Bertie implicated in Sheedy scandal

By Andrew Bushe

DUBLIN — A major political row has blown up following revelations that the taoiseach personally intervened in the Sheedy drunk-driving case, which has already plunged the country into a constitutional crisis and led to the unprecedented resignation of two judges and a senior court registrar.

Fine Gael and Labor have accused Bertie Ahern of concealing the July 1998 intervention when his private secretary contacted Justice Minister John O’Donoghue’s own personal secretary.

The representations concerned possible regular day release for the architect Philip Sheedy four months before he was released in highly unusual circumstances.

He was freed last November after serving just a year of a four-year sentence for driving drunk and causing the death of a mother of two.

The opposition parties are demanding a full explanation from the taoiseach about his role in the matter.

Ahern has denied concealing his involvement or that there was anything wrong in his checking out the matter after receiving a letter from Sheedy’s father.

He informed the tanaiste, Mary Harney, of his role on April 14 after he learned there was a note of his request on Sheedy’s prison file. This was two days before a damning judicial report from the chief justice forced the resignation of the judges. She had urged him to tell the Dail on two occasions.

“If I had of been asked any sort of a question anywhere near it in the Dail I would have answered it,” Ahern said. “I knew that someone would ask me a question on it and as soon as they did I rang back that journalist and gave her comprehensively what happened in this case.”

Ahern’s involvement was the subject of a Freedom of Information inquiry and it finally became public when the Sunday Tribune submitted questions.

Fine Gael leader John Bruton said there was no acceptable explanation for the taoiseach’s failure to mention his involvement and the Labor Party interrupted its annual conference to pass an emergency motion.

The opposition parties have been demanding a full explanation from the two judges, Hugh O’Flaherty of the Supreme Court and Cyril Kelly of the High Court, before they will support legislation granting them pensions following their resignations.

The opposition claims the when, where and how of the Sheedy case were clear in a report from Chief Justice Liam Hamilton on the case, but the question of why the judges risked their careers has yet to be answered.

Bruton said that all O’Flaherty said he had done was to seek information about the case.

“He had to resign for doing that,” Bruton said. “Bertie Ahern is now saying all he did was seek information about the Sheedy case, but he didn’t explain that to the Dail when he had plenty of opportunities to do it.

“Why was it concealed? Is there some inner circle here where there is a system which operates to the benefit of those who are in that circle and where nobody outside that circle is deemed entitled to get information, including the Dail?

“It is the concealment that creates deep suspicion as to the motivations of the people concerned.”

Bruton described as “extremely serious” reports that Harney had asked Ahern on two occasions to make the information public and had been “rebuffed.”

It has emerged that a number of representations have been made for Sheedy by influential people and all the political connections with the case involve Fianna Fail.

Both judges, though appointed on merit, were elevated to the bench under Fianna Fail taoisigh. A close associate of Ahern, former Dublin Councilor Joe Burke, had business connections with Sheedy and visited him in jail. Senator Don Lydon did the court psychological report and backbencher Brian Lenihan gave him a character reference.

All claim the contacts and representations are a series of coincidences and nothing untoward has been done, O’Donoghue said it was “ludicrous” to suggest there was anything suspicious about Ahern’s failure to inform the Dail.

“The fact an inquiry was received from the Taoiseach’s office to my private secretary was a matter of absolute irrelevance where this particular matter was concerned. Mr Sheedy was not released by me,” O’Donoghue said.

He said he had not told the Dail of the representation by Ahern because it was not relevant and he was “acutely aware it would be used by conspiracy theorists as fodder and in a most unjustified and unfair attack on the integrity of the taoiseach.”