Watching The World And The Mercs Go By

"We cannot move on until they are prosecuted. These people have done more damage to the economy than the IRA."
- Fine Gael's Leo Varadkar joins me in wondering why the bank bosses aren't doing time

By Charley Brady

Boy, you should have seen it. You've probably heard about it by now, but really you just have to have seen it. When you think that they can't possibly show their contempt for us in any clearer fashion than they already have, they once again leave you with your jaw bouncing off the floor as you realise that they are now SO far removed from the people who voted them in that they simply can't relate to us on any level whatsoever.

Seen from above it was like a long black serpent slithering along. Which was appropriate considering that each Mercedes contained its own tried and tested snake.

We had paid for the snakes; we had paid for each and every sleek black government Mercedes and we had paid for the chauffeurs who were driving the snakes not from Ireland but into the grounds of the luxurious venue of Farmleigh House which we, the gullible gobshite of a taxpayer, Shamus and Morag Q. Sucker had paid for to the tune of €29 million.

Yes, it was Bank Holiday Monday and our elected representatives had deigned to let their hideous selves be pampered in the style to which they have long been allowed to become accustomed.

It was a Very Important Meeting. They had to get together, you see, to decide how further they could screw the electorate into the gutter. The Dail, where they should have been conducting their Serious Business, played to nine tenths empty seats during the week; but our elected freeloaders were not about to turn down the chance to experience the opulence that they expected as rightly theirs in the surrounds of beautiful Farmleigh.

The only thing that could have made it even sweeter for them was if a few of the peasants had lined the long driveway up to the manor house in order to tug their forelocks and doff their caps in gratitude as their masters passed by, waving grandly.

We're so soft these days that it wouldn't have surprised me in the least if a good few of the peasants actually had done just that.

If we were French we would have been burning the bloody Mercs out from under the swine.

I couldn't possibly agree with that, of course, and would be absolutely dismayed if a few of the freeloaders were still inside them. I'm just saying, like, if we WERE French we wouldn't be content with going back to the pavement café and mumbling dark thoughts into our glasses of red wine. There would be rioting in the streets and that would be terrible, of course.

Thankfully, we only talk the talk and mumble into our Guinness before assuming the bend over position once again.

Enda Kenny of Fine Gael was both funny and accurate for once: he described the cast of the whole ignorant show as looking like "members of the Anglo-Irish ascendancy returning to the Big House."

I got a bit of stick which I had expected of course by saying in last week's column that as a nation Ireland had thrown away its sovereignty - certainly its economic one - and that the real controllers of our upcoming budget would be the European Union and the European Central Bank.

So I found it hell of amusing that after the cavalcade of black Mercs had reached its destination, they found that the Very Important Meeting had been delayed since our Finance Minister Brian Lenihan was called to meet up and pay homage to the EU Monetary Commissioner.

Oh dear. Well, he is the boss after all.

As the spectacular motorcade swept majestically onwards I was reminded of the shows that they used to put on in Third World countries where the absolute despot of the day insisted on wowing the people with this kind of thoughtless extravagance. Indeed, I wouldn't have been surprised to see cuddly Nicolae Ceausescu or lovable Robert Mugabe stepping out and giving us all a good big wave.

(As an aside, wasn't it hilarious to hear last week that Mugabe, the evil old bastard, has been getting cuckolded for years? That has to hurt that massive ego; probably not so funny for the guy who's been doing the cuckolding with his much younger wife. It's probably not very funny for him at all. How are his fingernails and testicles looking these days, I wonder?)

One caller to a radio talk show made me laugh when he said that he came in from work, took a look at the television showing the long string of black Mercs and assumed that his wife was watching a Mafia movie. He asked her if she would mind turning on the news for a moment and was suitably gob smacked when she told him that this WAS the news!

Still, some of them were decent enough to lower the tinted windows in order to re- assure us that they are feeling the pain as much as we are. They spoke of "fairness" in the coming proceedings and probably thought that we all went off completely re-assured as to their noble intentions regarding us.

The problem here is that anybody who believes a word that hisses out from the serpentine tongues of our elected representatives is probably the kind of delusional individual that believes that one day the ghastly sour-puss Victoria Beckham will crack that face of hers in a smile; or that Coleen Rooney will get rid of her and her entire families cash cow of a husband just because he has a taste for prostitutes. Ah well, prostitution is only a matter of degree after all.

Just ask Bertie Ahern.

Still, this "we're all sharing the pain" business. How does that work again, exactly? Regular readers of this column may recall the trouble I had with my TV license a few months back. It had expired by FOUR DAYS when I was getting threatened with all sorts.

This week it was the turn of the telephone people. I was behind to the princely sum of €142 and was informed that if I didn't pay €100 immediately I would be getting more than a finger-wagging. Of course I owed it and therefore it did have to be paid but I couldn't help but wonder if the likes of - oh, just off the top of my head - crooks like disgraced bankers Seanie FitzPatrick and David Drumm, who owe MILLIONS, are being pursued to the same vigorous extent; and yes, that is that awful thing called sarcasm.

So put your windows up again, you shower of gangsters. We're not listening to you; we still won't get rid of you, mind, because we're gutless and so you might as well enjoy your ill-gotten loot and luxuries. Nobody is going to take them away from you. Just please don't give us any of your old guff.

Writing in the Irish Examiner (the other one) Shaun Connolly said: "... at least the 'little people' here who will see their pensions, health care and education opportunities blighted once again can feel secure in the knowledge that we still have enough cash to keep our ministerial chauffeur-driven Mercedes rolling to the gates of Farmleigh."

Still in the region of the banks comes this rather murky tale: It seems that on Black Thursday, September the 30th when Brian Lenihan was hitting us with what he called the "true cost" of bailing out a bank (I think it's gone up since. The way in which a billion is added on every now and again makes it hard for even the most diligent to keep up) there was a more hidden deal being done with the approval of Lenihan.

The banking expert Peter Matthews took it upon himself - and bless his patience - to be a pest and a nuisance with daily inquiries for two solid weeks. Incredibly, he was fobbed off time and again by officials who refused to discuss it as it came under the Official Secrets Act! The mind boggles.

He finally received confirmation of the secret deal whereby Anglo Irish Bank bondholders were paid a sweet €7.6 billion; and remember, we weren't supposed to find out about this. No public debate, no political discussion, nothing. Kind of makes you wonder what else we don't know about.

Matthews said: "When I heard it, I couldn't believe it. It's like pick pocketing the people of the country.

"I heard through sources in Anglo that this had gone ahead and since then I rang the Financial Regulator's office every day since then, to no avail. It is the definition of evasiveness.

"The only credible explanation for a loan of this size would be from the ECB [European Central Bank - those guys again], but they stopped short of confirming that."

It seems that knowledge of the transfer came through Constantin Gurdgiev, a Trinity College economist who mentioned it on Twitter. He said: "Taxpayers should never be put in the position to underwrite the debt of financial institutions before investors.

"Given the condition in the bond market for the Government, and given that we are going into huge cuts in public expenditure that will affect the people of Ireland, it is clear that every penny counts.

"Not asking bondholders in a failed institution to take a hit in the current climate is unimaginable."

The plot, no doubt, will continue to thicken.

And here it is with a real reluctance that I have to say this. Whatever you think of his policies no one can help but admire the strength and the courage with which Brian Lenihan has battled his cancer since it was confirmed last year.

Yet is it fair - least of all to him - that he should be expected to fight that on a daily basis and still hold down the gruelling task of being a full-time Minister for Finance? This isn't a case of the sniffles that the man is up against. It's an illness that most of us would find hard to face on a daily basis even without the added and extremely heavy chore of trying to sort out the finances of this open- air asylum of a country.

No doubt this will be misconstrued but I simply throw it out there for consideration. Let's be honest here, nobody in Fianna Fail would want to touch this position with a barge pole and I can't but help remember how this same party of gougers, when under the hand of the crook Charlie Haughey, were quite willing to wring the last drop of sweat from Mr. Lenihan's own father.

No offence. It's just a thought.

Well, Halloween is upon me as I write this and since the hour of seven o'clock is nearing it is time to put this column to bed and make myself scarce for a few hours. I try to keep as much space around me as possible as a Brat Free Zone and since the kids in this area all regard me as a sort of All-Round Year Grinch they know not to expect anything from the bat cave. Still, you should never take chances where an army of hellish Munchkins are concerned.

If they haven't ambushed me in a deadly attack of rotten eggs I hope to see you all again next week.

Same bat-time!

Same bat-channel!

You can reach Charley at chasbrady7@eircom.net