Haughey's Virus

Good Point.
The Legal Gravy Train might have a few more miles of track ahead of it.

-Rd
 
OhPinchy said:
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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This has been the position since the day CJH died, as libel or slander law does not apply in relation to statements about the deceased. The Moriarty Report does not change this.
 
This has been the position since the day CJH died, as libel or slander law does not apply in relation to statements about the deceased. The Moriarty Report does not change this.
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Yeah but when the tribunals started nobody knew for sure that he'd ever die.

-Rd
 

The Lenihans are totally entwined with the haughy family socially and politically and who knows whatelse. Yes it defies logic that they would not come out and condemn what he did, but you have no idea what is going on there. Maybe they owe him a debt of gratitude for something he did for them that we dont know about. My point is people do things for the strangest of reasons and just because you dont understand them doesnt mean they arent valid and certainly doesnt mean that they condone his actions. I would love to hear the conversation in the Lenihan household behind closed doors. I have no doubt they are decrying him from the rafters.

As for the rest of us voting FF in, look at the alternative. My god if Inda K ever becomes taoiseach i think i'll leave the country. He is appaling imo. I would have absolutely no confidence in his ability to run the country at all. Much as I dislike FF sometimes better the devil you know. Its not as black and white as you are making it out. And it doesnt mean we condone it, we need someone who is capable of running the country properly.

Wilkes said:
That we afforded him a State funeral sums it up.
Oh we stayed away in large numbers, but we kept our heads down nonetheless.
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"We" the people of ireland didnt afford him a state funeral. His cronies in power did, surely our collective disgust was registered in the poor turnout on the day of his funeral. What would you have us do? There was an outcry on almost every radio program at the time of his death, people saying what a disgrace he was. There were also people singing his praises. Every newspaper had some sort of coverage of it and most of the ones I read were scathing about his legacy. Tell me what you think the ordinary joe soap should have done to register his digust in a better way?



Wilkes said:
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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We must be remembering things differently. There was total outcry and outrage in all aspects of the media to the haughy scandel. Tell me what you have done to not keep your head down? Posting this? How is that different to all those people who phoned radio programs and wrote letters into the newspapera and kept away from his funeral?

It seems to me the target of your rage should be politicians - have you thought about writing to Bertie et all to express your thoughts instead of blaming the ordinary joe soaps who just want the country run in some sort of decent way that doesnt bankrupt us all. Voting out FF 4 years ago, or whenever the last election was, would have been cutting of our noses to spite our face imo.
 
Voting out FF 4 years ago, or whenever the last election was, would have been cutting of our noses to spite our face imo.
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The actual competence or incomepetence for running the country resides primarily in the permanent government the civil servants who are employed by the various departments. These don't all get replaced when you elect a new party to government.

What changes is the level of accountability to the people. Under Fianna Fail the Freedom of information act has been greatly reduced in it's scope, The Taoiseach spends far less time in the Dail answering questions than he should, and when he's there he doesn't answer questions anyway.
There appears to be little or no oversight or accountability when it comes to huge sums of money being squandered on various projects. The one minister who was doing his job well has been banished to Europe.

The Haughey Legacy is a sence of entitlement to power at any price, with no regard for the wishes of the people, or what's best for the country. it is a philosophy that goes to the root of Haughey's favourite son, Bertie Ahern.

When people say better the Fianna Fail Devil you know than the Fianna Gael Devil you don't, are you really thinking this through? The country will broadly speaking continue running as is, what "might" happen is a more open transparent and accountable government.

Yes, there might be some policy shifts you don't like, but they're not going to bankrupt the country overnight, It's a lot harder to do that now than it was in the 70's and 80's.

I don't know if making Enda Kenny Taoiseach would necessarily mean you'd get more accountability or honesty. What I do know is that leaving a Houghey-ite like Bertie Ahern in charge means you certainly won't.

Electing Fianna Fail again vindicates their actions to date. Kicking them out givesthem a few yours to think again about what they need to get and hold power.

If anyone wonders how Bertie Ahern can manage remain in power despite mistakes, controversy etc, look back at how Haughey clung to power under far worse circumstances, and ask yourself who was sitting at his knee, learning the game.

-Rd
 

No matter how bad he would be, how could he be better than the current incumbant?

You know, the guy who signed the blank cheques, who took money while Min for Finance, who lied when telling the nation that these gifts were loans, who even went so low as to pretend to cry , looking for sympathy, when caught out, who appoints all his cronies and friends to Public bodies, regardless of their ability, who has creamed millions from corrupt developers, for his beloved Party?

The most cunning, most devious of the lot, that's who we have. Our current incumbant is of the same breed as CJ and deserves to be treated similarily, with contempt. I detest the man and every thing he stands for.
 
No matter that haughey may have siphoned off most of the fund for brian lenihans operation ,young lenihan certainly knows what side his bread is buttered on and so...his nauseating defence of charlie and the then slease culture to remain cosy with the party.Brian lenihan was like a living ghost the last few years of his life after his expensive operation in america..... the money was collected in a time of austerity .....and now joe soaps are denied operations in our long waiting list hospitals despite our billions.
Haughey basically ripped off the country with his charm and humour disguising the corruption and bribes he was involved in.
Why is it the public only ever find out about the corrupt politician after they have left the political scene?.....because big buisness,gov and media make sure that the facts are not reported at the time.....and a whole army of consultants and legal and finance and pr people are helping/advising the crooked parties when eventually are found out. these people are very quiet when the crooked politician is in power.
No doubt in futur ,some of our now important politician/buisnessman will be exposed.
I think there is no difference between our major political parties...even between kenny and ahern ..i suspect they all protect their own class. and their backers who invariably donate to all parties.
 
Gone Fishin' said:
No matter how bad he would be, how could he be better than the current incumbant?
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I think you mean worse?? At least I hope you do , I agree, but I also agree with Dalton here, the ministers by and large have little to do with running the country, they may have some broad ideas of where we should be going, but they'll get told these are unfeasable probably - time to buy that box set of Yes Minister I think.
 
At the time of Haughey's funeral, when the Joe Duffy show was taking calls about how great Haughey was, I considered ringing in and saying how when I grow up, I want to be just like Haughey.

I wonder if his admirers would applaud the sentiment?
 

Here's some bedtime reading for you.

http://www.moriarty-tribunal.ie/images/sitecontent_26.pdf


Murt
 
Good 2 see the posts by Gone Fishin' & daltonr,horrified by what homeowner posted.
A couple of points.It has to be the greatest myth that FF are somehow responsible for our monetary prosperity.Yes the reduction of corporation tax gave it a significant impetus,but the reason why it has continued for so long is because of ordinary people who are working their proverbials off not because of the vision of anyone within FF.
As for our prosperity,well, all that can be measured is not always worth measuring etc.If people feel they are prosperous getting up at 7am & getting home for 7pm & struggling to pay the mortgage,well then they need to see the wood from the trees.
However if people are truly happy with their lot & feel when they are on their deathbeds that they wont have existed/endured their life as opposed to living & enjoying it then vote for the status quo who make no mistake about have been in power for a full decade now & are therefore wholly responsible for the state of our health service/transport system/education etc.
Also even if I did approve of the present regime,it's good for democracy to have a change.In my mind,voting FF again is akin to voting Bush back in.
 
where is the C.A.B now, and why is it ok to leave his family with the benefit of his illgotten gains?
 

Totally agree with that. Our modern day myth that FF are responsible for the economic boom is one that needs to be exposed for the nonsense that it is. After J Lynch and CJH financially ran us into the ground in the late 70's and early 80's ,the IMF and EU to all intents and purposes took control of the economy and gave the gov , regardless of who was in office ,no choice as to the hard medicine that was required to get us back on track. The celtic tiger and export boom came about from far sighted decisons about attracting foreign investment and investing in education that started as early as the late 1940's - We benifited in the nineties as we got the perfect alignment of a straightened out economic policy,a booming US economy and lots and lots of EU structural funds.

As we are now part of a much larger EU economy and crucially , part of the Eurozone with its rules , even if we elected "god forbid" Sinn Fein , they really wouldn't have much choice in the matter when it comes to basic economic policy - unless they decided to get off the whole European project. As previous posters have accurately stated - the Gov of the day can only really give guildlines and vision - the civil service will quickly disabuse them of any cloud cookoo land stuff - whether this a good or a bad thing I dont know.

Anyway I'll be voting (without any great degree of enthusiasm it must be said) for the Alternative FG /Lab coalition - purely because I've had it up to here with this current gov's arrogance, croneyism and corruption, wasteful attitude to taxpayers money and total lack of vision as to where we are going. We need a change , there is no possible way any potential alternative gov could be any worse than the current mob of eejits, incompetents and goombeen men currently driving around in state mercs at the moment.
 
nelly said:
where is the C.A.B now, and why is it ok to leave his family with the benefit of his illgotten gains?
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Its due to a thing called POWER.
And you are right, CAB is nowhere to be seen.
That tribunal fiasco , costs billions to tell us what everyone already knew.
Tribunals are really a public mind massaging measure,where the public gradually get to dissipate their outrage, between the crooks and the "coining it" legal horde as the revelations are drip fed to a shock proof public
I am sure if CAB moved in on haugheys inherited wealth,all the top movers and shakers would move in to stop it.....after all wasn`t tax eventually paid on his "income".
I`m sure that the criminal ,who had his houses in donegal seized,would offer to pay his tax......if he thought he could keep his houses.
 
until C.A.B takes back something - even the value of his wardrobe for feics sake, the whole exercise was/is a farce.
 

What horrified you about my post?

As for compairing FF to Bush - its madess to compare them. One has been in government in a tiny country that barely registers on the world stage politically, the other has put the entire world at danger with his reckless foreign and evnironmental policies and in the eyes of many should be tried for war crimes. There is absolutely no comparison on any level.
 
As others have pointed out, Ireland's success has been in spite of FF and not because of them. Ireland's "prosperity" is unhealthily based on inflated property prices and the building industry. Not a penny of the products sold in our new houses benefits our exports, for example, while those exports that do benefit our economy are falling.

Ireland needs to shake up it's exports and needs to stimulates real jobs, i.e. jobs that create wealth for the country. The building industry creates no wealth for Ireland, it is based on Credit, cheap money from Germany.

The 2006 census found 220,000 empty houses in Ireland. Is that a sign of a good economy? Healthy? Speculative? Greed? I don't think that's good.


I felt the best, fairest Govt we had in recent years was the FG,Labour, DL coalition, yet they got turfed out on their ear. Remember the General Election before they took power (They took power half way through a term, remember?). The people voted to get FF out of office but Dick Spring put them back in. Labour found the penalty for this subsequently.


FF need to change their ethos. They need to get rid of Bertie, along with the smug crew of Roche, Cullen, Dempsey, Martin etc. I think Mary Hanafin would make a good Taoiseach, but as long as the current regime is there I will never vote for them.

I'm not Party biased but I reserve special contempt for FF and SF. I'm firmly of the opinion Bertie would accept SF support to stay in power.
 
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