With Friends Like This, Taoiseach... ; He Was the Small-Town Auctioneer Who Got Rich Thanks to a Series of Dodgy Land Deals. Just Why Did Brian Cowen Allow His Name On the Ticket? [Eire Region]

Summary

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IT WAS 2005, the height of the Celtic Tiger. Taoiseach Bertie Ahern was fighting off the Mahon Tribunal. Brian Cowen, then finance minister, was overseeing the reckless rush to inflate the property boom. And in Cowen's homeland of Offaly, council chairman and Fianna Fail candidate Ger Killally, was plotting to get very, very rich. The problem was that he wasn't doing it honestly.

Mr Killally's other problem was that he tried to double-cross the wrong men: and over weeks of testimony in the commercial wing of the High Court, what has emerged is how Mr Killally and Richie Connor used their positions to try to make millions in land deal scams. Worse still, it has been alleged in court that Mr Killally was planning to use his position on Offaly County Council to make himself even richer by helping rezone lands. It is embarrassing enough for Fianna Fail that a general election candidate was up to this kind of misdeed even as the Taoiseach was denying accusations of planning corruption. It is far more embarrassing, however, for Mr Cowen, that the man behind the scam was not just any old candidate but his own 2002 running mate; a senior elected official in the area that is regarded as Cowen's fiefdom; and an auctioneer who would have been well known to the Cowen family.

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With Friends Like This, Taoiseach... ; He Was the Small-Town Auctioneer Who Got Rich Thanks to a Series of Dodgy Land Deals. Just Why Did Brian Cowen Allow His Name On the Ticket? [Eire Region]

It all began when Mr Killally, an Edenderry auctioneer, decided to turn his hand to development. At the height of the boom, he must have believed that the golden touch which had marked his life would extend to his new career as a developer. He already had a nine- bedroom mansion outside Edenderry and a beautiful wife, Naomi. They were well known locally, always impeccably dressed and drove top-of- the-range cars.

He already had a successful political career, elec...

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