Patrick Honohan is very fond of Patrick Honohan.
Political families, or ‘dynasties’ some would have it, are quite strange
Joe Higgins is a wanker pure and simple
Poignant
However political commentator Olivia O’Leary believed Mr Ahern simply did not like Mr Lenihan, for other reasons
“He didn’t like Brian Lenihan, he didn’t like the fact that he played Wagner in the car and knew about art. It was one of the reasons he didn’t promote Brian earlier,” she said.
“There definitely was a middle-class, bourgeoisie self-confidence about Brian Lenihan that was totally unapologetic and that was rare in FF.”
FF in a nutshell. Sure DeValera suppressed his own interests for most of his life to keep the True Gaels, salt of the earth roaster constituency happy.
[QUOTE=“iron mike, post: 1160079, member: 3079”]First of all I firmly believe he was shafted by the banks. Secondly after being diagnosed with a terminal disease he chose to stay on and try as best he could to fix the fuck up
that was made. In my opi ion that cost him at least two years when he could have fucked off like a lot of those FF wankers did when the shit hit thefan.
Maybe he wasn’t the best we had but he was commited and for that he gave his life. The fact that he wasn’t shot at dawn doesnt make a difference.[/QUOTE]
In fairness he was a bright chap, but he was an incompetent minister for finance. No more incompetent, maybe, than many of the previous incumbents, and unlucky to be in position when the crisis hit, but incompetent nonetheless. He was considered by the FT to be the worst minister for finance in the eurozone two years running. The banks may have codded him and maybe he wasn’t to know that, but he was a cheerleader for the culture of light touch regulation that slept walked the country into the crisis and ensured that the banks would be in a position to do just that.
What’s more is that it wasn’t just on the banks he was found wanting. His 2008/2009 budget was politically so disastrous, it had to be rewritten within days.
On a human level his will to carry on in the face of his illness was commendable, but don’t let that blind you to the fact that for the country it was an absolute disaster to have a convalescing politician in charge of the most important ministry at the time of the country’s greatest crisis and it was emblematic of the madness of the Cowen era.
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[QUOTE=“Fagan ODowd, post: 1160094, member: 706”]In fairness he was a bright chap, but he was an incompetent minister for finance. No more incompetent, maybe, than many of the previous incumbents, and unlucky to be in position when the crisis hit, but incompetent nonetheless. He was considered by the FT to be the worst minister for finance in the eurozone two years running. The banks may have codded him and maybe he wasn’t to know that, but he was a cheerleader for the culture of light touch regulation that slept walked the country into the crisis and ensured that the banks would be in a position to do just that.
What’s more is that it wasn’t just on the banks he was found wanting. His 2008/2009 budget was politically so disastrous, it had to be rewritten within days.
On a human level his will to carry on in the face of his illness was commendable, but don’t let that blind you to the fact that for the country it was an absolute disaster to have a convalescing politician in charge of the most important ministry at the time of the country’s greatest crisis and it was emblematic of the madness of the Cowen era.[/QUOTE]
Absolutely accept that point. My counter argument is that he was at best told half truths by the banks and probably by his own civil servants gave him very little to work with. He mynot have made the right decisions all of the time bu you couldnt lay all that blame at his door. Maybe he wasn’t the best man for the job at the time but he stuck it out when the rest of the wankers decided to take their 150k pensions while we paid for them. I mean who was lrft. Who could have taken Merkel and her leder hosen on. Dempsey, Hannafin, Coughlan, Dempsey, Noel Aherne, Cowen? Fuckwits the lot of em
You forgot Batt O’Keeffe - who apparently was making all of the key financial decisions in the last days of the Cowen government on the grounds that he had been a part time economics teacher in CIT.
While at the same time, coaching Ivor Callery how to claim a new phone on expenses
He’s still more qualified than Pearse Doherty in finance so.
we are going to do it
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we’re back mick, we are back, what a day for party stalwarts like ourselfs,after the dark days of 5 years ago, we are returning to power under the leadership of Michael Martin
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Must watch this tonight.
Has the cat got the FF voters tongues?
Fianna Fail has for ages been demanding an inquiry into Nama’s property deals. Last week, when Mick Wallace put down a motion to that effect, they voted against it.
No, no, they explained, we can’t have an inquiry - sure, isn’t the Comptroller and Auditor General looking into this?
Yes, the C&AG is looking at one aspect of it. Just as he was last time Fianna Fail demanded a full inquiry.
The thoroughness with which Fianna Fail has betrayed its own members and voters, and the interests of all of us, is impressive. It’s doing a creditable job of helping Fine Gael keep the lid on the Nama scandal, while simultaneously posing as the main opposition party. As long as the political correspondents facilitate this deception, so long will duplicity prosper.
Again and again last week, Fianna Fail marched in to vote with Fine Gael. Smell? What smell?
The Nama deal is under investigation by the PSNI, the UK’s National Crime Agency and the US Federal Bureau of Investigation.
The Garda, of course, are too busy keeping tabs on water charge protesters to spare a detective or two to check out the whiffy deals.
Fine Gael and Fianna Fail voted down an inquiry on the basis that any state scrutiny will somehow interfere with due process.
With exquisite comic reasoning, the very fact the PSNI, the NCA and the FBI are disturbed by the smell from Nama has become reason for the Irish establishment to ignore the smell. Question: what don’t they want us to know? What is it makes them pretend they don’t get a hint of a smell from the festering Cerberus deal?
The C&AG wouldn’t investigate spuds to a duck
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Twitter eh?
Huh?