Political reaction:A political row over the Mahon tribunal's questioning of Taoiseach Bertie Ahern flared last night with Minister for Foreign Affairs Dermot Ahern describing the tribunal's questioning of his leader as "astounding" and Fine Gael accusing the Minister of a "disgraceful attempt" to divert attention from the evidence.
The Minister said he found the line of questioning adopted towards the Taoiseach to be "astounding". What was happening at the tribunal was the antithesis of what it was supposed to be doing in investigating planning issues.
He said Mrs Justice Susan Denham in the Supreme Court had made the point only last summer that the tribunal had been set up to deal with "urgent planning matters" which were far from the line of questioning being followed yesterday.
In response Senator Eugene Regan of Fine Gael accused the Minister of "a disgraceful attack on the working of the Mahon tribunal" just as the tribunal was "closing in on the unbelievable stories" offered by the Taoiseach to explain €300,000 worth of lodgements to his accounts in 1994 and 1995.
"The Taoiseach's tissue of tall tales regarding the origins of the equivalent today of €300,000 worth of lodgements to his accounts has been torn apart. Faced with this demolished version of events, Fianna Fáil have fallen back on a well-worn tactic of attacking the work of the tribunal when it is getting to the heart of the Taoiseach's unbelievable stories," said Senator Regan.
"The Minister for Foreign Affairs says he is astonished by the line of questioning of the tribunal. It is actually more astonishing that any Fianna Fáil Minister still believes the Taoiseach's explanations as to the source of these very large sums of money," he said.
He added that Fianna Fáil seemed to have no problem in undermining the work of the tribunal set up by the Oireachtas. "They have been doing it repeatedly, typically at times when they are suffering politically from the revelations of the work of the tribunal. That is what we witnessed from Minister Ahern. One can only conclude that the tribunal is now closing in rapidly on the fairytales offered by the Taoiseach to explain these huge cash transactions," he said.
Earlier Labour Party leader Eamon Gilmore repeated his call for the Taoiseach to resign from office because his evidence to the tribunal in September was not credible.
"I haven't changed my view that this is a resigning matter. I can't say I've been studiously reading every line of evidence that's been given at the tribunal over the past number of months. But reading the newspaper reports on it, if anything, I think the evidence that has been given over the past couple of months has made his story even less credible," he said on Lunchtime with Eamon Keane on Newstalk radio station.
He added: "It's not up to me to judge Bertie Ahern's probity. I'm not going to do that. What I did say last September, having heard the evidence that he gave, was that I didn't find it credible. I just didn't believe the story that he told the tribunal in September."
Mr Gilmore maintained that most people in Leinster House did not believe Mr Ahern's story and most people in the country didn't believe it either.
