BERTIE FOOLED ME TOO SAYS O’DEA
WILLIE O’dea has claimed that he too was taken in by Bertie Ahern’s evidence to the Mahon Tribunal – an excuse first used last week by his party leader, Micheál Martin.
Mr O’dea bitterly attacked the tribunal in 2007 and 2008, suggesting it was operating a personal vendetta against the taoiseach. He sneered that he expected it to go after Mr Ahern’s First Communion money next.
Last week Mr Martin described Mr O’dea’s comments as ‘unwise’ – even though he himself also went on the airwaves at the time to defend the now- disgraced former leader.
Mr O’dea said yesterday: ‘I feel horrendously let down. When I was talking about the tribunal through various media interviews and in the Dáil, when I advanced legitimate criticisms. Maybe some of them were flippantly expressed.’
He added: ‘I regret that but, at the same time, this was done against the background of a whole lot of reassurances.’
These ‘reassurances’ could only have come from Mr Ahern himself, further lying to his colleagues behind closed doors.
The Limerick city TD told Tom Dunne on Newstalk radio that the impact of the report – exposing Bertie as ‘untruthful’ throughout his evidence – had been ‘very stressful’.
He said he now backed calls for pensions to be taken from politicians who were found to have acted corruptly.