Take a conducted tour of our own Palace in the Sky

IN a beautiful place called Tagaytay, just south of Manila in the Philippines, Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos built a magnificent, if ostentatious, hideaway known locally as the Palace in the Sky. It is built on a hill overlooking the famous Lake Taal with its multiple islands, volcanoes and lush green surrounds.

Unfortunately for the Marcos family, their palace wasn’t quite finished before their eventual demise.

The Filipinos, in their wisdom, however, have left it so to this day as a decaying monument to the gross excesses of the Marcos regime.

We have many similar unfinished trophy buildings in Ireland, none more so than the Anglo Irish Bank headquarters in Dublin — Seánie’s Palace in the Sky.

This grotesque structure could be used permanently to remind us of the excesses, strokes, skulduggery, stupidity, squandermania, cronyism and mismanagement of the Fianna Fáil regime over the past few decades. The entire first floor could be dedicated to Haughey’s penchant for sophisticated and expensive tastes, well stocked with Dom Perignon, expensive wines and Charvais shirts, a kind of mini Versailles with a begging bowl, as it were, apt only for a man of his delicate breeding. A large photograph of Ben Dunne will naturally adorn the wall in the Ansbacher Room.

On a practical note, we could “centralise” all the e-voting and P-PARS machines in the appropriately empty Cullen Room upstairs and save a fortune on storage.

In the basement, suitable “accommodation” could be arranged for those who have besmirched the Fianna Fáil escutcheon, such as Burke, Lawlor, the Flynns from Mayo, Johnny “Cash” O’Donoghue, Frank Dunlop, et al. A kind of a Rogues’ Gallery if you like.

Planning permission may or may not be required substantially to expand this area, definitely needed in the future.

The next floor would be dedicated to the Bertie/Cowen era, a veritable black hole with nothing to show but national desperation, penury, emigration on a vast scale and bankruptcy for generations to come. Space must be found here for a giant photograph of Senator “Aristotle” Harris, chief cheerleader and apologist for FF.

The top floor will be for NAMA , reserved strictly for the most favoured bankers, builders, carpetbaggers and assorted gombeen men.

Naturally, there will be a helicopter pad on top for “Johnny Cash”, Kate Ann or Rody in case of an urgent call abroad to attend the Melbourne Cup, Dubai or Cheltenham, or even to attend a NASA golf outing. Of course several chauffeur-driven limousines will be at the ready in the basement, just in case of similar emergencies.

No doubt your readers will have further suggestions, but don’t worry about the budget for this project, as it will be controlled by Patrick Neary.

John Cooney

Wilton Road

Cork