When I got my very first job many years ago the first thing I did was open a bank account. In fact, I found the whole idea of opening bank accounts tremendous fun and for many years I had a proliferation of them all in different names.
Seriously, all you had to do was go into a bank, say ‘I would like to open an account please’, and they’d ask you for your details and you told them anything you wanted to tell them. Fantastic. I had about 6 accounts with the EBS all under different names and all of them with about 30p in them. But that’s how easy it was. Obviously it’s a bit different nowadays.
However, when you think about what I, a normal bloke with no great understanding of finance other than I like to make more than I spend could do, then how ludicrous is it that the Minister for Finance claims not to have had a bank account in the late 80s and early 90s. That Minister for Finance, now the Taoiseach, says:
I was separated, the accounts were in my wife’s name. I had cheques and I cashed them. That’s what I wanted to do…there’s nothing in the law or constitution about it… I decided to cash my cheques full stop…some people decide to dye their hair yellow.
Marvellous. You know I once dyed my hair yellow but I still had a fucking bank account. And don’t married couples normally have joint accounts anyway?
Then you read this and he says he had ‘no reason’ to open a bank account. Well, apart from the fact that that’s where normal people keep their money. You deposit your money in there, you can take it out whenever you like with your cash card and you know it’s safe. That is what everyone did…except the Minister for Finance, who obviously had no desire to earn any interest on his money. Which is a surprise when you consider he had bills and maintenance to pay. You’d think a man with his financial savvy would do his best to stretch his punts as far as they would go.
This is the best bit though. When telling the Mahon Tribunal about his rather unique home-banking arrangements the Irish Times reports:
Mr Ahern said he would count what he had “a few times a year” or he would check his money “if it was Christmas time or if I needed to buy a present or whatever”. He didn’t check it much, but he did so “every now and again”.
Fuck me. Do you know who has no need to check their money? Somebody who has more money than they know what to do with. Does he really expect us to believe that a man who had to accept ‘digouts’ from his buddies to help him through financial difficulties after his separation only checked his money ‘every now and again’?
He might accuse the Tribunal of trying to stitch him up but who can blame them? The evidence he gives never answers questions, it simply raises more of them. What madness is he going to come out with tomorrow? What unbelievable behaviour will he try and pass off as normal?
I don’t envy the Tribunal lawyers one bit because Bertie is the one of the slipperiest cunts I’ve ever seen in my life. He is quite brilliant at not answering questions and while he’s not answering them spouting the most confusing gibberish to befuddle anyone listening. I hope there’s someone in there that can stay with him though and nail the little cunt. It’s definitely coming. And I will dance the jig of all jigs when it happens.
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Extra: Gavin has a Mahon Tribunal Wiki if that’s your bag.
Your spot on there Twenty,another piece of creative waffling,he got a 26 grand loan from one of the banks,it takes some beaut with not one bank account to get a loan from a bank.
Go down to your local bank tomorrow and ask them for 26 grand and tell them u will pay it back with interest but u dont have an account,see what happens,u will hear words like “FUCK” and “OFF” with the usual fake banky smile.
Martin Cahill did his banking with a gun,Bertie does it with a smile.U have to hand it to him,hes a Cunt.
Now i’m slightly drunk BUT, seriously, the lying, devious cunt had 3 income streams (TD, minister, dub CC) and didn’t see why he shouldhave a bank account.
This bastard has led a government that has mismanaged the (cunt)ry to the point where afer 10 years of a bouyant economy (hotter than Elton johns hole after a deep heat soaked cock injection) goes into a downturn, we’re out of money and borrowing. What a shit.
But of course he didn’t have any money either, and even if he had 50 grand in ’94 ( and had to get a loan) it was none of our business.
Going to sleep now………
Discuss….Zzz.zzzz.zzz.zzzz.zzz
Wasn’t that brilliant? I heard it today and I thought to myself:
“Self, That’s brilliant.”
“It’s right up there with the chewbacca defence from South Park.”
Try getting a job without a bank account. Seriously. Even 15 years ago it would be impossible at least it was for me and I was only after sitting my junior cert at the time.
Still I suppose when you are the minister for finance and then promoted to taoiseach then the rules don’t apply.
Charley Haughey had something right when he called Bertie “the most cunning and slyest of them all”
T’was words to those effects anyway.
Daughters premiere one night, like a wasp at the tribunal the next. The money he saved/invested/squirrelled away for her education served them both very well didn’t it?
See, I like the comment about Beverly Cooper Flynn’s woes, where Bertie says we shouldn’t bother concerning ourselves with things that happened ten years ago. Methinks he was dropping a wee hint to the tribunal (and the media).
I better be careful, I got 3 grand of the aib in 1987, and I’m fucked if I can remember why
those 6 accounts you opened in the late 60′s must be worth a fortune , it might be hard to prove they’re yours though.
I think you are being a bit harsh, it is fun to have a “novelty” leader of your state. For years I had many a laugh at the crooked antics of Berlusconi and now I live here I can laugh at the slimy avoidance techniques of Bertie.
Other than not having a bank account, there are so many things coming out of his mouth that make no sense whatsoever including using his seperation as an excuse. Someone on Newstalk said it was a pity yesterdays session was televised because the Irish people would see a different side to Bertie (and not in a good way).
nail on the head there twenty.but what gets me is the WHOLE cabinet finds this behaviour perfectly acceptable.lie after lie,and all eoghan harris can say is “he did nothing illegal”.because surely all the friends who gave so generously got nothing in return.because that would be ludicrous wouldn’t it.cash for favours?not in this fair isle of ours.and why isn’t the tax man chasing all these donations.?i think we’ll need a guantanamo bay of our own.i’ll personally volunteer to waterboard that gnomic cunt myself.(but on the condition i can set rabid dogs on beverley cooper mind)
Sorry NOT televised
oh,and whatever happened to good old perjury?how far would a murderer or rapist get if there defence started with “to the best of my knowledge………..”and then WHOOPS,well you can’t expect me to remember every little thing now can you.Ireland needs its own guy fawkes….,i know just the man.
Bertie is dying the dead of a thousand cuts…fuck the cunt!
Ah yes the dead of a thousand cuts. Bit like the dammed of the seven vales.
Anyway, Well Done Twenty.
I didn’t think you could keep going all year but you made it.
A tour de force!
Bit like a Tour de France, but without the bikes.
Take a bow.
On the TV last night, there was a middle aged woman who had been to see the tribunal with Bertie. She seemed quite appalled, utterly betrayed by what she’d heard. Bertie has not an ounce of shame. Either he is deluded that he’ll be vindicated, or he knows he’s now fucked anyway.What we saw yesterday was how his story was shown as a complete fiction. Loved that Bryan Dobson was covering the news: he didn’t say a word, but anyone who saw the Bertie (boo hoo) interview with BD, will have got the message.
There is something of the death by a thousand cuts, as Shameus puts it, but why are people asking more about the separation and its rationale – after all Bertie actually raised the matter himself. Why isn’t anyone asking Miriam anything about this? Isn’t it curious as to how she seemed to have gotten, well, everything … why? Also, if this is just *one* instance of a dig out, how do we know there are not others? How much could one accumulate through digout economics? Isn’t this still hiding something bigger that a measly 30K digout? While some of you (rightly) point how how much the money is in today’s equivalent terms, it is not a lot of money really… is it the whole picture?
For example, I always wondered, for instance, if when CJH was Minister for Finance, if he ripped off the State wholesale back in the 60′s and we didn’t even know that. So is there something bigger?
A wasted life – think how far he could have got in the Church.
Though thinking about it, maybe Bertie is one of those three secret Cardinals ?
bertie’s a genius.
get over it ye all
Fuck all that, merry christmas ya potato-brains! School is motherfuckin’ out and the drinking today starts at the extra special time of 1pm.
I do solemnly pledge to end up looking like that twat in the Abrakebabra ad who bowls the ball through the dancefloor.
Good man, thats more like it. Give it loads!
much as i hate to do it, would have to agree with bertie. cash in hand is the way to go. if you have somewhere to live sorted, there is absolutely no reason to have a bank account. way too easy to spend money in the bank – atm cards are not called drinklink cards for nothing. and don’t get me started on credit cards. another advantage is that bank account records are a lot easier to get at for tax purposes and personally, i’d much prefer me to waste my money than the government who make the old soviet governments look like fiscal geniuses.
way too easy to spend money in the bank – atm cards are not called drinklink cards for nothing
Yes, it’s much more difficult to peel a few 50s off the rolls of notes you keep in your safe.
but at least you can only buy drunken late night champagne, coke and hookers if you have the money left instead of putting the card in the atm and spending tomorrow’s mortgage/car/credit card repayment. unless of course you have a dedicated late night champagne, coke and hookers account. the new ssia – shag, snort and imbibe account.
peel a few 50s off the rolls of notes
Inflation is such a cunt. When I was discovering drink a round of 8 pints had change from a pound.
Anyone find it surprising that there appears to be nobody in FF who wants the top job – not that any of the current crop of ministers would be any different – but at this stage Bertie must be a sitting duck.
There must be some serious shit about FF still to come out…
Poor Bertie. I do believe he’s a little slow. He announced to the tribunal that he doesn’t even know what his own salary is, making him the only person in the country who doesn’t.
When I retire I am going to live in Ireland, and I thought my republic was banana – Fidel
He had no bank account because he was hiding his money from the bould Miriam, who ended up taking him to the High Court!
So much for his “I was so concerned about my children” act!!
Not concerned enough to give their mother enough money to live and rear them, cos he only agreed terms after the High Court!
How come no one asks him why he didn’t settle things amicably anyway, instead of having to be forced?
Also, while divorce is against his religion, so he says, and he doesn’t “believe” in it, like it’s some mythical rumour instead of a legal right, obviously adultery and perjury are things that he DOES believe in!
Hypocritical slimy liar!
Spot on 20 – Ahern is the cuntish cunt that is currently cunting – but his balls are smashed now – just hope he is around to answer why Jim Mansfield Jnr ‘Dublin’s biggest coke and gear importer’ has been allowed to use Westdon airport as his own private durg route – is it because his daddy – Jim Mansfield senior is in to the lord of the cunts for a few large.
That last post is satire
Shitebag, I’ll be round for a word in the mornin’
I wonder if they’ll ask him about the tax break he gave Rohan and the million pounds Des Richardson got from the same company.
He’s lying through his teeth, everyone knows well he’s lying through his teeth, a jury of his peers(us commoners) would have him lynched, but the muttering cunt will walk from this tribunal unless they can show without a shadow of a doubt he was, is, and ever shall be, corrupt, which they wont.(IMO)
Why was Irish currency called ‘punt’?
‘Cos it rhymes with bank manager.
Bertie is a martyr, a living saint.he never cared for money.(He still doesent).Not the extra 40 grand he was awarded recently.Not the digouts.Nothing.
Quote: “A pint of plain in Fagans is your only man”. Hes a man of the people.His pals may be all millionaires,and convicted tax dodgers like the Baily Brothers (25 million to Revenue).Coincidence. Its the poor and the sick and the dying(Rosie’s bereaved families, breast cancer victims etc.) that he truly identifies with.
He despises the things of this world. he just threw all that filthy lucre he got, into two old safes and let it go mouldy there instead of getting 10% interest in a bank account and so on..
Bertie is covered with ashes on Ash Wednsday and a regular communicant.he flies out to meet the Pope regularly and get the Apostolic Blessing in person.
It is rumoured he says Rosaries and wears an Immaculate Medal which has enabled him to survive many trials and Tribunals unscathed.
May angels watch over him, and when he finally goes,and may flights of them carry him to his repose in St Fintans,Sutton, where he will “lie” for eternity beside his spiritual Father, St Charles HAughey, who now reposes in Heavenly Pastures, a fitting reward for his equally unselfish service to the people of the irish nation.Amen.Happy Christmas.
Anyone for a game of musical Bank Accounts ??
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