The Mahon Tribunal

For me personally, I agree with your comment on the stunt from FG. I found Enda Kenny to be nothing but patronising and sneery throughout the campaign, and my dislike for the FG party actually grew over the course of this election. This was not helped by the fact that the campaigners for FG who knocked at my door were arrogant and dismissive.
On the other hand, I still find Bertie and my own local FF people to have a certain level of humility (Maybe not the right word). There is no denying that some great things have happened in Ireland over the past number of years, and I dont get the feel from FF that they just expected to be voted back in, I do think they fought for whatever votes they get in this campaign.

I don't know if there really is anything he could do to bring his popularity down he is pretty much Charlie Haughey Mark 2 at this stage, he will always be loved even if something that proves him to be dodgy comes out at some stage he'll always be considered a great leader and a man of the people


I never used to like Enda Kenny but I have grown to respect him over the last year or so and i do think he would make a good leader

It's the old Fianna Fail tactic. The whole Bertie scandal played right into their hands. If there's one thing FF have always thrived on over the years it's having a good grievance to get the diehards to stick with them.

The Mahon tribunal resumes. More **** hits the fan.

Ahern will not be leading this country in 2012.

Jaysus the first day of resumption of the Mahon Tribunial and already his account of things is unravelling. If this keeps up it will be Taoiseach Biffo when the new Dail sits.

I found this especially interesting from that article.

Mr O'Neill also said there is very little documentary evidence to support Mr Ahern's about the source of the five lodgements totalling over £116,000.

Surely if you were in that position you would make sure that you had all the documents in place to confirm these payments were above board?

A thread was closed in the General Election forum which was discussing the Mahon Tribunal and we were directed to the main Politics forum here, but I can't find an existing thread on the Mahon Tribunal if I have missed one please merge.

So I will repost my previous reply to Tristrame for him to reply here

Originally Posted by Tristrame
It's not flawed unless of course you don't believe in due process and believe instead that your conviction is infallable and lets make no mistake about it you are convicting ahern here with scant access to all of the facts save for deliberately sensationalised newspaper selling leaks.

What due process is it you speak of Tristrame is it the same due process that was afforded to Ray Burke, Ivor Callely or Michael Lowry? You see the problem is these TD's didn't need a Tribunal to finish and make findings to force them to resign, I mean Bertie accepted Ivor Callely's resignation for having a free paint job. Are you suggesting Bertie is entitled to more due process than Ray Burke or Ivor Callely were?

Originally Posted by Tristrame
Without access to whatever due process yet to be heard you are drawing your own conclusions.You are of course entitled to do this.

I am drawing no more conclusions than Bertie did when allegations were made againt Ivor Callely!

Originally Posted by Tristrame
See what I mean,do you have a direct line to the opposing sides pc/data and file boxes then? Or are you just using the selective tit bits you can glean from media leaks and satisfying your already made up mind?

Now let me make this very clear Tristrame my opinion here is not based on any newspaper reports, it is based on the transcript from the tribunal and the press release which Bertie released. These are available to anyone, I have linked to both in previous posts. So please stop trying to imply my posts are as a result of reports I have read elsewhere, I'm not sure what your opinon is of me (although I have a good idea) but I do have the intelligence to read transcripts and statments and form MY OWN opinion, if you are hinting otherwise I would rather you just came out and said it.

Originally Posted by Tristrame
Oh so here I see that you are just just blatantly surmising your opinion based on two different collations of information.
1. Aherns answers to media questions and 2.Selected new questions as reported and yet unanswered in the tribunal.
The problem with that is your surmise is flawed because you are using legitimate answers to one set of questions as an assumption that legitimate answers to new questions in the tribunal don't exist..
The instant difficulty I find with that analysis is that Aherns team will have to put their case.
The nature of the tribunal is such that accusations can be outed sans rebuttal like this almost ad infinitum untill it is time for the other side of the case to be heard.

Basing a kangeroo court style commentary on Aherns activities on that is laughably unfair and prejudiced.
It's prejudiced of course because it treats the questions as rhetorical ,convicts the accused and devoids itself of a need to hear the other side, in that it implies the mind is already made up.

Where is the evidence of a dollar transaction by the way besides a question asked as to whether there was one ? And who introduced this dollar anomoly in the first place? It was a lawyer for the tribunal wasn't it-ergo it's Aherns lawers at the tribunal who have yet to explain this. Why didnt they check rubles and Rand as well as all the other available currencies? Have they any paperwork in relation to a dollar transaction and why are you running with that? Is your analysis so brilliant that its better than a tribunal outcome complete with two sides of a story?

My opinion as I stated above is based on what Senior Council for the Tribunal have stated the Tribunal have uncovered during their investigation and what they say Bertie stated during communication with the tribunal which included written communication and an interview. Mr Ahern my not have publically put his case to the tribunal but he has put his case to the public in the form of his statement and he has also put it privately to the Tribunal in both cases he says he did not deal in Dollars and that the money lodged on the 5th of December was in Pounds and Punts. I'm not sure if you aware of the procedure at the bank in relation to recording foreign exchange but they recorded the amount of Sterling exchanged and they recorded the amount of all other currencies exchanged also, the amount of sterling exchanged on the 5th of December 1994 was equal to £1,921.55 punts hence Bertie could not have exchanged what he said he did on that date, the records however show that the ammount of other currencies exchanged that day equalled £28,969.34 punts this would allow for a transaction of $45,000 and other non-sterling exchanges to a value of £196.44 punts

My analysis is based on the bank records provided to the Tribunal which they have outlined in their opening statement and the reports from the Tribunal of interview's and written communication with Bertie and also his statement.

Originally Posted by Tristrame
It's not coming across that you are making an accusation, you are giving us your conviction that that is the case arising out of your own one sided conclusion of a yet unanswered tribunal allegation.

Well I am looking at all the evidence which I can find and I am forming an opinion as Bertie did with Ivor.

In relation to how the sum could have been a mixture of Punt and Pounds remember they didn't accept less than £1 and everyone agrees on the dates and the maximum amount of Sterling was £2003 pounds.

Tristrame wrote:

One speculation being as valid or usefull as the next.
Bertie outsourced the finding of the house to Wall who may or may not have had a contract signed on this house at the time.
This outsourcing was open ended and the discussion included the possibility that Ahern might buy the house.
Ahern and Wall trusted Celia to do the interior designing on whatever house Wall sourced.
None of that would be illegal,quirky yes,unusual maybe, but illegal no.

The house while an odd arrangement is a side issue

Bertie has large sums of money going through accounts controlled by Celia Larkin.
Bertie has to explain where this money came from so as the tribunal can ascertain if the money came from Owen O'Callaghan
Berties explanations are that he saved the money in a safe(although no one else ever seen this money or part of it either in drumcondra or his ministerial office where he claims to have had it)
Berties next explanation is that Wall gave him £30,000 sterling in cash to do up a house which he claims Celia larkin Deposited except the deposit does not equate to the £30,000 sterling it oddly does equate to $45,000 but Bertie denies ever having large amounts of dollars.
The question arises if this is not the £30,000 Wall money what money is it and if it is what hapened to the rest of it.
Berties other explanations are that his friends had a whip around (although one of those denies ever giving money to Ahern and claims the money was for FF)
And then there is the Manchester Money.


While I agree that in normal circumstances the tribunal should be allowed to get on with its business these are not normal circumstances unfortunately or fortunately these issues are in the public domain and they are likely to have an affect on the forming of a new Government.
Ahern has already offered an explanation during the election and it was accepted by everyone( or virtually everyone) however the tribunal has revealed that the explanation offered by Ahern during the election does not stand up to the scrutiny that the tribunal is able to offer as such Ahern must offer an reasonable explanation for the differences in his story or he should step aside.
The election is out of the way now and I hope that the understandable reluctance shown by the opposition parties to engage these matters during an election will now stop and that they will try and hold Mr Ahern to account these matters are so serious that we can not wait for the tribunal to finish its work which could take years.