Tag Archives: Padraig Flynn

Twenty years ago….

Rachel Carey writes:

January 15 marks the 20th anniversary of Pádraig Flynn’s memorable appearance on the Late Late Show.

During a routine interview with Gay Byrne, Pádraig Flynn, then EU Commissioner, was portraying himself as a perfect politician. When pushed to speak about Tom Gilmartin, a property developer who was reluctant to speak at the Mahon Tribunal, Flynn snapped.

He launched into a rant about Gilmartin and his wife, who suffered from multiple sclerosis and was paralysed in a wheelchair. Gilmartin who was listening to the interview at home in the UK vowed to bury Flynn.

It was an interview which would change the shape of Irish politics forever and cause the demise of Pádraig Flynn.

Jack Murray, CEO and founder of MediaHQ.com, wrote and recorded a podcast (above) vividly recounting the story of the interview.

The podcast really gets into the detail of the story and gives us some background that many people wouldn’t be aware of….

Media Moments

Previously: I Wanna Tell You Something, Try It Sometime

pee2 From left: Sculptor Richard Enda King, Councillor Seán Walsh and Pádraig Flynn

On this day in 1989, Minister for the Environment Pádraig Flynn unveiled a new sculpture ‘Spirit of The Air’ to be installed at Dublin Airport.

1989 was the same year developer Tom Gilmartin wrote a cheque for £50,000 as a donation to Fianna Fáil as suggested by Pádraig Flynn. The cheque never made it to Fianna Fáil HQ and was subsequently discovered by the Mahon tribunal that it was used to buy a 100-acre farm in north Mayo by Mr Flynn’s wife, Dorothy.

He was then made our European Commissioner.

Good times.

Watch here.

Previously: ‘They’ll Emerge Unscathed And Unsullied’

Pee Flynn: “Wrongly And Corruptly” Sought Donation From Tom Gilmartin

I Wanna Tell You Something, Try It Sometime

peeflynn

With the passing of Tom Gilmartin.

That Pádraig Flynn Late Late Show interview in 1999 which prompted Mr Gilmartin to give evidence to the Mahon Tribunal.

On Tom Gilmartin:

“Haven’t seen him now for some years. I met him. He’s a Sligo man who went to England, made a lot of money, came back, wanted to do a lot of business in Ireland. Didn’t work out for him, didn’t work out for him. He’s not well, his wife isn’t well and he’s…he’s out of sorts.
I never took money from anybody to do a political favour in so far as planning is concerned.”

On his daughter Beverley Flynn:

“She’s a class act. She’s going to be proved right and she’s going to have a good career and I think she’s good for Dáil Éireann and I think she’s going to make an excellent politician.”

When asked by audience member, journalist Barry O’Halloran about his pay and expenses:

“I get give or take, it works out at about with expenses 140,000 a year and I pay 30.3% tax on that, so it’s about a net 100,000 and out of that 100,000 I run a home in Dublin, Castlebar and Brussels. I wanna tell you something, try it sometime…”

 

Watch the interview in full here.

Meanwhile…

90321620(Tom Gilmartin leaving the Mahon Tribumal in 2007)

He brought down Bertie Ahern, the most successful taoiseach ever in electoral terms and he brought an ignominious end to the overweening arrogance of Pee Flynn.

His evidence brought the likes of Liam Lawlor, George Redmond and Frank Dunlop to book, along with a supporting cast of strutting suits willing to spin any old yarn to support their threadbare testimony.

Tom is dead now. But he’s left a legacy more valuable than any plot of land ever fought over by the rezoning vultures.

A quiet funeral for a brave man the big boys could not bury (Miriam Lord, Irish Times)