Haughey's Virus

W

Wilkes

Guest
Lots of us seem to like our leaders a little bit corrupt much like ourselves - is this the judgement of the silent majority, those who will turn out in droves to return the most corrupt party in the history of the State? Even today on the morning after of the publication the Lenihan Family whose dying father was robbed by Haughey cannot find it within themselves to call this man what he was, a thief, a cad and a liar.

That we afforded him a State funeral sums it up. Oh we stayed away in large numbers, but we kept our heads down nonetheless. Now we have to listen to brian-numbing double talk about him doing the State good as well. sure that's how Mafia Godfathers operate - throw around a few goodies to induce the weak minded towards you like Pablo Escobar etc. What many of us apparently fail to grasp or don't want to grasp is that Haughey was paid by us to make Govt decisions so we should not be surprised he got some right BUT that does not allow him the moral right to rob the State blind and instill a culture of sleaze where planning was up for grabs while our elderly and sick died in the under-funded institutions of a failing State.

This is truly the ugly side of being Irish. The hypocracy and instinct to stay silent and keep our heads down awful. The facts are that we deserved Haughey I'm afraid.
 
I couldn't agree with you more. And the defenders keep saying how 'everyone' was at it so we should be more understanding..........such an insult to the vast majority of people who were decent. I don't think we have changed much....they've just stopped passing money to each other.
 
FF today is a fitting legacy to Charlie Haughey.

Corrupt, rotten and an insatiable appetite for power.
 
Wilkes said:
Lots of us seem to like our leaders a little bit corrupt much like ourselves - is this the judgement of the silent majority, those who will turn out in droves to return the most corrupt party in the history of the State?
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I think that many people vote for them because they think that there is no credible alternative.
Wilkes said:
Even today on the morning after of the publication the Lenihan Family whose dying father was robbed by Haughey cannot find it within themselves to call this man what he was, a thief, a cad and a liar.
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Maybe they are better placed than you to make that decision.

Wilkes said:
sure that's how Mafia Godfathers operate - throw around a few goodies to induce the weak minded towards you like Pablo Escobar etc.
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I don’t think CJH had people killed or ran a criminal empire that ran drugs or protection rackets.
Agreed but I think that “robbing the state blind is a bit extreme. The beef export credit insurance fiasco and the Esat sale cost the state a lot more than the tax CJ didn’t pay.

Wilkes said:
This is truly the ugly side of being Irish. The hypocracy and instinct to stay silent and keep our heads down awful. The facts are that we deserved Haughey I'm afraid.
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I think that there is a general lack of detached analysis about Charlie Haughey; people either hate him or love him. This also is a sad indictment of the Irish people.
 
You cannot punish a world leader any more than to damn his reputation, and leave him with a tarnished legacy.
Indeed punishing them too much with prison, fines, or in same cases execution serves only to turn them into martyrs.
History will probably not be as kind to CJH as the ballot box was.

In the long run history will probably recognise him as a leader who did a little good, but who's ultimate effect on the country was to damage it's democracy. A wasted talent. Don't doubt for one second that he was intelligent and talented. He just happened to be weak as well, and that weakness corrupted him.

History will remember the corruption more than the talent, and he must have known that. For someone with an ego like his this would have been a terrible thing to have to face. You can take solace in the fact that he'll be punished far more in the long run than he could ever have been punished while alive, and by not punishing him while alive, there's no martyrdom to counter balance his tarnished legacy.

A greater question that needs to be asked is has the country learned any lessons? Does acknowledging the damage to the democracy give us a blueprint for a stronger democracy, or is the same old system still ticking along? History will judge us too.

-Rd
 
Purple said:
I am no fan of the way CJ behaved but your comment ignores the detail of that issue and is an example of the simplistic view that I talked about above.
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No I just pointed out a fact about him, this I believe does not indicate whether I am a fan of his or not.

You also can not say whether my views are simplistic or not, on this matter, as I did not express them in my statement.
 
No I just pointed out a fact about him, this I believe does not indicate whether I am a fan of his or not.
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No great fan either, but if you believe he was involved in gun running then you're in the unfortunate position of having to accept that he was cleared of the charges.

You can still say you believe he was, that the verdict was wrong etc, but I don't think you can say that it is a *fact* that he was involved in gun running.

-Rd
 
Disappointing as well that the current Taoiseach, coincidently another accountant who should know better, still sticks by his guns and maintains that history will judge the man.
This from a man who never pre-signed cheques on his own bank account as he didn't even have one during his time as Finance Minister!
 
€45 million in today’s terms should qualify as ‘robbing the state blind’ in any context.

I’m amazed and satisfied that the tribunal produced such damning evidence. I know they couldn’t get the evidence linking more favours to these payments, but to prove he took such a staggeringly large amount of money from the Irish people is still a job well done on their behalf.

Doing a few great things does not entitle you to do terrible things. To take this money at a time when the average joe soap was going through such hard times, is truly unforgiveable. I am totally against the stance that you should go easy on someone just because they are old or dead. To do so only serves to give incentive to others to go forth, commit some crimes, and then try every trick in the book to delay your punishment, cos sure, when you’re old or dead it’ll all be left alone.

Add in the cost of the delays he caused to the tribunal with his shameless delaying tactics and that €45 million figure keeps getting bigger. Under no circumstances should his legal costs be paid. Every last penny should be recouped. The Haughey family are not going to go hungry, and I don’t want them to, but I see no reason why they should be able to live more comfortably than the average citizen if the source of that comfort is money gained through his corruption.

Bertie’s signing of the blank cheques makes me believe that he is either grossly and recklessly, incompetent, or an accomplice. How anyone can continue to vote for FF knowing all of this is beyond me, yet large numbers of people will continue to do so. I know some of that is due to a lack of a viable alternative, but it really does make me question the morality of those who will continue to vote FF.

For me, abuse of power is just not acceptable under any circumstances, and at least we now have some proof of just how much abuse of power Haughey engaged in.
 
> he is either grossly and recklessly, incompetent, or an accomplice

or all of the above.

-Rd
 

At a cost of EUR 125m or whatever it was, I am not sure it was money well spent. They concluded that Haughey was crooked. Great stuff. I was surprised. Nobody pays back what they took, nobody goes to jail, a report full of wishey words. Only winners were the lawyers. What damning evidence did they produce after all that time and money. Everything they found was already in the public domain.
 
I haven't read the report but from the discussion and comment that I have heard and read, I understand that there is nothing in the report that constitutes proof of anything, merely conclusions based on information that was, as the previous poster says, already in the public domain - for that reason it is widely acknowledged that the contents of the report cannot be used as evidence in a court of law.
 
The money spent on tribunals has to be looked in the context of what was and still is being done to the country.

Apart from money taken directly in terms of bribes or "donations", all of which Joe Bloggs ended up paying for in terms of house prices etc.
There's also the shambles that is the Planning of Dublin in particular, but also other parts of the country.

Some tribunals are self financing, but even the ones that aren't have a value. I know it's terrible to say but a couple of hundred million is now a drop in the ocean. At least what went on is being exposed. For years journalists couldn't write about these things for fear of being sued.

Dublin will never recover from the way it was developed. It will always be a retarded city. If anyone does find a way to cure it it's going to cost many many times the cost of the Tribunals.

The only other example that I can think of that's comparable is what GM did in cities accross the US, when they bought the Tram companies and deliberately destroyed them so that they could replace them with GM Buses.

-Rd
 
What we had before now was suspicion and rumour. What we have now is firm conclusions reached by a responsible state body. We now know he did what we always suspected he did.

Now I can say Charlie Haughey was a thief and stole massive amounts from the Irish people, and noone can sue me.
 
Now I can say Charlie Haughey was a thief and stole massive amounts from the Irish people, and noone can sue me.
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I suppose the question some would ask is was it worth the cost so that you could say that, since it was already "known". I'd say yes, but I can see why some would disagree.

One things for sure, next time someone like CJH rises to power, get your kids into Law School, there's a windfall a comin'

-Rd
 
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