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Joe Horgan : Blinded by Bertie’s double-dealing ironies
THERE is no more satirising this anymore. There is no more irony. These
are just two of the latest things to emerge about Bertie Ahern’s
financial dealings in a story that grows increasingly complicated as if
this was almost the intention.
Yet another bank account. And for someone who claimed not to operate one
whilst he was the serving Minister for Finance he sure as hell had access
to quite a few.
Into this account 20,000 punt was lodged in 1992 and 10,000 in 1995 which
Bertie says came from a golf classic fundraiser.
Two things about this need to be drawn to your attention.
Firstly, the account was called the B/T account and was operated by a
man called Tim Collins.
Yet even though Collins operated another account with a man called Des
and this was called the D/T account we are assured that the B/T account
was not called this because of Bertie’s involvement in it.
Bertie Ahern firstly told us he had no bank account and then once it became
clear that there were numerous bank accounts to which he had access he
has tried to assure us that his involvement with them was minimal.
Secondly there is no paper trail or documentation to back up the origin
of this account and so the idea of a golf fundraiser has been offered.
What is odd about this though is that the golf classic according to Bertie’s
own constituency material did not begin fundraising until 1997 —
some five years after these monies first appeared.
We’ll carry on. On October 26, 1994 an IR£20,000 lodgement
was made into the B/T account.
Now tribunal lawyers have previously queried Bertie Ahern about lodgements
to bank accounts that only seemed to tally with being either sterling
or dollar lodgements rather than the cash punt he says they were.
On October 26 punt and sterling were equal in the exchange rate. The lodgement
of this mysterious 20,000 punt was transaction 55 in the bank that day.
Strangely enough transaction 54 was the buying of 20,000 punt with 20,000
sterling.
Sheer coincidence, perhaps. But these coincidences are really stacking
up. As are the strange corners and bizarre dealings that litter Bertie’s
story.
It is hard to feel sorry for Fianna Fáilers. For better or for
worse they have wedded their image to that of the worst aspects of the
Celtic Tiger — but watching yet one more leading Fianna Fáil
politician surround himself with money and watching that party’s
tribal instinct draw everybody in to support him you can’t help
but feel sorry for the honest carriers of that tradition.
They really don’t have to cast their minds back too far to see how
their leaders deluded them before, to see how wealthy men took their time,
their goodwill, their hard work and their money.
There doesn’t seem to be any evidence to suggest at the moment that
they are looking at things in anything but the most simple and tribal
ways but they cannot expect the rest of us to accept that comfortable
delusion.
What Government seems to be suggesting though is that those times are
no longer important and that what we have now is a far more modern country
where such things would no longer occur.
This is, we are told again and again, a country that competes on the international
stage. This competing on the international stage means that even as China
suppresses the people of Tibet in what their leader says is an ongoing
cultural genocide that Ireland courts China as a possible market place,
a potential business partner.
So even while Chinese police were rounding up the people of Tibet an Irish
Government Minister was in Beijing celebrating St. Patrick’s Day
and stating that he was not there to comment upon anything else.
That was safely left to a Minister far away.
He did not seem to see anything ironic in this. Nothing ironic about the
silence of the Irish, who might be expected to sympathise with the struggle
of the Tibetan people against a much more powerful and wealthy neighbour
that has historically suppressed them.
Nothing ironic about the Tibetans not being free to walk down the streets
of their capital whilst the Irish walked down the streets of the Chinese
capital.
Nothing ironic about the Irish dancing round one of the world’s
great human rights abusers in the name of trade.
Nothing ironic about actually being there and saying nothing whilst the
Government’s objections are raised back in Dublin.
Nothing ironic in any of that.
But then this is a Government that is led by and supports Bertie Ahern.
That believes Bertie Ahern’s explanations.
And they don’t see anything ironic in that. |
