The cabinet will consider tomorrow terms of reference for another tribunal to inquire into the attempts to rezone, and get planning permission for, specific lands owned by the Bovale and JMSE companies, the Taoiseach said. Mr Ahern said yesterday that the new tribunal should complete its work quickly. He did not think that Mr Ray Burke should "stand aside" pending completion of that work.
Mr Ahern was speaking on RTE Radio's This Week programme.
Mr Burke received a donation of £30,000 from Mr James Gogarty of JMSE in June 1989, when Bovale and JMSE were discussing a campaign to get more than 700 acres of land rezoned and to acquire planning permission to develop it.
Mr Michael Bailey of Bovale wrote to Mr Gogarty outlining details of what needed to be done just three days before this money was given to Mr Burke. The full letter was acquired and published by the Government on Friday after some parts of it were published in Magill magazine.
Mr Ahern said yesterday that the terms of reference for the tribunal remained to be worked out, but he listed some items he believed were important. A tribunal should identify who made rezoning applications and applications for planning permission for the lands mentioned in the letter from Mr Bailey to Mr Gogarty, he said.
The tribunal should ascertain "what politicians, including members of local authorities, were associated in any way with such applications, whether by sponsoring or voting for or against such applications. What local authority officials were involved", and what recommendations they made.
It should examine whether any of those who applied for rezoning or planning permission "made or offered payments or benefits to politicians or public officials, and if they did, what is the motive of the donor".
He believed this matter should be examined by a tribunal separate from the Moriarty tribunal, which is looking at the decisions made by Mr Charles Haughey and Mr Michael Lowry when in office.
He said there was "no evidence of wrongdoing in this case . . . I would like it to be very quick because I think it is something that I don't think should take too long".
He did not believe Mr Burke should "stand aside" pending the outcome of the tribunal. Mr Burke was "crucially involved in very important talks and doing a very good job and this inquiry is not about him".
He said that he had read "all of the articles written over several months about this and nowhere did anybody say that when there was an inquiry going on into this general situation should he not continue with his work . . . I hope people just don't now move on to a next line".
The tribunal "should not affect Ray Burke in any way", Mr Ahern insisted. "He is doing an extremely good job. In the three months since he took over, we have had an IRA ceasefire, we have got into comprehensive talks, this week he had meetings in the UN, he was with President Clinton.
"There is no reason for him to have to step aside, he is not involved in the planning area, he is not involved in the Department of the Environment, he is not involved in the Department of Justice and in no way I think would he have any influence over what the work of this would be from a Minister's point of view."
He outlined why he had not decided to subject the payment to Mr Burke to a tribunal of inquiry earlier. "I asked Ray Burke back in the summer before I set up the Cabinet about this story, about the £30,000, and he assured me at that particular time that he had received this money but he had done nothing for the company and he was involved in nothing wrong.
"Now I had two choices. One, that I took the view that he was lying to me and the other that he was telling the truth. Having questioned him and having done independent checks, I came to the conclusion that he was telling the truth.
"The position is quite clearly that people are continuing to pursue this. I now know in the last number of days that there is a gentleman out there who has files upon files and letters upon letters and is going to continue drip feeding these letters out every second day . . . I'm not going to allow that to happen.
"There is the question now of these 726 acres of land. What happened them? Who owned them? What was the planning matters surrounding them? . . . The people believe that it seems as if there is something wrong, and because it seems there is something wrong you are better to try to clear up the matter and I'm going to clear up the matter."
He said he was determined to allay public suspicion about politicians. In the present climate, "I think a politician has to prove that they are telling the truth . . . If I was to go out today to have an opinion poll on the streets . . . practically 100 per cent of people would say they think there is something in this, they think there is something odd."
He said he wanted the tribunal to focus narrowly on the Bailey/ Gogarty letter and issues arising from it. An examination of "every application and every planning matter" in the Dublin area would go on for years, he said.
"By and large, politicians as I find them are decent honourable people hard-pressed for cash, not involved in anything wrong, and what I am endeavouring to do is put these things beyond reach."
He had "put Ray Burke into the Dail the other week, and he was happy to go in and answer questions".
He implied that other politicians besides Mr Burke might have questions to answer.
"Ray Burke himself is not the only centre of this. Obviously, people will ask questions of Ray Burke but it is far broader than that. He wasn't a member of the council."
He said he would have to "fine tune" the terms of reference, which would be brought to the Cabinet tomorrow. The Minister for the Environment, Mr Dempsey, was gathering information on what happened the lands involved.