Madness of the Irish, especially those in Tipperary

On Thursday 26 January, in the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Enda Kenny spoke at a session called "Rebuilding Europe". Contributors also included Jyrki Tapani Katainen, Prime Minister of Finland, Bronislaw Komorowski, President of Poland, Helle Thorning-Schmidt, Prime Minister of Denmark.


While the consensus was that Europe was directionless and lacked unity, Kenny went the extra mile and blamed his own countrymen, claiming that "Ireland’s problems stem from a kind of madness that led to the country borrowing US$ 60 billion at unrealistically high rates." Finland's Katainen "suggested that the Irish model would be a good one for the rest of Europe." I presume the latter was suggesting that Enda was kind enough to pass the buck to the Irish people.


And he is right. We, the Irish people were too greedy and insane, borrowing and spending like there was no tomorrow. Shame our own Taoiseach wasn't kind enough to address this earlier to his own people back in December. In his State of the Nation address, he said "you are not responsible for the crisis" for "the enormous deficit in our public finances caused by too much borrowing and the cost of rescuing the banks." Being an Irish political address, you bet it contained niceties such as the need to protect "the most vulnerable people in our society."


Another thing he should have blamed the Irish people for was electing our politicians in the first place. 


Take Michael Lowry for example. The Tipperary North TD infamous for giving Denis O'Brien's Esat Digifone the biggest contract ever awarded to a private company by the Irish State back when he was Minister for Transport, Energy and Communications during the Rainbow Government (1994-1996). The Moriarty Tribune found that along with dodging tax, Lowry accepted money as political donations from O'Brien, something that Tribune Report (Part II, Volume I, 3.62) considers "given the then prevailing time and circumstances, the making of such a donation by Esat Digifone, or by any of the entities or shareholders within it, was inappropriate and imprudent, either in the manner that transpired or otherwise. Any suggestion that payment by Telenor was legitimate as an expression of interest in Irish affairs, but not by any other entity or shareholder within the Esat Digifone consortium, was specious and untenable." 


A gombeen in every sense of the world, Lowry has been elected with one of the highest amount of preference votes in General Elections 1997, 2002 and 2007, topping the each poll in the first count. In last year's General Election, he was elected with 14,010 votes, heading the poll on the 1st count. Clearly a popular but controversial politician that has been caught red handed and does not admit to his own guilt, he continues to remain a public figure in his constituency, as his own Facebook would suggest.


What crucial issues does this Independent T.D. focus on? Why, the local GAA team, of course:

Granted, nothing wrong with liking the old sport, but through his Facebook page when he talks about the local GAA (seems half the time) he sounds like the coach himself.

But I won't take away Lowry's brave stand against his critics:

Sticks to his story like glue, really admire his tenacity.

His local supporters also share his view of the evil, unfair tribunal that had the audacity to judge him:

He is a man who completely sold  his country's GSM mobile telecommunication infrastructure over for the sake of some bob in a off-shore Jersey account. What was once state silver is now owned by Telefónica UK Limited (trading as O₂). For a country that relies so much on I.T. investment, Lowry was fully prepared to screw Ireland's broadband infrastructure permanently to only benefit himself, but his supporters would rather not worry about that and focus on GAA instead, shouting in Supermacs GO ON YUR MAD THINGS!!!!!


Michael Lowry,
A Contributor to this country's decline.


Irish Free State.