Bev says she has nothing to be sorry about
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CONTROVERSIAL TD Beverley Flynn said yesterday that she doesn't believe she has anything to apologise for - despite encouraging tax evasion as a bank official and taking a failed libel action against RTE.
The High Court is expected to be told next week that the Independent TD has agreed to pay RTE €1.225m in full and final settlement of her legal costs from the case.
That's less than 50pc of the €2.8m RTE had sought from Ms Flynn, who had argued inability to pay such a sum.
The Mayo TD said the settlement will take her income for the rest of her working life and she has had to "borrow extensively" to pay it.
RTE had brought bankruptcy proceedings against the TD over her failure to pay any of the legal costs arising from her unsuccessful libel action.
When asked yesterday by RTE's Sean O'Rourke whether she had anything to apologise for, Ms Flynn said she believed she didn't.
"I don't believe I have," she said.
"I have fought 100pc for what I believe in. I have put everything I have personally on the line to defend that particular position," she added.
Ms Flynn took her 28-day High Court action against the station, Charlie Bird and farmer James Howard over claims she assisted clients of National Irish Bank, for which she had worked, to evade tax.
Her appeal to the Supreme Court against that decision also failed. Ms Flynn said she fought the case "with everything available to me" over a 10-year period "because I believed in it 100pc".
Position
The TD said she believed she had always been the person "singled out" in terms of banking in this country. "Everybody knows my position as a member of the bank. I worked for the bank and I feel to be quite honest with you, maybe over the years, that I have been singled out and in some ways scapegoated for what, in effect, was bank policy.
"I never believed I did anything wrong. I have always believed that I have worked within the law. I fought that case because I 100pc believe it and that is the position," she said.
Ms Flynn also rejected suggestions she was using her Constitutional challenge to the law stating a TD cannot be bankrupt as an opportunity to walk away from the debt and to continue in the Dail.
"I would like to clarify that, that, in fact, was not what I was about at all. The reason I sought the constitutional challenge was that I would be able to keep a job, protect an income for myself so that I would actually be in a position to pay off the rest of my responsibility, even if that took the rest of my life," she said.
Ms Flynn also said it was unfairly suggested she might seek the assistance of her parents or her partner to pay the debt.
"I have funded myself entirely as most people do. I have always been an extremely independent person. I suppose, the difficulty for me even at this stage on a personal level is that I find myself now where my entire income for the rest of my life is going to be caught up in paying this," she said.
Responding to the Taoiseach's suggestion she could return to Fianna Fail and possibly become a Junior Minister once her legal and financial difficulties were resolved, Ms Flynn said Bertie Ahern was extremely fair in their talks about supporting the coalition.
Background
"I come from a Fianna Fail background, my political philosophy has always been Fianna Fail and the reality is, I would love indeed to be back within the Fianna Fail party," she said.
The settlement isexpected to be announced before Ms Justice Elizabeth Dunne on Monday next when bankruptcy proceedings brought by RTE are listed before the judge in court.
- Fionnan Sheahan
