Ireland of the Gombeens

Let us consider the incredible world of the McMahon Tribunal. 10 years and 300 M Euros mostly paid to legal fat cats to find out what we knew already? That Politics (and Law and Banking and …..) and Politicians in Ireland is systemically corrupt. Time to take the Italian approach of throwing them in jail and making the Gombeens prove their innocence?

http://daithaic.blogspot.co.uk/2007/12/bertie-ahern-and-poverty-in-ireland.html

I have had some personal experience of this corruption but one anecdote will suffice. My friend in Dublin, Architect Jack Keenan was appointed to An Board Plenala, (The Planning Board) by Ray Burke the then Minister of Local Government. Jack I might add was a member of Fianna Fail and architect for developers Brennan and McGowan who benefited greatly from wide scale rezoning of previously low value agricultural land at Kilnamanagh and Swords by Burke. Jack was architect for these developments and also designed Burke’s own house which was built and given to him as a “gift” by Brennan and McGowan. After his term on Board Plenala had ended Jack was walking down Herbert Place near Fianna Fail’s party headquarters when he bumps into Ray Burke who then abuses him in the street for not “looking after our people enough” when he was on the Planning Board.

Ray Burke, being led off to prison

Bear in mind this was a government minister who went on to become Minister of Justice. He was later jailed for six months in 2005 for tax evasion. He was left with a €10.5 million legal bill from his long-running involvement with the planning tribunal. He also made a €1.3m settlement with the Criminal Assets Bureau following its investigation into his financial affairs.

When Bob Geldof was given the Freedom of Dublin in 2005 he was nearly run out of town for his observation that the fabric of modern Dublin could only be explained by a culture of “deep rooted corruption between “developers and politicians.” With the benefit of hindsight, Bob the Gob must be impressed with his previously undetected talent for understatement.

Charles "The Squire" Haughey in front of his home,  Abbeville.  Haughey  sold the property and stud farm in 2003 in order to pay a settlement to the Revenue Commissioners. It was bought by Joe Moran’s Manor Park Homes, who subsequently went into receivership after Bank of Scotland Ireland sought to recover outstanding debts.  

Since then he has blasted Fianna Fail leader and three times Taoiseach Haughey, who died aged 80 in 2006, accusing him of having the blood of innocent Irish people on his hands by helping finance the IRA.

"The man who was prime minister was a sort of Irish Robert Mugabe. His name was Haughey and he was a completely corrupt man - morally, economically, whatever," said Geldof explaining to his audience how he and his Boomtown Rats' bandmate bassist Pete Briquette had come to write the band's 1980 hit Banana Republic. And he made a lot of money doing business deals, criminal business deals with his son. And he took the money and he bought guns and bullets for the IRA to kill other Irish people," added Geldof in a reference to Haughey's implication the Arms Trial of 1970.

For the story of the Boomtown Rats first concert (organised by moi!) see;

http://daithaic.blogspot.co.uk/2007/08/bob-geldof-and-me.html

The Boomtown Rats 1980 hit 'Banana Republic' remains a scabrous and prescient indictment of corrupt Ireland in the late 1970s.

Banana republic

Septic isle

Screaming in the suffering sea

It sounds like crying (crying, crying)

Everywhere I go, oh yeah

Everywhere I see

The black and blue uniforms

Police and priests

And I wonder do you wonder

While you're sleeping

with your whore

That sharing beds with history

Is like a-licking running sores

Forty shades of green yeah

Sixty shades of red

Heroes going cheap these days

Price; a bullet in the head

Gargelgate – A very Irish tragedy

Our very own Brian Cowen

Some years ago when the in laws retired to Co. Offaly in Ireland their TD (Member of Parliament) was a local auctioneer, Brian Cowen. Cowen was born in Clara, County Offaly, the son of May and Bernard Cowen, a former Fianna Fáil TD and Senator. The family owned a public house in Clara town, located adjacent to the family home. His father also worked as an auctioneer. Now it has been observed that languages invent words because they need them and Irish is sprinkled with words like Gombeen, “a pejorative Hiberno-English term for a shady, small-time "wheeler-dealer" or businessman who is always looking to make a quick profit, often at someone else's expense or through the acceptance of bribes”, Sleeveen “somebody who is sly, plausible, and ingratiating” or Spalpeen “a rascal.” You get the idea the Irish language had to invent these words / descriptors because it needed them, no more so than for the Irish Political Class who contain a fair proportion of Gombeen Men (and Women) who previously followed noble callings as Publicans, Auctioneers, Bookmakers or general multi-purpose shysters!


Tom Byrne's satirical depiction of Taoiseach Brian Cowen performing 'Lakes of Pontchartrain' at the Fianna Fail “Think-in” on display in the Apollo Gallery, Dublin.

Cowen became Taoiseach (Prime Minister) in May 2008 following the resignation of his predecessor Bertie Ahern after he was found to have received over £200.000 in unaccounted cash from “Benefactors.” Somewhat embarrassingly (for he was Minister of Finance for much of the time) he hadn’t accounted for tax on these “donations.” Indeed such was his faith in ready cash that he didn’t have a bank account for much of the time either! However, even if every allegation against Bertie Ahern was true it all pales into insignificance against the low standards set by his predecessor, the late Charles Haughey who, in his time, pocketed £8.4 million in “donations”. Although an Anglophobe by birth and conviction, Haughey cultivated the most elaborate tastes and mannerisms of the Anglo-Irish gentry. He had mansions, estates and a private island. He liked antique furniture, and fine art, horses, clothes and wines.


Charlie "The Squire" Haughey

Haughey’s Minister of Justice, Ray Burke, has previously been found culpable of receiving large sums of cash and indeed having his own house and its land “donated” by Brennan and McGowan, developers who benefited from wide scale rezoning of land. Liam Lawlor, another Fianna Fail T.D. (Irish Member of Parliament) was also found to have corruptly benefited from payments from developers who had agricultural land rezoned for development, often at great cost to the public purse in providing the infrastructure.


The Bold Bertie in typical heroic pose

Even squeaky clean former Prime Minister Garret FitzGerald was found to have a 320,000 pound loan from Allied Irish Bank to invest in the shares of Guinness Peat Aviation (of which he was a director) written off by the bank when the investment went wrong, as you or I would in similar circumstances. Dr. FitzGerald had previously been Prime Minister when the same bank had been bailed out to the tune of £121 million when their investment in the Insurance Corporation of Ireland went wrong.

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2007/12/bertie-ahern-and-poverty-in-ireland.html

Since Cowen became Taoiseach the Irish economy has nose dived, its sovereign debt rating has been cut and he has launched a 4 Billion programme of cuts which has copper fastened his unpopularity. Cuts are not easy in a statist country like Ireland where Gombeen Pork Barrel politics are the order of the day. With the same population as Greater Manchester the country supports no less than 380 Quangos once again proving the truth of Brendan Behan’s saying “The Irish are very popular with themselves!”



Now to economic misery has been added National Mortification in the scandal of the allegedly drunken interview known as Gargelgate - Brian Cowen's now infamous early morning interview came five-and-a-quarter hours after he left The Blazers Bar in the Ardilaun Hotel following a night of drinking, singing and telling yarns.

It was a night typical of any party gathering, enjoyed by TDs, senators and assembled journalists. At the time, no one could have foreseen the political storm that would envelop the Taoiseach in what would become one of the most damaging episodes of his political career which has been picked up in America by Jay Leno on NBC’s Tonight Show.



US chat-show host Jay Leno says he is not going to apologise to Taoiseach Brian Cowen for mocking him as a "drunken moron" on his prime time show. Leno displayed a photo of Mr Cowen and asked his audience to guess if he was a bartender, a politician or a "nightclub comedian", before revealing he was the "Prime Minister of Ireland" to loud laughter. "He's Brian Cowen, the Prime Minister of Ireland. Oh God, it's so nice to know we're not the only country with drunken morons, isn't it?" Leno joked.

Mr Cowen has featured in the international media since it emerged he was singing and drinking in the early hours of the morning at the Fianna Fail party think-in (In itself a strange concept!) in the Ardilaun Hotel, Co Galway, two weeks ago. He was criticised for his performance on an RTE 'Morning Ireland' interview several hours later. He admitted afterwards that he needed to be more cautious in his social life but strongly denied he was drunk or hung-over during the interview.


Dublin - capital of a very free Ireland

But this national embarrassment doesn't stop even at Cowen's door – Irish State Broadcaster RTE's initial refusal to repeat the phrase 'drunken morons' proves that while Cowen can't control the antics of an NBC employee, he still holds sway over the national broadcaster.

Brian Cowen called a "drunken moron" in NBC Tonight Show segment from Sept 22, 2010



The Irish PM Brian Cowen has refuted claims that he sounded "halfway between drunk and hungover" in a radio interview.



Brian Cowen Drunk Live Radio Interview (audio slowed) before his breakfast on RTÉ News Morning Ireland, Tuesday, 14 September 2010. Taoiseach Brian Cowen drunk interview live on air.