The sudden appearance of the Minister for Social, Community and Family Affairs, Dermot Ahern, in the witness box yesterday marks the beginning of the political stage of the Flood tribunal. It could not come at a worse time for the Coalition Government.
With the European and local elections in a month, the first day's proceedings alone have raised a number of questions for the Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, and the Tanaiste, Mary Harney, which will further test their stability at the most sensitive time in their political relationship after the latest episode of the Sheedy case.
To put them in their proper political context, however, it is necessary to look back at Dail debates to see what has been put on the public record to date about the investigations of Mr Ray Burke prior to the formation of Mr Ahern's first Government.
Dermot Ahern was hoping for his first full Ministry when the Fianna Fail leader, Mr Ahern, asked him to travel to London on June 24th, 1997, to meet Mr Joseph Murphy jnr. Mr Dermot Ahern was Chief Whip and the new Cabinet was due to be appointed in two days. The meeting with Mr Murphy had been arranged at the request of Mr Bertie Ahern through a third party.
According to contemporaneous notes he took of the meeting and related to the Dail on June 3rd, 1998, Mr Ahern said he informed Mr Murphy that Mr Bertie Ahern was worried about persistent allegations which had surfaced in the media, particularly the Sunday Business Post, and rumours regarding Mr Burke. "I informed him it was being alleged that different amounts, including £40,000, had been handed to Mr Burke at a meeting attended by a leading builder, either his father or himself, and an employee of Murphys called Mr Gogarty", he said.
He added that the party leader had, during the election, been questioned about this and responded by stating he had spoken to Mr Burke on a number of occasions regarding the persistent rumours and that Mr Burke categorically denied there was any truth in them. "I informed Mr Murphy that our party leader wished to get to the bottom of this before he made his appointment to the Cabinet the following Thursday, June 26th."
Mr Ahern then told the Dail that he had asked Mr Murphy three questions. Did either he, or his father, participate in a meeting attended by Mr Burke, a leading builder and Mr Gogarty during which a large sum of money, cash, cheque or both, was handed over to Mr Burke? If such a sum was handed over, was any undertaking given by Me Burke? Was there any meeting between his company and Mr Burke regarding the company's lands?
Mr Murphy categorically answered "no" to each of the questions, Mr Ahern stated, before adding that Mr Murphy produced an extremely thick file with Mr Gogarty's name on it "and showed me numerous documents relating to his company's dispute with Mr Gogarty including copious court documents.
"I left Mr Murphy on the basis that, if necessary, either myself or Deputy Bertie Ahern could telephone him if we required to speak to him again and he readily agreed to this", he said.
On June 30th, the Monday after the formation of the Government, Mr Dermot Ahern received a telephone call from Mr Murphy, who said he was coming over the next day and wished to see him as a follow-on from their previous meeting. Denying all the allegations again, he said he had spoken to his father who reiterated that neither he, the company nor Mr Murphy snr had at any time had any dealings with Mr Burke. "He confirmed that Mr Gogarty was the signatory for all their cheques in Ireland but they always required a second signatory, with whom he had checked; he had also checked through the records for this period and there were no payments which indicated any of this", Mr Ahern said.
At this point, Mr Ahern made a statement on the record of the Dail which, up to yesterday, has always been intriguing. "There are other issues in those (written) re ports which I do not care to put before the House because it is proper to put them before the tribunal rather than raising hares in this House. I have no direct evidence of these things, given that all of what I was told was hearsay".
The main "hearsay" issue raised by Mr Dermot Ahern is that a three-hour meeting took place between Mr Bertie Ahern, Mr Michael Bailey and Mr Ray Burke sometime in this period.
There are new allegations made against him now that he spoke to Mr Murphy jnr on the day in September, 1997, when Mr Burke made his fateful statement about the £30,000 donation from JMSE.
New information has also come to light about the incoming Tanaiste's knowledge of the allegations against Mr Burke prior to his appointment to the Coalition Cabinet. It was never known, up to this point, that she was the conduit for passing on specific allegations to Mr Bertie Ahern about Mr Burke.
Her stance on the appointment of Mr Burke as Minister for Foreign Affairs was that she was satisfied with the Taoiseach's assurances that he could be a member of the Cabinet. A year later, on June 3rd, 1998, she told the Dail: "If what is known in regard to payments to Mr Burke was known to me last June I would not have been willing to participate in Government with him."
The Taoiseach has consistently maintained he climbed "up and down every tree in North Dublin" examining the allegations against Mr Burke.