Who will be the beneficiary this time?

Who will be the beneficiary this time?

It’s absolutely incredible the apparent arrogance of our so-called politicians.

Under the glare of the world press, two Premiers, themselves under pressure from World events such as Haiti, the Yemen, Afghanistan - the list goes on - are asked to come here to supposedly advise on something which, on a world scale of one to ten, merit’s scarcely a mention.

During the Hillsborough Castle talks on more than one occasion we heard comment on the value to the talks of Prime Ministers or Taoisigh. Perhaps I’m rephrasing it too strongly i.e. it sounded to me as if the First Minister was quite emphatic when he stated it meant little whether a Prime Minister was there or not - the DUP would do what they thought was right, * not to serve Northern Ireland * but to serve their constituents. (*my words*)

I felt the same chill down my back, when earlier this year, listening to the same DUP, despite all the on-going euphoria at the time of the Emerald Fund, indicating they don’t want American politicians coming here to tell them what to do. And what happened?

Strangely enough, despite concerns of failure to invest being raised among the powerful Irish-American lobby, the NYC comptroller’s office after reviewing the activities of the Emerald Fund chose to initiate a termination of their relationship with the fund. And who gained in the end?

When the private Emerald Infrastructure Development Fund made its first filing with the Securities Exchange Commission last October, it listed one of the comptroller’s oldest and closest supporters, a broker named William Howell as its placement agent on the deal.

Howell’s fee, released pursuant to a Freedom of Information request last week by [then-NY City Comptroller William] Thompson’s office, was 2 percent of the pension fund’s $3 million investment - a trifling $120,000, plus unspecified bonuses - not bad for no days work!!

mgs322wds2701mmx mylesgee@eircom.net