Irish politics discussion thread

haughey is a being of the purest evil, violence, greed and spite. he's a wonderful character to have lurking just far back enough to be relieved none of his hobgoblins inherited his drive or competence.

i don't get the impression that cowen is so to singularly responsible for this situation that you can pretend some other fuck wouldn't have made the same errors, and in any case was presiding over a culture of panglossian stupidity and a coterie of incestuous politicians/lenders/developers

latter is a risk of a small country i guess -- at the highest level, everyone knows everyone

i mean seriously, haughey's big daddy pollitt in terms of where FF really started to go wrong, the shits in charge since are Goopers

damn i'll take yr word for it about haughey seeing as he was one yr local bredrin

thought of him as just a sort of slimy machine pol

xp

i think it's more than fair to claim that the incestuous nature of the political system over here has been perpetuated and deliberately encouraged by those who held power, that the outcomes were forseeable, predicted and ignored for personal gain/glory, and that ahern, cowen and now lenihan have consistently made critical calls in other than the national interest as a result of the type of political machinations that they choose to engage in.

he's fairly blameable

xp i've thrown muck at the plaque on his house, which is as politically active as i get tbh

Despite his professed desire to fade from public attention, retirement was anything but smooth for the former Taoiseach. A series of political, financial and personal scandals tarnished his image and reputation in his later years. In the late 1990s the public were shocked to hear revelations about his extravagant private life — Haughey owned racehorses,[31] a large motor sailing yacht Celtic Mist, a private island and a Gandon designed mansion.[32] Haughey was severely ridiculed and criticised when he was found to have embezzled money that was a subvention to the Fianna Fáil Party; money that was from central Government's taxpayer's funds for the operation of a political party and spent large sums of these funds on Charvet shirts and expensive dinners in a top Dublin restaurant, while preaching belt-tightening and implementing budget cuts as a national policy.[33]
In May 1999, Terry Keane, gossip columnist and once wife of former Chief Justice, Ronan Keane, revealed on The Late Late Show that she and Haughey had conducted a 27-year extramarital affair.[34] In a move that she subsequently said she deeply regretted, Keane confirmed that the man she had been referring to for years in her newspaper column as "sweetie" was indeed Haughey. The revelation on the television programme shocked at least some of the audience, including Haughey's son, Seán, who was watching the show. Haughey's wife, Maureen was also said to have been deeply hurt by the circumstances of the revelation.
The McCracken Tribunal in 1997 first revealed the payments by businessmen to Haughey, and also revealed that he had held secret offshore bank accounts in the Ansbacher Bank in the Cayman Islands. Haughey faced criminal charges for obstructing the work of the McCracken tribunal.[35][36] His trial on these charges was postponed indefinitely after the judge in the case found that he would not be able to get a fair trial following prejudicial comments by the then PD leader and Tánaiste Mary Harney.[37]
The subsequent Moriarty Tribunal delved further into Haughey's financial dealings. In his main report[38] on Charles Haughey released on 19 December 2006, Mr. Justice Moriarty made the following findings:
Haughey was paid more than IR£8 million between 1979 and 1986 from various benefactors and businessmen, including £1.3 million from the Dunnes Stores supermarket tycoon Ben Dunne alone.[32] The tribunal described these payments as "unethical".[39]
In May 1989 one of Haughey's lifelong friends Brian Lenihan, a former government minister, underwent a liver transplant which was partly paid for through fundraising by Haughey. The Moriarty tribunal found that, of the £270,000 collected in donations for Brian Lenihan, no more than £70,000 ended up being spent on Lenihan's medical care. The tribunal identified one specific donation of £20,000 for Lenihan that was surreptitiously appropriated by Haughey,[40] who took steps to conceal this transaction.[41][42]
The tribunal found evidence of favours performed in return for money — Saudi businessman Mahmoud Fustok paid Haughey £50,000 to support applications for Irish citizenship.[39]
In other evidence of favours performed, the tribunal reported that Haughey arranged meetings between Ben Dunne and civil servant Seamus Pairceir of the Revenue Commissioners. These discussions resulted in an outstanding capital gains tax bill for Dunne being reduced by £22.8 million. Moriarty found that this was "not coincidental", and that it was a substantial benefit conferred on Dunne by Haughey's actions.[43]
Allied Irish Banks settled a million-pound overdraft with Haughey soon after he became Taoiseach in 1979; the tribunal found that the lenience shown by the bank in this case amounted to an indirect payment by the bank to Haughey.[39]

this is ignoring the embezzlement of exchequer funds to buy weapons for the IRA in the late 60's, but I'm sure there's more learned individuals around can fill in whether that was a more sympathetic impulse at the time or not.

In May 1989 one of Haughey's lifelong friends Brian Lenihan, a former government minister, underwent a liver transplant which was partly paid for through fundraising by Haughey. The Moriarty tribunal found that, of the £270,000 collected in donations for Brian Lenihan, no more than £70,000 ended up being spent on Lenihan's medical care. The tribunal identified one specific donation of £20,000 for Lenihan that was surreptitiously appropriated by Haughey,[40] who took steps to conceal this transaction.[41][42]

tho that liary cunt and his spawn can fro too tbh

yeah but insofar as cowen is a placeholder for some other second rate accountant with above average schmoozing skills, would another have done much differently? guess the critical call was the bank guarantee but as you said last time we went through this, it was a panic move to forestall a total collapse

thing about haughey/ahern is how small-time they were with their venality, happy to skim off a few grand here and there in between the big thieving

bank guarantee is lenihan's baby. cowen's portion of blame runs mainly from his terms as minister for finance with responsibility to regulate and change what he knew to be a rotten inherited system, and his refusal once the slide started to deal honestly, openly or fairly with the elected body of the dáil or the country as a while- or probably even his own finance dept and other state bodies, i'd imagine.

i'm not convinced that we were always going to get a second rate accountant (solicitor, tbh iirc?) if he didn't get in, but seeing as he did, let's make sure he carries some can for his (and our) troubles.

is schmoozing skills are significantly below average, and although he's considered highly intelligent (or reported as such) in terms of his analytical skills etc, his interpersonal/communications instincts are chilled below zero.

lots of govts did do a lot differently, if we're only talking from bank guarantee call onwards

did some skimming about haughey and the ira

apparently he was given money to provide assistance for nationalist families in the north, tried to buy guns from some ex-nazi

probably not one of his bigger sins

bit of a stink of military dictator in waiting about it, i've always thought.

did ireland have enough military to stage a coup?

There was no rapprochement in the relationship between Gibbons and Haughey and when Haughey became Taoiseach, Gibbons was dropped from his Ministerial office. During a later leadership contest, Gibbons was assaulted in Dáil Éireann by Haughey supporters

nice little detail. believe future economic doyen c mccreevey was also bet out of the dáil after a failed heave in the 80's.

haughey's a real bogeyman, interesting character. he got serious hooks into the national psyche thogh, we've certainly not had anyone able to whip the country into a frenzy like him since.

my dad claims as follows, btw

- haughey used to stay in his family's b&b along with other FF honchos back in the day
- he dated haughey's daughter when he was a dashing young fisherman, or at least istr him mentioning in passing once

i'm not sure it would have taken a serious military presence as a core group, tbh. if haughey had managed to start running guns under the counter to the boyos in the north, he would have earned plenty of loyalty from the hardliners north and south, and plenty of the army, gardaí, govt, church, yadda yadda would have been on tha side of the national question to begin with. it's questionable whether he even had any strong convictions that way himself, or whether it was an available route to back-corridor power for him.

required reading re: cowen's attitude upon inheriting the throne

www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2011/0114/1224287488231.html

ppl dont talk enough abt the double pronged blame that cowen is due, as taoiseach AND finance minister

btw why does everyone hate joan burton, i think shes awesome! wkiw.

i think she has problems in both content and deliverance, unlike eg jigga

i love watching her yell at ppl in the dail!

ps i will talk about cowen's double-whatever-opposite-of-indemnity-is all day

thing about haughey/ahern is how small-time they were with their venality, happy to skim off a few grand here and there in between the big thieving

― nakhchivan, Friday, January 14, 2011 1:59 AM (10 hours ago)

um haughey had an island, this seems p big time 2 me.

jesus how'd i miss that?

Haughey spent 8k per shirt when a house in dublin cost 35k.

plax i mean that in between the seven figure payoffs, he was happy to skim a few fat brown envelopes from various smalltime crooks too

it makes sense tho

it was his MO, at every level he ever reached he was a gangster.

pimpin and crimin

xp - One difference between Haughey and a lot of the other cowboys/gombeens was that he had a more international taste in ill-gotten gains; cf. Ahern's anorak image until well after he became Taoiseach.

they're just tacky in diff. ways.

dessie o'malley was jostled during the haughey era as well. it's always seemed to me you must have had to be a dick to thrive in haughey's party.

i agree tho with nakh, it is fucking weird that he would embezzle 50k when he was being given millions. like why? that's getting into actual addiction to stealing shit...

you wonder about albert tho, proved a liar but was he a crook too?

hard to say about albert, i'd say his businesss thrived due to his political connections, but outright thieving prob not.

dear god, ivor callely has had his suspension and the ruling against him revoked or w/e

Legal system in this country is worthy of the finest satire.

i was thinking about how funny it is that u guys were wondering if albert reynolds was a massive crook mainly bc he was taoiseach and what awful things it says about our sinking broken country

it says we're barely out of nappies as a functioning democracy. This might be the first election fought on policy in ireland as opposed to who yer grandad liked, dev or collins.

Basically to survive in Fianna Fail in the 80s you had to be willing to at least tolerate massive corruption, whether or not you were involved in it yourself.

Albert didn't come out so well from the Beef Tribunal iirc.

course the irony is they'll only be able to argue on what they would have done differently, cos we've been fucked since 2008.

Will this election be fought on policy? Can't think of any significant differences, especially given the bailout straightjacket:

Fianna Gael: we're not Fianna Fail
Labour: we're not Fianna Fail, and everyone likes Eamon Gilmore
Fianna Fail: emm...

thats what i was sayin after that re policy, yeah.

FF will be- we're the new FF

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2011/0116/breaking2.html

one of the better ones i suppose

Yeah, Martin is the only hope for FF as ffar as I can tell.

Any feeling about whether Cowen survives the confidence vote? I think he will, though I have nothing to base this on.

the only thing to base it on is his own call to stick around- so if you trust his predictive powers then he should be ok.

i'd be flabbergasted if he winsa now that it's going ahead, myself. but i'm also confused as to why anyone would want to lead FF into this election if they could take over a newly-decimated party afterwards, which is a much stronger starting point in terms of centralising power for a new leader imo.

I reckon the instinct in FF after the election will be to do what the Tories did with Hague and skip to someone untainted by office and young enough to start on the road back. Like Hague, whoever it is could end up never being PM/ Taoiseach. FF's Cameron may still be in school.

well they'll have plenty of new blood running in this next one, but as to how many of them get in....

hanafin and martin prob the best of the likely candidates, but it's looking like cowen stays. which is mindboggling but there you are. the interests of the country that matter win again

lol u fucking cunts lol.

lol

rmflo

lol no shit assholes!

sup cowen. sup

it says we're barely out of nappies as a functioning democracy. This might be the first election fought on policy in ireland as opposed to who yer grandad liked, dev or collins.

― all i gotta do is akh nachivly (darraghmac), Friday, January 14, 2011

labour got 20% in '92, even tho they went into power with ff with it that was a decisive break with the civil war - it's been all personalities & local machinery since then