Bye Bye Bertie - Best Of Luck!!

paddy111199

Last day for the big man! Up having a few pints in Fagans at the moment having the few Bass.

Anyway I think he will be very much missed and he will go down as the most successful Irish leader of all time (just my opinion!).

Anyway let me know your thoughts on him and by the way I'm not politically motavated.

ANXIOUS

I completly agree, wish him best of luck in the future. As primetime hinted upon we will never know his true genius.

mike65

*cough*

True genius? is the RTE love-in still continuing?

Mike.

paddy111199

Well to be honest, from my perspective being from Ulster, what he done for NI and to bring peace to our country, in my eyes this makes him a genius (just in my opinion).

Mr.Micro

Talk about the long goodbye. Welcome to reality Bertie.

ANXIOUS

mike65 wrote: »

*cough*

True genius? is the RTE love-in still continuing?

Mike.

It was actually mentioned by the three guest speakers as well cant remeber all their names off hand. One being Bisp. Wille Walsh

LostinBlanch

Will they be saying the same thing when the tribunal puts out it's report?

LordSutch

paddy111199 wrote: »

Last day for the big man! Up having a few pints in Fagans at the moment having the few Bass.

The Big Man? I thought that was Paisley's nick name

Liam Byrne

There are definitely a few things you have to give him, but there are also a few glaring issues that he glossed over/ignored/rolled over on.

Would any leader have gotten through them all ? Probably not.

But should he be worshipped for what he did achieve ? No.

He finished off the peace process....it wasn't just timing, because he played his part, but so did lots of others along the way. But he was lucky to be there for the finish of it.

He was also VERY lucky to be Taoiseach during the boom.....if any other Government had wasted that much money during their tenure they would have been out on their ear - as should many of his ministers for failing to do their jobs.

Plus Ireland is a much worse-off place, quality-of-life and expense-wise.

So I think his legacy should be "a fair bit done, some things ignored, some things done badly"....not a lot worse than anyone else, but given the opportunities that he had, we lost out badly on a massive opportunity to build a platform for the future....

rowlandbrowner

he was a crook and presided over a government that squandered our best chance to build a better country. this will all become more apparent as the years go on to those who are still under his spell. the cracks are appearing in capitalism all over the world, here in Ireland and Europe. men like Bertie will be exposed for the liars and cheats they really are. thats for another discussion, so staying on topic i would like to say good riddance to a caniving little charlatan, but sadly, hello to another.

ninty9er

LostinBlanch wrote: »

Will they be saying the same thing when the tribunal puts out it's report?

Seems the Tribunal has f*** all on Bertie with a lenghtening list of witnesses being dropped.

ninty9er

paddy111199 wrote: »

Anyway I think he will be very much missed and he will go down as the most successful Irish leader of all time (just my opinion!).

You can't put Bertie above Lemass. He laid the foundations of the Celtic Tiger and Welfare State.

darkman2

ninty9er wrote: »

You can't put Bertie above Lemass. He laid the foundations of the Celtic Tiger and Welfare State.

Ireland does not have a 'welfare state' - thankfully.

ivan087

ANXIOUS wrote: »

I completly agree, wish him best of luck in the future. As primetime hinted upon we will never know his true genius.

ahhh come on. he did the simple things right but he didnt have a vision. he didnt make huge changes to the country. he just let things happen. he didnt do anything for education and look at health and transport and.....

he is a good negotiator, though

ninty9er

darkman2 wrote: »

Ireland does not have a 'welfare state' - thankfully.

Tell that to the pensioners!

nhughes100

Have to agree with the FF on this one, we most certainly do have a welfare state, one look at the size of the dept of social welfares budget will confirm this. Note I don't think this is a good thing. By all means give better pensions but please means test childrens allowance and cut out that 1100 euro you get to help with your creche.

SkepticOne

I think he will be remembered as the lucky Taoiseach whose luck eventually ran out.

Liam Byrne

Liam Byrne wrote: »

He was also VERY lucky to be Taoiseach during the boom...

True, but every leader has to have a bit of luck. I mean, Lemass was lucky enought to be around in 1960s Ireland, would he have been so productive if he was the mayor of Hiroshima 20 years before? Ahern was good, he was lucky enough to have both beside him and indeed (when it comes to the North) across from him, good people with common interests. I think if he left a year ago, he would be remembered a lot more fondly. Between the economy and his own wranglings over the past year he has tarnished his legacy.

El Stuntman

nhughes100 wrote: »

Note I don't think this is a good thing. By all means give better pensions but please means test childrens allowance and cut out that 1100 euro you get to help with your creche.

Nigel, if we don't encourage people to have kids, then there'll be no pensions pot for us....who will pay the bills?

nhughes100

Some people shouldn't be encouraged to have children. I don't think people really have children for the childrens allowance now, in all fairness. I never said people shouldn't have kids just maybe people earning over 100K a year shouldn't get the same amount as someone on the dole?

In any case 10+years of FF have assured us that the days of couples having more then 2 kids are gone.

If pensions were managed properly your prsi would pay for your pension but they spend that now and hope for the best when you retire, not only that you have to have your own private pension now unless you have a "free" public sector pension which incidentally costs me over 200 euro a month.

murphaph

Goodbye and good riddance to the world's biggest bloody waffler. He could talk for 10 minutes about something and you'd still be none the wiser.

I think it's embarrassing for our country that a man like that could ever become Taoiseach tbh. I dislike FF now as they as a party stood by for far too long while their colleagues were shown to be corrupt. Having said that....Brian Cowen is a man I can respect in many ways. He is articulate and clearly intelligent. I am reasonably happy that as the global and national economy begins to groan that he is in overall control instead of the muppet Ahern.

Ireland has achieved very little on the ground given the tremendous opportunity we had. Longer commutes, more expensive everything, more anti-social behaviour than ever. The list goes on. Ahern was lucky-his government squandered money like it was going out of fashion and if we were in the 80's Ahern's government would have lasted a week.

blackbox

For years I gave him the benefit of the doubt - he certainly was a skillful negotiator, but I always disliked his inabiity to face anyone down.

However he has latterly shown himself to be a sleazeball - good riddance

singloud

i liked the guy

he presided over the celtic tiger

regardless of whether or not he was resposible for the foundations is debatable but he certainly seemed to help it along

murphaph

singloud wrote: »

i liked the guy

Fair enough.

singloud wrote: »

he presided over the celtic tiger

True.

singloud wrote: »

regardless of whether or not he was resposible for the foundations is debatable but he certainly seemed to help it along

You've hit the nail on the head.

People talk about him as if he'd be a decent skin to go for a pint with but he'd drive me bananas listening to him. I hate the way he takes a serious question and then deflects it with a comment about sport or some other irrelevant nonsense. Our journalists and opposition totally failed to take Ahern to task for 11 years.....nevermind the dopey electorate who lapped this man up as if he were a god or something. The more I think of it, the happier I am that a staight talker (so far) like Cowen will be answering leader's questions, which has been irrititatingly unwatchable under Ahern. Em, but, em, what <sporting quip>, em, but, em <sits down>.