Bertie Ahern. (1 Viewer)

[Janer]

Surprised nothing was posted here about the last week or so...maybe yas already know he's as corrupt as fuck.
During the week some of the mind numbingly excuses were pathetic and now this...
http://www.independent.ie/national-...-aunts-and-the-pound30000-digout-1296203.html

 

[Corey]

Janer.

C'mon.










Shut Up.

 

[plug]

ah, sure bertie, ara, he's a great man. leave him alone. signed, the general public.

thanks a lot guys!

 

[Janer]

Corey

C'mon.










Shut Up.

Fixed..|..|

 

[Janer]

TAOISEACH Bertie Ahern's former girlfriend Celia Larkin got a IR£30,000 'loan' from Fianna Fail 15 years ago to help her elderly aunts buy a house.
But she did not pay a penny back until recent weeks when she fully repaid the debt with interest.

 

[jane]

I'm waiting for some androgynous Ógra Fianna Fáil enthusiast to make a "Leave Bertie Alone!" video for You Tube.

 

[ernesto]

gr8 tred dood

 

[Janer]

Are you referring to "Everybody knows this" retort? That still doesn't make it alright though.......Better to voice disquiet. He is my local TD FFS!!!!

 

[jane]

I'm a bit flabbergasted by, one, how much they are spending on tribunals when they don't actually result in any concrete penalties, and given that so much of this is already known, outing Bertie as corrupt in a tribunal just seems like a waste. If he hadn't been forced out of office by now, the tribunals aren't going to convince anyone. And, two, the fact that he is still the fricking taoiseach.

Are people so desensitised to corruption that they don't care? I don't actually care that much about him taking money off his mates, but when they get to the thing about him giving party money to his girlfriend,that's a bit much for me.


Ah, FUCK, this is the second time we've agreed this week.

Quick, someone post a picture of Ian Paisley and Martin McGuinness.

 

[classic seanc]

I'm actually worried that next time I'm down home in my local, I'll come to blows with somebody if I point out anything about FF.

 

[jane]

I'm actually worried that next time I'm down home in my local, I'll come to blows with somebody if I point out anything about FF.

Jaysus. It's just insane.

I can't really imagine how any of the Fianna Failers can still be standing behind him. Where are you from again, Classic seanc?

What also really worries me is the way the Mary Harney At The Super Bowl just dropped off the radar. The story was only covered really because she missed a Dail debate on cystic fibrosis. The real fucking story is, well, what the fuck was she doing meeting with health care pricks in the US? And also, I'm wondering who gave her those tickets? Because if she were a US politician, taking them would be hugely illegal if they came from a private individual with any interest at all in the health industry -- I imagine it's the same here.

Check this out, the Arizona description of what she was doing there:

http://www.azcapitoltimes.com/story.cfm?id=8090

The Irish official, Mary Harney, was in Arizona to view firsthand the state’s health care practitioners and educators, taking in tours of Mayo Clinic and A.T. Still University, and speaking with leaders in the industry as part of a fact-finding mission in advance of revamping Ireland’s health care system.

Visiting private hospitals and meeting with 'leaders in the industry'? What the fuck is she doing taking advice from a health system that is beyond broken?

You should also note that the article has some light comic relief:

After dining with the governor, Harney ambled to the restaurant’s bar, her stormy blue eyes a perfect match for the weather just outside the window that was creating puddles on the tables and chairs on the patio.

Anyway, sorry to hijack the thread here. I just don't understand why there isn't more worried chatter about what Mary is doing finding facts in the US. I hardly believe she was looking for mistakes she could avoid repeating.

 

[IFF]

I'm waiting for some androgynous Ógra Fianna Fáil enthusiast to make a "Leave Bertie Alone!" video for You Tube.

i heard the androgynous community has completely disowned the androgynous ogra finna fail members from their community

not that i know anyone in the androgynous community so my source is probably as accurate as the source a certain sunday newspaper will use in their tomorrow mornings "Bertie is great. everyone else is a treasonous *******" front page headline

but let me get my head round this situation. Fianna Fail gave a loan to Larkin from party funds in order to buy a house for her aunts? and no one in FF sees this as being wrong or improprer? What is wrong with Fianna Fail

 

[jane]

i heard the androgynous community has completely disowned the androgynous ogra finna fail members from their community

not that i know anyone in the androgynous community so my source is probably as accurate as the source a certain sunday newspaper will use in their tomorrow mornings "Bertie is great. everyone else is a treasonous *******" front page headline

but let me get my head round this situation. Fianna Fail gave a loan to Larkin from party funds in order to buy a house for her aunts? and no one in FF sees this as being wrong or improprer? What is wrong with Fianna Fail

Wouldn't it be easier to ask what's NOT wrong with Fianna Fail? It would be a much shorter list.

I suppose you're right about the androgynous ogra fianna fail. I mean, they have a greater proportion of human-animal hybrids than other parties. Dual gender identity is small potatoes when you've got and invite to join Brian Cowen digging for truffles.

 

[classic seanc]

Jaysus. It's just insane.

I can't really imagine how any of the Fianna Failers can still be standing behind him. Where are you from again, Classic seanc?

Roscommon. I don't quiet understand the attitude though. There's no big independance/civil war history or anything like that round my way that would explain people's blind devotion.
There is the thing that last time FG were in government they fucked everything up, and so FF are a "safe pair of hands". Or at least that's how people see it. But that doesn't actually make any sense.
Also a lot of people are anti "Them fucking Greens".


It's very disappointing when I'm home and I talk about this stuff. I don't believe that it's apathy. It's just that people don't put the pieces together or something. I dunno.

Also, I never hear any substantial political debate on the local radio. I don't know why, when Newstalk was a local station they were all over that shit.

I tried *really* hard not to rant. You should have seen what I originally wrote! Also, I don't want to sound like I know better than them country folk or anything like that. I don't. I just don't understand the blind devotion at all.

 

[jane]

It's very disappointing when I'm home and I talk about this stuff. I don't believe that it's apathy. It's just that people don't put the pieces together or something. I dunno.

Also, I never hear any substantial political debate on the local radio. I don't know why, when Newstalk was a local station they were all over that shit.

I tried *really* hard not to rant. You should have seen what I originally wrote! Also, I don't want to sound like I know better than them country folk or anything like that. I don't. I just don't understand the blind devotion at all.

What a lot of people have is something worse than apathy: denial. Apathy is a more relaxed state, and I think people can be roused from apathy with a minimum of trauma. It does tend to be something enraging that rouses them, but it's kind of a healthy anger. Denial, though, that's a different animal. That's really fucking traumatic to come out of, and that's what is keeping FF in power for so long, and no tribunals, no hard evidence rubbed in their faces -- nothing -- is going to pull them out of it until there is a direct and undeniable result on a personal level. Like they lose their houses as a direct result of their local Fianna Fail TD. And even then, it's not a sure bet.

I remember my old flatmate went home to her folks' house so they could decide (read: be told) how to vote. I couldn't believe it.

But it's easier to follow tradition than to learn anything, and it's easier to be in denial of reality than to acknowledge that it's fucked. Because acknowledging that it's fucked means having to think and do work and try and be angry and shit, and that's too much trouble.

Like, what the fuck is Bertie's Minister for Health doing meeting with people from private health care industries if she's not planning on totally privatising the health system? Fucking hell, the US is trying to go back in the other direction because private health care has fucking ruined the place.

Dude, you don't have to apologise to me for almost ranting, or for ranting for real. Being angry is the fucked up consequence of acknowledging reality.

So yeah, Bertie went on the telly and responded to the 30k for the aul wans' house with something like, "The constituency didn't need the money back right away. If they had asked, they could have got it, they would have given it back. That money was used to help someone in an emergency." Fucking hell.

I really didn't see any point in people overreacting about the money his mates gave him because, in the context of the state of the country, I'm less worried about that than about the transport system, the health system, schools, etc. But this is just too far.

EDIT: By the way, I didn't think he should be let off the hook for the other stuff, just that the real concerns are what state the country is in, and the direction things are going, and that should be the focus. AND there should be accountability. The tribunals are just stupid show-trials and I don't see the fucking point of spending so much money to pretend to hold the leadership accountable when that money could be spent on, I dunno, people not dying of cancer because they can't get treatment?

 

[Janer]

I'm actually worried that next time I'm down home in my local, I'll come to blows with somebody if I point out anything about FF.

See that is the problem, In most of the country people are very much entrenched in their parties support, why we have all these family dynasties too.
I bet some seats in the west of Ireland have never changed hands!!!!

 

[jane]

See that is the problem, In most of the country people are very much entrenched in their parties support, why we have all these family dynasties too.
I bet some seats in the west of Ireland have never changed hands!!!!

It wasn't until after the last election that I really started to grasp that about rural Ireland, and yeah, especially in the west. When the Irish Times had a supplement showing all the candidates and their bios, and once all together in the one document, it was pretty fucking staggering. It started to dawn on me that people vote for their politician time after time because they are the TD family, much like the local butcher, the hardware store, etc. It's fucked up.

The thing is, I imagine Fine Gael, for one, doesn't want to point this out because it may be the only reason some of them still have seats at all. It's not civil war lines anymore, it's that you just don't put your local political family out of business -- after all, what would they do? They'd have to collect the dole or go on a FAS course or something.

And there must be so many wink-and-nod local allegiances that keep something in it for the voters. It isn't a matter of who runs the country, it's who is going to make sure they get planning permission for their son or daughter's bungalow on the back field. Then they go and bitch about how Fianna Fail are wrecking the countryside and totally fail to make the connection.

Complete denial of what it means on a national level when they vote for yer man down the road.

Marian Finucane has a piece on it now. One anonymous FF person told another FF person that they're only keeping Bertie in because they know they're going to do badly in the local and European elections and they want him to take the blame. But I don't believe that at all. They probably will do very well.

Thing is, though, if Bertie resigns, who takes over? Would it get any better? They're probably corrupt from the ground up. Not defending his continuing leadership, just wondering if people are really going to be ready to accept the depth of corruption and cronyism.

 

[Unicron]

Thing is, though, if Bertie resigns, who takes over? Would it get any better? They're probably corrupt from the ground up. Not defending his continuing leadership, just wondering if people are really going to be ready to accept the depth of corruption and cronyism.

Bertie, asshole that he is is personable. Biffo certainly isn't and he's probably the most likely successor, I think that's a big worry for Fianna Fail. I reckon there is a wing of the party that hopes he can ride it out but I'd say there's more that have daggers sharpened ready to do him when the time is right.

 

[Janer]

Not a fan of Biffo but I'm fairly sure he is far removed from the corrupt side of yesteryears FF...then again I prob said that about the young fresh faced Bertie when CJ was about to hang up power!

 

[ernesto]

we are still such a young country.
it will be a good few years yet before the FF voters finally cop on that Corruption isnt doing us any favours.