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As the Fianna Fáil leader and subsequent Prime Minister of Ireland faces a ‘battle for his political life’ in the lower house of parliament next week amidst alleged improper reciept of money in the mid 1990s, the opposition parties in Ireland are making great strides at heckling the Taoiseach and trying to undermine the party who has brought phenomenal prosperity to the country.

There is a saying that Bertie Ahern is the ‘Teflon Taoiseach’. In the hallowed halls of the Oireachtas (the parliament of Ireland) members of parliament (or TDs) have long since given up trying to find fault with the venerable Drumcondra man in an effort to thwart his 9-year rule in Ireland. Everything from property scandals to off-shore accounts and money laundering have been thrown at the feet of the Taoiseach since the early 1990s, and each flaming arrow has been taken up and quenched by Bertie.

Last week the Irish Times, a populist paper in Ireland, broke a story based on leaked confidential information obtained from sources within the Mahon Tribunal. While I can only speculate as to the nature of the leak and its intent, there is no doubt a political arm was in this story. The Irish Times proported that in 1991 and 1992, the then Minister for Finance Mr. Ahern, recieved substantial sums of money from businessmen amounting to between €50,000 and €100,000 in today’s currency. This brought with it huge media speculation as to the nature of the alleged payments, but none the less, the Taoiseach remained tight-lipped saying only that it was a private affair and none of the media’s business.

On Tuesday last, Mr. Ahern, the Taoiseach of Ireland, sat opposite the annoying Bryon Dobson and gave an emotional account of the payments he recieved in 1991 and 1992. They turned out to be personal private loans given to the Minister of the day on a personal basis in order to help the humble man through a crisis period in his financial life at the time. While the circumstances of the payments were too private to bear here today, the main area of concern is that it was personal, private and completely off-limits to investigative journalists.

What also emerged in that interview less than 18 hours before the Parliament went back into session, was that in the 1990s, the Taoiseach - then Minister for Finance - visited Manchester (England) to attend a function in a private capacity to speak to a frequently-visited crowd of fiscal enthusiasts. This was a private affair and travel to and from was paid by Mr. Ahern from his salary. At the final of many trips and orations, the crowed pitched together to donate STG£8,000  to the man who visited them a number of times on his own behalf. This payment is now the subject of political objection from the highest ranks of the lowest parties within the Irish legislature.

Fine Gael and Labour are entering a pact in the upcoming election to ‘offer an alternative’ government to Ireland after what will be 10 years of rule by Fianna Fáil and the Progressive Democrats coalition. But the problems facing the Mayo leaders of the two main opposition parties is that they have no policies which are radically different from the policies of Fianna Fáil over the last 10 years. The majority leader of the opposition, Mr. Enda Kenny, is seen as a hard fighter in the house of parliament, but outside, he is regarded as only second best. In a recent poll, people voted their trust in Enda in one category, while voting their say in Bertie in all the other categories, which included ‘ability to run the country’, ‘control growth in the economy’ and ‘represent Ireland abroad’.

Fine Gael (or Fyinne Gwayel as Enda would say it) is stuck in a rut, and the recent confessions of the most humble Prime Minister in the world are music to the Mayo man’s ears. He has finally got his shoe in the front gate and he’s desperate to get some leeway with the man who’s solely responsible for almost half of the Irish workforce having employment and obtaining full-employment in Ireland after the tumultuous times in the 1980s when Ireland left the economy in Fine Gael’s hands. Back then, Fine Gael was led by Ireland’s most respected past political mind, Dr. Garret Fitzgerald. He inherited an economy destroyed by the failed policies of the arrogant Mr. Jack Lynch of Cork who brought the country to its knees in a vain attempt to retain Fianna Fáil control of the goverment (and more importantly in his eyes, keep leadership from Charles J. Haughey). Since then we’ve had Mr. Haughey, Mr. Reynolds and Mr. Ahern running the Irish Economy full speed ahead of the tiger economies of the world. For a brief 2 and a half year period from December 1994 to June of 1997, Fine Gael was led by the John Bruton to power and ruled over a country in its economic infancy. Luckily, Fine Gael’s term of office then was short enough not to do too much damage to the country, although many suspect they poisoned the Celtic Tiger (previously referred to as ‘Síbín’ here) and led to its death.

But back to proceedings in the Dáil this week. Mayo lost the All-Ireland final and Pat Rabbitte and Enda Kenny are vowing to restore pride in the Connaught county by fighting with the Taoiseach on a trivial matter of STG£8000 recieved in the early 1990s. STG£8000. Think about it. It’s the cost of flights and accommodation in Manchester a few times between 1977 and 1995. It’s small changed compared to the previous scandals. Has either leader of the opposition never recieved money before?? Didn’t their grannies give them a few pounds when they hit the big 40?!

All this nonsense is neglecting the fact that it’s now Friday. Friday is the start of the weekend, and subsequently the now normal beginning of the end of some lives on our nation’s roads. Personally, I blame the learner driver and poor infrastructure. The elderly will become a lesser percentage of population also this weekend as many live their final hours in respite care. Children of all ages will consume unnatural quantities of alcohol in a bid to free themselves from the stress of working life and the chance of copulation. Thugs and scumbags from inner cities will strike fear into the hearts of honest decent working citizens, steal cars, damage private property and probably have a few babies, Irish business will take a breather in their manic drive to screw more out of the Ryder Cup and Ireland will probably end up having another wet and miserable weekend.

So what does it matter that Bertie Ahern, the Prime Minister who lives in a semi-detached house in Drumcondra, on the North Side, who occasionally enjoys a pint of his favourite tipple in his local pub and who’ll sit down on Sunday to  his favourite team Manchester United play football, recieved some money in the early 1990s? As the owner of Treasury Holdings in China said at the Ernst & Young awards last night, ‘he stuck his neck out for us’, and in turn has been the best Taoiseach ever.

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So the venerable European side saw off the yanks in Kildare in the 2006 Ryder Cup. In what was no doubt a thrilling display of rich men and they’re equally rich wives following a dimpled-ball around Ireland’s richest man’s golf course, an apparent audience of over 2 billion people are said to have tuned in. Irish tourism peddled their wares at the show and claimed that Ireland was well represented both on and off the course.

But what did it mean to the average Irish person? For weeks, months and even years before last week’s event at the K Club, advertisers were milking the golden teat of sponsorship in magazines, newspapers, billboards, television and even online. Everyone was in on the act, and even Ireland’s richest and most wealthy corporation, Allied Irish Banks, commissioned a special advertisment in honor of Ireland’s hosting of the world’s pinniacle (pun) golf competition. The advertisment involved thousands of people walking to the edge of Europe to watch a man tee-off a Ryder Cup ball emblazoned with the competition’s logo into the Atlantic Ocean. For those of you who didn’t recognise the beach involved in this ‘epic’ advertisment (one of the longest ads ever run on Irish TV) it was Comeenoele Strand (or Trá Cham Uí Neoil) on the Dingle Peninsula. The high cliff at the top of the beach is Dunmore Head (or Ceann Dún Mhór), Ireland’s most westerly point (and subsequently, the European Union’s most westerly point.) Naturally, America too was represented, with hundreds standing atop the Brooklyn Bridge in New York City to the sight of another man wasting a perfectly good ball by putting it into the ‘drink’.

AIB wasn’t the only one in on the act. O2, Ireland’s best cellular telephone network (now owned by Telefonica Movistar in Spain) also had an advertisment, closer to ‘home’ this time, paving the River Liffey and TempleBar and Milltown in Dublin with green grass, as Padraig Harrington chased his ball around the city, with token shots of the Luas and a cameo appearance by the Dublin boy himself, Brian O’Driscoll.

These two advertisments are simply a few in hundreds of campaigns highlighting a specific company’s attachment to the Ryder Cup, which was held in the leafy confines of Michael Smurfit’s K Club course in County Kildare, a veritable suburb of the Dublin wealthy. And as the day drew near, our National Broadcaster pitched their tent, by shelling out cold hard coins on an advert promoting the forthcoming tournament announcing full highlight coverage of the games in Kildare and had a token ‘on-location’ spot booked at the edge of the lake, well away from the Clubhouse. RTÉ naturally couldn’t be bothered to host the television event on the national airwaves, with the probable reason of lack of funds or stiff competition. Instead, our country’s most important sporting event was left to British Sky Broadcasting, Rupert Murdoch’s creation, to feed to the billions worldwide. Irish people too showed up in their thousands to catch a glimpse of Tiger Woods and some other golfers, as they tee-ed off against a backdrop of more and more advertisments.

So while the fat cats in ‘Irish’ industry paraded their goods and services to the few who bothered to attend, the rest of the country continued on oblivious to the event being held outside Dublin. People still went to work in the evening, some people didn’t make it home and instead died on our roads. More people fled for the safety and sanctity of an Emergency Room when their children were caught ill. And some people even fell in love. But on the whole, no-one outside of ‘The Pale’ really benefitted from the event. Bill Clinton was there on the final day to pay his respects to the American team as they went down in flames against a European side who collectively were very good, but who are invidividually very poor golfers. RTÉ did their bit each evening with Colm Murray being quietly forgiven for paying yet more attention to the other ostentatious sport of horse-racing, as he interview c-list celebrities in his 2-minute slot each night. RTÉ even donated their ’star’ newsreader and all-round good-girl Sharon Ní Bheoláin to parade around on-stage for the opening ceremony dressed in what could only be described as a lovely dress. Her sharp, uninviting and monotonous voice heralded the beginning of the tournament that saw Corporate Ireland on-show.

For those who believe this was a good show for Ireland, where were the shots of beautiful Connemara, tranquil Donegal and rural Cork? They were all still there, albeit battered by the tail end of Hurricane Gordon. But they weren’t on Sky Sports and they didn’t make an appearance on RTÉ either. Irish business-folk made a mint while the rest of the country battled with disproportionate VRT and VAT rates elsewhere in the country as the hospitality sector in Kildare and Dublin flourished amidst prices 3-times higher than average. Ireland was ridden well by the Ryder Cup, and I suspect, fewer people respect the competition now than did before its arrival at Dublin’s sister-county.

diarmy

There’s recently been an online famine here at diarmydotnet. I’m not sure what’s caused it, but I am sure that it’s not potatoes. There’s so much to talk about lately, Enda Kenny’s Hair, the stitching up of Bertie Ahern, Mary Harney leaving Michael McDowell in charge and of course, Pat Rabbitte being Pat Rabbitte. (and that’s just 2 weeks in Irish politics!)

A friend of mine has banned me from having an opinion. Thanks Alan.

The Government today announced a world-first. An online consultation service to allow the general public have a say in the forthcoming legislation on broadcasting guidelines for public and independent broadcasters of tele-visual and radio communications. The move comes after the Broadcasting Commission of Ireland announced some months back that it would be proposing new regulations for broadcasting in Ireland this winter.

Among the things that I hope are changed in the new legislation are a complete and total ban on the advertising of mobile-phone competitions, mobile-phone related downloads, psychics lines, sex lines (they’re a heap of shite!) and more than anything else, a ban on TV Licenses.

Ok, so the last one won’t happen. But why not? Why is it that every year without fail, the fear of God is put into homeowners to part with €155.00 of their hard-earned over-taxed money to pay for a state broadcasting service which pales in comparison to even some media websites developed on a shoe-string budget?? I know TV3 get the tiniest share of that €155.00, but why should you have to pay for a license to have a television set? You bought it, it’s your house, you paid for that too, and on the TV you paid VAT and a customs fee built into the price, and you paid stamp duty and VAT on your house and even the bottle of water you bought for drinking in your house because the local water supply is loaded with chlorine and fluoride had VAT added into it! Then this string of misery of a person, who can only be equated to something like a car clamper on a level of sheer evil, knocks on your door and threatens to take legal proceedings against you for not paying €155.00 to the main benefactor RTÉ!

What do we get for this investment? We get a fifth-rate news and current affairs service that barely has any relevance to so-called “current affairs” anymore. We get served up Britain’s finest in soap operas, a pathetic attempt at a home-grown soap opera (yes, that’s Fairly Shitty I’m talking about), we get an abomination of a Friday-night chat-show presented by a plank of wood, out of date medical dramas (I counted 5 medical dramas one day every day), a completely farcical children’s television programme with imported rubbish from around Europe, ancient films that if people hadn’t seen in the cinema had more than two years to rent the DVD in some cases! What we’re getting for our hard-earned is complete muck, filled with more muck, technical glitches, a crap website and even worse sports coverage. And the worse thing of all, is we get absolutely and totally NO say whatsoever as to where this money is spent!

One major point of this forthcoming legislation is that RTE and TG4 will be incorporated as limited companies. That’ll bring RTE kicking and screaming into the 21st century as profit and ratings become the main bread-winner for them. Maybe then they’ll have a good look at the accounts and see why they’re probably spending the largest portion of their incomes on staffing the station and substations and ‘foreign’ correspondants. Maybe then we’ll get a news service based on public-input - one where the news is current and relevant, presented in a clear manner and in a professional domain. Maybe we’ll get a decent prime time television schedule. Perhaps we might even get a good following of various programmes.

But above all, we’ll be glad to pay our TV licenses.

diarmy