Meanwhile, Minister for Foreign Affairs Dermot Ahern, who delivered the most robust defence yet of the Taoiseach yet during a visit to Belfast on Wednesday, insisted yesterday that “Charles Haughey was a great politician”.
Asked if Mr Haughey had not been shown to be corrupt, Mr Ahern, following a meeting with Northern Ireland Secretary of State Shaun Woodward said: “No, he wasn’t.”
By those standards, Ahern is an angel.
Are these guys even on the same planet as the rest of us? If Ahern is saying Haughey of all people was not corrupt, then he has just wiped the slate clean for every politician in the history of the State, since no one was more corrupt than Haughey.
I really am sick of this shit. It’s time for Ahern, actually both Aherns, to resign.
The tribunal will be required to ascertain whether there were substantial payments, who the donors were, how much was involved, when they were made, whether any of the controversial decisions were made at that time involving that donor and whether, as a consequence, the tribunal believes that either Mr. Haughey or Deputy Lowry did any act or made any decision to confer any benefit on that specific donor in respect of that particular transaction.
Deputy Spring has raised the issue of the party leader’s allowance during Fianna Fáil’s period in Opposition. In so far as I could with little available records I am satisfied, having spoken to the person who administered the account, that it was used for bona fide party purposes, that the cheques were prepared by that person and countersigned by another senior party member. Their purpose was to finance personnel, press and other normal supports for an Opposition leader. There was no surplus and no misappropriation. The person involved had sole control of the account. The money came in, the person lodged the cheque, dealt with the bills and invoices and paid those not covered by the ordinary allowance. The account as far as her excellent recollection goes was normally short, not the other way around. I have spoken to her at some length. She has served many Taoisigh beginning with Mr. Jack Lynch. We consider her to be totally honourable.
That senior party member was one Bertie Ahern.
Of course we now know that none of this is true. Haughey used taxpayers money for his own benefit. And somehow, Ahern never knew.
Since the line being given by Fianna Fail is that we should await the report of the Tribunal, let us cast our minds back to 2002, and the publication of the Tribunal’s Second Interim Report. The report dealt with the first five years of its investigations, from 1997 to 2002. During that time it investigated the Gogarty Module, the Century Radio Module and the Brennan/McGowan module.
The report can be read in full at the Mahon Tribunal wiki.
It is interesting to watch the reaction to the report. First, let’s look at a report on Ahern’s dealings with the corrupt Ray Burke, and what Ahern did or didn’t know about Burke taking €2.25m in bribes during his 30 years of political life. This is from PrimeTime, September 29, 2002.
Ahern has yet to really answer those questions. Almost six years later.
Next, let’s look at the panel discussion. In it, Mary Hanafin is challenged by Mark Little on the veracity of Ahern’s statements – sounds familiar. John Gormley hits the nail on the head during the discussion, but clearly he has lost his mojo since 2002. “That was then and this is now,” he might say. Coincidentally the discussion revolves around taking a £30,000 cash donation – also sounds familiar. Joan Burton is succinct also, but I’ve edited her out for now because the video is too long for YouTube.
PJ Mara is also mentioned – a guy who was Director of Elections again last year, despite having forgotten to tell the Tribunal of an offshore bank account, and failing to cooperate with the Tribunal. Oh and then there was that little matter of Mara getting a ‘digout’ from briber Oliver Barry and one Dermot Desmond during the 1980s. Poor Mara fell on hard times – sounds familiar. I suppose we could call it the Mara defence.
We have to ask ourselves, what was done following the publication of the Second Interim Report. Who was prosecuted? Who resigned? What was the reaction? If the answer is ‘feck all’, then what can we expected after the publication of the next report?
And what of Ahern himself? Fast forward to 2003. It is not the first time he has made contradictory statements, or misled the public. A year later he is dealing with the tax evasion of Michael Collins TD – and that thorny issue of tax clearance certificates is again raised. Oh and then there was Denis Foley, the other FF TD tax evader. And Ray Burke, the corrupt politician. So many contradictory statements, so little time.
PrimeTime goes through them on September 30, 2003:
On a trip to New York, Ahern said: “I can’t recall any member of the Fianna Fail parliamentary party not having a tax clearance certificate.” Is that so, Mr Ahern?
A feature on the recent cable cuts in the Middle East penned by me is in today’s Examiner. Go read it, if you get the chance. There’s also a nice map of undersea cables to go with the story.
More stories spun. I don’t have time to look into his evidence in detail, but I will. Things to note:
1. He didn’t pay taxes that he should have – tax evasion?
2. As P O’Neill notes, why did he get cheques from family and cash from friends?
3. St Luke’s rears its ugly head again.
Bertie Ahern: Taoiseach and Peacemaker” by Ken Whelan and Eugene Masterson is proving to be a very badly written book.
To finance the purchase, they [Kett and Kiely] brought together 25 local well-to-do supporters who pledged £1,000 each, with further contributions over a five year period. This was sufficient to put together a mortgage for the house with the repayments paid through the constituency organisation’s own bank.
The purchase price in the mid-80’s was £57,000. The house was assigned to a group of five trustees – again, not party activists – who for legal purposes vested the property in the Dublin Central Fianna Fail organisation. The senior TD was Bertie Ahern and St Luke’s effectively became his headquarters.
..
When the purchase of St Luke’s was closed it became obvious to all and sundry that the house needed serious refurbishment as there was a foundation crack in the structure. This was costed at a further £50,000 and, when approved by the trustees, the work took over a year and half to complete.
Some of the original contributors dropped out over the following few years or simply made occasional donations to the mortgage on St Luke’s. This shortfall on the purchase and redevelopment of St Luke’s combined with the salaries of the full-time constituency workers there together with sundry expenses, were causing serious headaches and making huge inroads into Ahern’s private time, until Des Richardson arrived and restructured the fund-raising requirements of Dublin Central through his annual Royal Hospital Dinner.
But no. At Q.54 Ahern says “I wouldnt have considered him one of the organisers of that function.”
At Q.413, Ahern goes into a lenghty description of St Luke’s history. He says they spent £200,000. €47,000 is still sitting in an account intended for St Luke’s.
At Q 440, Ahern gives more detail. saying it cost 89,000 for the renovations. He says the mortgage is currently 75,000, and the constituency has 90,000 including the 47,000.
How long have Fianna Fail hacks been texting into RTE news programmes in an orchestrated bid to make people believe the Irish people are bored of the Ahern story?
I don’t know about you, but every time I checked the Irish Times or Irish Independent website over the last number of weeks, stories relating to Ahern have ranked at least in the top three most read, if not usually the most read story of the day.
I have noticed that in increasing numbers comments supporting the Taoiseach and critcising the media have become far more common. What is going on?
