The House the State Didn’t Build!

(Diarmy.net) Shannon? Has anyone uttered it in the past week?? As if to prove the point of it being silly-season in the media, focus has been diverted from the so-called ‘debacle’ over Shannon Airport to the sordid business of Judge Alan Mahon hauling our Prime Minister, Taoiseach, Head of State, All-Round Good-Guy, Bertie Ahern up in front of its chambers in the Dublin Castle settlement on Dame Street. You’d be forgiven for thinking it was a landmark site in the capital, but in fact, it’s the site of many a wild goose chase – and this one is no different.Aside from the fact that whatever happened with Bertie Ahern and Celia Larkin in the early 1990s and the whole mess of money coming and going in different boxes and formats, the honest truth is that everyone was at it at the time. When you consider that all around Ireland, businessmen up and down the country were shelling out huge sums of cash to off-shore accounts, squeezing the Irish worker and slicing up our economy for future digestion. At that time, Dermot Desmond had secured Haughey’s backing for the IFSC that would eventually see the birth of the Celtic Tiger as a phenomenon almost tangible in its affect on our population. Millions were being squandered on dodgy deals the length and breadth of the country. Meanwhile, former assistant chief whip and then Minister for Finance ‘The Bert’ was trying to sort out a few bits and pieces before he took over the reins at Fianna Fáil. After he’d agreed with Haughey to let Albert have a go first, Bertie set out to set himself up before becoming Ireland’s most talked about person – the head of Fianna Fáil.

This is the root of the argument. The simple facts are that this whole mess surrounds the sale, renting, decoration and coronation of a small semi-detached house on the north-side of Dublin city which would eventually house Bertie Ahern. How it came into being, from seller to buyer to tenant to Taoiseach doesn’t matter. What’s more worrying is the fact that Bertie had to have one. Let’s look at the traditional base for Irish political change – Britain. Downing Street, the tiny little tributary off Whitehall just up from Westminster Palace, is the state residence of the Prime Minister of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Across the Channel in France, The Elysée Palace is the state residence of the Président de la République. In Germany, the Chancellor had a state residence called the Kanzleramt. In fact, almost every single European country has a state residence for its leader and head of state. And usually, the prime minister and the vice-prime minister. So in all, the 3 top people in each country lives in a state funded and state maintained residence.

What of the most famous of Europe’s countries? What of the country ranked 3rd in the world for quality of life? What of the nation which has impacted more nations around the world with its happy and hard-working people? What does the prime minister of this country, this great country, have to go to be in every night?

Well the answer is he goes to sleep in his own house. Fair enough. But not just any house. This is a concrete and red-brick house. This is a house stuck to another house. It’s a house in Drumcondra. It’s a house. Plain and simple. It’s a small, semi-detatched house in a quite suburb of Dublin’s inner city. It has a Garda outside for the odd chat now and again, a few hanging baskets and for a few hours each day, our prime minister can go to bed and sleep.

Sound a bit familiar to you? Is it possible that you grew up or now live in a bigger house? Is it possible you’re house cost more than Bertie’s? Think about it. This is a man who has single-handedly driven for peace in Northern Ireland. You can claim Tony Blair helped, and he did. But Bertie’s complete stubbornness on the issue is what got that thing to work. The dogged determination to put an end to mindless violence and harmful rhetoric of 30 years of ‘The Troubles’. Bertie also carried on the legacy of Charlie Haughey and Albert Reynolds in building one of the world’s most enviable economies. The Finance Minister of Ireland is the most revered and envied in Europe alone because of his huge wealth and generousity to the Irish taxpayer. Ireland has changed dramatically in the past 10 years since Bertie stepped up to the plate after the collapse of John Bruton’s 3-year stint at a mish-mash Fine Gael government. Bertie transformed Ireland. And what’s more, he did it all from Drumcondra and his little semi-D.

This is a man of huge reverence worldwide. He is very highly-thought of in all nations in all corners of the globe. This is a man who dragged a former third-world economy from the depths of despair and infighting into the land of dreams and prosperity. Free education reigned supreme. Globalization took root. The economy flourished. Ireland became rich beyond its wildest dreams. Schools were built. Roads were laid. Jobs created and wealth accumulated. Ireland is the land of opportunity now. And what the real miracle of it all is – is that it’s almost completely sustainable.

Back in the early 1990s and late 1980s in Japan, the economy started to swell and explode with property leading the way. Money was available for everything. Tokyo and Kobe doubled in size. The cities became areas of worship for the Japanese – a place they could work, live and get rich in. Then it all went sideways. Banks started to falter and soon Japan was completely broken. Ireland is set to follow in those same footsteps, but I’m not that pessimistic. Ireland’s economy will slow down. But there won’t be a fall in this graph. Bertie and the crew at Fianna Fáil have made sure that there’s plenty to do for our nation’s workforce. We’ll continue while the cyclical economies rise and fall. And it’s all down to ‘The Bert’.

Of course, Ireland’s success has come at a price. Immigration is now our single biggest problem. It’s the virus that is infecting every facet of Irish life. Health institutions are rampantly over-crowed by administrative staff sucking their thumbs. Infrastructure is slow to take root. Inflation has made our cost of living soar. But all these ‘problems’ are temporary. Immigration is accounting for about 500,000 people paying tax into the nation’s coffers. This covers the cost of the waster Irish people who fill housing estates all around Ireland drawing the dole and popping out babies in urban areas like parts of Dublin. The Health services receive over €10 billion every year since the Fianna Fáil government took root. Infrastructure only started to be built 10 years ago – most countries rely on infrastructure that took over 100 years to build. And the cost of living increases are a result of money chasing money and will eventually level off.

Ireland is a great country. It is a better country now than it ever was. And it cannot be underestimated that the bulk of this has been achieved by Bertie Ahern and Fianna Fáil. And for a few snide and sinister figures to take on the Taoiseach in Dublin Castle today is a disgrace. They are the sure-fire scum of our nation. People who rose to the power of legal might through inherited wealth. People who are hungry for blood and are going out of their remit to tackle Ireland’s most popular man. A man who every night goes home to a small semi-detached house and goes to sleep in a house he owns himself. No heirs and graces. An honest man of the people. An Irish man. A cute whoor. A great leader.diarmy