Well. This election was dull, dull, dull. Until, that is,
one Martin McGuinness announced that he was running. Then there was a sharp intake of
breath in Dublin 4 and the media went into frenzy mode. This gradually
diminished to a lower, near-tedium level (“These bloody debates, I’ve had a
bellyful”) until Monday night when once again, a move by Martin McGuinness
raised the temperature sky-high and all bets were off. Or at least those on
Sean Gallagher the non-Fianna Fail candidate.
The Gallagher case is full of more zig-zags than a Bertie
Ahern news conference but a number of things do stand out.
1.
Gallagher has refused to answer questions about
the €83,000 loan he took from his own company. The law says you can take a
loan of 10% from your own company.
Gallagher took a loan of 70% and so clearly breached the law, which could have
landed him in jail. He says it was all a misunderstanding.
2.
In 2001,
Louth Enterprise Board put a loan of over €25,000 into a firm co-owned
by Gallagher. In 2004 the Louth
Board came looking for its money but in the meantime Gallagher’s firm had
changed its name and claimed its right to pay back nothing. After a legal
dispute, Gallagher’s firm paid back some but not all of the money. Nobody knows how much. Or little.
3.
“I sought no money. I received no money from
anybody” – Sean Gallagher during Monday’s debate.
4.
“It’s very feasible that if I did deliver to his
(Hugh Morgan’s) premises a photograph, he may well have given me a
cheque”. – Sean Gallagher on RTÉ
yesterday.
5.
“I think I mentioned it to possibly three or
four people, and I have no idea to this day whether or not they made a
donation”. – Sean Gallagher on RTÉ, 20th October.
Sound familiar? Mmm. Quite. So what now?
Well, either the electorate in the south will awaken from the
deep slumber into which they’d fallen and smell not so much the coffee as the
stink of ancient Fianna Fail fish and tell Gallagher on Thursday to get
lost. In which case we’ll be back
where we started about 21 years ago, when the Áras was a rest home for clapped-out
politicians. Or the awakening will have come too late for enough drowsy voters
and Sean Gallagher, who if we’re to believe reports has contradicted himself on
a number of occasions (what we
ethicists sometimes refer to as “lying”), who has been a Fianna Fail man all his adult life and who
acted, it seems, in the proud tradition if not the exact practice of the Galway
Tent, will lead the south of Ireland for the next seven years.
Finally, a word or two about the duties of Martin
McGuinness. In the media’s constant questioning of him over several
carefully-selected but unsolved killings which the police and the gardai
haven’t cracked, it’s clear they expect McGuinness to do this work for them –
bring those responsible to justice. McGuinness the politician should become
McGuinness the policeman. So what
are we paying the police and gardaí for?
Plus. For ten days or so, the media had the story listed
under No 1 above. But while there
were vague rumblings, no outcry was heard. It wasn’t until Monday night and
McGuinness’s questions to Gallagher that the media suddenly woke up and began
shouting their heads off about Gallagher’s odd business practices. So in
addition to policeman/detective, it appears McGuinness must add the work of
being the media’s alarm clock.
So that’s detective, alarm clock and politician, all rolled
into one man. Sounds to me like a multi-talented person we could usefully elect
to the Áras.
Surely the irish people have had enough of shady finances + dodgy deals with so called reputable buisness men("thanks big fella"). If they want to be embarrassed by yet more scandal, then by all means elect the Fianna Fail candidate, Sean Gallagher. Oh sorry, I forgot he's an independent candidate.......
ReplyDeleteThanks for this article here Jude, I can't believe...well I can believe the disgraceful way the 'media' have behaved during this "presidential' campaign, they had every opportunity to ask hard questions of Sean Gallagher but they kept him in the cupboard while they concentrated on anyone 'they' didn't think should be President i.e. MartinMcGuinness. Anyone but Sinn Fein! They were prepared to go with Norris, despite him using his office for personal purposes, untill people demanded answers, and all the while Gallagher was fibbing/explaining his way up in the 'polls'. How anyone sensible couldn't join the dots and see the real picture is down to shoddy hack journalism. Democracy? now theres a debate that should be aired, but for Democracy's sake, bring a Russian T.V.company in to do it.
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