You know *without having actually read it*.
Joe Duffy: “Ben, you’ve come out of this very badly… [The report] says yourself and Michael Lowry got together to increase the rent on a building you owned, Marlborough house, which was rented by Eircom… which would have benefited you by up to €9m.”
Ben Dunne: “Joe, the only thing – I haven’t read the report but I do know it makes a referral to me as being corrupt.”
Duffy: “Well I don’t know if that’s the actual word. I don’t know if that word actually appears.”
Dunne: “Well from what I’m told, somebody said that the word corrupt was used. Well, I done absolutely nothing wrong in any of my dealings, and I would say this to the chairman: if I done something wrong, I should be put to the place where…”
Duffy: “This is what the chairman Michael Moriarty said about you: ‘What was contemplated and attempted on the part of Mr Dunne and Mr Lowry and was profoundly corrupt’ – “
Dunne: “There you are. I knew…”
Duffy: “Let me finish – ‘to a degree that was nothing short of breathtaking’ … just for listeners.”
…….
Dunne: “Number one Joe, there’s not a shred of evidence there, and number two, there’s an onus on the tribunal and Mr Moriarty in particular before he makes – its an opinion he’s giving – he should make a fully informed opinion. He didn’t read my medical – he may have read them, he took notice of my medical records. He didn’t meet my psychiatrists or any of my medial team. Now if Mr Moriarty believes that is the case he should be pushing to put me behind bars, but he knows that there’s not a shred of evidence that would back up his opinion in a court of law….
“I am not a corrupt person, and if anybody can prove that I done anything corrupt in that Marlborough deal, or in any other deal in fact, put me where I should be: behind bars. I’m not afraid to face justice and I think it’s a bloody disgrace that a man like Mr Moriarty, who knows that I suffer from my own personal tortures, would choose to pick on someone like me, when he hasn’t, he hasn’t got a shred of evidence. It’s an opinion. And really if he believes his report he should be pushing the authorities, the powers to be [sic], to make sure that Ben Dunne is put behind bars. It is a flawed report. And if it’s as much offline as it is about me and my character and my corrupt way of action, Mister chairman is, he is the man, I think, that has got problems.”
Duffy: Are you saying to the tribunal now, ‘send that report to the DPP’?”
Dunne: “I’m saying absolutely yeah. Send it to the gardaí and let’s go into court. Now [laughs] I can tell you if I am corrupt, which I know I’m not, it’s one man’s opinion against all the evidence that I gave. I mean it’s quite interesting that when it came to the guy who gave the opinion on the granting of the licence, Moriarty decided not to take into account his memories. My medical report clearly says that because of my drug abuse, and because of my mental state, that my memory couldn’t be accurate. And he believes, he chooses to believe one person and doesn’t choose to believe another person.”
..…
Duffy: “But Ben, why are you so anxious that the judge should have interviewed your psychiatrist or read your medical reports?”
Dunne: “Because he had to make an informed opinion Joe. And at that stage of my life, everybody knows, I attempted suicide, I was on drugs, I was very unbalanced. I was in a very very dark place…”
“… If you speak to anybody at that stage of my life I was a very disturbed in dark places using drugs… And I still am under psychiatric care and then he decides to publicly attempt to assassinate me by calling me corrupt. Well I challenge Mr Moriarty if he truly believes that, make sure that file is sent to the DPP.”
……
Dunne: “Thanks be to God I’ve crawled out of darker holes. I’m made of better stuff than the type of people who make judgment on me like Mr Moriarty. Thanks be to God that the man above has given me strength. I’ll be walking around my clubs next Monday. We’re opening a new one out on the southside in September. We’re opening one in Germany on the 2nd of April. I’ll get on about my business and people can choose whether I’m the truthful one or Moriarty is the truthful one.”
Seriously.
What must he have been like on the gak?
Listen to full show here