Bertie Ahern, Ray Burke And Independent Newspapers - Why RTE Is Being Attacked - To Keep Them In Line

by Nod Slavery Sat Mar 24, 2012 22:14

According to the RTE 9pm News, Ahern is to contribute an exclusive article to the Sunday Independent tomorrow, announcing his resignation from Fianna Fail.

As RTE reporter David McCullagh said, an appropriate place since the Sindo was Ahern's "main cheerleader".

by lefty Sat Mar 24, 2012 23:50

So, after all the hoohah stops, will this crook Bertie Ahern who, along with fellow crook Ray Burke, was responsible for greatly weakening our oil and gas exploration licence terms and hence greatly improving "sir"TonyO'Reilly's balance sheet at providence resources (not to mention shell), still be getting over 100k per annum from the Irish taxpayer whom he totally shafted

Indeed, will Ray Burke continue to get >89k per annum pension?

This is an outrage!!

O'reilly's rag are always going on about welfare cheats.
Well I say we Cut off these two big time welfare cheats NOW

by opus diablos - the regressive hypocrite party Sun Mar 25, 2012 10:30

..is a fair hand at the welfare scam himself.

His original fortune resulted from taking over the state food sector(co-op founded and tax-funded)Erin Foods and selling it into Heinz, who's ladder he topped while building his oil and media tentacles.

he should know what he's on about.

Current state of play? Ye ol Indomediots are attacking 'oligarch' Dinny Boy O'Brien as himself and Dermot Desmond inch their way into the empire of Citizen Anto.

Anto being just a singular dynastic plutocrat.

by C.O. Rupt Sun Mar 25, 2012 10:58

Best account of Mahon Tribunal findings in Irish mail on Sunday - you won't get this in the Sunday Independent.

Connolly was hounded out of the Centre for Public Inquiry by the last FF-PD government. Justice minister Michael McDowell was the trigger man. Ahern was the political beneficiary.

Now, Connolly is vindicated, Ahern and friends in the dock. There is some justice after all.

Download the Centre for Public Inquiry's report into the oil & gas sell off here:
http://www.shelltosea.com/sites/default/files/images/04...t.pdf

Frank Connolly, hounded by Ahern, Independent Newspapers - vindicated by Mahon Tribunal (Irish Mail on Sunday today 25th March 2012)

Ray Burke and Bertie Ahern together - from Centre for Public Inquiry Oil-Gas report PDF (download link here)

by C.O. Rupt Sun Mar 25, 2012 11:20

Confronting Power - Part 1- an Interview with Frank Connolly
http://www.mediabite.org/article_Confronting-Power---Pa....html

References to 'embarrassing' Sunday Independent.

by Harold Loud Sun Mar 25, 2012 18:48

Very good article on how the Sunday Business Post under Damien Kiberd and Frank Connolly broke the Gilmartin-Burke-Dunlop story - in today's Sunday Business Post.

No mention of Frank Connolly's role in exposing corruption on Marian Finnucane RTE Radio One programme this morning. I wonder why. As someone with ties to the property sector Marian is possibly feeling terribly conflicted.

by opus diablos - the regressive hypocrite party Mon Mar 26, 2012 10:29

..is a long time embedded.

When I set up the Regressive Hypocrite Party back circa Spring '88(turbulent times, the calendars are ragged) I dropped the wo/manifesto all round RTE and assorted outlets trying to find a mic...

To my surprise I then got a call from Liveline(herself was holding the window at that time) and a highly aggressive interrogation down the line...I told her to cool her porridge and ask one question at a time and I'd answer...which she then did.

There was an EU(or EEC)election running and I was seeing could I make a few points, the main one being that the PD Thatcher/Reagonomix was NOT the solution to our problems and would prove disasterous, except for the already over-rich. The interview probably lasted a half hour, and I felt I got my points across.

I think the program may have been weekly at the time, because I listened in the next week and she had a studio full of candidates...grand sez I, she'll play at least a bit of the recording...or maybe even call me to make a live comment..

Dream on. Not a focal. The usual platitudes and hymnsheets.................amen. I concluded then she was an O'Malley admirer and had placed her bets on the PD nag. Subsequent listenings confirm she's one of the good ol gals.

Biggest surprise?Couple of weeks later I get a cheque for £33 in the post...for the unbroadcast interview....that was money in the late '80s. Evidence of just how much loose brass sloshes around in those gilded echelons. And how tight the news management lid is held down.

by Conor O'Brien - Former Editors Inc Mon Mar 26, 2012 19:41

Sindo trying desperately to be in tune with public mood. Bertie Ahern's last hurrah - and what better place for him to have his say.

Eoghan Harris, in his defence of Bertie, refers to 'republican-socialist activist Frank 'Colombia' Connolly' (thinking that mouthful an insult), whereas Jody Corcoran, in a somewhat confused piece, acknowledged Frank Connolly's role in exposing corruption. Well done Jody, keep it going, think for yourself.

No mention of Ray Burke payment from Rennicks, but perhaps other media should bring that up. I'm sure Ray is still doing everything to protect his interests and reminding his former friends of their mutual interests.

Very interesting info in PDF dossier, above.

See contrasting Sunday Independent front pages 197, 2012 - what a difference nearly four decades make. Why was Joe McAnthony forced out of ireland in 1976 after exposes like the one against Ray Burke in 1974? CLICK on the Newspaper pages to see them better.

Interview with Gilmartin son, RTE Radio One This Week yesterday - also wrote article below Irish Times today.

The Irish Times - Monday, March 26, 2012

'Ireland owes my father a debt of gratitude for doing what he has done'

"Without my father, Ireland would never have found out about the corrupt activities of people like Frank Dunlop, nor the existence of a corruption ring at the heart of planning in Ireland."

THOMAS PATRICK GILMARTIN

OPINION: THE MAHON tribunal report has come as a nearly complete vindication of my father, Tom Gilmartin.

Without my father, Ireland would never have found out about the corrupt activities of people like Frank Dunlop, nor the existence of a corruption ring at the heart of planning in Ireland.

It is due to my father that the tribunal discovered that Bertie Ahern had huge amounts of money going through his accounts for which his explanations do not hold water.

My father led the tribunal to perhaps its biggest success – it was he who, in early 1998, told the tribunal about his suspicion Dunlop was being used as a “bagman” for corrupt payments to politicians.

He showed it accounts which included payments to a company called “Shefran Ltd” – whose very purpose was to hide the scale and purpose of the large round-figure, VAT-free, invoice-free payments being made to Dunlop.

My father openly demanded, in front of witnesses, to know what the purpose of Shefran Ltd was, and he was not told precisely because it was known my father had complained vociferously about corruption several times.

When the tribunal contacted my father in 1998, he immediately told it what he believed, but could never prove, had been going on.

We now know that Dunlop, contrary to the dominant narrative, did not have a Pauline conversion to the truth in April 2000. He continued to cover for developers and senior politicians.

My father’s allegation about what he was told about payments from Owen O’Callaghan to Ahern has also been found to be true.

The report agrees that O’Callaghan did tell my father that he had paid Ahern, but it couldn’t, because of Ahern’s untruthful evidence, establish whether the payment took place – it could neither prove nor disprove it. My father was telling the truth all along.

My father was brought to the attention of the tribunal by a Garda report in 1989 which included a number of allegations, now found to be true, that the Garda then dismissed without even interviewing several of the main witnesses.

It was admitted at the tribunal that Liam Lawlor was probably not interviewed because he was a TD. My father received a phone call during the investigation from someone purporting to be a garda who told him to “f--k off back to England”.

The tribunal found that the phone call did happen and that its purpose was to intimidate my father into keeping quiet. He was told in that call that he should not be making allegations against decent men (such as Liam Lawlor and George Redmond), that their names would emerge “unsullied”.

The tribunal found that my father was indeed, contrary to the evidence given by a long line of former ministers (except Mary O’Rourke), at an informal meeting with Charles Haughey and other ministers at Leinster House in February 1989.

It also agreed that he was subjected to a demand for £5 million immediately outside the room in which that meeting took place and threatened when he refused to pay.

Here is a man who was honestly motivated (and this is mocked by some commentators – but he could have stayed and made money in England where he was already successful) by a desire to try and provide jobs in Ireland being threatened inside the national parliament for refusing to pay up.

George Redmond, then assistant city and county manager, on the payroll of a rival company, was deliberately obstructing my father’s plans because my father had refused to pay him or Lawlor.

The rival company was tipped off by Redmond about a land deal my father was completing so it could intervene and try to take the land off him. Meetings between my father’s team from England and Northern Ireland and the city’s road engineers were cancelled at the last minute by Redmond, without telling the city engineers.

Then, when rearranged, the meetings were obstructed and made tense by Redmond. Lawlor turned up at another meeting between my father and potential investors to tell them that west Dublin was “mad dog country”, successfully ending any interest the investors had.

It was against this background that my father gave £50,000 to Fianna Fáil, via the then minister for the environment, Pádraig Flynn. My father had complained to Dublin Corporation about the corruption he was encountering. He had complained to government ministers Pádraig Flynn and Bertie Ahern. He had complained to the Garda. Nothing was done.

A number of politicians suggested his problems might stop if he made a donation to the party, that the party could then rein in Redmond and Lawlor. He had refused to do so several times but finally relented in desperation when he realised no one, not even the police force, would help.

The tribunal established that Flynn took the money despite the money being clearly intended for Fianna Fáil. We know it was intended for Fianna Fáil because my father had told several people within months, including Ahern, that he had already made a donation to the party when it asked him for one.

The tribunal also established that Flynn’s asking for and taking the money was corrupt, but did not find that the giving was corrupt. It recognised that it was only given to Fianna Fáil under duress.

It was extreme duress. It has been wrongly (and sometimes deliberately) said or implied that it was a bribe on my father’s part. It was no such thing. It was blackmail by an utterly corrupt political establishment.

The rezoning of Quarryvale, contrary to the dominant perception, was utterly necessary.

The original town centre site at Neilstown was badly designed, badly located and poorly accessed. It was not a choice between Quarryvale and Neilstown, it was a choice between Quarryvale and nothing.

What exists at Quarryvale today, however, bears absolutely no relation to what my father had planned. The local people have been completely overlooked. The enduring victims of the corruption that infested Ireland during that period are the people who have to live in places where they have been sidelined and left to rot.

My father has been through a huge trauma. His period trying to do business in Ireland was despicable enough in the treatment he received at the hands of the officials, politicians and police of this country. He had no need to come to Ireland. He was already very successful in England, but he hoped to do something to help Ireland – he thought that he could create jobs to stop young people having to emigrate like he did at a time Ireland was on its knees economically.

Then, when he came back to give evidence, he was not only disbelieved, he was put through a sustained and systematic process of vilification and ridicule by politicians up to and including the taoiseach and his cabinet, and also by prominent journalists and commentators.

His evidence made possible the exposure of a litany of corruption that would never have been exposed otherwise. Ireland owes my father a debt of gratitude for doing what he has done. He is owed an apology by the State and by certain parts of the political and media establishment for what was done to him.

Joe McAnthony exposes Ray Burke June 23 1974 - the Sunday Independent exposed crooked politicians then (listen to McAnthony interview)

Sunday Independent March 25 2012 - late (Monday satirical) edition - today crooked politicians write for the paper

Interview with Tom Gilmartin's son (RTE Radio One 25 March 2012) - criticises newspaper and political attacks on his father
Interview with Tom Gilmartin's son (RTE Radio One 25 March 2012) - criticises newspaper and political attacks on his father 1.63 Mb

Interview with investigative journalist Joe McAnthony (RTE Radio One 25 March 2012) - exposed Ray Burke Sunday Independent 1974 - nothing done, apart from forcing McAnthony out of Ireland in 1976
Interview with investigative journalist Joe McAnthony (RTE Radio One 25 March 2012) - exposed Ray Burke Sunday Independent 1974 - nothing done, apart from forcing McAnthony out of Ireland in 1976 0.8 Mb