Bertie, bungs and bluster: double standards in high places condemned

I DEPLORE the unethical behaviour of our Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, while serving as our Minister for Finance.

First he told us the bungs were not our business, blustering on about his communion and birthday money.

I beg to differ. They are our business and your excellent editorial (Irish Examiner, September 28) stated the media has a duty to ensure our political leaders are held to account for their actions.

This is essential for the proper functioning of democracy.

But the most scary aspect of this unsavoury saga is the fact that all ministers see nothing wrong with the Taoiseach’s low standards.

This coterie should not be allowed to run our country.

I recall a comment by Mr Justice Geoghegan during the failed attempt by the Haughey family to prevent the Moriarty Tribunal investigating their financial affairs.

The judge said it was preposterous to suggest that the obligations of ethics in public office only came into being with the 1995 Ethics in Public Office Act.

All this brought to mind a passage I read some time ago:

“Pluto and Aristotle believed that human beings are distinguished from other beings by the possession of reason. The perfection of reason is wisdom and the pursuit of wisdom is philosophy. Only the wisest human beings should exercise political power”.

Máire Bean Ui Corcoráin

Lissadell

Fountainstown

Co Cork

I FIND it strange that Fianna Fáil and the PDs are so at one in their outrage towards the person who leaked the financial misfortunes of Bertie Ahern.

Only recently, the Taoiseach congratulated Michael McDowell for leaking a Department of Justice file to a well-known journalist in order to put the brakes on Frank Connolly and the Centre for Public Inquiry. Is it a case of some leaks good, some leaks bad?

Gordon Kennedy

97 Botanic Road

Glasnevin

Dublin 9

IF, as has been reported, NCB provided a loan to the then Minister for Finance using a company cheque, was this payment included in NCB’s accounts as a ‘business expense’ for tax purposes?

If it was, NCB need to explain what the nature of the business was.

Donal Fellows

Ul. Prosta 70

Warsaw 00-838

Poland

WE can all sympathise with the Taoiseach for the embarrassment he is enduring as a result of public ‘leaks’ over his alleged past wrongdoing. I wish him well in his struggle to clear his name.

I wish he would now apply the same mercy he seeks from the Irish people to my family and me. We were publicly disgraced during the 1997 presidential election campaign of my sister, Adi Roche.

Secret leaks about my past were placed in the press and I was mercilessly pilloried in public. The people were given the impression that I was fired from the army for associating with terrorists.

A complete lie, as proven in Don Mullan’s recent book, Speaking Truth to Power. Despite a High Court finding of ‘unfair procedures’ in my case, the Taoiseach has pointedly refused either to review my forced presidential ‘retirement’ from the army or to clear my name.

Double standards here again, I feel?

Dónal de Roiste

Innishmore

Ballincollig

Co Cork

BY attacking Garda Representative Association general secretary PJ Stone, Justice Minister Michael McDowell is trying to divert attention from the fact that he is seen to have backed away from his coalition party bullyboys on the ‘Bertie affair’.

He appears to be treating Garda Commissioner Noel Conroy as his whipping boy. The commissioner should be strong enough to stand up to Mr McDowell’s bullying and tell him he has the responsibility for the running of the force. Mr Conroy should also make it clear to Mr McDowell that he should adequately resource and equip members of the force.

As long as there are criminals and subversive elements who are better supplied with equipment, then Mr Stone has a duty to speak out on behalf of his members and their welfare.

All Mr McDowell appears interested in is his own job — why else would he take a stand one day and capitulate the next? Gone are the days when he was advocating ‘One-Party Government — No Way’.

So much for the ‘watchdogs’ in government — more like tamed kittens.

Tony Fagan

Bellefield Road

Enniscorthy

Co. Wexford

A PLAGUE on both their parties.

Keith Nolan

Caldragh

Carrick-on-Shannon

Co Leitrim

I AM disgusted that the Taoiseach was allowed to continue in office after the events of the past fortnight.

While a number of politicians have accepted morally questionable payments, the lies and attempts to cover up are unacceptable and, in my opinion, make Bertie Ahern’s position untenable.

As for the PDs, who promised to keep Fianna Fáil in check, they are little more than Potential Democrats. I will have no hesitation looking to someone other than Michael McDowell to represent me after the next election.

Thomas Ralph

4 Prince of Wales Tce

Ballsbridge

Dublin 4

IN the Dáil on Tuesday, the Taoiseach said that between 1976 and 1996 he “attended roughly six Man United home games each season” and that he “would travel with friends, sometimes by boat and sometimes by plane”.

Mr Ahern had already said that between 1986 and 1994 he was in great financial difficulties and had trouble meeting the costs of his legal separation and the education of his children.

But it seems he had no problem finding the cash for nearly 50 trips to Old Trafford in that time. Far from needing dig-outs from friends, it seems he simply needed to get his priorities straight.

Barry Walsh

Brookfield Hall

Castletroy

Co Limerick

IN recent days there has been a lot of media coverage regarding the financial and other costs of marriage breakdown for one high-profile father.

However, the consequences are even more serious for men of more limited resources.

Over the past 10 years, we have been contacted by thousands of fathers who feel they have been very badly treated by the family law courts. These men, in the main, find themselves relegated to living in substandard bedsits, at best, and in some cases are left homeless.

Many lead lives of quiet desperation simply because their marriages fail. They effectively become beasts of burden or, as one man described himself, “a wallet” or “a hole in the wall”.

It is high time the Government stopped banishing fathers to the margins of society and devised more humane methods of dealing with marriage breakdown. The loss and pain should be shared equally by men and women.

At present, men lose their homes, their children and the bulk of the family finances. Surely this injustice should be at the top of the political agenda for the next general election.

Mary T Cleary

Amen

St Anne’s Resource Centre

Railway Street

Navan

Co Meath

TERRY PRONE’S column headlined ‘We elect politicians to represent us, not to serve as moral role models’ (Irish Examiner, October 2) was typical PR spin.

If we allow our public representatives to be open to accepting money, then it would be normal to expect that it was given for a reason. The time has come to shout stop.

Bertie Ahern is a cunning and devious politician. He thought monies given as a result of ‘family difficulties’ would never be subject to scrutiny. He was wrong, and he should resign.

Tony Donnelly

52 Gandon Close

Dublin 6W

THE payments to Bertie Ahern only came to light because of the Mahon Tribunal.

No wonder he and his cabinet colleagues were so keen to change the rules regarding the establishment of future tribunals.

How many more skeletons are going to come out of the cupboard?

Paul Kinsella

53 Lorcan Grove

Santry

Dublin 9