The Green Party has said that it has been unable to find any evidence of inappropriate behaviour in the contacts between Taoiseach Brian Cowen and the former Anglo Irish Bank principal Seán FitzPatrick in 2008.
Party leader John Gormley said this morning its members believe the Mr Cowen should have put the matter in the public domain much earlier.
But he said that the party could only act on the evidence available and because there was no evidence Mr Cowen had been involved in inappropriate behaviour, the Greens would remain in Government until the Finance Bill and other legislation had completed their passage through the Oireachtas.
He and party whip Trevor Sargent qualified the endorsement of Fianna Fáil by saying they would also wait and see how Mr Cowen would respond to questions from Opposition leaders on the issue tomorrow.
Mr Gormley was speaking at the conclusion of a two-day Green Party meeting in Malahide, Co Dublin at which the previously undisclosed contacts were extensively discussed by its parliamentarians, strategists, and members.
Two Sunday Times journalists – the authors of a new book on the demise of Anglo Irish Bank – interviewed Mr Fitzpatrick, its former chief executive and chairman, who told them about two contacts he had with Mr Cowen in 2008, some months before the Government guaranteed all the deposits and bonds of State's main financial institutions.
He had phoned Mr Cowen, then minister for finance, in March 2008 to inform him of problems associated with the 28 per cent shareholding of the bank built up secretly by businessman Sean Quinn through the use of contracts for difference.
In July that year, Mr Fitzpatrick, Mr Cowen and the latter’s close friend Fintan Drury had played golf and had dinner together at the Druid’s Heath complex in Wicklow.
Mr Cowen confirmed both contacts in a statement last night. In relation to the March phone call he said that the Governor of the Central Bank had informed him of the situation facing the bank over the Quinn shares earlier that month and that Mr Fitzpatrick had merely told him what he already knew. He denied claims by the
Opposition that he had misled the Dáil by not informing it of the contact with Mr Fitzpatrick when giving an account of when he first heard of the growing crisis within the bank.
In relation to the golf outing, he maintained that the affairs of Anglo Irish Bank were never discussed during the round of golf or at dinner afterwards.
Asked about the inquiries carried out by the Green Party, Mr Gormley told a news conference that its programme manager Dónall Geoghegan had had discussions with the Department of Finance and made contacts with others.
He said the party had done its best. “We have already said that it should have been put in the public domain earlier.
“There is no question that when you have incomplete record it does give rise to suspicion. We have tried the best we can to establish whether there was any impropriety.”
Mr Gormley said the lack of contrition in the Taoiseach’s statement was a matter for the Taoiseach. He said there was only so much the party could do to inquire, saying: “We are not Sherlock Holmes and we have done our best."
He also said it was regrettable that at every Green party think-in, a policy-driven party is forced to talk about other issues, such as 'golfgate', or 'garglegatge', the controversy surrounding Mr Cowen's interview with Morning Ireland after a late night in Galway.
But Sinn Féin Dáil leader Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin branded Mr Gormley's response pathetic. "There seems to be nothing that Fianna Fáil can do that will prompt the Greens to leave Government," he said.
"On the Opposition benches in the last Dáil the Green Party were loud in their condemnation of the Golden Circle of conservative politicians and developers that was running the economy into the ground.
"In Government the Green Party has signed up to the disastrous policies that are making the recession worse - including the sell-out of economic sovereignty to the International Monetary Fund and EU, the banking fiasco and Nama."
