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The foul rag and bone shop of St Luke’s
Read more about: Bertie Ahern Resigns, Bertiegate, Fianna Fail, Scandal 
Bertie Ahern used a bit of Yeats (the municipal gallery poem) in his retirement speech to the O’Donovan Rossa cumann this evening. The latter-years Yeats liked to tour through the memories and link them and and so it’s not surprising that there were echoes of Bertie’s more difficult moments even in the sanctuary of the friendly low profile audience he used for the speech –
When people like me and Liam Cooper, who is today our chairman, Paul Kiely and, of course, Miriam were young men and women and starting off in the O’Donovan Rossa Cumann, we were always encouraged by those strong and experienced people who had been members for decades.
Where have we heard that first name before? –
Earlier at the tribunal, the former treasurer of Bertie Ahern’s constituency said he was unaware that many thousands of pounds were being held in accounts connected to organisation. But Liam Cooper, now chairman of the former Taoiseach’s O’Donovan Rossa Cumann, said the money was held by trustees of St Luke’s and he had no causes for concern.
Mr Cooper said the accounts he was aware of were the official O’Donovan Rossa and Comhairle Dáil Ceanntar accounts, which only contained a couple of hundred pounds. They were mainly used to pay affiliation fees and for presentations.
Mr Cooper said he was unaware that there were many thousands of pounds in other accounts known as the CODR, BT and Number One constituency accounts, controlled by St Luke’s trustees. Mr Cooper was treasurer of the Comhairle Dáil Ceanntar from 1994 to 2001, but said there was little interest ‘from the floor’ about these accounts during AGMs or monthly meetings. He said these matters were dealt with casually.
He could not explain why there was no reference to any of these accounts in constituency minutes until this year. Mr Cooper also could not explain why 24 people were asked to contribute to the £56,000 cost of buying St Luke’s when the old office in Amiens Street was sold for the exact same sum.
A churlish suggestion from this blogger is that the forthcoming Finance Bill — which is the government’s reason for staying in office — should have an amendment requiring that anyone getting a 6 figure public sector pension produce a tax clearance certificate.
It is GUBU that after evidence like that at Mahon the bertie could still be elected to the Dail and be appointed taoiseach. I think bertie actually believes that the building boom was real, that the full employment was real, that he really left the country in a prosperous state and that the banks had nothing to do with him—his level of denial is pathological–it didn’t happen and if it did it was someone elses fault.Totally devorced from reality—I am sure there is a name for the condidion
I wouldn’t be surprised if he did believe a lot of what he said himself. But I also believe that the anorak the mix-up of words etc were a cultivated front – a front for some people who obviously did not have the good of the country at heart.
I hope his “predecessors” won’t be so easily led.
P,
A tax clearance certificate has long been shown to be pretty meaningless. In his heyday, Frank Dunlop always was able to produce one for government ‘contracts’ even while he was up to other things involving money that finally landed him in the clink. I seem to remember that Bertie couldn’t get one, yet managed to hold on to his job in government.
Down in Clare, that great bastion of FF, at the weekend my nearest and dearest spoke of almost bumping into Bertie across the road from the Halfway House on the Navan Road recently, and how the great man kept his eyes down as he strode along the footpath, presumably to avoid recognition by members of the great unwashed. “Pity you didn’t hit him a box,” came the response.