Ireland", he said. "This is the culture of the future - visible accountability - being accountable but also being seen to be accountable".
The culture of public accountability demands that Mr Ellis resign as chairman of the Joint Oireachtas Committee because he has lost the confidence of his colleagues.