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FORMER TAOISEACH BERTIE Ahern has said that he would not have done a lot differently during his time in office despite Ireland’s economic collapse.
In an interview with DCUfm over the summer, which was broadcast for the first time last night, Ahern said that nobody predicted the banking crisis.
“People say now that we shouldn’t have been spending so much money,” he said, adding that even if money had been saved it is nonsense to believe the banking crisis would have been avoided.
“The demands (for spending) were there all the time.”
He added, “There is a view sometimes put forward by economists that if we had not spent that money and saved, we would have had this big nest egg to deal with the banking crisis. The banking crisis was about €100 billion, we wouldn’t have had €20 billion to deal with it so I think we were right to spend the money.”
Asked by student broadcaster Barry Linehan whether the Government took warnings from the Department of Finance about the economy with a “pinch of salt,” the former leader answered “Yes, we did.”
Throughout the interview, which was carried out in July as part of a student research project, Ahern commented on the economy, being an EU President and the state of the Fianna Fáil party.
Here are TheJournal.ie‘s top 6 quotes from the interview:
1. On the construction crisis:
The main reason a lot of these [houses] aren’t being filled is that they would be if the people had the money, but the banks have no money, you know.”
2. On the EU Commission presidency:
I would have won the presidency that time but it is just a job that didn’t appeal to me. And as it happened, I was able to manoeuvre it to get Barroso in, who is a good friend of mine. And he has got two terms out of it.”
3. On the 2007 Election:
Vincent Browne did a favour for me. Vincent Browne ranting on was a plus for me because I think people around the country were like, “Who does that guy think he is?”
4. On the media’s role in the economic collapse:
…The media just stopped following the economy. There should be an investigation into it, they should have been following the economy from August 2007 but they weren’t, they were following me. I think a lot of these guys really should have looked at themselves.The government were following the economy but the media weren’t, it was a very poor job by the media really. They were shown to be incompetent…”
5. On “getting out while the going was good”:
I would have stayed on [after the Lehmans crash] because that would have been exciting and interesting and nice. The whole thing about politics is that your in for tough times and tough decisions and I would have liked that kind of a challenge. What I didn’t like was just being plastered with personal stuff everyday.”
6. On Fianna Fáil:
I think too many members of the party got too god damn lazy. They were all doing too well and they weren’t prepared to get out and do the slog.”
Linehan will talk to all of the country’s living taoisigh as part of his ongoing student project.
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Sure wasn’t it the same reason they banned those ads when all those people started eating 3 shredded wheat in the morning.
@Tony Gordon: ABSOLUTE NONSENSE! It’s just an add ffs, unfortunately people are still going to jump off cliffs whether this add is aired or not. NONSENSE!!
@paddyirishman: I guess the hope is that one of them might not and that they’ll seek help sooner than throw themselves to their death.
There’s something really ironic about seeing someone like yourself throw a wobbler online about an add being pulled, screaming that it’s nonsense… I mean, calm down, it’s just an add right?
Jeez what a snowflake. Someone please warn him about the add where Nicole Scherzinger walks into the door, don’t have a panic attack cos she makes a full recovery!
Amended ?????
The only way to amend this is to cut out everything before he gets out of the water …… The advertising agency behind this should have been hit with a hefty fine.
@Passing through this life: this kind of nonsense makes me want to jump off a cliff
@Passing through this life: just change the tag line “buy a Kia before you die (low km nearly new models on sale)”
@David Edwards: It might not cause you or for that matter me to do something stupid …… but this world is full of the truly stupid. Last year we had the incident of the guy who died from a fall from the cliff in Co Clare ….. and then there were the idiots during the storms …..
These people should not be encouraged or given ideas …… if only because of the financial cost to the Irish taxpayer ….
@David Edwards: Grow up, that’s not really too clever a thing to say now is it?
@Passing through this life: nice use of 5 ? You must have been really confused
@Passing through this life: Yes, because in the case of a person committing suicide all that matters is the taxpayer!
@Dotty Dunleary: Sorry if you missed my point …. my reference to “cost to the taxpayer” …. was to make a point to the idiots who think that it doesn’t effect them . I don’t begrudge this spending …. I also intended to make the point of the danger they put our rescue service personal in …. but accidently hit post.
@Passing through this life: It’s why the emergency services exist, and the personnel are trained to deal with dangerous situations. Hopefully they are never put in a position where there lives are endangered though!
@Passing through this life: is this not just called natural selection, using your analogy, think of how much money we could save trying not to swaddle the lemmings, But seriously its just an ad.
@Passing through this life: surely it would be cheaper for us not to swaddle every lemming from cradle to grave. But seriously its just an ad
7 year warranty though
Here we go again more PC bull
Snowflakes triggered again…
Fantastic
How does Superman get away with everything?
Some people just have too much time
idiotic ad
have your say