MINISTER FOR Social Protection Joan Burton has warned her Government colleagues to review how they interact with businessman Denis O’Brien.
Her comments follow the appearance of Mr O’Brien at a recent event featuring Taoiseach Enda Kenny at the New York Stock Exchange.
“There has been considerable public and political unease about the fact that Mr O’Brien has continued to pop up at various public events, most recently at the New York Stock Exchange,” Ms Burton told the Dáil yesterday during the debate about the Mahon tribunal report.
The Minister pointed out that the organisers of the New York Stock Exchange event and not the Office of the Taoiseach had decided who was on the balcony for the bell-ringing ceremony, but she added: “It is perhaps time for the Government to reflect on how it should in future interact with people against whom adverse findings have been made by tribunals.”
She said the country did not want to return to the days of, “uno Duce, una voce”, the phrase former Fianna Fáil press secretary PJ Mara used to describe Charles Haughey’s leadership.
“Nor do we want a Berlusconi style media-political complex with its attendant codes of omerta undermining the principles of transparent democracy,” said Ms Burton in a clear reference to the ongoing power struggle for control of Independent newspapers between Mr O’Brien and the O’Reilly family.
Earlier the Minister of State for European Affairs, Lucinda Creighton, also criticised contact between the Government and Mr O’Brien, saying she was uncomfortable with the businessman’s attendance at the Global Irish Economic Forum last October.
Asked if Mr O’Brien would be invited again to such an event, Ms Creighton said: “I would certainly hope not.”
Last night a spokesman for Mr O’Brien said the businessman’s sole motive for attending the global forum and the event at the New York Stock Exchange was to support Ireland internationally.
He added that Mr O’Brien had recently saved up to 2,300 jobs when he purchased the Irish company Siteserv.
“Political point-scoring will never create jobs, as Ms Burton should well know by now. It is important for the Minister to remember that tribunals are not courts of law, and findings are based on opinions and not on evidence,” he said.
The debate over the Mahon tribunal report has stirred renewed controversy over the Moriarty report, which made an adverse finding against Mr O’Brien for the manner in which his company Esat Digifone had secured the State’s second mobile phone licence in 1995.
The Opposition parties have criticised the Coalition for failing to take action on the Moriarty report, and have also criticised the Taoiseach for appearing at the New York Stock Exchange with Mr O’Brien, who was included in a group of Irish businessmen attending the event.
At a news conference on the final day of his official visit to China yesterday, Mr Kenny rejected Fianna Fáil claims that the Government was taking a selective approach to the previous findings about political donations in the Moriarty tribunal.
Mr Kenny told reporters in Beijing that “Ministers will be expected to respond both to Mahon and to the continuing follow-through from the recommendations of Moriarty inside the next month”.
Responding to criticism from the Fianna Fáil leader, he said: “Deputy Martin may have other things on his mind, but there is no need for him to be using diversionary tactics from something that is of keen interest to the Soldiers of Destiny.”
All of the six Fianna Fáil party members whose expulsion was being sought by Mr Martin as a result of the Mahon tribunal report have now resigned voluntarily.
Former councillor Finbarr Hanrahan yesterday formally resigned his membership of the party, a Fianna Fáil spokesman has confirmed.
