British businessman Norman Turner qualified for an Irish passport under the same rules as Eamon de Valera, and footballers Paul McGrath and Mick McCarthy, Taoiseach Bertie Ahern declared yesterday.
Responding to Fine Gael charges that he had acted improperly in 1994 by passing on Mr Turner's application to the Department of Foreign Affairs, Mr Ahern said Fine Gael TD Phil Hogan had charged that the issuance of the passport was "in some ways dubious, or questionable".
"The fact of the matter is that there is nothing wrong with any individual born outside the country who is of Irish parentage receiving a passport, and that is what happened in this case. In fact, it has happened in thousands of cases, and in prominent cases.
"Eamon de Valera had an Irish passport based on his mother. Erskine Childers had it on the basis of his grandparents. Paul McGrath has it on the basis of his mother, and, of course, Mick McCarthy has it on the basis of his father."
Mr Ahern said he had no memory of Mr Turner's passport being dealt with by his constituency office, but it handled three such applications a week and "in the summer it might be higher".
Speaking to journalists in Dublin Castle, he said: "This is an everyday occurrence and this is what happened in this case as well. It was routed through my office for the "drop box" system that is available for all TDs. It was used 6,000 times last year by TDs."
The Department of Foreign Affairs' file on the case shows that "no representations were made for any special treatment by Foreign Affairs from any political figure. Representations, if they had been made, would have been noted on the file".
"Obviously, I refute in the strongest terms that I can, without getting too strong about it, that the suggestion that the passport application signifies some special relationship. It is an absolute fallacy. It is common practice. One does not necessarily know the individuals involved.
"Of course I knew Norman Turner and knew of his involvement in the Sonas development but, ultimately, the decision to grant a passport is solely the responsibility of the Passport Office. It isn't the individual TD that makes the determination.
"In this case, there was absolutely nothing wrong. Norman Turner was entitled by right and his mother's birth to an Irish passport and he got it. It has nothing to do with anybody else. I refute the allegation. The issue was "put forward as a passport for sale for Norman Turner, that he was from Outer Mongolia and that [ he got the passport] because of a subscription to FF. Those are not the facts.
"Norman Turner was a child of an Irish citizen, who under our Constitution, under our laws and under our history was entitled to an Irish passport. The fact that he was a contributor to a national collection or a golf outing has absolutely nothing to do with it".
Meanwhile, Mr Ahern insisted that his decision to reverse his declaration that the Revenue would not finalise his tax affairs until after the Mahon tribunal ends was not prompted by any contact from Revenue.
"I understood from my own advisers that Revenue could not resolve this issue until the tribunal was over. That is what I took from my advisers. When I said that last week, they [ his advisers] contacted me and said that I was wrong in that. He said it was when Revenue comes to complete it. Sorry for any misunderstanding . . . I picked up from a briefing from my own adviser that Revenue couldn't complete it until the end. I thought 'the end' meant when the tribunal had reported. The 'end' he meant was when they were finished their investigation," he said.
