ANALYSIS: John Bruton feels his Rainbow Coalition was threatened. Colm Keena reports.
Yesterday at the Moriarty tribunal was one of those days where you felt the curtain had been pulled back a bit to give a glimpse of the true nature of the relationship between government and big business.
The glimpse that emerged was not reassuring.
By the end of the day's proceedings Mr John Bruton had made it clear he felt his 1994-1997 Rainbow Coalition government was punished with negative coverage in the Independent Newspaper group because it had failed to satisfy commercial demands made by the group and its chairman, Sir Anthony O'Reilly.
Oddly enough - perhaps - it seemed as if Mr Bruton's true feelings as to what had happened between his government and the Independent group were revealed with reluctance.
It was only during questioning by counsel for Mr Michael Lowry, Mr Rossa Fanning, near the end of the day's proceedings, that matters began to be stated bluntly.
The background to the fraught relationship between the powerful newspaper group and Mr Bruton includes Independent's investment in 1989 in MMDS licences for the distribution of TV signals. (The investment was to eventually cost the group €100 million.)
Illegal deflector groups were taking business away from the MMDS company, and Independent was annoyed that the government was failing to act against these groups. However, the matter had become a political one and the government was loath to act.
In May 1996 Sir Anthony O'Reilly, chairman of Independent News & Media, told that company's a.g.m. that it had lost more than €26 million as a result of the government's failure to enforce the law. Representations to the minister for communications, Mr Michael Lowry, had not led to government action on the issue.
There followed a meeting in Glandore, Co Cork, in late July 1996.
It seems Mr Bruton knew a meeting was likely and had sought background briefings on the issues likely to be raised.
He was already concerned about the coverage he, his party and his government were receiving in Independent group newspapers.
Mr Bruton met Sir Anthony alone in Sir Anthony's west Cork home and listened to what the former taoiseach agreed were the businessman's "gripes". In order to end the meeting on as amicable a note as possible, he said he would have his senior adviser, Mr Seán Donlon, meet Sir Anthony's representatives.
A letter sent by Sir Anthony, who is a former president and chief executive of the Heinz group, to Mr Bruton two days after the Cork meeting outlined a number of business areas in which he had an interest. They were: Heinz; Independent Newspapers; Fitzwilton; Waterford Wedgwood; Arcon; and a number of luxury hotels.
Mr Bruton, in a note faxed to Mr Donlon on the night of the Cork meeting, listed four issues of concern mentioned by Sir Anthony at the short, informal meeting.
These were: the MMDS issue; a grant for a Heinz factory in the Louth region; access to a mine in the midlands; and the fact that Mr Denis O'Brien had won the second mobile phone licence competition despite international bidders.
Sir Anthony was associated with one of the failed bidders, Irish Cellular Telephones Ltd.
Mr Donlon, a former Irish ambassador to the US, met representatives of the Independent group in September 1996. He has told the tribunal in a statement of intended evidence: "In spite of the relaxed mood I was left in no doubt about the newspapers' hostility to the government parties if outstanding issues were not resolved to their satisfaction."
Mr Bruton couldn't recall Mr Donlon reporting back to him in this manner but said he was "well aware that these newspapers didn't love us particularly".
Mr Fanning said Mr Lowry will say he recalls being told by Mr Donlon that the Independent executives had said the government would lose Independent newspapers as friends if its "demands" were not met.
Mr Bruton said he thought Independent's view would be "conveyed in a more subtle way", but such a message being conveyed to the government by Independent would not surprise him, he said.
He agreed with Mr Fanning that it could be said that the Independent group had threatened him and his government.
Subsequent to these events the Independent group newspapers did take a negative view of him and his government, he said.
On the day of the 1997 general election the Irish Independent carried a front-page editorial "urging people not to vote for a government that had succeeded in getting a 9 per cent annual growth rate during its term of office". It indicated a "certain perversity of political opinion", he said.