Irish PM fails to silence critics over loans

DUBLIN, Sep 27 (Reuters) Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern failed to silence criticism today over payments he received as finance minister 13 years ago despite having bowed to pressure to explain by giving a television interview.

Questions over the money, which Mr Ahern described in Tuesday's interview on national television as loans from friends, dominated the first session of parliament today as parties gear up for a general election next year.

Stopping short of calling for his resignation, Enda Kenny, leader of the main opposition party Fine Gael, demanded Mr Ahern explain how he could apply ''a different standard to everyone else than you apply to yourself''.

''Are you prepared to admit that the acceptance of 50,000 (euro equivalent) in cash donations by you was wrong,'' he asked.

However, Mr Ahern maintained -- as he has done since details of the payments emerged last week -- that he did nothing wrong by accepting money to help him meet costs incurred while he separated from his wife.

''I have served this state honestly and I defy anyone to prove otherwise,'' Mr Ahern told parliament.

Earlier Kenny said Ahern needed to explain how his acceptance of cash donations from friends was different to that of other ministers -- including former premier Charles Haughey -- who were punished for accepting payments.

Last year minister of state at the Department of Transport, Ivor Callely, quit his cabinet post after local media reported that one of the country's biggest construction companies paid for work carried out at his home in the early 1990s.

The premiership of three-times prime minister Haughey was dogged by scandal. In 2003, he agreed to pay taxes and penalties on more than 10 million euros he received in secret payments from businessmen while in office.

NO REPAYMENT Mr Ahern told public broadcaster RTE on Tuesday he received two payments totalling 39,000 Irish pounds (49,520 euros) from two different groups of friends in 1993 and 1994 and that he viewed these as loans which he would repay with interest.

However, he said he had not yet repaid either the money or any interest because the donors, whom he named in the interview, refused to take it.

The interview came after opposition parties demanded Ahern issue a full statement following a newspaper report last week that contained leaked information on the loans, forcing Ahern to confirm he was being investigated in an anti-corruption probe.

''My advice is I've broken absolutely no codes, ethical, tax, legal or otherwise,'' he said in the interview.

Opposition parties disagreed.

''If money given to Mr Ahern remains unpaid after 13 years and in respect of which no interest was ever paid either, then it can only be regarded as a gift, and a gift that in all probability would have been liable to tax,'' Labour Party leader Pat Rabbitte said.

''Mr Ahern was unclear about any benefits conferred on his benefactors, but we know that a number of them were subsequently appointed to important positions on state boards,'' he added.

The tribunal investigating the payments is one of a number of inquiries into corruption, several of which centred around the premiership of Haughey in whose cabinet Mr Ahern served.

REUTERS BDP RK2302