Bertie going eh - after suffering the death of a thousand cuts. It's hard to see him as a corrupt figure, more morally amorphous I suppose. We can only speculate about why he was shifting all that cash around during the period he was separating from his wife.
He was the epitome of Fianna Fail - no discernible political philosophy, just all things to all people: cheerfully philistine, friend of big business, sensitive to the will of the big unions, but ultimately believing that the devil should take the hindmost - like his US friends. His legacy should include the disgraceful failure to improve our health and education services during a period of prosperity. (Hanafin is already saying we can't reduce class sizes because of a downturn in the economy - thereby begging an obvious question.)
His claim that he has left a "stronger and fairer Ireland" is palpable nonsense. The Ireland he has left has never been so divided between the haves and the have nots. And as for the tosh about Fianna Fail being the "republican party", who can credit that these days? Has he done one radical thing to improve the quality of our life in this country? Look at the violence in the streets, look at the traffic fiasco. Perhaps his efforts on the North are his best legacy. And his only piece of memorable legislation was the smoking ban.
