OUTGOING CEANN comhairle John O’Donoghue said there was no difference in principle on expenses incurred between himself and many others in the Dáil.
He believed he was “denied my constitutional rights to defend myself by a pre-emptive assertion of no confidence” but “I can only hope that the method by which my departure was contrived will be seen for what it is: a denial of due process”.
In an emotional 30-minute address, Mr O’Donoghue said: “I came into this House an honest man. I never asked anything of any man. I never took anything from any man. I never could. I never would. To do otherwise would be to deny who I am and who I came from.
“I will walk proudly out of this chair, as proud as the day I walked into it. In the end you must be true to your people and true to yourself. And I have been true to both.”
As a packed public gallery, including his wife Kate Ann O’Donoghue, observed the proceedings, he expressed regret that he would not be in office to preside over the implementation of changes in the expenses’ regime for members.
He was not “embittered” by the unfairness but wanted to “acknowledge that the failure to afford me a right to be fairly heard arises from weakness rather than malice”.
Mr O’Donoghue recognised something of an irony in relation to his own situation, saying: “I leave office in the context of a costs controversy where my full defence has not been heard and where I perceive the treatment afforded to me – and in particular in this House – is that of a symbol of an expenses regime and a costs regime that had been in operation for decades that has fallen into public disrepute.
“While there may be a difference of scale with some in this House, there is no difference in principle between me and many others who are subject to these regimes. And that scale is accounted for by the nature of my portfolio as Minister and in the discharge of my functions as ceann comhairle. So be it.”
He said he would accept the verdict of informed judgment, but not the verdict of the disingenuous. “I will accept the judgment of my peers after their careful reflection of all the facts and fair procedures,” he added. “I will not allow my life in public service to be stained by the triumph of the half-truth.”
Mr O’Donoghue said it was an accepted convention of the State’s political system that the ceann comhairle should remain above political controversy. When the public mood changed, he was determined to put his case to the appropriate body established by the House with oversight of expenditure, the Oireachtas Commission.
“I was denied that opportunity by some members of this House who decided to act without giving me a hearing,” he added. His principal complaint, he said, was not against the media which, in spite of frequent excesses, also carried out a valuable function in society and whose constitutional right and whose constitutional duty to freedom of expression, he freely acknowledged.
The press had never denied him a right of reply, he added, describing the relationship with the fourth estate as “the best of times” and “the worst of times”.
Mr O’Donoghue said he had been denied a fair hearing “by a pre-emptive assertion of no confidence”. Referring to the release of his expenses as ceann comhairle on October 2nd, polling day in the Lisbon referendum, he said it had not been inspired by any personal or media advantage, but by a far more important consideration. He did not want a distraction to the Irish public, he said.
Mr O’Donoghue said it was some small consolation to him that no complaint was made of him in the discharge of his office in the House as ceann comhairle.
As minister for arts, sport and tourism, he was on over 14 international flights on the government jet over a five-year period, he said. Accommodation was frequently arranged locally for a visiting Minister. Alternatively, it was arranged by the department.
Denying that he had stayed in a hotel in Venice at €900 a night, he said that the cost of staying at the Best Western Hotel Albergo San Marco in Venice was €312.50 a night. The cost of the Montfleury Novotel, Cannes, was €352.50 a night.
The transfer between terminals at Heathrow was in accordance with standard protocol, he added.
He said that through an administrative error, when personal costs were charged to him, a charitable sum of £1 was omitted.
Mr O’Donoghue said it was “simply untrue” to suggest that he had paid €520, and other amounts, in tips to limousine drivers and taxis. “In certain countries, eg the USA, a gratuity is automatically added,” he said.
Mr O’Donoghue said “it would be a gross distortion and a deep injustice to me to suggest that my first allegiance” lay “anywhere but to the Irish people”.
He was proud of his contributions to numerous sports, arts and cultural projects. “I am proud that I fulfilled my mandate to the Irish taxpayer and to the Irish people.”
Referring to staff levels Mr O’Donoghue said that as agreed unanimously by the Oireachtas Commission, “staffing levels for all officeholders were increased based on the workload of the respective offices” and “moreover, the complement of office staff was on par with one of my predecessors in the 1973-77 Dáil.”
It was, he said, standard procedure that “the speaker of a parliament is treated with the same level of courtesy as a minister of government”. It would eventually become apparent that “many matters have been distorted and exaggerated beyond the bounds of fairness”.
The distortions also included “insinuating that routine decisions in relation to expenses on car-hire or hotels were made or dictated by me, failing to acknowledge that many expenses flowed from well-established patterns of official duties” and “maliciously suggesting that I attempted to reclaim charitable donations and excessive gratuities”.
Many other distortions were “used to create an ugly, grasping, black caricature of the man I am”. He reminded the House “of the requirement to maintain constitutional fairness. Transient political benefit will never be a compensation for long-term political damage. The institutions of this State and the dictates of constitutional fairness are bigger than any individual, their political ambitions and their careers. In my case I regret to say that I was not afforded the basic principles of a fair hearing. Instead, the soundbite took the place of fairness.”
He “would have hoped that this House could have allowed me a few days to put my side of these events on the record. But patience in aid of fairness gave way, alas, to impatience to surf the political wave of competitive outrage”.
It was his principal concern that “the office of An Ceann Comhairle has been saved from further inappropriate political controversy” and “this is what commanded my silence to date. There is some small satisfaction in that”. He concluded that “while I may have been forced out of office by an unfair procedure, only the people of south Kerry have the right to exclude me from political life. They have had a good opportunity to judge me, my standards, my motives and my commitment to this country for almost 23 years.”
VOICE IN THE HOUSE – OUTGOING CEANN COMHAIRLE
"While there may be a difference of scale with some in this House, there is no difference in principle between me and many others who are subject to these (expenses) regimes.
"I have been denied a fair hearing by a pre-emptive assertion of no confidence.
"I will not allow my life in public service to be stained by the triumph of the half-truth.
"I came into this House an honest man. I never asked anything of any man. I never took anything from any man. I never could. I never would. To do otherwise would be to deny who I amand who I came from.
"While I may have been forced out of office by an unfair procedure, only the people of South Kerry have the right to exclude me from political life.
"…..conflation of accommodation charges, and many others (distortions) were used to create an ugly, grasping, black caricature of the man I am.
"Lest it be said that the failure to give me a chance to defend myself has somehow embittered me, I want to acknowledge that the failure to afford me a right to be fairly heard arises from weakness rather than malice."
