Category: Fianna Fail

Is there any hope?

The first question on last weeks Questions and Answers was;

“Should the Taoiseach continue in office without a tax clearance certificate?”

Irish Times columnist John Waters answered as follows;

“I think he should. I think it’s all just a game and a fairly tedious one at that. The whole basis of all this tribunalism, all this palaver is the false idea that there is some clear line of demarcation between party political donations and personal donations to a politician.

If I’m a politician and running for public office I need money to get myself elected. So if you’re offering me ten grand it really doesn’t matter to me whether its for my party , for myself as a politician or into my own pocket because at the end of the day if you don’t give it to me I’m going to have to find it from somewhere, more than likely in my own pocket.

I think we have come from a culture in which there was no line and we should agree that that line didn’t exist until now and we should now make that line.”

John Bowman: “We have made that line.”

“Yes, but now declare a line under the past, declare an amnesty on all that, accept that there was all kinds of dodgy things going on, forget about it, wrap up the tribunals and get on with real life.”

If John Waters was editor in charge of the astrology column of the Ballymagash Herald, his stupid, uninformed and naïve opinions wouldn’t matter. Unfortunately, this man writes for the most prestigious paper in the country, regularly appears on a wide section of media outlets and is, apparently, accepted as a serious journalist by a great many people.

Is there any hope?

Fine Gael: Back to the depths of spineless opposition

The Fine Gael policy of attacking Taoiseach Bertie Ahern while he was out of the country is a perfectly legitimate and intelligent political strategy.

It is certainly more legitimate than the Government’s undemocratic attempt to enforce a news blackout on the continuing scandal surrounding Ahern’s fantasy finances.

In addition to putting Ahern under more pressure to tell the truth the strategy exposed our Prime Minister on the world stage for what he is, a man of low ethical standards.

As part of their strategy, Fine Gael had indicated that they intended lodging a complaint with the Standards in Public Office Commission concerning Ahern’s tax affairs.

Such a strategy, if courageously followed through, could have had the effect of getting rid of this low grade politician and thus make Ireland a better place.

Unfortunately, Fine Gael flunked it; they dropped the strategy like a hot potato when Fianna Fail made the hilarious charge that the strategy was treasonous. Here’s what Mary O’Rourke had to say on Newstalk 106 yesterday:

“Can I say about Enda Kenny, I cannot believe that a leader of a very proud party called Fine Gael committed such a disloyal treasonous act.”

(Attacking the Taoiseach while he was abroad).

So who is Mary O’Rourke?

She’s a long time servant of Fianna Fail, the most corrupt political party in Ireland; a party that Oliver Cromwell would have been proud to serve such is its record of damage to the interests of the Irish people.

She’s a loyal supporter of Charlie Haughey, the most corrupt and disloyal politician in Irish history, a man who dumped her brother, Brian Lenihan, out of office in an effort to keep himself in power and a man who robbed a fund collected to finance an operation to save her brother’s life

She’s the politician who recently, bored with proceedings in our national parliament, skived off to do a bit of shopping. On the way she was approached by eleven desperate women who told her of the trauma they were suffering because of our Third World health system. She probable told them to eat cake.

In other words, Mary O’Rourke is a typically arrogant, incompetent and unaccountable Irish politician.

There were some signs since the election in May that Fine Gael had finally got its act together, that at last it was going to perform like a real opposition. Uncompromising attacks on the low standards and incompetence of this government made by Leo Varadkar and James Reilly gave rise to some hope that things were about to change.

Depressingly, it is not to be.

Fine Gael TD Fergus O’Dowd was on Morning Ireland (2nd item) this morning leading a full scale retreat from the high ground of political accountability back down to the depths of spineless opposition.

He point blankly refused to discuss the party’s cowardly decision to defer the complaint to SIPO concerning Ahern’s tax affairs until the Taoiseach returns to the country next week.

Copy to:

Fianna Fail
Fine Gael
Mary O’Rourke
Fergus O’Dowd

Elephant in the room

The elephant in the room.

Ahern’s tax difficulties all originate from the early 1990s.

There was an election in 2002.

Within six months of that election Ahern, by law, was required to state whether or not he was tax compliant.

If he stated he was, he has serious questions to answer.

If he stated ‘to the best of my knowledge’ I’m tax compliant and Revenue did nothing, then Revenue and Ahern have serious questions to answer.

Monitoring the media in South Africa

It’s clear that Bertie Ahern and his cohorts had a carefully devised strategy for the trip to South Africa.

No spokespersons were to be available at home and Bertie made it abundantly clear that he would not be answering any questions whatsoever about his personal finances.

In a word, the Government decided to impose a news blackout on the matter.

RTE did, however, manage to get reaction to the attacks by Enda Kenny from some Fianna Fail backbenchers (Morning Ireland, 7th item).

Laois-Offaly TD, Sean Fleming said that the attacks on Ahern were good for the morale of the Fianna Fail troops, it would galvanise them into protecting the leader.

Another TD, probably taking his lead from Ahern’s attitude to the tribunal, said that Enda Kenny should mind his own business.

Cavan Monaghan TD, Margaret Conlon spouted the usual party line drivel.

“We are united behind the Taoiseach, we have a job of work to do, let the tribunal as speedily as possible finish their work, produce the report and let’s move on.”

In an angry and impatient tone she finished:

“People are sick of this.”

Within hours of arriving in South Africa the strategy was in tatters with Ahern accusing Kenny of being a bare faced liar.

There was a curious incident when RTEs David-Davin Power was reporting from Cape Town (Morning Ireland, 7th item). Asked about the Taoiseach’s staff back in Dublin reporting on the situation back home Power replied.

“There’s one of them listening to this programme. He’s in front of me here at Cape Town on the telephone.”

The Government has always claimed that the special media monitoring unit is simply to keep it informed of what’s happening out there among the ordinary people.

It is strongly denies that the unit is used to monitor the media, at great cost to the taxpayer, so that politicians can head off potential trouble.

So why are members of this special unit in South Africa monitoring media reports?

Disturbing opinion

In a previous posting regarding Bertie Ahern’s fantasies I wrote;

“Only a fool would believe he is telling the truth and only someone from Mars would be in any doubt as to what really happened.”

Ulick McEvaddy of Omega Air is one of the richest men in Ireland and is obviously nobody’s fool when it comes to business but he is a fool when it comes to the subject of Bertie Ahern.

Here’s what he had to say on the matter during yesterday’s Marian Finucane Show.

“I worry more about the precarious state of our economy; meanwhile we’re taking the chief executive of Ireland Inc. and having him pilloried in a public session.

It’s almost as if we’re pressing a self destruct button. When Ireland needs clear leadership and clear challenges out there for our economy and what we’re doing, we’re taking our chief executive and rubbishing him.

Clearly, he’s diminished in the eyes of the world; he deals with politicians in foreign climes and instead of being credible as a prime minister, negotiating Ireland’s future he’s being diminished by those of us at home who want to take him down. I think that’s wrong for Ireland Inc.”

I can understand Ahern’s supporters and especially Fianna Fail politicians coming out time after time and telling us that black is white.

They have a long and infamous tradition of putting their own interests before that of the Irish people. We know these people, we know how dishonest they are; we know that the interests of the Irish people are way down their list of priorities.

Mc Evaddy opinion is different in that he seems to genuinely believe what he’s saying, that’s what’s really disturbing.

Getting to the point

This letter in yesterday’s Irish Independent gets right to the point.

Taoiseach gives cause for shame

Thursday January 10 2008

I am very sorry if Ms Martin (Letters, January 8) feels embarrassed at our prime minister trying to answer questions about large cash transactions that defy rational explanation.

We have a man who received an unsolicited non-repayable loan of IR£39,000, mostly in cash, to pay off legal debts which he already had taken out a bank loan to pay off.

A non-repayment loan which had no term, rate of interest, or schedule of repayments.

A non-repayment loan which he never seriously made an effort to pay back for over a decade.

A non-repayment loan which some of his close personal friends have said was a gift that they never wanted paid back.

A man who didn’t have a bank account for several years, but managed to save IR£50,000 in cash.

Who received stg£30,000 in cash to refurbish a house which he didn’t own.

Who has no explanation to how $45,000 in cash was lodged to his bank account.

Who has no memory of why he withdrew IR£50,000 in cash from his former girlfriend’s bank account.

Who has no memory of why or how he purchased stg£30,000 in cash.

All this from a man who was the Minister for Finance. A man who told the Irish people in the infamous interview with Brian Dobson that: “I know the tax law. I’m an accountant.”

Ms Martin is dead right, it is farcical and enough to make one feel ashamed of one’s roots.

JASON FITZHARRIS

SWORDS, CO DUBLIN

Ahern keeps digging

The controversy surrounding Bertie Ahern is simple. An allegation was made that he received a large amount of money from a property developer. The allegation is connected to alleged planning corruption in county Dublin.

The Mahon Tribunal is investigating these allegations and as a result called in Ahern to give his side of the story in private. If Ahern had given a reasonable explanation for the large amounts of cash he had received at the time there would have been no problem.

No more questions would have been asked, no further investigation and no details of Ahern’s private life would have become public.

Ahern’s explanations were not acceptable to the tribunal and this resulted in him appearing in public session to explain his finances

Polls have indicated that a majority of Irish people do not believe Ahern’s explanations either. They are fantastic, contradictory and details often change depending on what questions are being asked.

Everything else surrounding the scandal, his exploitation of his family to elicit sympathy, his ruthless and systematic attack on the tribunal, his constant attack on the media, his angry charge that the matter is none of our business, all this bluster, all this hot air is peripheral to the core of the matter – Ahern cannot give a believable explanation for the source of large amounts of accepted cash.

The suspicion is that Ahern did accept money from property developers and others and is now desperately trying to cover up. The more he ‘explains’ the deeper the hole gets.

He was on This Week today attempting to explain the tax difficulties that have arisen in connection with his various ‘dig outs’ and ‘gifts’.

Essentially, he is claiming that the large amounts of money that he accepted when he was Minister for Finance and for which he is unable to provide a credible explanation and for which there are still outstanding tax implications, should be a private and confidential matter between himself and Revenue.

My understanding of his tax problems is: He received large amounts of cash in the early 1990s on which there are outstanding tax implications. If this is the case then he has been in breach of tax regulations for all his time as Taoiseach.

He stated on This Week that he was tax compliant for the 2002 election. It’s difficult to see how this claim could be true if his problems originated in the early 1990s.

Perhaps it’s time for a formal complaint to the Standards in Public Office Commission.

Taxing matters

Labour Party leader, Eamon Gilmore was interviewed by RTEs Aine Lawlor (1st item) on the serious questions surrounding Bertie Ahern’s tax affairs.

Here’s an extract:

Gilmore:

“It is now in the public domain. I suppose the argument could be made that correspondence between him and his tax advisors and the Revenue Commissioners shouldn’t be in the public domain.”

Aine Lawlor:

“Well, it’s more than an argument, it’s a fact. An individual’s tax affairs are supposed to be private.”

Gilmore:

“Absolutely, correspondence between an individual and the Revenue Commissioners should not be published, no doubt at all about that.”

The Minister for Education, Mary Hanifin, was equally adamant on the matter (RTE Six One News, 4th item).

“The Taoiseach’s tax affairs are a private matter between him and the Revenue Commissioners.”

An article on the controversy by Senan Molony of the Irish Independent began:

“FIANNA FAIL sources are apoplectic with fury at the disclosure of his private correspondence with the Revenue Commissioners.”

I genuinely believe that I’m missing something here. All these people are speaking as if Bertie Ahern was an ordinary private citizen who was the victim of a malicious leak about his private tax affairs.

They seem to be totally unaware that he is the most powerful politician in the country; that he has failed to answer very serious questions about his acceptance of large sums of money from questionable sources and that he has, by his own admission, yet to fully deal with the matter from a taxation point of view.

Defending Bertie Ahern

“Chaos and confusion is being created willfully and wrongly by the most senior and powerful figures in the State.”

The above quote is how Bruce Arnold sums up his article on the reaction of some Government ministers to the latest developments at the Mahon Tribunal. His views are largely in line with my own (See previous two posts).

Ireland is the only country in the Western world where Government ministers could launch a cynical and dishonest attack on the very foundations of the State in an effort to defend a politician who received vast sums of cash from wealthy businessmen.