Minister you know who

Easily_Irritated

Was watching Reeling in the Years earlier where they refered to Minister You Know Who. Its from 1996 just after it was revealed that Michael Lowry house extension had been paid for by Dunnes Stores (£200,000). Then it was revealed that 'a prominent former Fianna Fail minister' had recieved over £1million punts from Dunnes Stores. This minister was refered to as nister you know who'. Because everyone knew who it was, just noone wanted to name names. I assume its a well known fact now. Who was that? Was it Haughey?

Cos on the tv they acted like it was still not known who this person was, as if he'd never been named. But Reeling in the Years may have been compiled pre tribunal times!

Anyway remember back that far? I was just a kid and my memory is bad enough so Idon't even kinda remember it!

Agent Smith

ray burke

county

corruption corrution corrution,where would irish politices be without corrution

Agent Smith

honest?

Easily_Irritated

lol

Easily_Irritated

agent smith wrote:

ray burke

You sure? cos thats who I'd thought to, but was corrected and told Haughey. Cos Burke was still about in 96 and it was supposed to be a former minister.

hawkmoon269

Most of the "you know who" references were referring to Haughey. Burke was never alleged to have received money from Dunnes Stores to the best of my knowledge.

county

ye but he still has more brown envelopes than an post

Easily_Irritated

Ah yea, thought it was aul Charles J. Ah well, they're all feckers. But sure if someone wanted to pay for my extension I wouldn't say know... the prices builders pay! lol

Victor

Phoenix Magazine was the first to publicly name Haughey as a beneficiary of Dunnes largesse, although I think it was Sam Smyth(?), circa 1982(?) in the Indo(?) that revealed that Haughey had million pound debts with AIB.

dermo88

You'd wonder why Dunne donated such large amounts of money.

1. Bribe Haughey NOT to introduce a national minimum wage.
2. Ensure cute hoor protectionism on certain items that Dunnes could source, you know......."I scratch your back, you scratch my back".
3. Ensure that the workers have **** all rights under legislation.

Because Dunnes was not all that pleasant a place to work in, but it does have to be said that Ben was fairly decent, compared to his sister, who I have observed is an arrogant battleaxe to her staff.

And then he does it with a guy whos on the up and up in Fine Gael. A potential future Taoiseach. Because if they can vote in a thief like Haughey, then surely a thief like Lowry will get in later on.

Of course noone mentioned that Haughey was getting all this while he was in. Just remember, **** might look nice wrapped in a black silk shirt, but its still ****.

They have pretended to be honest and clean up their antics, but you would do well to remember why a certain North Dublin TD sold all his taxi plates a week before deregulation.

And before we get all holier than thou. Would'nt you do the same to your mates in work to keep them safe if you liked them.

However, this is up at the top. Its a nasty ugly by product of the friendly, gregarious Irish personality, where we try to look after our mates, and enjoy ourselves, but there are always the leeches around who are out purely to take advantage.

And Haughey was the greatest leech of all. When he keels over, I will cry if they give that man a state funeral. He quoted Shakespeare at his resignation. "I have done the state some service"

Bollox sunshine, in 1991, you left the country in a state!

Andrew 83

In the McCracken tribunal they found that although Haughey took about 7 million punts in kickbacks there was no conclusive evidence to suggest he let the money change his decisions so whether it was corrupt or just cleaning up money for nothing in his case is up for grabs

murphaph

dermo88 wrote:

When he keels over, I will cry if they give that man a state funeral.

Oh I feel ill. I'd never thought of that before but you know he probably will have the last laugh having all our money spent on his state funeral. Smug w@nker of the highest order.

DadaKopf

Corruption, corruption, corruption.

I think the IMF and European Union should have withheld grants and loans to Ireland in the 1980s and 1990s until we got our act together and booted out the crooks.

murphaph

DadaKopf wrote:

I think the IMF and European Union should have withheld grants and loans to Ireland in the 1980s and 1990s until we got our act together and booted out the crooks.

The crooks are still here. We have politcal corruption but I don't think it's the worst in Europe. The mediteranean countries are notorious for it. The EU is reputedly much happier overall with what Ireland has done with it's funding than that accomplished by Greece. That was on a BBC2 documentary about 2 years ago but I remember it clearly-no link sorry. Corruption here is on a much lower more insidious level methinks. The likes of planning permission is still sought in many cases with the aid of a small bown envelope to your local dodgy councillor.

dermo88

Yes, and I think we had better prepare for that possibility now. I don't want him to have the full blown State funeral. If he gets one, arrange a national no spend week in memory of the recession he caused during the 1980's.

There has got to be some form of silent protest to let the authorities know how much this man is despised by many ordinary people. Hes Irelands Thatcher, but Thatcher, even if she was a bitch and a battleaxe was, for all her faults, honest.

And watch for his young apprentice. It is not for nothing that he called him "The most cunning and devious of them all". That means we'll only dig up the dirt on our current Taoiseach sometime after 2060, long after he's gone and we're all pensioners struggling on E1,025.00 a week,

Andrew 83

Transparency International's (probably most respected corruption index around) most recent perceived corruption index, we're ranked 17th least corrupt in the world:

http://www.transparency.org/cpi/2004/cpi2004.en.html#cpi2004

sceptre

Andrew 83 wrote:

Transparency International's (probably most respected corruption index around) most recent perceived corruption index, we're ranked 17th least corrupt in the world

Of course the key word is perceived (actually the key word is perceptions given that that's what the compendium of surveys is measuring but six of one, half a dozen of the other). Still, taking it at face value and assuming it's an actual measure of corruption, can you even begin to imagine how corrupt some of those other countries must be if we're only joint-17th out of a possible 146? I'd picture politicians in Haiti openly eating babies on the streets but I'd imagine that the business people surveyed (as the surveys were limited to this group according to the blurb) might care about that rather less than a few housewives. Still, pop-punch-excitement aside, with over 120 countries perceived as more corrupt according to the survey there really must be some serious shenanigans in some countries out there.

Not that this should in any way make us think that we're not doing so badly, we appear to have another example of corruption of some sort in high places whenever there's an R in the month.

david1two3

dermo88 wrote: »

Yes, and I think we had better prepare for that possibility now. I don't want him to have the full blown State funeral. If he gets one, arrange a national no spend week in memory of the recession he caused during the 1980's.

There has got to be some form of silent protest to let the authorities know how much this man is despised by many ordinary people. Hes Irelands Thatcher, but Thatcher, even if she was a bitch and a battleaxe was, for all her faults, honest.

And watch for his young apprentice. It is not for nothing that he called him "The most cunning and devious of them all". That means we'll only dig up the dirt on our current Taoiseach sometime after 2060, long after he's gone and we're all pensioners struggling on E1,025.00 a week,

Well hes still here and you were only 48 years out.

oscarBravo

Thread necromancy bad.