Thanks to the Sindo we have this from a Fine Gael spokesman:
Mr Kenny’s spokesman yesterday said that when Mr Kenny had questioned the Taoiseach about whether any members of the Cabinet were involved in facilitating the so-called ‘Golden Circle’ he did not have a specific individual minister in mind.
He added, however, that it was “not credible” that the Government had no knowledge of controversial transactions involving Anglo Irish Bank, stating that the Taoiseach, when he was Finance Minister, had a private dinner with the board of Anglo Irish Bank “three days” before the media first wrote about the possible existence of what has now come to be known as the ‘Golden Circle’.
I might have missed it before, but I’ve not seen “three days” mentioned before, certainly not in previous articles I’ve linked to on this subject. If the Fine Gael spokesperson is correct, then it would mean the meeting reported by Shane Ross on April 27 and the now confirmed private dinner between Anglo executives and Brian Cowen, occurred on the same day, April 24. Perhaps the lads never mentioned it to Cowen?
Another gem, in typical Sindo style, is confirmation that Noel Dempsey and Brendan Smith met Sean Quinn in December 2007. The story is full of nonsense and it tries to disguise the importance of the meeting by throwing lots of red herrings into the mix. The critical part of the story is what Corcoran tries to dismiss – that two ministers met Quinn in December.
A very minor point about that article is that twice in it, Jody Corcoran refers to denials from Enda Kenny that he was referring to that meeting which Jody states as taking place in December 1997. Which is fully a decade before the meeting that Dempsey was talking about. We can all make mistakes but it is noteworthy that a piece that is all about dates and denials and who said exactly what about whom and when, can’t even get basic dates right. So much for the DTP.