Defiant but still divisive, Flynn follows in her father’s footsteps

BEVERLY FLYNN’S father, “Pee” Flynn, was never a politician given to understatement.

When he once described her as a “class act”, a lot of people put it in the same category as other over-the-top and crass statements he had previously made.

Just to jog our memories, a good few of them were made on a famous The Late Late Show in 1999. He alienated half the population when he complained how hard it was to juggle three houses, cars and housekeepers on just one six-figure European Commissioner’s salary.

And then he got himself into the soup with his unfortunate comments about Tom Gilmartin not being very well — something that so infuriated the developer he decided to press ahead and publicly disclose details of the £50,000 payment he made to the former Fianna Fáil politician.

There were others — the one about Mary Robinson’s private life in 1990; another leading reference to Bertie Ahern’s living arrangements (he had split from his wife Miriam) when it looked like he would challenge Albert Reynolds for the Fianna Fáil leadership in 1991.

Beverly Flynn’s remarkable 19-minute interview with Sean O’Rourke on RTÉ’s News at One yesterday was telling of a few things. The first is she has inherited her father’s self-confidence, or what some would say is arrogance. Secondly, she has also inherited his knack for being out of touch — and lacking in empathy — with the views of ordinary people.

There were moments during the interview yesterday in which you would have to agree with Mr Ahern’s assessment that she was a politician of undoubted ability and intelligence who would have attained high office by now were it not for her legal difficulties.

But those difficulties were not trivial. She took a libel case against RTÉ and lost and ended up with a bill of €2.8 million (and sure, €600,000 was penalty interest — but that was only imposed because as yet, according to RTÉ lawyers, she has not paid one cent). In addition, the High Court and Supreme Court had found as a matter of fact that she had encouraged clients to evade tax when she worked for National Irish Bank. And so had two High Court-appointed inspectors, the former Supreme Court judge John Blayney and eminent accountant Tom Grace.

Yet, in her interview yesterday she kept on presenting herself as the victim. She pointed out that she was the only one who had to bear costs personally as everybody else was indemnified. But it was herself who initiated the action against RTÉ — and therefore, she was the author of her own misfortune.

And she also managed to cleverly insert the line that despite the settlement being some €1.5m shy of the €2.8m owed, that the licence payer might not have to pay out as it was her understanding that RTÉ was covered by insurance.

But where she struck the real discordant note was her defiant refusal to accept she had done anything wrong.

“I feel to be quite honest with you, that over the years that I have been singled out and been in someway scapegoated for what was in effect was bank policy. I never believed I did anything wrong. I’ve always believed that I worked within the law. I fought the case because I 100% believed it.”

It told you a lot about Beverly Flynn but it was hardly a politic thing to say. That was borne out by the torrent of phone calls to the News at One and later heard through Liveline.

The English columnist Julie Burchill once wrote of her ex-boyfriend, the journalist Toby Young, that he was a very talented guy but had the uncanny ability of making 50% of people hate him merely by walking from one end of the room to another.

Beverly Flynn may now be destined for high office, but it’s clear that despite her efforts to “swing some of the negative people to the other side”, she will always remain a divisive figure.