Crime doesn’t pay. Cheaters and thieves never prosper. My hoop.

If you have a neck like a jockey’s bollocks and no compunction about creating eight different kinds of truth then you’re all set. Bertie Ahern, we know what he’s done, what he’s gotten away with, what he’s failed to explain, what he did with his confirmation money and how he lives the life of Riley on the taxpayers dime.

Yet when you look to Tribunals to reign him in, to dish out a little sliver of justice, perhaps, they can’t do it. And if they can’t then you can only hope that the fates have it in for him. A little karma. Go on, not much. Just a bit. We’re not greedy. We’ll take what we can get. Just as long as it’s something. A dose of gout or a chauffeur who is a really bad driver.  Anything.

Well, here’s the thing, karma, providing him with €10,000 winning lottery ticket is not quite what we had in mind. While the rest of us are waking up to news that we’re going to forced to pay into a pension scheme whether we like it or not (what are the taxes and PRSI we pay now for, btw?), Bertie, the slippery little cunt, has another €10,000 he doesn’t need in his back pocket.

So what’s the point of being nice and decent and hard working and honest when all you do is have your wallet inserted in your rectal tract, then routinely emptied by the snarling cock of government?

I hope that money brings him happiness. Or, to put it another way, I hope it brings him a slow and painful death, the horrible little cunt.

Here’s former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern talking in the Irish Examiner about the criticisms levelled at the bishops in the light of the Murphy Report:

I mean it’s difficult for them all. I don’t know what’s going to happen. I mean they are all saying different things as far as I can see. Some of them are saying they are going to wait and see the priests in the diocese. Others are saying they will wait to see what the public will say. Over the next week or so, we will see where it goes. Most of the focus seems to be on the man in Limerick. A lot of the others are old and effectively retired anyway.

Oh, poor chaps. It is difficult for them, isn’t it? Having their reprehensible behaviour made public must be tough to cope with. You know, it’s them we should feel sorry for. This all happened years ago and now people want them to be held accountable? What are we thinking? People go on and on about the victims but why is nobody thinking about how hard this must be for the bishops?

And the old and retired ones – sure leave them in peace. They’re just auld fellas now. Who cares if they helped priests rape young children in the past? Thankfully Bertie is around to set us straight. The horrible little prick. A man employed by the Sisters of Mercy before he entered political life. A man who agreed to a deal which saw the taxpayer most liable for the compensation that the religious orders should have paid. A man who is trying to tell us what’s going on at the moment is ‘difficult’ for the bishops?

Give me fucking strength. Yet this is the kind of attitude at the top of Irish political life which has allowed these kinds of crimes to be committed – and it’s not as if he doesn’t have plenty of previous. Aside from Enda Kenny which of our political leaders has said that the bishops should resign? Disappointly, to me at least, Eamonn Gilmore said it was a matter for the religious orders, as did the Taoiseach, but why has nobody apart from the leader of Fine Gael condemned these men outright and said that they should not continue in the roles they currently hold? Why am I not surprised that the Minister for Education is more concered about how he is perceived amongst the catholic zealots than doing what is right?

Technically you might say that politicians have no business interfering with the running of a religious order – but did the religious orders do us the same courtesy? No they did not. For years they ruled Irish life, and Irish people, without any mandate whatsoever to do so. What we did or how we did it was none of their business yet they poked their nose in every which way they could. Why should we now sit back and let them behind technicalities?

Willie Walsh was on the radio today crying about how he was in no position to judge anyone for their behaviour. I’m sorry, but if a man of god can’t judge someone who rapes a child then what is the fucking point? It’s not for god to judge the actions of that person, it is for us and for the courts to judge. As it is with the bishops who were part of the cover up.

Politicians, and especially the leaders of the parties, need to stand up to these people and say they should not continue in their current positions, that they should be prosecuted for withholding evidence of crimes, for enabling crimes to happen. They knowingly sent men to places where they knew they would abuse children. Why the fuck are we pussyfooting around them?

Most likely nothing will happen, but for fucks sake say it. Those who don’t are, like so many, afraid of the backlash from the faithful. Maybe if they grew a set of balls they might just earn the respect of the rest of us.

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Update: Brian Coward defends the vatican, from where on high the cover-up began and who refused to cooperate with the commission. This is the leader of this joke of a country, remember.

The full text of his statement to the Dail can be found on Irish Election.

I despair.

Spotted earlier on Lexia’s Twitter, this upstanding gentleman was still outside Dubray Books when I passed by this afternoon.

Legend. The faces of the two cops looking on as nobody queued to see the scuttery little shop-steward of a cunt of a former Taoiseach were funny too.

Click for big.

And Bertie’s book is available online for anyone who might want it … for free.

I was listening to Brian Lenihan on the radio this morning talking about politician’s expenses.

“This country”, he says, “is in a serious financial crisis and doing away with Oireachtas expenses won’t change that. We have to see the bigger picture”. Something similar to that anyway.

I was driving at the time and I could feel myself get tense. I mean, nobody suggested for one second that changing how politicians cream in free money all day long claim their expenses would fix the economy. That’s just stupid. And Lenihan saying it is stupid when he knows fine well that it would just make TDs and Senators accountable for what they claim.

Of course, the FFers are in a snot over the way John O’Donoghue has been treated and want to cloud the issue by being wilfully obtuse.

However, the point is it got me cross and I felt like destroying something because everyone knows that when cross a release is needed to calm oneself down. I thought about ramming another motorist but that would have been of little benefit to me or my Honda 50.

If I could have driven somewhere and punched somebody in the face it would have made me feel better. As it was Lenihan who upset then ideally I should be able to punch him in the face. If not him then one of his staff. And if Lenihan wants to be a good boss to his staff he’ll stop saying things which make people want to punch him in the face.

Maybe I should set up a Drive Thru Punchbag Emporium. A series of them across the country. You arrive, pay your money, get a pair of boxing gloves and you can pummel a punchbag until you feel better.

THWACK! ZWONK! POW! BLAM!

And so on until you don’t feel quite so cross. I think it would help everyone’s mood. Especially if the punchbags had pictures of the worst cunts on them.

‘We call this one The Harney because it is gigantic and flabby’.

‘This one is The Cowen because it is gigantic and flabby and smells like oxen’.

‘Good choice, you’ve gone for The Lenihan. Punch it right and its liver comes out. You can keep it too’.

‘The Haughey, yes. Perfect. Just keep your eye on it because if you look away for a second it’ll fuck you’.

‘This one is always a favourite, The Bertie. Yes, it’s only small but it’s shifty as fuck. We don’t recommend women use this one though’.

I wish I had more gumption. I think this one’s a runner.

One of things overlooked yesterday when the report came out was the recommendation of the commission.

The report calls for a memorial to be built and inscribed with the words of Bertie Ahern, who apologised in 1999 to victims of the abuse.

While the survivors of the abuse have been vindicated there is to be no justice due to the collusion between state and church, which allowed the abuse to happen unfettered and then essentially gave the religious orders a free pass when it came to being prosecuted for their despicable crimes.

Yet the commission recommends we build a monument with the words of the former Taoiseach, the man who led his government through a frenzy of greed, fraud, cronyism, nepotism and back-slappery which sees the country on the brink/in the throes of financial meltdown. A man whose government did deals with the religious orders which saw the taxpayer front the bill for compensation while they kept their buildings, their land, their power and influence over schools.

So Bertie Ahern apologised unreservedly to the survivors of the abuse. If it wasn’t him it would have been somebody else. And it would have meant just as much.

A man who said of Ray Burke, monstrously corrupt Fianna Fail politician:

I always found him to be a proud honourable man, loyal and true, persevering and principled, caring and committed but tough and a person who often lost friends very easily. On behalf of the Government and particularly on behalf of the Fianna Fáil Party, I thank him for his distinguished years in the service of his constituents and his country.

A man who, when questioned about his personal finances said:

I’m not answering what I got for my Holy Communion money, my Confirmation money, what I got for my birthday, what I got for anything else, I’m not into that.

Of course he was above having to be answerable to the people of Ireland, despite what he said in 1996:

The public are entitled to have an absolute guarantee of the financial probity and integrity of their elected representatives, their officials and above all of Ministers. They need to know that they are under financial obligations to nobody.

What an utter hypocrite.

I think a monument to honour the survivors of insitutional abuse is a good idea. It should serve to shame and remind us what depravity and iniquity we allowed in Irish society, it should stand as a testament to those who were brave and courageous enough to speak out, and to those who cannot despite suffering at the hands of those evil men and women.

But must we taint it with the words of a man like Bertie Ahern? Have the survivors not given us more eloquent, more moving, more honest words than his?

We owe them better.