Joe’s Blog

It is a sign of desperation when people try to excuse the behaviour of Bertie Ahern by comparing it with Garret FitzGerald having £200,000 written off by AIB like Eoghan Harris did on the Late Late Show (28th March ‘08)

What is not said, is how the Moriarty Tribunal investigated this matter including FitzGerald’s personal financial situation during their work. They found that FitzGerald had to effectively sell everything to pay his debts and the rest was written off.

To say that he acted improperly or dishonestly beggars belief in my humble opinion

Via Semper Idem and page 48 of The Moriarty Report

In summary it would appear that in compromising his indebtedness with the Bank, Dr. Fitzgerald disposed of his only substantial asset, namely, his family home at Palmerston Road, a property which would now be worth a considerable sum of money. As in Mr. Haughey’s case, there was a substantial discounting or forbearance shown in Dr. Fitzgerald’s case. However in contrast with Mr. Haughey’s case, Dr. Fitzgerald’s case involved the effective exhaustion of his assets in order to achieve a settlement whereas Mr. Haughey’s assets were retained virtually intact.

Although Dr. Fitzgerald continued to enjoy an income from writing, lecturing and consultancy work, he had considerable outgoings, particularly in relation to his wife’s declining health, and he was, in terms of the debt he faced, not a wealthy man. The sole asset of substance was the mortgaged family home at Palmerston Road, Dublin 6; an agreement was entered into with his son, Mr. Mark Fitzgerald, whereby the latter sold his nearby family home, and purchased the Palmerston Road premises, with a view to converting it into accommodation for both families.

An independent valuation had assessed the price with vacant possession at £200,000.00, but discounted to £150,000.00 if Dr. Fitzgerald and his wife took up residence in an upstairs flat. That sum was paid to Dr. Fitzgerald, but by the time he had discharged the mortgage, contributed to the re-conversion works and paid certain other liabilities, he was left with a residue of only approximately £30,000.00
…
Dr. Fitzgerald had initially been hopeful of discharging his indebtedness in full through income, but Mr. Dowling had had to dash those hopes as unrealistic, and was given reluctant permission to approach the Bank with a view to settlement.
…
He offered the £30,000.00 in settlement of the debt, in response to which the Bank concluded that a cash settlement was preferable to expending such limited assets as were available on legal costs, but sought an increase to a sum of £40,000.00. This was accepted, paid and, other than realising the very limited value of the shares pledged, the remaining securities released. Regarding the course taken by Mr. Mark Fitzgerald and his wife in ease of Dr. Fitzgerald, Mr. Dowling stated that he viewed it as one of the great acts of selfless family solidarity that he had experienced.

UPDATE:
Harris has printed his comments in the Independent

Second, how come the Mahon anoraks are so adamantly sceptical about Ahern’s finances and so mellow about how AIB, bailed out former Taoiseach Garret FitzGerald in 1993 by writing off bad debts to the tune of IR£200,000 — ironically the same amount as the alleged IR£200,000 in Ahern’s account?

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 30th, 2008 at 4:45 pm and is filed under Irish, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.