Bertie's Missing Money

From The Irish Times today:

"Meanwhile, Mr Ahern's spokesman said yesterday the Taoiseach has instructed his legal team to pursue the €60,000 costs and damages arising from his circuit court libel action against Denis "Starry" O'Brien. The six-year period in which Mr Ahern can claim the damages and costs he won is up on July 11th."

Mr Ahern was awarded £30,000 + costs in the Dublin Circuit Court in July 2001. The money has not been paid to date and the debt becomes statute barred after 6 years.
The spokesman’s statement suggests that Mr Ahern’s instruction to pursue the debt is a recent one. Presumably Mr Ahern’s legal team have long since been paid their appropriate fees, so he’s been out of pocket in a real sense for several years now.

What is it with uncollected monies and Bertie Ahern? Is he just forgetful, or too polite, or both?

Despite revelations regarding monies given to prominent FF members, e.g. Ray Burke, Charlie Haughey, Pee Flynn, which the donors claim were intended as donations to the Fianna Fail party, ending up in their private bank accounts, there appears to have been little or no effort to recover these monies on behalf of the party.

Presumably the original purpose of £5,000 NCB donation, included in the recently revealed “dig-out” to Mr Ahern in the early 1990's, will be clarified in due course by the Mahon Tribunal.