FORMER TAOISEACH BERTIE Ahern has had his profile removed from two public speaking agencies websites following the publication of the Mahon Tribunal report.
Ahern’s profile on the British-based Speakers’ Associates has been taken down with the organisation saying today that it had been advised to do so in recent days but declining to comment further on who advised them or for what specific reasons the profile was taken down.
“We’re not judging but at the moment lots of people advised us to take his profile off,” a spokesman told TheJournal.ie
The former Taoiseach’s profile on the Washington Speakers’ Bureau (WSB) is also no longer online. His association with that organisation had led to him giving a speech at an investors’ forum in Nigeria a few days after Mahon was published and he resigned from the Fianna Fáil party.
The Tribunal found that Ahern lied about payments into bank accounts connected to him totalling IR£165,000 during the 1990s. The former Fianna Fáil leader, who was Taoiseach for 11 years, has rejected the Tribunal findings.
The page that pointed to Ahern’s profile on Speakers’ Associates website now directs to an error page. The organisation offers public speakers such as Piers Morgan, John McEnroe, and Richard Branson for events.
A search for ‘Bertie Ahern’ on the WSB website no longer yields any result where previously it had pointed to his profile which noted that he had “brought peace and political prominence to Ireland, creating a progressive strategy and blueprint for other countries of the world to follow.”
The spokesperson for Speakers’ Associates added: “There are many opens questions that we cannot answer ourselves until we know more about these various inquiries into his name. Then we might well restore his profile.”
Washington Speakers’ Bureau could not be reached for comment.
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