Years at the raffles and all Bertie has to show is a measly 10 grand

DÁIL SKETCH:Some might begrudge the former taoiseach his win in a football club lottery – but given the scale of his losses in the raffle-ticket sector, his colleagues might consider him for Nama

SHOULD BERTIE Ahern be put into Nama?

There’s a question they should have been asking in the Dáil yesterday during their discussion on the financial crisis.

The former taoiseach was a phenomenal speculator. An enthusiastic high roller.

Granted, he mightn’t be in the Bernard McNamara or Seán Dunne mould. And it is well known that the Bert doesn’t have a great track record in the bricks and mortar department.

Nonetheless, he spent huge amounts in pursuit of potentially massive rewards during the Celtic Tiger years. It wasn’t even all his own cash – a lot of Bertie’s stake money came from other people, who saw him as a good investment vehicle.

Here he is, in his own words, at the Mahon tribunal: “Most weekends, I mean, I could spend four or five hundred euro in any weekend around the country in draws for cars, for clubs, for organisations.”

That’s about 25 grand a year.

And what has he got to show for it all? A measly €10,000 and not as much as an apartment in Bulgaria.

And he only won that (the money, not the apartment – you couldn’t even raffle one of those these days) last weekend in a draw at the the Beaumont House pub, scene of two of Bertie’s celebrated whip-rounds.

(“A few pound towards a house” is how the publican described one of those charity donations back in the early 1990s, when Ahern was down on his

luck with just 50,000 “pound” in his office safe and the proceeds from a previous whip-round to keep the Vincent de Paul at bay.)

Hardly much of a return for the hundreds of thousands he sank into the raffle tickets for well over a decade.

So while some people around Leinster House yesterday may have begrudged Bertie his nice win in a football club’s rollover Lotto draw, they might not have been aware of the extent of the former taoiseach’s losses in the raffle ticket sector.

He can never recoup his astonishing outlay now – never mind make a profit.

Of course, everyone was at it back then, apparently, so we must all take a share of Bertie’s blame for the reckless trading that took place in the tombola and sponsored walk markets.

Surprisingly, none of the party leaders mentioned the Bert’s predicament in the Dáil during their afternoon discussion on Nama. (After which – and following a lot of reading of scripts from Biffo – nobody was any the wiser.)

For example, should Nama choose to accept Bertie, will he have to take a vicious haircut?

All those millions of raffle tickets he purchased down through the bubble years are worthless now. If it wasn’t for his pension and TD’s salary and various other bits and bobs rolling in, the man would be as penniless as he was during those minister for finance years.

But do they care in Leinster House? They do not.

The man himself wasn’t around yesterday. No sign of him in the chamber, so we don’t know if he joined his fellow deputies and Senators in clocking into work for the first time in Irish political history.

Perhaps the Bert was back in his office, trying to work out whether he should put his winnings into the bank or into a biscuit tin.

Bertie didn’t have a lot of faith in the banks when he was officially on his uppers back in the 1990s and unofficially awash with money.

The Opposition leaders don’t have faith in the banks either. They told Biffo this in no uncertain terms yesterday.

“The reality is, the Government’s banking policy is not working . . . time for you to accept that,” thundered Eamon Gilmore, the nation’s harrumpher in chief.

If the Government gives any more money to Anglo Irish Bank “there’ll be revolution on the streets” quivered the Real Inda.

In fact, even the banks don’t seem to have very much faith in the banks at the moment.

A man from AIB said on the news that they are living beyond their means. (Which means, like it did in Charlie Haughey’s day, we’ll all have to tighten our belts.) Happily for all those lucky bankers in our financial institutions, the Taoiseach assured the House that, no matter what happens, they will never be allowed to collapse. The State “stands ready” to provide capital if it’s needed.

And it will.

Gilmore reminded Biffo how he assured the Dáil two years ago that “the Irish banks are well capitalised and in a healthy state”. And look at them now.

“That was eleven thousand million euro ago.”

That’s not counting the cost of raffle tickets either. Can Bertie be recapitalised following their disastrous performance? Probably not. But unlike the Irish banks, and despite his huge losses on the charity-draw circuit, Bertie remains well capitalised and in a healthy state.

Maybe best to leave him, and his raffle-ticket habit, out of Nama. After all, his governments are one of the reasons we’re saddled with the damn thing in the first place.