In what other country would a Minister of Finance have no bank account, ensuring there was no paper trail on money received?
You guessed it. This is the Ireland that Fianna Fáil love.
They have just let Bertie Ahern back to their party – even though he has refused to answer questions about the findings of the Mahon Tribunal.
The final report on this tribunal only appeared in 2012 even though it was investigating events in the early 1990s.
It found that Ahern had lied about payments of €165,000. It concluded that Ahern had received these payments to ensure certain tax statuses for two major shopping centre developments.
These were to be built by a Cork developer, O Callaghan, who indicated that he generally found it necessary to engage in corruption in order to develop property in Dublin.
He implied he had “taken care” of Ahern and given an inducement of some sort in return for a favour.
Fianna Fáil has not changed. It still looks after its own – the rich and privileged.