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Kansas City Irish Festivals, Music, Pubs, & Events by an Artist in Ireland

4 Responses to “Mudii”

1. Doc responds: April 3rd, 2008 at 5:13 am

   I’m a bit shocked Bertie stood down; I can’t count all of the American politicians who have been found out with Island accounts, loose and savory women copping their joints or even, for pete’s sake, hundreds of thouosands of dollars in their freezers in their offices and they keep on tickin’…

   Maybe Bertie’s an honorable man? (I certainly can’t say because I get most of my Irish news from you, Grandad, K8, Going Like Sixty and Tweny Major.) I know the idea is implausable, but still…

2. joe responds: April 3rd, 2008 at 7:15 am

   Sounds strangely like every damn day in Kansas, the universes crotch.

3. Eolaí responds: April 3rd, 2008 at 7:41 am

   Doc,

   Unlike Haughey it’s true to say that Bertie does not have, and never has, the trappings of somebody wealthy beyond their employ. Some people have always been bothered by his ordinariness, refusing to believe it’s real or just disliking him for it.

   Last night I watched one of his accusers question one of his defenders, repeatedly, as to why at a time when Bertie had about 50,000 Irish pounds in savings, he borrowed 19,000 to pay legal fees of 17,000 - and ask over and over why Bertie didn’t pay the legal fees from his savings. To my mind there is so much not wrong with the situation painted in that question that it’s ludicrous it should even be asked on national television.

   The problem as I see it is in how he handled the questions about his finances, not his actual finances. His testimony at the Mahon Tribunal and his answers in other arenas (in the Dáil, and in interviews) contradicted each other and didn’t clarify matters.

   Coming after the exposed culture of corruption that our central and local government imposed on us, there is now in Ireland a dogged appetite to chase every sniff of public finances possibly not being in order - and the finances of the Minister for Finance, as he was, and Taoiseach, as he is, would seem to have never been in any kind of order.

   In some other countries this would never have gone anywhere, but in many other countries again Bertie would have resigned a long time ago - but then again in any other jurisdiction I suspect Bertie would have managed his finances - public and personal - differently.

   I felt it was right to ask the questions that various testimonies kept bringing up, but that he would have been right to carry on as Taoiseach pending the verdict of the Tribunal.

   Some people feel he definitely did wrong in receiving certain monies - and that’s fine and would be a resignation matter because that is corruption. But many of his accusers who called for his resignation stated emphatically, and still do, that they don’t believe he is corrupt. I don’t know that you can have it both ways - I don’t know that one’s situation being a miasma of the implausible, untenable, or that which causes disquiet should lead to resignation, let alone that it be inevitable. Corruption should lead to resignation and to prison, but mudii matters? Clarification I feel.

   Disclosure I have never voted for Fianna Fáil, the party of Bertie Ahern, nor for a government they have been a part of, and I don’t imagine I ever will.

4. Doc responds: April 3rd, 2008 at 11:31 am

   Eolaí -

   Thanks for taking the time to explain: the details helped.

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