Delusion and dishonesty - O’Keeffe fraud conviction

Former Fianna Fáil Minister of State Ned O’Keeffe always presented himself a straight talker, a man prepared to speak truth to power. 

This natural directness, this fearlessness, once led him to ask that the Disney film Babe, the one that starred an affable pig, be banned because it might have a negative impact on bacon sales.

It is very hard to imagine that this infamous directness might have been tempered if a person facing charges of social welfare fraud based on bogus paperwork suggested that the dishonest application — the false invoices— came about because of “inattentiveness and sloppiness”. It is not hard to imagine how very direct Mr O’Keeffe might have been. Yet that is what the multi-millionaire businessman asked Cork District Court to believe this week when he pleaded guilty to five counts of submitting false invoices to claim over €3,700 in expenses. Mr O’Keeffe submitted five false invoices to support claims for mobile phone expenses between July 2002 and September 2009, while he was a TD for Cork East.

Mr O’Keeffe must add delusion to dishonesty if he imagines his “sloppiness” defence is anything other than the kind of inner-circle gorging that all but destroyed this country. That a man of his wealth compromised himself for such a petty sum is pathetic. His conviction is just one more reason our political system is held in low regard, particularly given the silence of his political colleagues after the initial revelations.