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Squire Hockey’s Millions
Read more about: Corruption, Fianna Fail, Tribunals
Wagger is surprised that no one has written on IrishElection.com yet about Charles Haughey’s theft and embezzlement of at least €11m (accounted as €45m in modern terms by the Moriarty Tribunal).
The man famous for telling the Irish people to “tighten belts” during the economic and fiscal crises of the 1970s and 1980s—almost all created by him and his colleagues—was doing nothing less than loosening his own belt radically at the same time. Information and influence were sold equally freely alongside passports and tax exemptions.
Mr Haughey, the Tribunal has found, was in receipt of significant payments from Iraq, including at one stage offering a bizarre £10m deposit to AIB from an Iraqi bank controlled by Saddam Hussein. At the same time, he was using the State’s, indeed the taxpayers’, money to bankroll exports of beef to Iraq, among other places.
He aided and abetted the tax evasion of others, from Ben Dunne to AIB customers to Ansbacher account holders, while simultaneously evading tax on his own income—and all this while Taoiseach and Leader of the Opposition variously.
The truly shocking element of all this is the denial of any sort of knowledge of what was going on by the then Fianna Fáil Treasurer and some-time Minister in Haughey’s Governments, Bertie Ahern. Mr Ahern, who was writing blank cheques for Haughey from the Party Leader’s account, claims to have had no idea what was going on. Well, Wagger believes that this means Mr Ahern was either incompetent or negligent. Perhaps both. Mr Ahern was being stolen from, both as a State office holder and as a Fianna Fáil party office holder, as well as as an individual taxpayer—Wagger will leave analysis of Mr Ahern’s compliance with the Revenue Commissioners for a later Tribunal—but he seems not to mind. He certainly didn’t mind at the time.
The public are quick to forget, though, and Wagger doesn’t believe Fianna Fáil will be hurt by this in the election. By Christmas Day, all will have been forgotten. But Fianna Fáil are living dangerously. They are undergoing death by a thousand cuts at the moment; it’s just that no one knows whether they’re at 100 or 999 until the thousandth cut is made.
I posted on it months when he died, and you would have thought I was attacking the church or something.
I think it was Alan Ruddock that called Bertie ” a moral degenerate & an intellectual pygmy”.
Along with Matt Cooper, Damien Kiberd & Liam Clarke, Ruddock is one of the most perspicacious commentators on the Irish political & economic scene.
Certainly, in view of Bertie’s reaction to accusations in the Moriarty Report on his incompetence, when he was party treasurer, Ruddock’s criticism was well placed.
Speaking on RTE News At One, Ahern defended his lapse by stating that it was common practice, in Ireland, to sign blank cheques.
Now, this man says that he is a qualified accountant & one has to ask him if he understands why banks recommend that there be two, or more, signatories on cheques, especially cheques made out “To Cash”.
Even if he is only a glorified bookkeeper, he would understand that.
And, even if he was “riding to orders” - as was more than probable, bearing in mind that Haughey was a bully - Ahern could still have checked the receipts; return paid cheques & asked questions.
The reality is that he must have been fully aware that the cheques were used to pay for Haughey’s extravagant, assumed lifestyle:-
Lunches, at Le Coq Hardi, with his mistress, Terry Keane,; the racehorses; hunters; the yacht - Celtic Loot - the island retreat in the Blaskets; the priceless paintings and objets d’art at Abbeville, his Gandon mansion; the fabled Charvet shirts…
Even an intellectual pygmy must have wondered how Haughey could afford the life of a country squire on a TD’s wages.
But maybe Bertie is so thick that he was unaware of the obvious!
Which makes one ask why he is Taoiseach.
To quote “Verily, he be either a Fool or a Knave” -
Yet is it not possible, nay, probable, that …….
HE IS BOTH.
I suggest that you look up what “embezzlement” and “theft” really mean, check what Moriarty actually found, and start again. Hint: the €11 million refers to something different.
I think one reason for the relative silence here on IE is that the electoral implications of the extended Haughey denouement have been so muted. The only negative implication for FF of Haughey has been an inability to win elections outrights, as the polarisation against them that he wrought has never really been undone. But with Labour, briefly, and then the FF rump presence in the Dail, maintaining power has never been a problem. And note that the code of omerta ensures that people in the party who wound up bearing the negative consequences of his actions have said nothing, even with plenty of chances. Nothing from the Lenihans or Ray Burke, and of course the older generation who saw what was coming in the 1970s and 1980s — George Colley, Jack Lynch, etc long gone. On the flip side, the people who just said nothing, or facilitated what was going on, are now at the top of the party. I do wonder if the people who rose up through the party in the 80s ever thought about what kind of enterprise they were a part of, or was it just the quickest way to get ahead? I agree with Wagger though that it’s an accumulation of small cuts, and maybe we’re closer to the critical mass than we think. All the polls are only statements of first preference intentions, if anything. They still need transfers and the reminders of the ugly past don’t help.