Irish Economic Meltdown: It Wasn't Fianna Fail's Responsibility!

Even by the lofty standards of delusional politicians, Bertie Ahern remains a man apart. The former Taoiseach who once boasted that “the boom times are getting boomier” has a novel theory to explain Ireland’s economic bust: it was the fault of the newspapers. Apparently they were too interested in writing about the curious way in which Bertie’s life was funded by a number of generous and wealthy pals and businessmen. If they hadn’t been persecuting the cutest hoor on the northside perhaps they’d have noticed what else was going on. Really, this is what the man says:

Bertie Ahern has called for an investigation into the media for what he said were failures to follow the economy because journalists were more concerned with following his dealings with the Mahon tribunal. Mr Ahern said that from the time he began evidence to the tribunal, the media “just stopped following the economy”.In an interview on Dublin City University’s radio station DCU FM, he said: “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 and that was the trouble – everything was on me.” The interview was recorded during the summer but was broadcast for the first time last night. On the economy, Mr Ahern said there was “not a lot” he would have done differently.“People say now that we shouldn’t have been spending so much – my answer to them who say if we didn’t spend so much and if we had saved money we wouldn’t have had the banking crisis, well that’s nonsense, because the demands were there all the time,” he said. On the Department of Finance’s reports on the economy, Mr Ahern said: “In fairness, the Department of Finance give you warnings about everything”.

Unbelievable and yet enragingly typical too. That’s the Fianna Fail way for sure so perhaps you wouldn’t expect much more from Bertie. Nevertheless, it would be better for him (and everyone else) if he maintained some period of silence. Or left the country.