There has been very little reaction to the attempt by former foreign affairs minister David Andrews to auction off his copy of the Good Friday Agreement.
The media just reported the facts surrounding the grubby affair and left it at that.
Apparently, nobody wants to delve too deeply into why Mr. Andrews would want to sell this item.
There are, I believe, two possible reasons. Andrews may have been impoverished by the collapse of the economy and is desperately trying to make a couple of bob or his innate Fianna Fail gombeen greed got the better of him.
Whatever the reason his dishonest reaction to the revelation needs to be challenged.
In a typically arrogant response Andrews claimed that the whole affair was a misjudgement and, again in a typically arrogant manner told everybody to feck off, that he was making no further comment.
Well, I don’t believe Andrews’ claim that it was a misjudgement.
Unless he’s a complete idiot, and that is, of course, a possibility, he must have known that the public sale of such a document would attract critical comment.
That’s why the auctioneers charged with selling the document were sworn to secrecy in relation to the identity of the document’s owner.
So not only was this a typical case of arrogance and greed but we can add stupidity as well.
It apparently never occurred to Andrews that any half competent journalist, by the simple process of elimination, could identify him as the seller by simply checking with each member of the very small group of individuals in possession of this unique copy of the Good Friday Agreement
Or perhaps this did occur to Andrews but he was hoping that the public auction of a major historical document would go unnoticed.
Now that’s stupid.