So a number of the questions surrounding the Telenor contribution have been answered and they paint a damning picture of the public morality of the Fine Gael Party. Not for the first time since the establishment of the McCracken, Moriarty and Flood tribunals, the unhealthy relationship between donations and politics has been exposed. The same old familiar attempt is being made, this time by the new Fine Gael leader, Mr Michael Noonan, to say that the past is the past. But, it will be extraordinarily difficult to draw a line in the sand on the payment of this $50,000 donation a couple of months after the awarding of the second mobile phone licence to East Digifone - in which Telenor was a 40 per cent shareholder - by the then Minister, Mr Michael Lowry.
There is no doubt that the second biggest party is compromised by the circuitous circumstances in which the $50,000 subscription to a New York fundraised for Fine Gael in November, 1995, made its way into the party's accounts in May, 1997. The money sat for some considerable time in Mr David Austin's account in Jersey, off-shore for Fine Gael. It was paid to the party in the form of a personal cheque for £33,000 drawn on Mr Austin's account in the Bank of Ireland, Baggot Street, payable to a known third party, Mr Frank Conroy, who endorsed it on to Fine Gael. But if Fine Gael could claim that it was blissfully unaware of the donor and the motivation for the money for more than two years, that defence was rendered defunct three years ago. Telenor came forward to tell Fine Gael the full story about the subscription in February, 1998. "There had been contact between Telenor and the Moriarty Tribunal", the first Fine Gael statement said, "and they were concerned about how they should deal with the contribution". Furthermore, Mr Austin was requested to provide an invoice to Telenor for consultancy services rendered.
The former Fine Gael leader, Mr John Bruton, made the politically correct decision to return the donation in all the prevailing circumstances. Fine Gael sent it to Telenor; Telenor endorsed it and passed it on to Esat Telecom; Esat Telecom returned it as the original donation might be perceived as "wrongdoing" on their part. Mr Denis O'Brien would not accept the cheque as it "might lead to inferences about Esat being drawn". It is now a bank draft looking for a bank account to give it a home.
The checks and balances in Fine Gael's corporate fund-raising may be one thing at that time. The subsequent decision to effectively withhold information from the Moriarty Tribunal about the cheque's circuitous route to Fine Gael is another. Clearly anticipating a difficulty, Fine Gael sought legal advice on the Telenor donation from Mr James Nugent, SC, in March, 1998, as to whether it had an obligation to disclose these matters to Judge Moriarty. It was advised that the payments were not made directly or indirectly to Mr Michael Lowry and that Fine Gael could not be considered to be a connected person within the meaning of the Ethics in Public Office Act. Fine Gael was not a "person", nor is it an "individual" nor is it a "body corporate". And even if it were a body corporate, it could not be said that one of the trustees of Fine Gael "controls" that body corporate, according to the advice.
The Fine Gael Party sheltered behind legal advice when the clear political imperative was to contact the Moriarty Tribunal. In this important respect, the party's handling of the Telenor donation was, at best, politically disingenuous; at worst, a contempt of the tribunal. It is a peculiar irony that Fine Gael itself provides the best example for the case against corporate donations, direct or indirect, in this instance.