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How to prevent corruption in the future: Mahon’s recommendations

By Susan Daly
A protestor outside the gates of the Mahon Tribunal in 2008.

A protestor outside the gates of the Mahon Tribunal in 2008.

Image: Leon Farrell/Photocall Ireland
22/03/12 10,297 Views 50 Comments

THIS MORNING, THE fifth and final report from the Mahon Tribunal – which started life as the Flood Tribunal – has been published in full.

Ironically, on this exact day last year, the final report of the Moriarty Tribunal of Inquiry into Payments to Politicians was published.

The Mahon Tribunal was an inquiry into planning and payments to various parties.

We are running a liveblog today on TheJournal.ie which you can see here, as well as detailed analysis into the findings of the Judge Alan Mahon on matters including those relating to alleged payments to former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern.

THE RECOMMENDATIONS OF THE MAHON TRIBUNAL

In its conclusion, the Mahon Tribunal final report has strong words on the damage corruption – particularly political corruption – does to society, democracy and public trust:

corruption

In a bid to combat corruption in public life, the Mahon Tribunal’s final recommendations include:

  • Anti-corruption measures must be kept under constant review – “Although the Tribunal recognises that corruption is most obviously a failing of individual morality, it believes that it is also a problem of systemic failure”.
  • The Tribunal makes specific recommendations in these areas – planning; conflicts of interest; political finance; lobbying; bribery; corruption in office; money laundering; asset confiscation.

PLANNING:

  • Local authority members used to enjoy “significant powers” in the rezoning of land because the Development Plan used to be the “primary instrument” for regulating such decisions. Mahon finds that this has changed and that the Development Plan is now “part of a hierarchy of plans”. However, the National Development Plan (NDP) and the National Spatial Strategy (NSS), which are strategic policies the regional Development Plan must adhere to, do not have a statutory basis.
The Mahon Tribunal recommends that both of those instruments be placed on a statutory footing.
  • Regional authorities are responsible for making sure Regional Policy Guidelines (RPG) are stuck to. The Mahon Tribunal is concerned that the regional authorities are insufficiently accountable and that their role is insufficiently transparent.
It is consequently recommending that those authorities be directly elected.
  • The National Transport Authority has an impact on planning and members of the NTA are appointed by the Minister of Environment.
The Tribunal is recommending that, in future, those Members should be appointed by an appointed by an Independent Appointments Board.
  • To help improve transparency on how the public consultation process on a planning application is going…
…both submissions received in the course of that process and the Manager’s Report dealing with those submissions be available on the internet.
  • To help improve transparency where planning permission is granted…
…the power of the elected members to direct the Manager to grant planning permission in a specific case should be subject to increased restrictions.

This would include those members of local authorities who direct the Manager to grant planning permission against the advice of the professional planners, should have to explain their reasons for doing so.

  • Interventions by members on specific planning applications should be NOTED ON THE FILE and applicants for planning permission have to DISCLOSE IF THEY MADE A POLITICAL DONATION to a member of the applicable regional authority within a specified time when applying for planning – AND name who they gave the donation to.

CONFLICTS OF INTEREST/DISCLOSURE:

  • There’s no fudging the issue here from Mahon:
Conflicts of interest are a root cause of corruption. A conflict of interest arises where an elected or appointed public official has a private interest which is likely to be affected by the exercise of his or her public powers.

Mahon is unequivocal – conflicts of interest have been at the heart of several of the cases Mahon has had to probe and they need to be stamped out.

Conflicts of interest are monitored at the moment by the Standards in Public Office Commission (SIPO), the Oireachtas Select Committess on Members Interests (at national level) and by local authorities (at regional level). The Tribunal is “concerned that the existing conflicts of interests measures DO NOT SUFFICIENTLY IDENTIFY OR OTHERWISE REGULATE certain types of conflicts of interests”. (our caps)

As a result, Mahon has a number of recommendations for ensuring full disclosure of all interests that might give rise to a conflict of interests:

  • Increase the role of SIPO
  • Further tighten regulation on certain interests which “pose particular risks of corruption”
  • Extend the scope of what interests must be disclosed – right now, under periodic disclosure (an annual disclosure to the register of interests), a public official does not necessarily have to disclose interests held by family members or dependents – and even then, only to a “limited extent”. Ad hoc disclosures also have limitations to what they reveal.
  • The extension of that scope of disclosure should include new obligations to disclose electoral donations, among other obligations. The timing of periodic disclosure also needs to change – public officials should make this disclosure withing 30 days of entering public office.
  • There may be requirements on officials to declare gifts or income that pre-date or post-date their time in office:

gifts

CONFLICTS OF INTEREST/REGULATION:

  • With reference to those “certain type of interests” which pose particular risk of corruption – gifts, access to inside information, ancillary and post-office employment – the Mahon Tribunal wants to not just have these reported…

The Tribunal is recommending that public officials be prohibited from accepting any gift in excess of a stipulated amount where that gift could be connected with their public office.

  • It also recommends that a public official can’t enter into a contract to provide goods or services to a public body either while in public office or for a full year after they leave office.
  • An elected official should not be allowed to have any dealings in buying, selling, developing land which was rezoned or had its planning status changed during the official’s time in office – or for two years afterwards.

CONFLICTS OF INTEREST/ENFORCEMENT:

The Tribunal believes that enforcing conflict of interests measures is too self-regulatory – this is where the aforementioned increased role of SIPO will come in.

The punishment for those who have been found to have breached conflict of interest regulation? In some cases, concludes the Tribunal, it should be a CRIMINAL OFFENCE:

sanctions

POLITICAL DONATIONS/EXPENDITURE:

“Bribes may be made in the guise of political donations” reads the Tribunal’s final report. To halt corruption in this way, the Tribunal recommends:

  • Indirect donations should be prohibited
  • Anonymous and cash donations above €55 (to an individual electoral candidate) and €175 (to a political party) should be prohibited. Currently, anonymous donations in excess of €127 are permitted and cash donations are not limited at all.
  • An overall limit should be imposed on anonymous donations – €2,000 for an individual/ €5,000 for a political or third party
  • The Tribunal notes that at the moment an individual donor can give a donation to each member of a political party and also to the party itself.
Consequently, the Tribunal is recommending that an overall limit be placed on the amount which an individual may give to a political party, electoral candidates.

On political expenditure, the Tribunal recommends:

  • That expenditure rules don’t just cover the electoral period, as they do now.
  • That the limit of expenditure be lowered to make it an “effective ceiling on expenses”
  • That the rules be extended to cover third parties and Seanad candidates

To facilitate better transparency in political monies, it is recommended that:

  • All political parties and elected representatives should disclose annual audited accounts

As well as the current threat of criminal conviction for a breach of certain political finance measures, the Tribunal said that there should be a sliding scale made available which allows for fines and other sanctions for more minor offences. To those who try to ‘get round’ the measures, it had this to say:

The Tribunal is also concerned that political actors may be able to find loopholes in the political finance acts which enable them to act within the letter of the law while undermining its spirit. It is consequently recommending the introduction of a new provision sanctioning those who deliberately circumvent the requirements set down in the political finance acts.

LOBBYING:

lobbyings

  • As a result of this, the Tribunal wants A REGISTER OF LOBBYISTS which would state who they are lobbying on behalf of; who they are lobbying to; and on what issues.

BRIBERY:

While the Tribunal recognises that bribery laws are “relatively robust”, the role of intermediaries needs to be looked at further.

  • To this end, it recommends there be two new offences introduced:
The first of these criminalises the making of payments to a third party in instances where the payer (‘P’) knows or is reckless as to whether that party uses that payment as a bribe to further P’s interests.

The second criminalises a lack of supervision or control on the part of a commercial entity which faciltiates the commission of bribery to the benefit of that entity by one of its employees or other business associates.

  • The Tribunal also wants certain presumptions of corruption to be extended – in the case where an individual or political party fails to disclose a donation, either a prohibited one or one which it is required to disclose under the Electoral Act.
  • Even if an office holder does not actually do anything to confer an advantage on someone who has given them a gift, if their very INACTION causes an advantage, well, that too can be seen as a presumption of corruption.
  • When an Oireachtas member is found to have been bribed by a company, that company should not be allowed to tender for public contracts for seven years.
  • An individual found to have paid a bribe should be prohibited from applying for planning permission on anything except his or her own home for seven years.
  • Whistleblower protection should be “as robust as possible” to encourage exposure of corruption.

CORRUPTION IN OFFICE:

“Not all corruption is in the form of bribery,” says the Mahon Tribunal’s final report.

It wants anti-corruption legislation to cover the misuse of confidential information by a public official for their own benefit or for the benefit of another. It also wants it to cover the following:

Specifically, it is doubtful whether it covers instances where a public official fails or omits to perform his or her public functions in order to further private interests.

MONEY LAUNDERING:

  • The Tribunal is “concerned” that a public official is no longer deemed a politically exposed person in terms of money laundering legislation just one year after leaving office. It wants that changed to ten years after leaving office.
  • There is also a recommendation that financial institutions must be helped out on a “cost benefit analysis” to help them report possible transfers of corrupt funds.

ASSET CONFISCATION:

The Tribunal lauds the work of the Criminal Assets Bureau in recovering assets which are found to have come from corrupt transactions.

However, the Tribunal is also of the view that there would be some merit in having a single conviction based asset recovery regime, rather than three separate regimes (for drug trafficking, terrorist financing, and for other indictable offences) as is currently the case.

OTHER RECOMMENDATIONS:

  • More public education and awareness campaigns to help spot corruption
  • Law Commission should study how corporate vehicles can be used for corrupt purposes, especially to hide the source of corrupt funds.
  • Any future Tribunals of Inquiry should be given three additional powers: to require a person to attend the Tribunal for private interview, to order the discovery of documents without prior notice and to seize documents.

corruptuion

Liveblog: Mahon Tribunal rejects Ahern evidence>

Everything you need to know about the Mahon Tribunal>

The who’s who of the Mahon Tribunal>

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Comments (25 Comments)

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  • Damien Flinter 22/03/12 Report this comment

    His epitaph???
    Here
    As Ever
    Bertie Lies.

    Reply

  • Kevin Smyth 22/03/12 Report this comment

    Who pics out the photos? They’re perfect. You always manage to find photos of these gangsters at their worst. (Harney, Cowen, Hannafin etc)

    Reply

    • Susan Daly 23/03/12 Report this comment

      Hi Kevin. The author of any given piece writes the headline and picks the pictures as well as writing the article. We enjoy it ;)

  • Desmond O'Toole 22/03/12 Report this comment

    One question, will Bertie and the other gangsters go to gaol?

    Reply

    • Sheila Byrne 22/03/12 Report this comment

      @ Desmond

      NNNNNOOOOOO! they won’t!!!! SADLY! Aherne is a lying bastard. A cute whore. The fact that he says he never had a bank account makes him a cuter whore! As he said in his own accounts speaking during the tribunal he said he had lodge certain amounts to his daughters accounts and probably his friends accounts.
      Not sure if there bank accounts going back a number of years were checked out?

      None of us were born yesterday. A lot of us have gone through a separation/divorce. Before any family law court appearance ‘one’ moves or ‘hides’ any savings/accounts in other peoples names. The person’s solicitor can do a ‘legal search’ on any accounts held by the spouce! That spouce has already moved any moneys before this happens. I am not just talking about his separation time I’m talking about his political time in office!

      Hopefully that distasteful, disrespectful, lying grin on his face will be wiped off it today.

    • Stephen Carney 22/03/12 Report this comment

      Not a notion, he’ll still get his big fat pension every fortnight.

    • Gay Pea McManus 22/03/12 Report this comment

      No, more likely that logging company he works for will buy up our woodlands in the fire-sale and make him our new Minister for Forestry.

  • Noel Beggs 22/03/12 Report this comment

    Barrister’s have made millions out of this tribunal and nothing will happen to any of the brown envelope boys

    Reply

  • howzat 22/03/12 Report this comment

    There better be some meat in this report considering the millions and millions spent on it

    Reply

    • Fagan's 22/03/12 Report this comment

      Cost bout 350. Revenue brought in as a result of investigation is nearly a billion. The fees were very excessive and the legal profession needs to be massively reformed, to be made more accountable and give proper value but the state turned a big profit on this.

      The FF spin on this is going to focus in on the cost, knock it that way. They couldn’t care less how much it cost, as long as they can diminish the findings against their criminal gang.

    • Andrea Rock Massey 22/03/12 Report this comment

      We should not need to spend hundreds of millions in order for corrupt politicians and their cohorts to pay their taxes etc. The CAB and tax inspectors should be able to that as part of a bloody days work. It’s still a disgrace whatever way you look at it.

  • Declan McGuigan 22/03/12 Report this comment

    Stops short of saying bertie was corrupt, imagine that..

    Reply

  • finbar m 22/03/12 Report this comment

    Scumbag ,,,,, that’s all I can say

    Reply

  • Simon J. O'Grady 22/03/12 Report this comment

    so what. about 14 years to late. another example of irish procrastination
    .

    Reply

    • Fagan's 22/03/12 Report this comment

      The state has got nearly a billion back in tax and fines etc form the participants. It turned quite a profit. It also has exposed FF criminality at its highest points. That is an investment in all out futures.

      My question is will the report reveal who the mysterious M.Martin who met a developed in a car park with Bertie was. What did they talk about, were there envelopes in the neighbourhood.

      FF have stated that it is not Micheal Martin, their leader. I go to the report hoping to find out who it was. A Maurice Martin or Martin Martin, here I come. I have no doubt that it was not Michael, as that would mean he was lying and he would not be where he is, if he was a liar. It would not be tolerated.

    • Sean O'Keeffe 22/03/12 Report this comment

      Is this the final nail in the coffin for FF?
      They have come to been viewed as toxic and their implosion has continued with the recent departure of O’Cuiv.
      This must be the final straw.

    • Andrew Brennan 22/03/12 Report this comment

      To be fair. Voters had already cottoned on to Fianna Fail’s utter corruption when they voted in Enda’s honest, truthful and moral government. Thank goodness most of the work in rooting out political corruption, lying, and amoral politicking has been done already by Enda’s upright statesmanship, honesty and clarity …… I better run now as I see my nurse approaching with my injection!

    • justsaying 22/03/12 Report this comment

      They couldn’t release the full report while FF were in government!!!

  • Patrick Minford 22/03/12 Report this comment

    Millions of euro’s have been spent, to tell us somehting we know already …

    … that this country is run by a crowd of crooks and criminals

    Reply

  • Pen Name 22/03/12 Report this comment

    I hope they recommend improvements in criminal law, otherwise what’s the point.

    Reply

    • Sheila Byrne 22/03/12 Report this comment

      @Pen name

      Hear, hear! not just for this report but also for all the other Reports that were done and are now in the Dail basement collecting dust. Nothing changed and nobody was held accountable after those ones.

  • Sheila Byrne 22/03/12 Report this comment

    This reminds me of the gangsters in American prisons, they have different names for each gang, mexicans, whites, blacks.

    Not sure what Aherne calls his, but by Jesus, they’re loyal, and no matter what he has done, they will still stay loyal to him and his type. I just hope, if he doesn’t pay for his lies and thieving (allegedly!!!!) in this life, I just hope he pays for it dearly in other ways.

    (By the way, the only reason why his ex wife would seem to ‘stand by him’ is obviously because she did very well in many ways!!!) (allegedly)!!!!!

    Reply

    • Fagan's 22/03/12 Report this comment

      They are called FF and they are loyal to him through and through. They’ll probably kick him out but they will make sure that he will never be out a penny, never do a day in jail. What he looses to the tax man will be reimbursed by other business men. FF stands by its leaders, even as it cuts them in public. Haughey being a prime example of this.

    • John Murphy 22/03/12 Report this comment

      ‘Drumcondra Mafia’ Sheila

    • Susie Chester 22/03/12 Report this comment

      ………… he also had the Drumcondra Mafia………

    • Susie Chester 22/03/12 Report this comment

      Sorry John …. Had not scrolled down fully to your comment … And no body could get to him unless they went through them..
      another investigation there ?

  • Eric Chubb 22/03/12 Report this comment

    It would have been an idea for the tribunal to publish a HTML version rather than one massive monolithic document

    Reply

  • Andrea Rock Massey 22/03/12 Report this comment

    I am having trouble opening the report, is anyone else? I’ll just wait for the summary later I suppose. Although I’m sure I can make a couple of guesses and not be too far off. I just don’t seem to care anymore because I know that regardless of what’s contained in the report, nothing will happen. Life for those involved will continue on as comfortably as it always has. I don’t even care about what Enda has to say about it. Put Michael Lowry in prison before you start criticising elsewhere. I’m sick of them all at this stage, nothing but crooks. I wish I was Norwegian…

    Reply

  • Mel Devlin 22/03/12 Report this comment

    At last it out and tells us what we already know .FF have and always will be corrupt. and the current government are doing their utmost to catch up with them.
    I have one question now that the report is out,where are the Garda ?
    I suggest they arrest all these cohorts and criminals,but that will never happen in this country the police are too busy arresting Garlic smugglers.

    Reply

  • Mel Devlin 22/03/12 Report this comment

    The Monty Python team could not have come up with a more ridiculous script.
    In fact I’d say if the Mahon Report came through the “Python” letterbox they would have labelled and binned it as being to “Far Fetched” !

    Reply

  • Brian Hennessy 22/03/12 Report this comment

    It cost us hundreds of millions, made millionaires out of lawyers, one such tribunal lawyers mansion was built near my home and Saddam Hussein would of been proud to live in it. And after all that time they find that maybe Bertie was corrupt but they don’t know for sure and they recommend that people should stop being possibly corrupt in the future! It’s a sick joke! We should sue the lawyers for all that waste and it might compensate for the household charge. If a tribunal was launched into Anglo Irish “toxic” bank and run by the same judges and lawyers who ran this tribunal it would probably cost more than the bailout!

    Reply

  • Ally Collyer 22/03/12 Report this comment

    Mmm………I was just wondering what his epitaph would be, and that when that time comes, will he be afforded a state funeral like one of his predecessors was.

    Reply

  • Patrick Minford 22/03/12 Report this comment

    Millions of euros have been spent in order to tell us something we already know …

    … that this country is run by a crowd of crooks and criminals

    Reply

  • Sheila Byrne 22/03/12 Report this comment

    Listening to callers to RTE1 Radio (J Duffy) and they are talking about what I’m thinking. “Will pensions be cancelled to these individuals in this report that don’t deserve them after what’s come today.

    Also, there is an individual on Duffy at the moment telling us that he sees aherne at mass on sundays!!!!! What does he wants us to say on that subject???? Does that mean that the clergy that stood up on the alter on a Sunday for many many years, and raping young children saying mass are good honest christians really, underneath it all like our bertie?!!!!

    Another individual said that he felt that bertie was great as he ALONE brought peace in the North. He was one of many sitting around the table for those talks. If I was the Taoiseach at that time, I’d be just another person that had the privilege to be there helping to sort things. He does not deserve a medal. He was more than paid to do HIS JOB, which was being Taoiseach. That’s all. His job!

    Jesus, give my head peace, these people obviously have there ears and eyes closed for a number of years or else its realitives that are foning in!!!

    Reply

  • Martin Dorgan 22/03/12 Report this comment

    Now is the time to implement the Fiannan Fail political donations bill so transparancy can be achieved across the political spectrum and we can see where the ink has gone and the average industrial wage joke can be seen for what it is by parties who claim a lot more than they are saying

    Reply

  • Tom MacUaidh 22/03/12 Report this comment

    Look up Hong Kong and New South Wales who each have an “Independent Commissions against Corruption”
    In Hong Kong a public servant or politician with unexplained money is automatically guilty of corruption. How would Bertie like that?
    Hong Kong is as a result the least corrupt state in Asia.
    We need one. Now.

    Reply

  • Sheila Byrne 22/03/12 Report this comment

    @Ally,

    It was shameful that his ‘predecessor’ was given one. So I sincerely hope, that there would not be one for him. Let his family pay for it. They should have enough ‘monies’ in their bank accounts (their own of course) whenever that time will be. I wonder what the wording would be on his headstone read if the electorate was to write it?

    Reply

  • Frank2521 22/03/12 Report this comment

    There are brown envelopes or backhanders being passed today in all procurement departments in government – that’s how we do business in Ireland. Will it stop – never! Who are involved – the same people. To make it. Transparent all public procurement must be fully visible and procedures for tenders fully visible.

    Reply

  • Conor Gallagher 22/03/12 Report this comment

    This is what we, the taxpayers, have paid so handsomely for. It remains to be seen whether the government will
    implement all of these recommendations and where it goes not explanations should be provided.

    Reply

  • MisterWriteNow 22/03/12 Report this comment

    You have 5 (and counting) Mahon articles running at the same time. Enough already.

    Reply

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