Reynolds criticises Ahern for accepting money

[TheBear]

From The Irish Times:

• Former taoiseach Albert Reynolds has strongly criticised his successor, Bertie Ahern, for accepting money from friends and businessmen when Mr Ahern was minister for finance in the early 1990s.
  
  Mr Reynolds said yesterday he was "shocked" at the revelations last September that Mr Ahern took money because it was something that he, as taoiseach of the day, should have been aware of, but was not.
  
  Mr Ahern served as minister for finance in the government led by Mr Reynolds from 1992 to 1994 and succeeded Mr Reynolds as leader of Fianna Fáil that year. It emerged last September that Mr Ahern had accepted €50,000 in 1993 and 1994 from friends and a payment of £8,000 from a group of 25 businessmen in Manchester after addressing a meeting there.
  
  Asked yesterday what he would have said to Mr Ahern if he had come to him when he was taoiseach and said there were people offering him money, Mr Reynolds replied that he would have told him: "No chance".
  
  He added: "There are ways of getting money. Go to the bank and borrow it. If you are minister for finance you can pull in the money besides taking it off other people."
  
  In an interview with Marian Finucane on RTÉ Radio 1, Mr Reynolds said: "I always strongly believed there was no way any member of a government should finance anything he was doing in that manner.
  
  "Now I know the circumstances there with his marriage breaking up, but you still don't take anything that is bad for politics and bad for everything."
  
  He said he did not think it was good "in the long-term".
  
  Asked if he would have advised Mr Ahern not to take the money, Mr Reynolds said: "Absolutely. No question. I was minister for finance and no-one ever offered me money. There is no way you do this".

This seems to be shaping up to be the story that just won't go away for Ahern. Good thing too, to my mind.

Might Reynolds' criticism be interpreted as evidence of more widespread disapproval within FF, which people are unable to voice for fear of damaging their position within the party?

[Sidewinder]

Bertie's version of events just doesn't make any sense. The Minister of Finance, who at this stage had been a TD for 15 years, didn't have a bank account, had no savings, no relationship with any bank, and was so destitute after an amicable seperation that his mates out of the kindness of their hearts had a wee whip-round for a mere €50K to help him out? And then another bunch of mates in Manchester thought he might need another stg£8K?

Me arse. What did he do with the €50K if he had no bank account, keep it in a shoebox under his bed? How was he paid all those years, did Fagan's cash his cheque for him every month? How did he run his election campaigns with no bank account? Can someone do an FOI request to find out where his salary cheques were cashed during the period?

[zakalwe]

what i found the most odd about this affair, and which some poster first raised, was that its a funny old world when friends "lend" you money yet strangers "gift" you (unsolicited) money.

strange how the explanations tie perfectly into the tax law loopholes. awfully convenient some might say...

[President Bartlet]

Good on ya Albert :!: - stick it to him :!: - especially after his disgraceful shafting treatment of you, a peacemaker, over the presidential nomination in 1997 in favour of a complete gombeen

[The OD]

It wont go away because the explanations given by Ahern were pure crap.
I have zero sympathy for him or his tribulations - he is a cynical, mean spirited, petty liar and as for him being the 'most cunning of all.....' dont make me laugh, if he was that cunning he would'nt have been outed as a grubby little grasper who always has and always will put his own mates and agendas ahead of his role as 'public servant'.

Man of the people my arse.....

Man of those who pay him enough more like....

[Gombeen]

Article in the Examiner too

[Ballubahs]

I think the media have been very lazy on this issue. A simple question should have been put over and over about where the £50,000 rested till he got a bank account.

Every time he walks out of a newly opened pub or hotel, every time he does one of his door step interviews, every time he mumbles some platitude into an RTE camera they should ask him this question until the people have a satisfactory answer.

Come on media, wake up and do your jobs!

[CrockerJarman]

Barely stops short of saying that Albert would have fired Ahern as Minister for Finance had he known about the bungs.

This could be dynamite.

[cyberianpan]

Yeah also personally I have a limited number of good friends... were all of these folks Bertie's good friends or just casual acquaintances ? He got a very easy ride on the whole issue.

>didn't have a bank account
He is baiting people there methinks, probably had a building society or credit union account

Tax ?!! Seriously it does rather stink of tax evasion... how do you make a complaint on this ?

CyP

[meriwether]

This is fun.
FG started off the year with Deasy, and accusations that some of our new policies were pure crap ('bootcamps', personally I think its got a lot of merit, by the by).
Then FF come out with their own stonking rubbish policies* to completely blow away all other crap policies, that of Maire Hocter and Ned O Keefe proposing we have different alcohol limits depending on where you live.
Then Albert out-Deasy's Deasy. And FF were down 3 in the last opinion poll.
Were the above to happen to FG, we would have Maximus here, McDowell from under his rock and Willie O Dea in the Sindo proclaiming that we are in crisis.

*In know they are not policies, merely the talk of individuals within FF, but then again 'bootcamps' aren't FG policy either, but that didnt stop people painting them as such.