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Bertie Ahern. (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter Janer
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President in 2011 if Mahon can't make anything stick?
the strange guy
I LOVE ALLAH YOUSE
Ah lads, he was deadly.
Bertie made me as minted as Haughey made my da skint.
YEEEEEEEEEEEOWWWW!
Bertie made me as minted as Haughey made my da skint.
YEEEEEEEEEEEOWWWW!
Wobbler
New Member
Mahon will make stuff stick.
ratmonkey
New Member
They seem to have forgotten "corrupt".
ratmonkey
New Member
EU president by then, probably.
broken arm
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it's interesting to hear non irish perspectives on the political legacy of bertie's reign.
"the corruption was pretty minor. the economic transition was amazing" etc
All of these are true in a way,
But what people are glossing over is that his whole man of the people gimmic and desire to be popular has squandered the greatest opportunity for progress this country has had.
His unwillingness to sort out Dublin airport in case it would piss of his constituents, his failure to put manners on developers or to sort out the planning process, his unwillingness to sort out public sector pay or the health system.
His legacy is that he sailed along on the crest of a wave of prosperity, and where a real leader would have taken the hard decisions and lead the country to divert more of that wealth to fix basic structural problems in our society, he wanted only to drink Bass and be seen as everyones friend.
His true legacy is not what he has done it is what he has left undone.
nlgbbbblth
Well-Known Member
jane
Well-Known Member
"Reputation of Former Taoiseach Sullied By Mahon Glue."
So, who would have guessed that Bertie was such a skilled picker of winning Gee Gees?
Jesus Christ how dumb does the bulbous nosed little fucker think we are.
Jesus Christ how dumb does the bulbous nosed little fucker think we are.
Pretty dumb, I would say. The filly defence is something you would see during a CAB investigation.
I half-expected him to come out after evidence with his face covered, bags dropped and flashing his Mickey Mouse underwear.
More interesting is that O'Neill gets him to admit that he hung Grainne Carruth out to dry, despite his protestations after the fact.
http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/ireland/2008/0605/1212611676187.html
Bertie tries to clear tribunal hurdle with story of a horse
Bertie Ahern arriving at Dublin Castle yesterday to give evidence to the Mahon tribunal. Photograph: Bryan O'Brien
Yesterday saw an enjoyable gallop through the fertile fields of Bertie's thinking, writes Miriam Lord .
QUICK! SEND for the horse. At least it would make better sense than the talking mule in the witness box yesterday.
Just when it seemed impossible that the story of Bertie Ahern's money couldn't get any more ridiculous, he surpassed himself with a series of outlandish explanations about the source of his sterling cash reserves.
By the end of the day even he began to sound slightly embarrassed by the twaddle he was peddling to the Mahon tribunal.
The public gallery found it hilarious. And it was.
A thoroughly enjoyable gallop through the fertile fields of thinking, as seen through the fearful eye of a cornered statesman.
At least we now know from what side of the family Bertie's novelist daughter draws her talent.
It took a long time to get to this point, but there was an inevitability to it. When certain people find it difficult to explain to certain authorities how they came by their money - lack of documentary evidence, lack of witnesses, lack of memory, lack of credibility and such-like - there remains an age-old fall-back position.
"Where did you get your loot?"
"Won it on a horse, Guv."
Yesterday, on Day 868 in Dublin Castle, Bertie finally fell back on De horse, eh, de fence.
We saw it coming and laughed. But in reality it was bloody sad.
The former Taoiseach was finding it difficult to explain amounts of sterling money that found their way into his building society account in 1994, particularly as he was adamant that sterling never went into it. He was adamant right up to the time the building society discovered records it didn't know existed.
Bertie insisted he had not tried to mislead the tribunal. Hadn't he given them full clearance to go through his records?
He had, but he did it after his amigo Tim Collins had contacted the building society to ascertain the precise nature of the documentation it had relating to an account he held jointly with Bertie. The institution informed him that their records only went back seven years. Search away, Bertie told the tribunal. They'd find no sterling.
Then a more detailed investigation took place, and they discovered they had documents going back much further. Drat. And after the then taoiseach's secretary, who lodged the sterling sums for him, had been in the witness box swearing that she lodged punts. Just as he had also sworn in evidence.
The secretary, Grainne Carruth, was then recalled in the light of the new information, where she continued to insist she lodged punts. In the end, she had to concede it was sterling and was reduced to tears.
Bertie was aware, 11 days before her appearance, that it was sterling. He never told her and left her to her fate. Grainne's ordeal caused public disquiet and anger within Fianna Fáil. It has been said subsequently that her evidence, and her reaction to it, precipitated his resignation.
RTÉ's Bryan Dobson asked him in an interview if this was the case, and why didn't he tell Ms Carruth that the money was sterling.
Bertie, ever the victim, went on the attack. It was "unfair" and "unnecessary" what happened to Ms Carruth. "If they'd bothered to ask or tell me the information, I would have done that, but that's neither here nor there."
But, of course, it was. Des O'Neill threw his words back at him yesterday. Why did he say what he said to Dobbo when "it can't be true".
Deathly Des didn't accuse the witness of lying. But the incontrovertible fact is that Bertie told a bare-faced lie to Dobson and the public on the Six One news.
"I feel sore about this," complained Bertie, shamelessly.
Not half as sore as Ms Carruth did when he dropped her in it.
No. Bertie couldn't get a message out to Grainne in 11 days because he was too busy. He added that he didn't have a big staff to do things for him like they do in the tribunal.Who did they think he was? Taoiseach?
He had had a Cabinet meeting and a full week in the Dáil with "Questions and Answers" to think about.
He also had two days at the Council of Europe that week, where he had to "front for Ireland". No shortage of front where Bertie is concerned.
And then there was a trip to America, where he made a big speech, and he was expected to think of tribunal matters too?
"I never started this. I didn't put up Mr Robson's (sic) interview."
It's all the tribunal's fault.
Bertie didn't explain the lie but he explained the sterling. You see, in 1993 he was thinking of buying an apartment in Salford for investment purposes. So he went to his multi-millionaire pal in Manchester, Tim Kilroe, on about six occasions and asked him to change small amounts of punts into sterling for him.
Bertie was Ireland's minister for finance at the time. He took the sterling home and put it in his safe, saving for the deposit for the flat. He could, one supposes, have saved his punts at home and converted them when he needed to pay the deposit. But he didn't.
In the end, a familiar story, he abandoned the idea. He lodged the money and blanked it from his memory.
Oh, and he also won sterling on the horses. No surprise there from noted student of the turf, Bertie. He kept that talent a secret.
He also always kept "a float" in sterling for holidays in England and Scotland. A little-known fact.
The former taoiseach had one flash of memory yesterday. He said he won £8,000 on a horse in 1996. That's a new amount of money, and a new excuse.
Sadly, his Manchester foreign exchange man Tim Kilroe is dead. So too, one suspects, is the horse.
So it has come to this. Bertie Ahern is reduced to flogging a dead horse.
His evidence is a joke.
What does that make Bertie?
That was the thing that pissed me off most yesterday. The fucking gall he had to criticise the tribunal for going after Carruth when she was on the verge of perjuring herself for him. Prick.
IFF
Well-Known Member
maybe he's confused the real Paddy the Plasterer with the horse Paddy the Plasterer?
Surely he didn't actually write it anyway. How does the royalties thing work for ghost written books?
quackster
Member
Neck like a jockey's bollix
good piece on Bertie claiming tax-exempt status on his book by Fintan O'Toole
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2010/0112/1224262119416.html
good piece on Bertie claiming tax-exempt status on his book by Fintan O'Toole
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2010/0112/1224262119416.html
lympog
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generally a flat-fee with no royalties, but the fee varies massively depending on the client
IFF
Well-Known Member
i think it was Richard Aldous who wrote it
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2009/1015/1224256692276.html
i was wondering whether the ghost writer could qualify for the artist exemption. after all, he did the hard stuff of writing it and especially harder due to Ahern's memory problems
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