Are you happy to see Bertie go?

Jigsaw

Quare lot of bedroom political correspondents on this thread. Just like the whole Eddie O'Sullivan thing, too quick to point out all the failures without any recognition of some of the positives.

IanCurtis

Waited 20 hours in A&E for someone to check a broken finger, broken in a footie match.

20 Hours

Fcuk off Bertie.

galwayrush

Delighted he's gone,my biggest worry though is what's coming next. Most of the FF front bench should go with him.
Cheers for the Celtic Overdraft bertie, no two Cities joined by a Motorway and our third world health service.

sdanseo

A great Taoiseach imho, will be missed - all the best to him. Sure Ireland is a joke in some ways, Health service is crap etc etc - but that was the case before he was ever in charge and remember that our population has exploded by nearly half a million in the last 15 years. Put simply, He has come second only to Dev in terms of election wins, long-term popularity and indeed national achievements. And that lot surely is the bread and butter of a good leader rather than some 'unusual' bank statements from a time when he was going through a difficult separation (a situation I'm familiar with through family - I know how complicated things can get).

As regards his finances, my personal opinion is that the only thing that ever forced them to interfere with his job was the media jumping all over him incessantly for over a year. Other than that, he should be treated exactly like anyone else in a similar position - failing that his critics should eat their words. If and when it is ever justly found that he fiddled (as Judge Alan Mahon did to the tune of €60k in 1992, lets not forget), hopefully it will be a fair process.

Edit: Fair play to RTÉ with their video montage of his career just now - a very fitting tribute I think. Maybe, just maybe, people will leave him the fúck alone now to serve his last month in office with a little dignity intact.

galwayrush wrote: »

Delighted he's gone,my biggest worry though is what's coming next. Most of the FF front bench should go with him.
Cheers for the Celtic Overdraft bertie, no two Cities joined by a Motorway and our third world health service.

There's at least 100% more motorways in the last ten years than there ever was before. "A lot done, more to do" was not a joke, at least he and his governments have pushed things in very much the right direction.

Huggles

sdonn_1 wrote: »

with a little dignity intact.

Please. He kissed that goodbye with his lies and or amnesia.

:rolleyes:

mealone42

The RAT is cornered and now he is trying to run. phucc him, he lined his pockets for long enough. The tragedy now is that the git will still get his huge pension when he finally leaves, like crooks Haughey, Lawlor, Burke, p Flynn, B Cooper Flynn etc etc. The question I ask now is will his successor who knew about his corruptness, be the correct person to lead this country. I think not as he is tainted also now.
We need a general election now so we can oust those corrupt gits.

sdanseo

TheGooner wrote: »

Please. He kissed that goodbye with his lies and or amnesia.

:rolleyes:

I feel for the next honest joe soap who genuinely forgets something important when a judge asks him about it

A better way to put that would have been "with what little dignity he's been spared intact". He's lost a lot more of it through constant hounding than through being asked personal details from 15 years ago.

Don't get me wrong, IF he's been fiddling (to be decided by due process and NOT the court of public opinion - that particular one VOTED HIM BACK IN a year ago) then he deserves to pay his debt to society. Whether that stretches to losing his job, effectively, regardless of the fact that he is Taoiseach - I'm not sure.

mealone42

Blackpitts wrote: »

that's the end of the celtic tiger era then....

Hope you are not saying that Dumbo Bertie had anything to do with the Celtic Tiger? Jesus some people!! He was just lucky to have (mis)managed the country during the time of world wide good times and the idiot tried in his pidgin English to claim it as a FF driven economy. Now that unemployment is rising and the bad days are coming again he blames the world economy. Gob****e that he is.
Now so dat he understands. Gud luk berty dis is de day dat you hav bin kot by de peeple. Go to Fagans and hav tree pints of dat English beer, I tink you deserve it now.

mealone42

bleg wrote: »

if he was a poor politician then why was he approached to become president of the eu commission?

Was he???? There is not one iota of evidence that he was approached. That was just FF ****e. Where but Ireland would have a bumbling incoherent uneducated idiot as a president?
Bertie is was and will always be an idiot.

Lockstep

Thank GOd he's gone.

Corrupt gobsh!te

Toto Wolfcastle

IanCurtis wrote: »

Waited 20 hours in A&E for someone to check a broken finger, broken in a footie match.

20 Hours

Fcuk off Bertie.

Was given a waiting time of 4 months for an appointment to get a lump in my breast checked. Got the appointment within a week only because my Grandad was on the board of the hospital.

Fcuk off Bertie is right! And Cowen too!

sdanseo

mealone42 wrote: »

Hope you are not saying that Dumbo Bertie had anything to do with the Celtic Tiger? Jesus some people!! He was just lucky to have (mis)managed the country during the time of world wide good times and the idiot tried in his pidgin English to claim it as a FF driven economy. Now that unemployment is rising and the bad days are coming again he blames the world economy. Gob****e that he is.
Now so dat he understands. Gud luk berty dis is de day dat you hav bin kot by de peeple. Go to Fagans and hav tree pints of dat English beer, I tink you deserve it now.

Nice to see that you're able to put a coherent (but deeply flawed and incorrect) point across without exaggeration, slander or just plain twattiness. Well done. :rolleyes:

joeybloggs

Overall.I think he did very good.

The country is not perfect but what is in this world (maybe Nataile Portman?).

As a well known Cork man once said,

"Let us not waste our energies brooding over the more we might have got,
Let us look apoon what it is we have got."

I've got a roof over my head, food on the table and a decent education.I've got a lot more than others and for this I would like to thank Mr Ahern.

AckwelFoley

Great leader

Great Politican

Down to earth guy.

Fook the begrudgers. V:mad:V

AckwelFoley

Originally Posted by IanCurtis
Waited 20 hours in A&E for someone to check a broken finger, broken in a footie match.

20 Hours

Fcuk off Bertie.

Funny that.

I broke my fist off a table last June.

Time in Emergency? 2 hours.

Trips back to hospital 3

Cost to me?

€0.00

AckwelFoley

kickoutthejams wrote: »

Thank GOd he's gone.

Corrupt gobsh!te

Proof please.

Or are we wasting millions on the Mahon Tribunal searching for proof that you got? :pac::pac:

Bertie has not being found guilty of any wrong doing

Lockstep

snyper wrote: »

Proof please.

Or are we wasting millions on the Mahon Tribunal searching for proof that you got? :pac::pac:

I could show you but then I'd have to kill you.....which would make Lolocaust a far more miserable and PC place.

thebman

snyper wrote: »

Proof please.

Or are we wasting millions on the Mahon Tribunal searching for proof that you got? :pac::pac:

Bertie has not being found guilty of any wrong doing

Yeah but if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck then what is it most likely to be :rolleyes:

Glad he's gone. I'm sick of Bertie's friends being on the committee's that make decisions (of course because they are the most qualified to do it and not because they are his friends, I would never imply that).

WoollyRedHat

As someone else mentioned, Shannon was allowed to be used by American Troops for the war, even though we are neutral. Since then it has been reported the U.S used Shannon for rendition

Look at the health service: Fianna Fail will always be judged by this and Bertie should have some accountability to it.

Take a look at the transport in our country, the infrastructure in public transport is ridiculous. Then there's the massive rise of salary for the td's, considering all these flaws.
In Bertie's time in government not much changed, in things getting better in the health service etc.

There are still problems in some areas of education also.
It was time for Bertie to go, but the question is, will sectors such as the Health service imrpove with a new leader and can we look forward to change,
the answer is probably no.

AckwelFoley

brim4brim wrote: »

Yeah but if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck then what is it most likely to be :rolleyes:

QUOTE]

Well, write a little letter to the tribunal and tell them to call it off.

No need. You hear a quacking duck... were spending millions and millions on the mahon tribunal but you can make a decision from your chair.

Are you Colin Fry? Perhaps Matlock?

Let the tribunal do their job.

Wait for the result.

AckwelFoley

WoollyRedHat wrote: »

As someone else mentioned, Shannon was allowed to be used by American Troops for the war, even though we are neutral. Since then it has been reported the U.S used Shannon for rendition

Look at the health service: Fianna Fail will always be judged by this and Bertie should have some accountability to it.

Take a look at the transport in our country, the infrastructure in public transport is ridiculous. Then there's the massive rise of salary for the td's, considering all these flaws.
In Bertie's time in government not much changed, in things getting better in the health service etc.

There are still problems in some areas of education also.
It was time for Bertie to go, but the question is, will sectors such as the Health service imrpove with a new leader and can we look forward to change,
the answer is probably no.

Shannon? So what? I support the US use of shannon as im sure others do.


And transport? LOL. Where have you beed for the last 10 years?

Luas? Port tunnel? Billions on a national road network? Upgrading of CIE..

Pfft....

Lockstep

I love the Luas.

best thing to happen to Dublin.

If only Galway gets a light rail system.

WoollyRedHat

snyper wrote: »

Shannon? So what? I support the US use of shannon as im sure others do.


And transport? LOL. Where have you beed for the last 10 years?

Luas? Port tunnel? Billions on a national road network? Upgrading of CIE..

Pfft....

We're a neutral country. Do you support the use of Shannon for Rendition?

Transport: O.k, the Luas, it's good, just a shame it only connects some parts of the city centre. Why not a decent transport system that covers all areas of the city? Why can't we have a decent transport system connecting our Airport?

The port Tunnel, the same port tunnel that has closed numerous times in the past few months? Then there's Dublin Bus, don't get me started on them.

Yep, top class transport we've got.

stakey

sdonn_1 wrote: »

Nice to see that you're able to put a coherent (but deeply flawed and incorrect) point across without exaggeration, slander or just plain twattiness. Well done. :rolleyes:

Fianna Fail had little part in the economic boom of the last 10+ years. Remember the 'Celtic Tiger' is deemed to have it's beginnings in 1994 when GNP began reaching around the 6% mark. The government of that time was a coalition government of Fine Gael, Labour and Democratic Left.

The 'Celtic Tiger' was a direct result of the scrapping of third level education fee's in the mid 90's by the coalition government leading to a highly educated English speaking workforce in Western Europe that could be paid at a lower rate than say the UK along with direct aid by the EU which allowed us to build up our education system.

With the scrapping of third level fee's alot more people were able to move on to third level education from second level education resulting in the current large number of highly qualified and educated individuals in Ireland (who put alot more into this boom than Fianna Fail).

The IDA played a huge part in attracting inward investment to the country enticing multinationals to the country with our growing educated workforce.

Fianna Fail had no direct policies other than keep the tap flow going. They did this by following the path set in the mid 90's, ie. keep a low corporate taxation policy and entice large corporates with grants.

Fianna Fail inherited and squandered the boom they claim to have created. In the 10+ years of this boom we still have a completely inadequate health system, a completely inadequate transportation system, complete disasters in flirtations with privatisation (one only has to look at Eircom for examples here) and electronic voting to mention but a few blunders Fianna Fail has blessed the nation with.

Once again, above all of it we still can't get an accountable government in this banana republic on the fringes of western Europe. We'll continue down this line too until politicians and public servants are made to be properly accountable to the people whom elect them in the first place.


*btw, i'm not in anyway endorsing Labour, Fine Gael or Democratic Left.
** and obviously not Fianna FAIL!
*** and good riddance Patrick Bartholomew Ahern

Ulysses Gaze

Some people are so naive.....

1) The Celtic Tiger ecomony which you have admitted was well under way before Bertie took over was the reason for the low unemployment. The work of development boards in the past set the foundations for the economic growth.

2) The Good Friday agreement had a lot more influential and hard working people involved in it than Bertie. I'd say that his bumbling about and meanigless actions actually prolonged the peace process.

The thing is, Bertie struck it lucky by coming into power when Ireland was going through the most successful era in its history. He didnt take advantage of this and has gauranteed the future of the country/economy is bleak. He has achieved this by looking out for himself and his rich mates. The rich get richer, the builders/estate agents etc are happy but the health system/ transport network and the average Joe is fcuked.

It's the biggest missed opportunity and in future years we will live to regret voting him in when someone else may have looked toward the good of the country and not the builders pockets.

Good riddance , I say.

Well said.

But the biggest failure of Bertie and his cabal was / is the failure over a 10 year period to invest and promote indigenous Irish high-tech industry industry. We rely far too heavily on Multi-Nationals who could up sticks and leave tomorrow for Eastern Europe. Investment in IT was the key during the late 1990's when we were recognised as a world leader in this field. F all investment in Broadband / FTTH. We're playing catch up with the rest of Europe now. Hell, Eastern European countries like Hungary, Czech Republic etc have 5-10 year modernisation plans in place and you bet your ass they will get it done.

It was all about the property here.........get rich quick (for some) and to hell with long term economic planning.

Knowledge Economy my ass....

AckwelFoley

The 'Celtic Tiger' was a direct result of the scrapping of third level education feeds in the mid 90's by the coalition government leading to a highly educated English speaking workforce

Thats the most ill conceived load of shtye ive read tonight.

Scrap fees. 12 months later.. economic boom.

Jesus ted.

If we had only thought of that during the famine

There are no single factor to economic boom. the government created the oppertunities for the people to create the wealth to create the boom

Denis Irwin

Sad to see him go but he had to seeing as how the Tribunal was taking it's toll on his ability to run the Country. He's IMO one of the greatest Taoisigh that this country has had in the past 50 years or so. He's helped over look one of our most succesful periods of economic growth and helped to bring peace to Northern Ireland( the begrudgers would have you believe he did f*ck all :rolleyes:). He actually left the graveside of his mother to help conclude the GFA.So to summerise farewell Bertie enjoy your retirement and even though there is questions over your financial affairs I just want to say F*ck the begrudgers . I for one would rather have Bertie as Taoiseach than that boring auld arsehole Enda Kenny.

IanCurtis

The amount of posters here that think he was a great taoiseach based on his "man of the people" image and celebrity friends is incredible.

Our transport, education and health system is in a sh1t state, but all that is forgotten because Bertie was a man of de peepel.

We should have gotten suspicious when he appeared on The Premiership ffs.

IanCurtis

Denis Irwin wrote: »

boring auld arsehole Enda Kenny.

Another one....

Who should we get in - Harry Hill?

WoollyRedHat

I find it funny how people care about politicians personalties, boring, lack of charisma etc.

Who gives a toss what their personality is like, they could be the most boring person alive, but it wouldn't matter so long as they got the job done.

It isn't a popularity contest.

2Scoops

Wait, is Bertie the one that can't spell?? What say ye, spell czechers? :pac:

Pc0011600.jpg

stakey

snyper wrote: »

Thats the most ill conceived load of shtye ive read tonight.

Wow! Way to fail at reading an entire post!

You'll note I pointed out that the scrapping of third level education fee's created an educated workforce that could be sold to corporations like IBM, Intel etc etc. That obviously did not appear overnight (I don't remember degrees coming free with Kellogg's Corn Flakes packets!) but began creating an educated workforce by 1997 - 1998 that the economy could directly benefit from.

Before that a low taxation policy was beginning to attract large corporations due to our location, grants and of course the promise of more highly educated young and capable workers.

snyper wrote: »

There are no single factor to economic boom. the government created the oppertunities for the people to create the wealth to create the boom.

Of course but a template was created in the early to mid 90's but not by Fianna Fail! Fianna Fail just carried on with the said template and squandered every benefit of it...

Denis Irwin

PullMyFinger! wrote: »

It'll be interesting to see what people think of his departure in 5 years time when half the country will be emigrating for jobs again.

Knowing that crowd they'll probably find someway of blaming Bertie for that too.:rolleyes:

AckwelFoley

stakey wrote: »

Of course and that template was created in the early to mid 90's but not by Fianna Fail! Fianna Fail just carried on with the said template and squandered every benefit of it...

Thats absolute rubbish.

To attribute the success of this economy to FG is not accurate and simply untrue, also to say the bebefits were squandered is also inaccurate.. where was it squandered? Our dual carrigways? The hospitals, where they spent more money than any other government?

Bendihorse

snyper wrote: »

Thats the most ill conceived load of shtye ive read tonight.

Scrap fees. 12 months later.. economic boom.

Jesus ted.

If we had only thought of that during the famine

There are no single factor to economic boom. the government created the oppertunities for the people to create the wealth to create the boom

YAWN Snyper, your posts are always the same bag of trying to be contraversial oul ****e based on nothing and designed to provoke a reaction. :rolleyes:

Stop trying to defend the indefencable.

Lockstep

snyper wrote: »

Thats absolute rubbish.

To attribute the success of this economy to FG is not accurate, also to say the bebefits were squandered is also inaccurate.

I heartiliy dislike Fine Gael but they did lay the groundwork IMHO.


Attributing the boom to Fianna Fail is like a waiter serving dinner and then taking the credit for making it.

Lockstep

I dislike both Bertie (all flash, no substance) and Enda Kenny (spoke at my university, was awful)


Why can't we have Michael D Higgins for Taoiseach?

He's so lovable, like a real life Yoda.

mealone42

sdonn_1 wrote: »

Nice to see that you're able to put a coherent (but deeply flawed and incorrect) point across without exaggeration, slander or just plain twattiness. Well done. :rolleyes:

Kiss my donkey:p

AckwelFoley

Bendihorse wrote: »

YAWN Snyper, your posts are always the same bag of trying to be contraversial oul ****e based on nothing and designed to provoke a reaction. :rolleyes:

Stop trying to defend the indefencable.

If you have anything decent to add to the thread great, welcomed

Otherwise cease posting.

This thread is about Bertie ahern .. not me.

thebman

snyper wrote: »

brim4brim wrote: »

Yeah but if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck then what is it most likely to be :rolleyes:

QUOTE]

Well, write a little letter to the tribunal and tell them to call it off.

No need. You hear a quacking duck... were spending millions and millions on the mahon tribunal but you can make a decision from your chair.

Are you Colin Fry? Perhaps Matlock?

Let the tribunal do their job.

Wait for the result.

Aw, did I touch a nerve. Poor baby throwing his toys out of the pram.

snyper wrote: »

Shannon? So what? I support the US use of shannon as im sure others do.


And transport? LOL. Where have you beed for the last 10 years?

Luas? Port tunnel? Billions on a national road network? Upgrading of CIE..

Pfft....

Supporting Shannon Just not going to start.

Yeah, I waited half an hour for a delayed train just this evening and when it arrived, I couldn't get on it, it was so packed although there was one empty carriage because the doors wouldn't open on it. I got the next one which meant waiting another 10 minutes before it took me an hour to get from the city centre to Maynooth :rolleyes: Public transport is a joke and anyone defending it must not be using it, at least not on a regular basis.

The luas doesn't meet up, the port tunnel is closed too often and the national road network is tolled so people get to pay to use it. Wow, seems like I should be thanking the tax payer.

You conveniently left out broadband, e-voting and the health service I notice, wonder why you did that?

BTW, do you have any evidence that Bertie made significant contributions to these projects or are you jumping to assumptions because he was in the top position? I thought he'd have been to busy trying to get Bertie's Bowl built.

Seems like you've become the thing you hate :eek: No proof to back up your claims that Bertie is reponsible for all the good that happened in the past 10 years in the country but not responsible somehow for any of the bad stuff. Interesting point of view I have to say.

Bendihorse

snyper wrote: »

If you have anything decent to add to the thread great, welcomed

Otherwise STFU.

I said my piece earlier in the thread sweetheart.

stakey

snyper wrote: »

To attribute the success of this economy to FG is not accurate and simply untrue, also to say the bebefits were squandered is also inaccurate..

You again fail to read an entire post. The changes to education were brought in by Labour, not Fine Gael and my point being that an educated workforce had more to do with the growth of the economy than a specific government. But if you want to look at the breakdown of that coalition. Fine Gael led the coalition but the education and finance portfolio's were under the control of Labour.

During that governments tenure the economy grew on average by 8.7% per year. Fianna Fail simply inherited the boom coming off the back of a conservative budget by Labour and a strong educated workforce. Not to mention the great work of many many entrepreneur's around the country that are often forgotten in this debate.

Supercell

Back Hander Bertie 0 - 1 Ireland Inc tbh
Wish this happened 10 years ago and we didnt fecking squander the Celtic Tiger wealth in a cesspit of builder friendly legislation and planning decisions.

History will judge him for his legacy, and thats not going to be pretty.

galwayrush

snyper wrote: »

Thats absolute rubbish.

To attribute the success of this economy to FG is not accurate and simply untrue, also to say the bebefits were squandered is also inaccurate.. where was it squandered? Our dual carrigways? The hospitals, where they spent more money than any other government?

:eek::eek::eek::eek::eek:

Hmm,every public venture this goverment attempted has either not started, not worked, or ran way over budget. Luas, e-voting, motorways, health, yes they have spent record amounts of money but we haven't got any value for it.

Denis Irwin

I love how the people who are having a go at Bertie over 30 odd grand or so. Some how forget that Garret FitzGerald had 200k written off by the head of AIB in the early 1990's.:rolleyes:

galwayrush

Denis Irwin wrote: »

I love how the people who are having a go at Bertie over 30 odd grand or so. Some how forget that Garret FitzGerald had 200k written off by the head of AIB in the early 1990's.:rolleyes:

I thought that was an investment that went wrong, could happen to anybody.

Denis Irwin

galwayrush wrote: »

I thought that was an investment that went wrong, could happen to anybody.

I don't think just anybody have that 200k written off though.:rolleyes:

galwayrush

Denis Irwin wrote: »

I don't think just anybody have that 200k written off though.:rolleyes:

Wish i could:D
Guess that never happens for us mere mortals.

wildsaffy

My kitty (4 weeks old) is SOOO cute!!!!!!

Hang on a mo, this isn't the Pet forum.

johnnyskeleton

We've lost him surely. We've lost the only playboy of the western world.