Why Bertie Ahern will not be welcome in NUI Maynooth

kildare | education | opinion/analysis

Tuesday October 06, 2009 20:35

by W.Carney- FEE NUI Maynooth

Reflections on the appointment of Bertie Ahern by the NUI Maynooth School of Business and Law.

Sticker stating 'No Welcome' for Bertie on our campus

It seems almost surreal any Irish University would want to wine and dine Bertie Ahern at the minute. “One of the last socialists in Irish politics” (We all remember that statement!) finds himself among the main figureheads of the Fianna Fail party, a party currently wallowing at 17% support in the Dublin area. He is, for many working people, the perfect embodiment of Fianna Fail gombeenism and greed.

The humiliating defeat of Maurice Ahern in the recent Dublin Central by-election showed that the Drumcondra Mafia, quite simply, ain’t what they used to be. In fact, it’s exactly the opposite. Only a brief few years ago Fianna Fail covered Dublin city (and even rural areas) with pictures of the great leader encouraging people to ‘VOTE FOR BERTIES TEAM’. Bertie was the ‘Ordinary Man’, a pint of Bass IN hand and a tough job AT hand. How much can change so quickly…...

Bertie Aherns personal finances remain the subject of much speculation. The sight of ordinary people, many of them Dubliners from the inner city, jeering Bertie each day as he left the Mahon Tribunal said much more than any newspaper editioral ever could. The man of the people had fallen from his high horse. Now, the €4.20 he might have spent on a pint for you in Fagans seems insignificant to the €5,000 here and the £10,000 there that even he seemed unable to account for. Questions of the mans tax affairs remain unanswered, and Bertie somehow managed to, well, dig himself out of a mess when the issue of ‘dig outs’ emerged.

If the Bertie scandal, and the Mahon Tribunal, were to begin today or tomorrow there is no doubt the public reaction would be very, very different. John O’ Donoghues greed and gombeenism for example is at worse on par with Berties. It is at this moment in time however, when even the top-tables of certain trade unions call on us all to ‘pay a bit’ that we must remind people just who is responsible for the current economic crisis in this country, and how unjust it is to expect students (primary, secondary OR third level) to pay for the greed of others at a time many of us, like Bertie himself, did not have a bank account of our own!

If we take Dr. Robert Galavan, from the Department of Business and Laws response to irishelection.com on the matter, it is interesting to note the use of the plural in relation to Berties lecturing on campus. “In addition to the lectures that Bertie Ahern will provide, he will take part in a high level working group” he notes.

Any and every occasion Bertie Ahern is on campus, we will exercise our democratic right to protest against his presence. While his position is an unpaid one, we are not stupid enough to not know that Bertie will undoubtedly be treated to a lavish reception by the University, and seize the publicity his days out offer him. At a time when we face cutbacks ourselves, and a time when tutorials and the like are being slashed across the board, this is a mockery.

There is a great onus on the Student Union in NUI Maynooth to take a position on this matter. Student Unions must play their part in organising student resistance to events like this one. Members of IFUT, the largest university lecturers union on campus, have already made their feelings clear to the President of the University on the matter,
and as individual students all of us in FEE have done our best to raise the issue with as many students as possible.

If Fianna Fail and the Green Party wish to block students access to this wonderful university, it is up to us to block theirs. Bertie Ahern is the poster-boy of Fianna Fail greed, a man who played no small part in bringing Ireland to the economic situation in which it now finds itself. When he arrives on our campus, it is up to us to ensure he knows we are opposed to his very presence on the grounds of an Irish educational facility.

We call on students, IFUT and Siptu members and alumni of the University to make their feelings on the issue known to the University, by writing to John Hughes, the President.

If you're not in NUI Maynooth, but want to get involved in the campaign, email stopfees@gmail.com

W.Carney
FEE NUI Maynooth (pers cap)
feemaynooth@gmail.com
www.facebook.com/nuimfightfees

FEE UCD and FEE NUIM members occupation at the Dept. of Finance, earlier this year.

Caption: Video Id: WdvnzQE1a8Q Type: Youtube Video
Five Reasons Bertie Is Not Welcome

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Comments (10 of 10)

Graduate of London School of Economics

by Shannon Watcher

Tue Oct 13, 2009 09:11

We must presume that Bertie Ahern got this job on the basis that he is a "Graduate" of the London School of Economics, as claimed on his CV, until someone discovered that he never graduated from the LSE, or any other university. Josef above mentions the prospect of Bertie or Mary Robinson becomming President of the EU. That job is most likely to go to Tony Blair who, like Bertie Ahern, has some of the blood of Iraqi war dead on his hands.
I read with interest in the (UK) Times last week that Mary Robinson was one of those being considered for the EU president's job. She has far more genuine credentials for this job than the likes of Blair or Ahern.
The prospect of having Bertie Ahern as President of Ireland is however a real threat and this is likely to be behind his appointment to NUIM, as part of the Ahern laundering process.
Lets start an immediate ABBA for President campaign.,
ANYONE BUT Berite Ahern

date

by manuf

Thu Oct 08, 2009 14:21

Bertie Ahern will be at Eason, O'Connell St., Dublin, on Saturday October 10th at 3PM signing his memoirs

Bertie in the canteen

by JH1

Wed Oct 07, 2009 22:26

"That means he gets staff privileges and dinner too."

The facts are that plenty of staff have made their feelings on the matter clear to the University at this stage, and its incredible that at a time their wages are under attack, and they're trying to deal with massive cutbacks, that this happens. Education workers have lost more than a few small porivileges in recent times, but the last thing they or anyone want to see is John Hughes tucking into the Steak Sambos with Bertie, a man who played no small part in getting us into this mess.

Actually, I'd love to see Bertie spend 5 minutes in one of the staff canteens ;)

Well bertie always valued genuine credentials from a university

by PissedOffCitizen

Wed Oct 07, 2009 18:15

Glad to see he finally got some. Meaningless though they are. But he's still just the useless git who got us into the economic disaster we're currently in.

Sports Bores.

by Pete.

Wed Oct 07, 2009 18:08

It's interesting that Bertie Ahern "et. al" seem to obsessed with horse racing and various sports meetings.
Bertie Ahern always got into the picture patting a winning horse in Cheltenham.

An amazing amount of his time,and his ministers' time, was spent in the Manchester United stadium and at other sports stadia.
Often at the expense of the taxpayer.

Perhaps the Irish people would be served better if we elected people who would be obsessed by ANYTHING which is less superficial and nonsensical as sport.

Like....... The economy of Ireland for instance.

Only hearing this now

by Rob-1st Arts

Wed Oct 07, 2009 16:31

Think most people in NUIM are only hearing this now, come on FEE and give him a proper welcome party please!

He is a professor out there...

by er,

Wed Oct 07, 2009 14:09

Mr Ahern is an Honorary adjunct Professor in conflict management at the college of Maynooth.
That means he gets staff privileges and dinner too.

Are you gonna stalk him while he does his job during the academic year, cos I don't think you
actually can...

oh well now BB

by felch

Tue Oct 06, 2009 22:16

the big difference might be that you have never had the (dis)pleasure of listening to me speak.
Then you get the punctuation glosses and fade outs and emphasis and so on - so forth. Honestly some of us speak better than we write.

Have you ever had the horrible experience of vomiting and diahorrea at the same time?

It's a rare enough bodily (dis)function, admittledly. Something to do with how our reptilian brains keep a grip on the sphincter muscles that keep all those acids and gases in our bodies in some sort of equilibrium. Most people can throw up a little then shit a lot (or vice versa) but simultanous evacuation of both ends of the digestive tract really calls for a weighty (often drug induced) provocation.

That's what Irish politics reminds me of.

I only wish I could get my punctuation together to express the feeling and put words on my memory of a horrible night in a London rave party without loo roll to raise political consciousness in Ireland.

sure you might as well try and catch a worm.

pot kettle black

by Fudge

Tue Oct 06, 2009 21:47

" wouldn't understand his diction"

As a user of indymedia for many years, none of your incomprehensible posts have ever made any sense to me.

I counsel you attack the source as you mock its spawn.

by iosaf

Tue Oct 06, 2009 21:39

Surely none amongst us believe either Bertie Ahern or Mary Robinson are in the running for EU president. Equally surely most of us realise that they are in the past now. Robinson at least got her UN job until the hypocrisy of it reportedly got too much for even her. Bertie has got nothing much.

I mean no insult to Maynooth or anyone else who wants to give him a degree, doctorate, diploma, driving license, starring role in a ghost porn movie [without condom!!!] or a gold plated triple fold silk woven monogram embroidered life time supply of arse wipes. But the reality of the matter is, Bertie Ahern doesn't cost that much for a talking gig on the international circuit for the good reason that most people on the paid talking gig circuit :
(a) wouldn't understand his diction.
(b) would be popping off to the bathroom for a go on the andrex puppy.
(c) would probably be bankrupt by now thanks to the toxic asset thing.

So...........

If you really want to mock an X- Taoiseach then you go straight between the cheeks into the unseeing eye of his chosen sucessor. You get smutty. You get low down dirty and revel in your irrelevance to Irish political life. After all, they better understand abstentionists and no-voters than you do.

I used to suggest you simply get a bunch of middle aged men to walk in formation in every protest march without thier t-shirts or shirts or any kind of geansaí as naked as their top halfs can allow them to be........ as long as they wear a bra and carry some loo-roll.

Now I reckon all you have to do is push the loo-roll thing. This news report on RTE http://www.rte.ie/news/2009/1006/education.html tells us so much about ourselves. Foreign media hint at a return to "Angela's ashes" penury and squalor at the idea that the Irish state can't pay for hygienic paper in its schools. Such journalists conveniently forget either the universal standard of wax paper "if at all" of the 20th century in Europe or they are significantly ignoring the fact the many a parent has ensured their daughter carry toilet paper or kleenex with them for as long as kleenex has been a registered trademark and accepted word in the vocabulary. Never before did such concern prompt either budgetary interpretation or international media coverage. - - - [ That's a long time but not as long as you might think over in Maynooth & quite probably shorter than they think in Cambridge.]

Educational Bog Roll for wiping up Bertie Ahern's legacy

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Why Bertie Ahern will not be welcome in NUI Maynooth

Comments (10 of 10)