Yeah. Theyve out-GUBUed GUBU.

We obviously learnt from the best...

Yeah, I heard of it being done regularly in business I was familiar with in the early noughties. I don't leave too many voicemails...

Well, let's wait and see what happens next. Already one newspaper is closed down and the bid for BSB is off.

The last scandal they had (politicians expenses) saw people jailed for petty corruption that isn't even considered a crime here, not just by the Oireachtas, but by the courts.

As is said many times on here, what do you have to do to be jailed for white collar crime?

Steal a white collar shirt from Dunnes to sell to feed your child; & hey presto, Gaol* time !


* Yes, I know but I prefer the original spelling

didn't someone listen to John Bruton's Voicemails while Taoiseach?

Original cure for insomnia apparently.

where's the laugh like a braying donkey smiley?

Hang on a minute YM.

Were it not for the Guardian, most of this would still be under wraps.

Don't think it was a natural conclusion of some kind of well run self-regulatory system, because it wasn't.

No, that's not the point I'm making; I'm sure there's a seething mass of shite underneath. The difference, though, is when the smell is exposed, people there call it as shite and arses are wiped. Here, we call it perfume and re-elect the bastards.

Well, yes, insofar as some of our co-citizens seem to think it their solemn duty to re-elect "one of our own", be it Lowry, Lawlor or whoever, regardless of the stinking pile of pooh.

On the other hand, people in the UK re-elected Blair and Bush whose piles of pooh were infinitely larger, but were perfumed by diplomatic talk and new-media-speak.

Rupert Murdoch & Co, had an active, if not decisive part in this.

I still find this more troubling than the electors of North Tipp sadistically returning Lowry.

George Bush was re-elected in the UK?

I agree with you about Blair, but until something comes out, there is a presumption of innocence. We have self-confessed or proven, but not in a court of law, guilty men walking about...

This: http://www.rte.ie/news/2011/0713/perrino.html will be interesting - to see how 'they' deal with one of their own.

Oops



Yeah but wasn't the classic Haughey defence?

Whatever, I just feel that over the course of time,our native scoundrels actions will not amount to more than a footnote in some little-read history book.

I realise my point is based on "whataboutery" but I think in this case it's pertinent

[/quote]

I agree again but would be cautious about viewing it simply through the "them" and "us" perspective.

Its that type of worldview that actually allows for the likes of Lowry and co get re-elected. We've seen the same thing when it comes to "the Greeks" in recent times.

My view would be, as I stated previously, there are simply those who wish to manipulate and control (and do so) and the rest.

In this instance, as in all the rest, there is no "them" and "us". The only thing this serves to highlight is that, as you have pointed out, British society is no better than our own or than those of southern Europe when it comes to the manipulation of the wider mass of people by the powerful and wealthy for their own benefit.

Its that simple.

And yeah, Haughey, Lowry, Lawlor and the rest are nothing when compared to the Bush's and Blairs of this world. They just seem to rub our noses in it more often, sugesting perhaps, that they just simply arent as accomplished at what they do.

Can be summed up as "Ireland is really nothing special".

Agreed. In the same way that our bubble was similar to others that have taken place in other places at other times with, obviously, a local flavour thrown into the mix.

To really deconstruct this right down to the bare bones we would (IMO) eventually end up back at the nature v nurture debate attempting to identify why people act in the way that they do.

Are they inherently greedy,predatory entities or are they conditioned to act that way within a constructed reality - in this instance a political and economic system designed to encourage certain types of (self-destructive?) behaviour.

IMO you will eventually arrive at the point where you need to identify who it is that benefits - and even more crucially in what way...