Harney says she did not inquire into Burke allegations

The Tánaiste Mary Harney has told the Flood Tribunal that she did not carry out independent enquiries into allegations about Ray Burke prior to the formation of the government. The Tánaiste said she had been told by a director of Joseph Murphy Structural Engineering that Mr Burke had received £60,000 from JMSE and Bovale Developments. She said she did not carry out inquiries into these allegations but that she passed the information on to Bertie Ahern and asked him to investigate the matter.

During a very brief appearance in the witness box today at Dublin Castle, Mary Harney described how, in the run-up to the formation of the government, the husband of a PD candidate contacted her about Fianna Fáil's Ray Burke. The man, Gay Grehan, was then a director of JMSE. Mr Grehan, told her that it was his understanding that Mr Burke had received £30,000 from JMSE and another £30,000 from Bovale Developments, to secure planning permission for re-zoning of land. However he told her that he had no first hand knowledge of this.

At the time Ray Burke was being proposed for a ministerial post. Ms Harney said that she took it very seriously, but that she was not going to veto anybody's membership of the government or destroy their good name and career on the basis of unsubstantiated allegations. Instead she asked Bertie Ahern to investigate and provide her with assurances that no wrong-doing had occurred. She said that this was the one issue that had remained on the table right up to the day before the government was formed.

She said Mr Ahern had come back to her to say he had fully investigated the matter. He said that Mr Burke had received one payment of £30,000 from Mr Gogarty in JMSE and that £20,000 of this had been spent on Ray Burke's own election campaign and another £10,000 had been forwarded to Fianna Fáil headquarters. After Ray Burke left the government, Ms Harney said she had discovered that this £10,000 was from Rennicks. She said: "Had I known that then, the circumstances would have been different."

Ms Harney also revealed that after the establishment of the Flood Tribunal, the builder Michael Bailey asked to speak to her, but she refused.