Irish Election - Coverage of Irish Politics, News and Current Affairs

Not much to do but offer a quick outline of another mind-boggling day at Mahon. The 2nd dig-out in September 1994 came while Bertie Ahern had the use of an apartment at St Luke’s, a ministerial salary, and had savings in AIB and the Irish Permanent Building society totalling more than £70,000 (add: Gavin says [...]

The recent Transparency International report gave some interesting data on corruption in Ireland. They asked Percentage of respondents who think that in the next three years corruption will Increase, Decrease or stay the same. 44% of Irish people said that they thought corruption would decrease this compares to the EU as a whole of 18% [...]

On no less a day than national Dig-Out Day, the Mahon tribunal team was its most explicit yet about its own theory of the legal expenses contributions to Bertie Ahern, or at least most explicit in their scepticism that the dig-out ever occurred.  Charlie Chawke (who, God bless him, is essentially working with one leg) [...]

Another day at Mahon – and another “dig-out” contributor who had no idea that the payment was a loan, and another of Bertie’s “repayments” remitted to a charity linked to Bertie Ahern (the Mater).  This time it’s Maureen Gunne, speaking for her late husband Fintan.   Much like Padraic O’Connor, her view is that Bertie was [...]

Further deterioration today in the Dail relationship between Bertie Ahern and Eamon Gilmore (Bertie: “Is Deputy Gilmore deaf as well as stupid?”).  The underlying issue in the extremely testy exchange seems to be that Bertie may well have diary commitments at Mahon beyond what is currently evident from the website to which Bertie kept referring: [...]

Padraic O’Connor’s contribution to the Bertie Ahern dig-out is proving to be one of the most awkward points of the Planning Tribunal so far. All sides agree that the donation — the largest individual contribution to the (December 1993 “legal expenses“) whip-around — was given on a NCB cheque on foot of an fake [...]

Another day in the witness stand and more bizarre revelations and inconsistencies from Des Richardson.  Today at the planning tribunal we learned that Bertie’s dig-out repayments — when he decided that they were loans — were remitted, via Bertie, to a charity in which Miriam is involved.  It’s a strange type of loan to give [...]

If the Planning Tribunal was being run like an episode of Law and Order, we’d have had a scene already where the tribunal lawyers ask for Des Richardson to be declared a hostile witness.  Nonetheless, the paper trail that does exist plus admissions that have been extracted from Richardson are highly revealing — especially in [...]

Quite a day down at our second chamber, perhaps slightly less so in the first. Alex White and Pearse Doherty were uncontentious and professional. Perhaps a little nervous if anything. Shannon loomed large throughout the afternoon.
And it has to be said that there were quite a number of younger faces there. Which is probably good.
Eoghan [...]

I stumbled upon this today and while I never thought that my low opinion was supported by anyone else, when people start betting on Bertie Ahern to depart as Taoiseach on/before 31 Dec 07 it makes me chuckle. This places Bertie in the same ‘Good’ company as Robert Mugabe to depart as President [...]

Flynn: ‘I never believed I did anything wrong’
Insight into the people of Mayo’s strange dependence on the Flynn can be found in the following film.

Both Mark Hennessy, in his Correspondent blog and RTE news tell us that lawyers, acting for Bertie at the Mahon Tribunal, have accused the Tribunal of allowing itself to become part of a malicious campaign against the Taoiseach. Shock and/or Horror!

Do you know why a Politician is like a good pint?
After you fill the pint with brown stuff, it starts to empty.
After you slip the politician the brown envelope, it starts to empty.

and you just can’t keep either of them filled up

Just up on FF’s website. Two quick impressions: it mingles many different allegations of varying a priori plausibility and thus makes the overall picture more confusing. And he’s clearly trying to catch people on the hop, as the distinct impression had been left that he’d wait till after Westminster before saying anything.

“My name is George. I’m unemployed and I live with my parents.”
This quote is from The Opposite an episode of Seinfeld where George Costanza, the middle aged short man with a pudgy demeanor and frumpy dress sense, not a million miles from our beloved Taoiseach, realizes that every major decision he has ever made [...]

Ok. Let’s try to make sense of all of this.
First of all, the tribunal has been unsuccessful in its attempts to discover details of Bertie Ahern’s separation agreement. The Taoiseach has not disclosed this information, despite his very public statements that he has revealed everything.
Another problem is that the Taoiseach has cited the financial settlement [...]