Category: Bertie Ahern

O'Malley's view

Letter in yesterday’s Irish Times

Sir,

Noel Whelan (Opinion, March 24th) suggested expelling Bertie Ahern was of a different order to the expulsions of Neil Blaney in 1972 and of me in 1985, because in this case the party is expelling a former leader.

He is wrong.

Blaney’s and my expulsions, both for “conduct unbecoming” a member of the party, were about the future direction of Fianna Fáil.

In 1972 the party chose constitutional republicanism over ethnic bigotry, and in 1985 Fianna Fáil chose corruption and personal aggrandisement over basic ethical standards. Those expulsions mattered.

Expelling Bertie Ahern was an attempt at damage limitation and to re-cast the party’s position on past events.

But Ahern epitomised the Fianna Fáil approach to politics since Haughey took over the party’s leadership.

It will take more than his expulsion to rid the party of the stain with which successive leaders and senior members have tarnished it.

Yours, etc

Desmond O’Malley

Ahern: Acting exclusively in his own self interest

The banner headline on The Sunday Times reads:

Ahern quits Fianna Fail over Mahon.

Wrong: Ahern is not quitting because the Tribunal found he’s a liar but for purely selfish reasons; as he says himself.

My resignation is not an admission of wrongdoing in regard to the report of the Mahon Tribunal and nobody should try to interpret like that.

Ahern is quitting because he knows it’s better to resign than be kicked out.

In other words, he’s doing what all Irish politicians do – acting exclusively in his own interest.

Corcoran's twisted logic

According to Bertie Ahern’s greatest fan, Jody Corcoran, the former Taoiseach was not guilty of being untruthful but merely of telling half-truths.

And, apparently, those half-truths were told because Ahern was suffering the trauma of a marriage break down.

If you have absolutely nothing better to do I would recommend reading Corcoran’s rubbish as an example of how reality can be twisted out of all recognition by those who support scumbags like Ahern.

Bertie Ahern is a liar

If Ireland was a functional democracy Bertie Ahern, Padraig Flynn and many others named in the Mahon Tribunal Report would have been arrested immediately and placed under police investigation.

Bertie Ahern lied under oath. In functional democracies this is perjury and is treated as a very serious crime. In Ireland perjury is only a serious crime for citizens who do not enjoy the benefits of power and influence.

Over the last three decades or so politicians, senior civil servants, gardai, solicitors, bankers, property developers and a whole host of other individuals from the so called professional classes have lied under oath.

They have committed the crime of perjury in the full knowledge and confidence that no state authority will act against them. No member of the ruling elite of Ireland has ever been charged with the crime of perjury.

Bertie Ahern will never face such a charge because our corrupt political/administrative system will ensure that he is protected from any such charge.

It is also obvious from reading the Mahon Report that many other witnesses committed the crime of perjury. None of them will be charged not just because they are untouchables but becasue any charge of perjury against anybody could force the state to act similarly against liars like Bertie Ahern.

Where was the great Bertie?

I’m shocked I tell ya, shocked and outraged.

I watched most of the Presidential inauguration and not once, among the great and the good, did I see Bertie the national patriot.

Cowen was there in all his glory look bravely composed with not a drop of alcohol to be seen.

But Bertie, poor Bertie after all he’s done for the country. Was it a petulant RTE, determined to ignore the great man?

Was it Bertie’s natural shyness and personal sense of generosity that kept him in the shadows fearing he might intrude on Michael Ds big day?

Hold it…just hot off the press. The great patriot is in the Congo advising its people on how best to manage an economy.

What a man, what an operator, never tires of selflessly helping the downtrodden.

Ahern's cronies speak out

Royston Brady and Joe Tierney, two former cronies of Bertie Ahern, were on the radio today gleefully (and deservedly) stabbing the traitor in the back.

Brady: To be quite honest I couldn’t have been happier that I was out of it from 2004 because the further away the better from all that kind of toxicity.

Tierney: I’m a Fianna Fail activist all my life and from the very beginning Bertie Ahern’s attitude to politics in Dublin Central was not what Fianna Fail stood for.

Bertie Ahern stood for himself…everything he did he did with a motive, for himself; he never did anything for Fianna Fail.

Fianna Fail owes nothing to Bertie Ahern but Bertie Ahern owes everything to Fianna Fail.

Notice that there’s no mention of Ireland and its people here, just bitterness for what Fianna Fail lost.

The traitor Ahern is being interviewed by Mike Murphy tonight, should be interesting.

Birthday Bertie – the people's hero

Ah, poor Bertie, he’s upset by how his 60th birthday celebrations have been portrayed in a negative light.

Bertie’s son in law, Westlife star Nicky Byrne, made an emotional defence of his ‘hard done by’ father in law.

It’s hard for him to watch and read this sort of thing.

It’s hard for him to be in a position now, where he is not at a level to defend himself because he is not in public office any more.

95pc of the public knew his father-in-law was a good guy.

95% – my goodness, that is impressive.

Or could it be that young Nicky is labouring under the same delusion as that of Mrs. Haughey, wife of the criminal and traitor Charlie Haughey, when she said

Everybody hates Charlie Haughey except the people.

There are none so stupid as those who believe Bertie Ahern

My brother mentioned to me the other day that Mary O’Rourke hosted last week’s Tonight with Vincent Browne while Browne was on holiday.

Yeah, right, said I, pull the other one.

But is was true and not only that but on the first night the nation was ‘treated’ to the ordeal of watching Bertie Ahern and Martin Mansergh waffle on about their involvement in something called the Peace Process connected to some long drawn out dirty war fought out on an obscure island somewhere on the remote edge of Europe.

Events in our pathetic banana republic become more surreal by the day.

Here we have O’Rourke, Ahern and Mansergh, three senior members of the most corrupt political party in the country, the party principally responsible for the destruction of our country, given open and unsupervised access to a television studio to waffle on about their so called great work on behalf of the nation.

But it seems that these obnoxious individuals are not without some support.

It appears that even now, after all that has happened, there are still some extremely stupid people out there who believe that scumbags like Bertie Ahern are men of honour.

One such idiot is some guy called John-Paul McCarthy.

Writing in today’s Sunday Independent this fool who, unbelievably, holds a doctorate in history from Oxford, thinks that Bertie Ahern will most likely be regarded as the most progressive Fianna Fail Taoiseach since Jack Lynch.

Here’s some of what the idiot had to say in defence of Bertie the scumbag.

Judge Mahon found easy prey when confronted by the chaotic private life of a man recovering from a traumatic separation. (And while his findings conjured up a media tsunami large enough to force a popular Taoiseach into retirement, Ahern’s eccentric personal book-keeping seems almost comically serene when compared to the endemic dishonesty in the banking world.)

After that, the Lehman Brothers collapse and the implosion of his handpicked successor finished off what was left of Ahern’s reputation.

The fact that McCarthy actually believes Ahern’s lies immediately confirms him as a first class moron.

Even the most ignorant, bog trotting, backwoodsmen members of the Fianna Fail party now take everything Ahern says with a large grain of salt.

McCarthy’s defence of Ahern can be summed up as follows.

Judge Mahon and his tribunal were out to get Ahern.

The media were out to get Ahern.

Ahern was confused (for years) because his marriage broke up.

The dishonesty of the banks was worse therefore Ahern is innocent.

Lehman Brothers were to blame. Fecking hell, is there no limit to this moron’s stupidity?

Brian Cowen’s failures were to blame.

There’s some truth in this in so far as the drunken buffoon who succeeded Ahern was so chronically incompetent, even by the extremely low standards of Fianna Fail.

McCarthy tells us that the programme was worth watching because of the genial, even playful, interaction between Bertie Ahern and David Trimble.

I could only manage the first ten minutes or so before beginning to retch.

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McCarthy