The attack on the Taoiseach
The main driver of sales of Irish newspapers currently is the ongoing story of how our Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, took money from friends of his, in Dublin and Manchester, back in the mid-nineties when he was merely a Minister (of Finance, mind you). The amounts involved are quite small, but the public is rather surprised that Bertie could in any way be involved in this type of thing, because he has stated in the past that he firmly disapproves of serving politicians taking substantial gifts, and he even fired a junior Minister for having received a house paint job without paying for it. However, there is no suggestion that Bertie is “corrupt”, in the sense of taking money in return for favours, such as planning permissions, granted to his benefactors. And he lives a modest unpretentious lifestyle, among his poor and middle class constituents. It should blow over
However, there is one aspect which deserves much more attention, from the press, the public and probably the security services, whoever they are. Documents containing information about these payments were in the hands of a Tribunal, set up some years ago to investigate corruption at political level. The Tribunal has, credibly, denied being the source of the leak, if any, of these documents, which reached the Irish Times. They came from elsewhere, it seems, and probably not even from the opposition parties. They apparantly include some forged documents, one of which, for example, purports to be a letter from a Deutsche Bank source suggesting that the Taoiseach had, or was trying to set up, an offshore bank account. The authenticity of this letter was denied by the bank, a few years ago.
Surely this is an attempt, albeit it hamfisted, by someone, person or persons unknown, to bring down our Taoiseach ? With him, one could imagine the Government falling, too. Shouldn’t this be something which should cause great concern to Irish democrats, of whatever political hue?. Its not only a question of someone trying to denigrate the character of an innocent man, bad and all, and illegal, as that is. Its an attack on the government, and on our political process, wherein we periodically change governments when it suits us (Irish electors). Some loner, or group of people, is trying to steal our right to change the government in accordance with due process of law and the Constitution, and force a new government upon us.
It is time for opposition party leaders and for Michael McDowell, Minister of Justice, to demand an urgent, thorough investigation into this attack on our democratically elected Taoiseach. This is a far more important issue than sombody talking a few bob to help him buy a house, or recover from a marital separation, or whatever.
Furthermore, it may well be possible to determine the source of the letters, if not the source of leaks of documents, if there was any leak. The chap who forged the Deutsche Bank letter is obviously not well skilled in the art of forgery, given the astonishing typos on the letterhead. For example, to print that the bank is “…licensed under the Banking Act 19–” instead of the “Finance Act” is an incomprehensible error ! One cannot imagine it being done……unless the forger has some type of brain disease.
So, then, it may be possible to identify him/them. If he’s really that dumb, he wouldn’t know that you can be identified from the computer programme you use, at least from a Word document. And, I believe, some others. Such as a pdf. And probably others. The actual computer that you typed it on can be identified. And after that its a question of who had access to that computer. And also its now possible to identify the printer on which the letter/document was printed. Not just the brand of printer… No, not just the model number…but the actual printer in your office. (Such has been the progress of the surveillance industry, indeed while the FF-PD governments have been in power)
So, we have a good chance of catching the criminal(s). And its not the job of the Tribunal to do this…..its for the Minister of Justice to order the investigation. Now. No need to wait for a Tribunal report………..the Taoiseach has publicly pointed to the crime and to the evidence, himself.
Here’s a couple of links to information about document tracking and you can see many more by searching Google
http://www.evidencetalks.com/index.php
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2005/10/secret_forensic.html
http://news.uns.purdue.edu/UNS/html4ever/2004/041011.Delp.forensics.html
October 5th, 2006 at 6:30 pm
The letter from Deutsche Bank was dated in the 1990s………..maybe it was possible back then to use Word, and print from a computer, and not be traced????
December 18th, 2006 at 2:24 pm
I happen to strongly agree with this article. The fact that it hasn’t, to my knowledge, been the subject of an investigation is very strange.
Another possibility, and maybe quite remote, is that this accusation might have been a deliberate ‘false trail’ to mislead. This scheme is drawn directly from the pages of Agatha Christie, where the best way to hide a deceit is to hide it behind a crude attempt at deception that’s patently shown to be false. Then if subsequentially accused one could always point to the crude deception.
I believe this should be investigated so as to be able to clear the air.