Wednesday, April 02, 2008
Bertie Ahern to step down?
RTÉ is currently carrying coverage and speculation on an expected statement from Taoiseach Bertie Ahern in light of the recent conflicting evidence to the Mahon Tribunal and his legal challenge in the courts. That speculation includes the possibility that he might announce standing down as leader of Fianna Fáil.. Update You can ignore the question mark. Bertie Ahern to tender resignation as Taoiseach and leader of Fianna Fáil on Tuesday 6th May. Hmm.. That’s Blair, Paisley, Ahern.. anyone else? Adds In the afterglow of a successful election, in May 2007, Mick grabbed this quote from Bertie Ahern - “I’ll work until May or June of 2012.” And BBC report here with a short clip from the statement [RealPlayer file]. Full statement here. More Reactions. From President McAleese and his expected successor Brian Cowen, and Labour Party Leader Eamon Gilmore [et al]. And Reaction from Tony Blair. The BBC round-up reaction. Heh. Shane Hegarty has a verbatim report “for those who missed it”. Update In the comments zone Conall McDevitt notes an interesting point about Ahern’s chosen resignation date - it’s before the planned US NI investment conference [7th - 9th May] Final Update Via Maman Poulet. That moment in time..
Pete Baker @ 09:28 AM
Nazis would not like to be compared to NI Protestants either. Who would?
Will Bertie get a knighthood? has he a girl friend or do he still wear those yellow GAA thug clothes. The write ups after he shocked G8 with his canary yellow jacket had me chuckling for weeks.
Posted by on Apr 02, 2008 @ 04:55 PMClearly FF are not fit for governement
Can we please try to get it into our heads that there is only one measure of fitness for government, and that is a mandate. The Irish people had the choice last year not to re-elect this crowd of corrupt twats, and they failed to take it.
Posted by on Apr 02, 2008 @ 06:12 PMI really think that we should wait until the Mahon Tribunal is finished before we make any serious assessment about Bertie Ahern.
My continuing suspicion is that he used drug money from the Provos to promote the GFA while personally enríching himself, and helping his party.
I certainly want to know more about the Manchester businessman, apparently John Murphy, who provided the $45,000 and other money to Ahern and FF, apparently under the cover of promoting business in the Republic.
Murphy sounds like one of Manchester’s Quality Street Gang which was up to its ears in Provo criminal activity, like ‘Steak knife’, while allegedly working for the Crown and the Dublin government for a peaceful settlement of The Troubles.
Posted by on Apr 02, 2008 @ 06:25 PMBefore we leave McAleese’s Nazi statement it is worth noting that she did not apologise to the world wide Jewish community.
I am sure millions of Jews in Europe would willingly swop the holocaust for a little bit of perceived discrimination in Ireland.
The Unionist people by and large ignored her offensive remarks but were more angry at the way she belittled what Jews had to suffer in Europe by comparing what the Nazis had done with attitudes expressed by Unionists and for this reason she should have resigned.Posted by on Apr 02, 2008 @ 07:00 PM“In fairness, probably the best Taoiseach the Republic of Ireland has had”
If that crook is the best I dread to see the rest!
Posted by on Apr 02, 2008 @ 07:06 PMMick Hall
He who is without sin cast the first stone
A republican who quotes Christ, and doesn’t ignore the basis of his teaching as a matter of routine.
Bertie going, anyway, is a good day for the SDLP. If Bertie had have understood Christian values, he might have kept the SDLP in play in the North and not promoted anti-christian Sinn Fein.
As it stands you reap what you sow. A little moral flaw at his core made Bertie a poor participant in the North’s political process.
Posted by on Apr 02, 2008 @ 07:08 PM“He leaves office with the country prosperous to a degree that would once have seemed impossible, with what should be a stable peace in the north, and can claim to have been instrumental in achieving both.”
Can claim. But the two were actually much deeper structural things than who holds office at the time.
Posted by on Apr 02, 2008 @ 07:09 PMImpropriety aside, he was good for unionists. That I will agree.
Posted by on Apr 02, 2008 @ 07:10 PMBertie was a crook, I hope, unlike Haughey, he will be accountable.With his mightyer than thou attitude I just dont know.
A Pro-Euro Superstate lackey, remember Nice 1? Brought unfettered immigration to Ireland, Isnt that one of the things that government think defines Civilised behaviour regardless of the consequences?
The Super rich untaxed, while ordinary people struggle financially.A puesdo pro Bush supporter,ie US troops still using Shannon.
Looks like he is Jumping before he was pushed to me. Good ridance!!, as for his successor it will be more of the same shite.Posted by on Apr 02, 2008 @ 07:40 PM‘The Unionist people by and large ignored her offensive remarks but were more angry at the way she belittled what Jews had to suffer in Europe by comparing what the Nazis had done with attitudes expressed by Unionists and for this reason she should have resigned.’
Ulsterfan it seems your in the bracket of people who cannot distinguish between comparison and equivalence. you think she owes an apology to the worlds jews. that is a ridiculous statement. it also illustrates how you have graciously forgotten the Romany people, handicapped etc, who also perished. You seem to have been comfortably sucked into the sphere of Holocaust sacredness and uniqueness, as if the mere mention it is a crime. catch yourself on. and Unionists by and large ignored it???? those that did cry only did only because it belittled the Jews suffering???
all unionists were worried about was that they would be compared to nazis, and most of them cried.
do you even remember the incident??????????
Obviously not.Posted by on Apr 02, 2008 @ 08:04 PMAhern was a dilettante of the highest order.
A Republican who on the other hand abandoned the all-Ireland Republic.
The ‘last socialist in the Dail’ who was obsessed with courting big business interests.The great GAA supporter who sychophantically followed an English soccer team.
The Minister For Finance who didn’t have a Bank Account.
Sorry-when I described him as a dilettante, I really meant a chancer.
Posted by on Apr 02, 2008 @ 08:16 PMMaybe you might do a better job Jimmy. You could tax all these fat cat billionaires and multinationals to the hilt.
You won’t know what to do with all the dosh you’ll raise. Ordinary workers like me will love you.
Except, that’s not how the real world works. Bono and the boys moved their business operation to Holland after Cowen decided they should pay a bit of tax for a change. In the real world again Intel, Microsoft, Google etc etc wouldn’t stay too long if Corporation Tax was doubled or tripled by your ilk.
If Bertie gave us shite as you say then I’m all for more shite. Loony lefties can head off to Zimbabwe to see what a lunatic in power can do to economy and a people.
Posted by on Apr 02, 2008 @ 08:26 PMIf we strike out the incredibly poor decision include an example when commenting on a duality, McAleese’s comments take on an undeniable veracity:
“The Nazis didn’t invent anti-Semitism, they used anti-Semitism, they built on anti-Semitism but they didn’t invent it. It was, for generations, for centuries, an element of the lived lives of many people who, on the surface, lived very good lives, I mean many of them would have regarded themselves, for example, as very good Christians. But they gave to their children an irrational hatred of Jews, in the same way that people in Northern Ireland transmitted to their children, an irrational outrageous hatred,
for example, of Catholics,in the same way that people give to their children, an irrational outrageous hatred of those who have different colour, and all of those thing, all of those hatreds in the wrong circumstance, on a street in Dublin, they cropcan out as I have seen and heard, of a little child from Somalia being pelted with rotten eggs.”On Ahern, in an unprecedented era of heroes on this island, history will judge him in the words of a arch villain: “The most cunning, the most devious, the best of them all.” But the facts are that that earlier era left it’s stench upon him.
(A snippet from Gordon Brown’s remarks may shed some light on Brown’s absent mindedness re: Northern Ireland when discussion Britain/Britishness: “I think the whole of Britain will want to thank Bertie Ahern, in fact the whole of the United Kingdom.")
Posted by on Apr 02, 2008 @ 08:36 PMRepublican stones
It was the president who first mentioned the Nazis in order to make a cheap shot against Unionists.
The comparison/ Equivalence does not stand up and so she should have kept her mouth shut.Posted by on Apr 02, 2008 @ 09:38 PM‘It was the president who first mentioned the Nazis in order to make a cheap shot against Unionists.’
im sure you will provide a quote to demonstrate the above.
‘The comparison/ Equivalence does not stand up’
because you do not understand the difference between two words.
‘or a little bit of perceived discrimination in Ireland.’
good man...tell me, do you think anyone else other than yourself believes there was only perceived discrimination in the north????????
Posted by on Apr 02, 2008 @ 11:12 PMSo long Bertie,and,THANK YOU for making Ireland a country at peace with itself.
Posted by on Apr 03, 2008 @ 02:03 AMDidn’t an SDLPer compare the Short Strand to the Warsaw Ghetto? That struck me as being fairly hyperbolic as ridiculous BS goes.
“The Short Strand in east Belfast is now another Warsaw ghetto according to the SDLP’s Alasdair McDonnell.”
http://football.guardian.co.uk/worldcup2002/comment/story/0,,738484,00.html
Henry (BTW) confuses the (Jewish) ghetto rising with the Polish Home Army rising of 1944.
Posted by on Apr 03, 2008 @ 03:38 AM“Bertie going, anyway, is a good day for the SDLP. If Bertie had have understood Christian values, he might have kept the SDLP in play in the North and not promoted anti-christian Sinn Fein.”
That’s terible, Big Brother No1 is now at the head of an atheistic cult of doom, I’m shocked,
If enough money is chucked at it, West Belfast could turn into Vermont, gay people, snowboards, and ice-cream franchises.
Posted by on Apr 03, 2008 @ 03:43 AMi heard berties new book is to be called “PS IOU” :)
its a pity hes gone. most people in dublin i know seemed to like him and werent bothered at all about a few 10,000s in brown envelopes now and again. that doesnt even rank as corruption these days.
Posted by on Apr 03, 2008 @ 10:41 AMI remember Ian Paisley declaiming from his pulpit that he had survived Thatcher, he outlasted Trimble, that Mo Mowlam had gone, he was still there after so many of his enemies had departed the scene, it was God’s will that it was so.
Now Ian is departing, Bertie is departing, Ian Og has already gone. Who are still around? Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness!
Presumably that is God’s will also.
It is sad that Bertie is going. His contribution to Ireland was considerable. Haven’t looked into much his reasons for resigning, but once again it appears a politician has broken Rule Number One: do not accept money or favours from anyone. (Obama has done that and is now rueing it)
Not sure if Bertie broke rule Number Two- as Ian Og did: do not do favours for friends or people who do favours for you.
Cowan will make a good PM so I hope he gets the job.
Posted by on Apr 03, 2008 @ 09:38 PMThere is absolutely nothing wrong in slipping a politician a few quid, granted in Canada, they ripped the arse out of it,
but within reason, and so long as it isn’t accompanied by threats of michief, there is no reason modest sums (10k - 50K) should not be wagged about in brown envelopes.
That’s my view.
G.
Posted by on Apr 03, 2008 @ 10:06 PMGregory:
>> There is absolutely nothing wrong in slipping a politician a few quidOne problem is the suspicion such actions arouse. There is always someone sniffing around for a scandal - opposition leaders, the media, donors who have slipped a few quid and you subsequently offended them. Take the cash for questions probe a few years ago. Hamilton had offended that mad man Mohamed Fayed, and was subsequently bankrupted.
You should not risk your political career and reputation for a few “innocent” 10,000s in brown envelopes.
If Bertie hadn’t been a politician, would those mates have given him money? If Ian Og hadn’t been a politician and the son of his Dad, would Sweeney (or whoever) have any interest in him at all?
Posted by on Apr 03, 2008 @ 11:15 PM‘Cowen will make a good PM so I hope he gets the job.’
Eh ? He’s got the job . It’s over bar the official declaration. The election will be to decide who becomes Tanaiste . Mary Harney can no longer claim the post now that Bertie has moved on . I’d guess Lenihan will be the new Tanaiste to help keep the Dublin vote.
Cowen btw is a ‘planter’ name for those who may be interested . Most Cowens hail originally from the North of England/ Yorkshire /Lancashire and southern Scotland . Biffo Cowen is a good man and will do the business and deliver .
Posted by on Apr 03, 2008 @ 11:39 PMFor those ignoring or minimizing the extreme lengths Bertie was willing to go, especially financially, to secure his own reputation and that of the warring parties at any cost, see this link:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7327993.stm
Perhaps, he will end up writing what it’s like to have been a bagman.
Posted by on Apr 04, 2008 @ 11:55 AM
