Time for Ganley to come clean
Issued : Wednesday 22 October, 2008
Statement by Joe Costello TD
Minister of State at the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade with responsibility for Trade and Development
Today's report in the Irish Times indicating that the Irish subsidiary of Declan Ganley's Rivada Networks has been forced to file a new set of accounts for 2007 correcting a significant falsehood in the original set, is a clear indication that Declan Ganley has not been telling the full truth.
This story further damages whatever credibility Declan Ganley has. It now time for him to come clean and to divulge in full, precisely what his various financial interests are and where his Libertas donations for the Lisbon Treaty actually came from.
We have continuously looked for transparency from Mr Ganley, from Libertas and from his business, Rivada Networks, but it has not been forthcoming.
Libertas has failed to make a public declaration as to what the precise financial relationship between Rivada and Libertas is, nor has Libertas declared any details about donations and loans they received for their costly referendum campaign.
Until Mr Ganley comes clean on his business links, details his Lisbon Treaty expenditure and the source of his donations, clarifies the conditions and origins of the €200,000 personal loan that came to light recently and explains why his business and political employees overlap, there remains the appalling vista that the most sacred power in Irish democracy, namely the Citizens' right to change their Constitution can be usurped by a single wealthy businessman with a foreign subversive agenda.
Mr Ganley's close business connections with the US military, the absence of business activities in Ireland, his sudden arrival on the Irish political scene, his expenditure of vast sums of money to defeat the Lisbon Treaty, his refusal to reveal the source of his spending and the fact that many of the principals in his US Rivada Networks business company are the same as the principals in his Irish political Libertas organisation - all raise questions that need to be answered.
