If Global Warming Exists It's Because Of The Hot Air From Bertie Ahern

"Do I believe there is global warming? No, I do believe it's all a load of bullshit."
- Ryanair boss Michael O'Leary, of whom more anon

By Charley Brady

Of course, in this benighted country that probably produces more hard-necked chancers per head of population than any other country in Europe (a completely unscientific study, coming only from my own observations, although I have my hand out for a grant if there is one going) it is difficult to put one gouger above another.

Surely, though, Senator Ivor Callely has to be up there at the top of the list this week. Ivor, you may remember, was first questioned back in July over how he could possibly claim €81,000 in travel expenses from his holiday home in West Cork to his principle home in Clontarf, Dublin. He says that he had moved there because he had suffered "trauma" after losing his North Central Dail seat in 2007.

What this really means is that he was voted out because his constituents knew a phoney when they saw one and boy have they been proved right. Of course, if this was anyone except a politician he would just have to pick himself up and try to find another means of employment. In the world of Fianna Fail's "jobs for the boys" policies, what happened instead is that his old pal and mentor in the Grasping Greedy Gouger Department Bertie Ahern lent down from his tower, held his hand out to Ivor and told him to be peaceful of mind. He had job for him as Senator in the Seanad, that strange place that no one can figure out what it is for, except a home for bewildered failed politicians, who despite a slightly glazed look to their eyes aren't quite so bewildered when it comes to "all aboard the gravy train" and here's an expense accounts sheet for you to sign. Keep up the good work, whatever the hell it is you are doing.

Bertie, of course, is hardly on first name terms with the truth himself. After all, he often spoke wistfully of his days at University College Dublin and the London School of Economics. Well, that was of course until some nosy busybody pointed out that all he had been doing was shuffling pieces of paper around a desk in the Mater Hospital. He has in fact no business or financial qualifications whatsoever.

Still, it wouldn't have mattered if he had because it wasn't his fault that the country went down the tubes while being run by him and his builder/banker/speculator buddies. Bertie was only responsible for the good things, not the bad.

He has still to provide a tax clearance certificate and the earnings from his autobiography (you can find it in the "remaindered" basket in the Fiction Section of any bad bookshop) are tax free. You see, Bertie is above such considerations.

Still, if you have more money than brains you can still hire him out as an after dinner speaker where he will tell you over and over, like a broken record, how great he is. As a matter of fact he operates from the same crowd who organise his mate Tony Blair's speaking tours.

He seems now to be intent on running for the Presidency and, as this is Ireland, I wouldn't be at all surprised if he got it.

In light of all this I don't suppose anyone was particularly taken aback at him bringing Ivor into the Seanad three years ago. God knows they deserve each other.

Now, though, as more of Callely's "indiscretions" come to light, he's just embarrassing everybody. Bertie even this week described his goings-on as "pathetic"; and his former buddies all want to see the back of him. Not because they disapprove of what he has done - how could any of them, in honesty? - but because he's not being a good sport and going away quietly and therefore is turning the spotlight back on them. Let's be honest, these are people who prefer to keep their money doings in the shadows so Ivor is just bad for business.

He's really set the cat among the pigeons now as on Tuesday September 8 he presented a signed affidavit to the High Court in a bid to have a legitimate investigation into his finances overturned and to seek damages.

Well, he may have reluctantly resigned from Fianna Fail but he can still call himself a Senator and, astonishingly, there are very few legal mechanisms for getting rid of him. What's to really stop him, despite the loathing that he is held in by the public from hanging on and keeping his snout in that trough just as long as he can?

He is joint owner of at least seven properties other than the two that he has listed as he is obliged to do; but that isn't why he deserves the Chancer of the Week Award for Contributions to Irish Life; nor the fact that he used forged documents to claim a - by a politician's standards - measly amount of €3,000 for mobile phones.

No, for me the final straw was on learning that if this goes to Appeal and drags on into next year the cost may have to be picked up by the taxpayer. Well, hell, they pick up the bill for everything else anyway and there hasn't been a revolution yet.

His lawyer told the High Court that he has been painted out to be "a pariah who ripped off the State, a chancer, a rogue and a thoroughly despicable person."

Oh, I don't know. It sounds pretty accurate to me. Did someone do a survey of public opinion that I didn't hear about?

As I wrote elsewhere this week, if push comes to shove Ivor can always get himself a slot on the Late Late Show. It was my second week to watch in disgust a free ride, disguised as an interview. Last week it was Tony Blair, this week we had the disgraced Limerick FFer (oops, nearly wrote a bad word there), Little Willie O'Dea.

Willie is swaggering around again only months after being caught out in the department for... oh to hell with dressing it up, he was caught telling lies about a Sinn Féin councillor. That was bad enough, but it was the sneaky way that he did it, in dropping the Chinese whisper to a Limerick journalist that the Sinn Féin man had interests in a brothel. Quite apart from the slimy way that it was done, doesn't Willie know that if you are aware of a crime being committed it's supposed to be the Garda you go to?

In the event it was kind of historic in a way to see a Shinner being proved innocent of something. Little Willie of course immediately began to do his level best to wriggle out of every statement he had made only to find that the reporter had kept a tape. Tough luck, that.

Never mind, he was greeted with the same rapturous applause that had greeted Bertie Ahern only a few months earlier. I don't really believe that that is an Irish audience at all any more. I think that Ryan Tubridy has them all imported from the village of Stepford so that they'll be more controllable.

Ivor Callely, be prepared for cheering when you get your shot at it.

Now the John Murray Show on radio last Wednesday showed how you can just let a vain, self serving ex-Taoiseach like Bertie ramble on and you will learn more about his reinvented career that you ever hoped to. For example, he let us know that he is enormously popular with the peasants and that only "a small minority" don't like him, before declaring that he would not rule out running as President. In other words, he would be in there like a shot, humble man of the people though he may be.

Continuing his happy trip through his own parallel universe he said:

"I left this country with a low national debt, full employment and low taxes. I didn't forsee Lehmans coming down." Well, at least we know that he doesn't claim the gift of second sight amongst his many other talents. In other words it was all that fecker Cowen's fault, not mine at all, at all.

Saying that he had met Tony Blair for "a few jars" during his trip he made an allusion to Blair talking about over-indulging in alcohol some years ago. "He wouldn't last the night in Fagan's" (Ahern's local), he crowed as if this was something to be proud of.

Then again as this was the man who famously went on record when he stated that he was well able to drive himself home after seven pints of Bass, perhaps he thought that it was. No wonder one of the few things that he hasn't shoved his face forward for is the Road Safety Committee.

On and on he went, blissfully unaware in his ignorance that all over the country people were spilling cups of tea over themselves as they listened in sheer disbelief.

He managed to have a go at the media AND his old pal Ivor Callely in the one swipe:

"He's in the soup for various things. It's pathetic for politics and everybody knows that. I never went down the courts route. I have suffered for years [due to the newspapers], but it doesn't overwhelm me. Que sera." Mercifully he didn't break into song at this stage but one could certainly picture him wiping away a tear at the injustice of it all.

Still, the subtext was "Callely, ye swine. Would ye ever pack it in? The reason I didn't go after the media was that they had me bang to rights, just like they have you, ye eejit."

Ah, it would be dull old universe without the occasional wander through Bertie's one.

Also adding to the gaiety of the nation this week was Ryanair's very own Michael O'Leary. Now I confess to a soft spot for O'Leary. He always upsets the right people and that's all right with me, for sure; and even though on occasion he's irritated me as well, I'm never quite sure whether or not he's taking the proverbial.

It's great to see him on a good old rant, as he was this week.

"It's amazing the way the whole f***ing eco-warriors and the media have changed. It used to be global warming, but now, when global temperatures haven't risen in the past 12 years they say it's 'climate change'".

Go on, ye boy ye! Don't hold back; and tell us what you really think.

"Well, hang on, we've had an Ice Age, we've also had a couple of very hot spells in the Middle Ages so nobody can deny climate change. But there's absolutely no link between [that] and man- made carbon, which contributes less than 2% of total carbon emissions.

"The scientific community has nearly always been wrong in history anyway. In the Middle Ages, they were going to excommunicate Galileo because the entire scientific community said the Earth was flat. I mean, it is absolutely bizarre that the people who can't tell us what the f***ing weather is next Tuesday can predict with absolute precision what the f***ing global temperatures will be in 100 years' time. It's horse****".

Funny thing is, I agree with a lot of that; and I still maintain that we would cut out half the planet's hot air if Bertie would just stop talking and enjoy his ill-gotten retirement.

Hope to see you all again next week.

Same bat-time!

Same bat-channel!

You can reach Charley at chasbrady7@eircom.net