Holiday hoodlums are no match for some of our political gurriers

ON THE first St Patrick’s Day while at university in Texas in 1964, I was interviewed by the local daily newspaper as I was the only person from Ireland among more than 15,000 students.

They seemed surprised to hear that St Patrick’s Day was no big deal in Ireland back then, with just a few small parades around the country.

The parade in New York was a big thing throughout the US and many Irish people who witnessed it said they were ashamed at the carry-on of those who were celebrating their supposed Irishness. Some of people who saw what happened at Finglas in Dublin on this St Patrick’s Day seemed to feel the same way.

A crowd gathered there to watch the joyriding. Louts dragged one unfortunate driver from his car and made off in the vehicle to have their fun. At the end of the day seven cars were burned out. Great fun! That was the kind of thing one might have associated with the race riots in some American cities in the 1960s, but it is part of today’s Ireland.

In December 1984, Charlie Haughey gave a famous interview to Hot Press in an obvious play for the younger vote. It was sprinkled with the ‘f’ word, which he expected would be taken out.

Haughey was using a common vernacular often popular in male company. He was furious on learning his foul language was printed, but most people realised it was how he behaved when he was with ‘the lads’, so very few took umbrage at his language.

In a way it was reminiscent of the publication of the White House tape recordings. The people who were horrified at the language seemed to be getting the wrong end of the stick. What was horrifying was the attitude that was being exposed.

In the case of the Hot Press interview the appalling aspect was Haughey’s attitude to so-called joyriding. The interviewer, John Waters, remarked that he wished to talk about issues like crime and vandalism.

“I don’t think I could say that I approve of youngsters knocking off BMW’s and so on,” Haughey said. “Although, I must admit, I always had a hidden desire to do something like that!”

People have had their political careers wrecked for saying much less.

The sick fact is that many of the people who gathered in Finglas on St Patrick’s Day looked on the whole thing as a bit of fun. They were just fulfilling Charlie’s hidden desires.

Finglas made the headlines, but the lunacy was not confined to the capital. A young Polish man was seriously assaulted in Tralee that night for no apparent reason other than some depraved thugs wishing to have their kicks. The sad fact is that it could probably have happened in just about any town in Ireland on the night. In the midst of our new-found affluence, we seem to have lost our values.

But then should anyone really be surprised when one thinks of the example given by our so-called leaders?

During the week, TV3’s Dirty Money programme on the Criminal Assets Bureau (CAB) dealt with the investigations into the criminal activities of politicians Ray Burke and Michael Keating. The journalist Joe MacAnthony exposed Burke in early 1974 with having taken what amounted to a £15,000 bribe to secure planning permission for builders Tom Brennan and Joseph McGowan.

MacAnthony had come across the evidence in the Companies Office after Brennan & McGowan had listed their payment to Burke among their business expenses. When the gardaí investigated, however, that report was strangely missing. But Joe MacAnthony had made a copy of the document.

Burke had been elected to the Dáil the previous year when Fianna Fáil lost power, but in 1977 he became a junior minister in Jack Lynch’s last government, and he was appointed a full minister in Haughey’s four different governments during the 1980s.

Haughey even appointed him Minister for the Environment, where he was in charge of planning, and Minister for Justice.

Before Burke was ever appointed, however, MacAnthony was washed up in this country because he had the temerity to expose the Irish Hospital Sweepstake. This proved the virtual deathknell of the Hospitals’ Trust, but by then MacAnthony had emigrated to Canada.

He would be vindicated in 2002 when Mr Justice Fergus Flood concluded that the transfer to Burke of his house, Briargate, amounted a corrupt payment from Tom Brennan and his associates. In addition, Burke also received at least four other corrupt payments totalling £160,000 from Brennan & McGowan during the 1980s.

That was the money from just one firm. There was plenty of other money, too, such as the £30,000 donation for Fianna Fáil that he pocketed.

When Bertie Ahern came to power as Taoiseach in 1997, Fianna Fáil was promising zero tolerance. Yet he defended the appointment of Ray Burke on the grounds that he had thoroughly checked out the rampant rumours and allegations against him, going so far as to say that he looked up every tree in north Dublin.

Burke was so dirty that he had to go within a year, but Bertie accused the opposition and the media of hounding a decent man out of office. What was he trying to do — shaft a few more Joe MacAnthonys? In the following years Burke lied and obstructed the tribunal. He eventually went to jail for six months for tax evasion.

CAB assessed his tax evasion at some £2 million, but he was left off with a €600,000 settlement, and the tribunal assessed that his obstruction had cost around €10.5m. He was exposed as corrupt from the start of his Dáil career, but he now enjoys a ministerial pension essentially for ripping off the country.

CHARLIE HAUGHEY evaded tax, lied under oath and obstructed the McCracken Tribunal. By comparison, the Finglas gurriers are only a distraction. They stole and torched a few cars, while the corrupt politicians have plundered the country and it is the younger generation who will have to pay that bill.

Bertie Ahern not only appointed Burke to his last ministry but also tried to blame the people who exposed him. Watching his Dáil performance in 1997 sounds hauntingly familiar to his shameful performance in relation to the current investigation into his own behaviour.

Ahern should have been ousted for his lousy judgment in relation to Ray Burke, if nothing else. But, of course, there was more than the Bertie & Burke show. There were the dig-outs that he has admitted. They have a saying in New York — “Enough already!”

Then there are the unanswered questions about the shenanigans in relation to the purchase of his house in Drumcondra, the Fianna Fáil money that was used to buy the house for his girlfriend’s aunts, and this week we heard of another £15,500 in sterling that was lodged to his building society account, even though he has already testified that he only deposited his salary in that account.

Some would have us believe that investigation into his behaviour must stop now so that he can address a joint session of the US Congress at the end of next month.

Why — to make a spectacle of us, or of the US Congress?