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MICHAEL HEALY RAE shared an emotional story about the tragic death of an elderly man in Kerry with comedian Tommy Tiernan in an episode of the comedian’s show aired last night.
Appearing on RTÉ’s Tommy Tiernan programme, the Kerry TD was asked to talk about a something that went wrong during his career as a politician.
“I don’t mind telling a story against myself because it was probably one of the biggest mistakes I ever made. The mistake I made at that time, I wouldn’t make it again, because I would be smart enough now to hear what I was being told,” said Healy Rae, who went on to detail a harrowing account of the death of an elderly man in his constituency.
This man had gotten into financial difficulties after taking advice from a financial institution.
“People who knew flip all about banking, but went into the banks and were told by the bank managers and those institutions, ‘Well, Tommy, you have a brother over in New York, you can use his address and get far more interest in your account.’ So Tommy thought nothing of it and he signed up to it.
“Next thing, Revenue found out about it and they went after those people. If you had €50,000 in one of those accounts by the time Revenue came after you they were literally looking for the entire €50,000 if not €60,000. So a very nice elderly man in a certain place came to me with his problem,” said Healy Rae.
Financial problems
The Kerry TD said he looked into the matter for the man and he managed to get a reduction on the monies owed.
He said:
We were sort of [at] the end of the problem, where he had to pay out virtually every penny that he had, even though I had got it reduced, all of his savings were going to go. This poor man had done nothing wrong, he was an elderly man, worked hard all his life.
He came onto the phone and said, ‘Michael, you helped me in every way of the world, but can we do something about this money.’ And I said, ‘Oh God, no.’
This is now where I blame myself, no one else. I told him we were at the end of the line. I said, ‘No, it will have to paid’, and what I said is, ‘You’ll have to pay it.’ And right away he said, ‘No, no, no. I won’t pay it, no I won’t.’
And I was driving along, and you see, I heard him, but it didn’t register. I didn’t get it. He thanked me and he went off the phone.
Two days later, Healy Rae was driving in his car when the death notices were read out on Kerry Radio, and he heard the elderly man’s name. He called a neighbour and asked what had happened, without divulging that he had been helping him with some financial issues.
“We can’t figure it out,’ replied his neighbour, who told Healy Rae that he had died by suicide.
Healy Rae said he realised that the man had put down the phone on him a couple of days earlier and the enormity of what he had told him – that he would have to pay it – must have hit him.
“You can imagine how I felt,” the deputy told Tiernan.
Tiernan said it was awful that Irish people overly respected authority in this country, such as the Church and the banks, stating that it is a shocking indictment of the behaviour of financial institutions, the way in which many people in debt or with financial problems are dealt with.
‘I would talk to him’
He asked Healy Rae what he would say to that man if he had the chance.
“I know exactly what I would do if that situation happened tonight. I would sit into my car, no matter where I was and I would knock on the door of his house before he would go to bed and I would sit down and wear him out sitting down by the fire talking to him, just talking to him, because as long as you can keep a person engaged and keep talking and keep them interested you’re like a lifeline to them,” he said, adding:
I would never again make the same mistake that I made that night, because I can see problems with people before they realise it themselves.
Since then, he said he has a better understanding of mental health issues.
“If you rang me up and said to me, ‘My hand is very sore, what are we going to do about it?’. Or if you said, ‘My head is very bad, and I’m in a bad place.’ I would take no difference, it is just another medical issue. I would actually say, is it a problem from the head up or the neck down. To me it is all just the same – a problem to be dealt with.”
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Well done to Michael Healey Rae… It’s rare a politician admits to handling something wrong or making a mistake. Suicide and mental health issues need to make all of us aware of our actions and what we say can affect people who are suffering. The Journal is usually full of abuse for Michael and his brother but here he was honest and genuine and we need more of that in politics here.
@Ciarán FitzGerald: The most shocking aspect of this story is, this poor man was driven to suicide while bankers and bondholdes walked away with €66 billion. What a f–ked Republic.
Your a good man Michael and the people of the kingdom know it!…
@Kate Flaherty:—-And I have to say loud and clear SO DO THE PEOPLE OUTSIDE THE KINGDOM with the exception of the superior race from Dublin 4
Suicide is an epidemic in rural Ireland. Thank you for raising that issue Michael
@Franklin Roosevelt: its an epidemic nationwide
@Dave O Keeffe: I would go further. Globally.
That’s a sad little story, desperate sad. Shows the human side of the speaker also. I recall a barber in Kilcock not long ago driven to suicide by Revenue. God help such people. I’d nearly walk into a bank with a sawn-off and take my chances as an alternative to doing that to myself over money. But then I am not in the depths of the most crippling, world-ending, disease as depression is.
And yet we can think about Charlie Haughey, who robbed the country blind, and even when caught to some minor degree, was able to get the tax rate cut in half for his settlement, and had relatives in the Appeal Commissioners blatantly cutting him favours and nobody saying a word.
This is Ireland, which Micheal MacLiammoir defined in one word, impossible to better: ‘Malevolent.”
@Sensword Byhax: don’t forget Charlie got a state funeral into the bargain.
It’s one of the best independent shows that RTE has put out in the past few years. Michael carried himself very well in that interview. I thought Tiernan’s point at the end was great, that the country was a mixture of many different energies and is it was great to be in the same place as the Healy Rae’s.
I am a little confused. Did revenue really want all of the 50k? I find that hard to believe. Yes there were fines and penalties but would they have gone that high?
@Kal Ipers: I think you missed the point of the article.
@Kal Ipers: Missing the point here …… a man died …. think before you post .
@Joshua Walsh: It is completely the point if it is a story and not actual events.
@Kal Ipers: We’ll never know the full circumstances of the debt as the poor man is now dead. The story was about Michael missing the warning signs of a cry for help.
@Joshua Walsh: I completely missed the pint as well, but then, anything with a Healy Ray attached to it I completely miss anyway.
@Peter Cavey: We can know if it is possible. If he is not being honest in the story where does that leave him? His version of events sound unlikely from my understanding of revenue. I will happily be corrected about my understanding.
@Kal Ipers: A neighbour of mine was caught up in the same fiasco at the time. (If I’m not mistaken, Beverley Cooper Flynn was up to her neck in promoting this for AIB??)..Anyway between interest, fines and penalties the revenue took him for 500k, considerably more than he had in the account!
@Kal Ipers: It’s nothing to do with what revenue actually do, but the impact of the threat of revenue on vulnerable people who had been advised by professionals to illegally keep their money off-shore. The man committed suicide because he thought he would lose everything and, undoubtedly, because of the shame, he believed, this would bring to him and his family. I can’t understand how you don’t get that. The story is about this man and not about how revenue operate
@Anne Marie Devlin: Gosh, I find myself in total agreement with you, well said and well put!…
@Anne Marie Devlin: Others are commenting on revenue and it is part of the narrative. I mispaid the revenue and got letters about it. They are actually quite reasonable. It would take years and years to reach that level of punishment. It seems really unlikely. It is completely reasonable to question the content of the story
@Kal Ipers: clearly you have never had dealings with the revenue
@Eoghan: I certainly have and know many people working there.
@Kal Ipers:Yes they would –a friend of mine was inveigled to put some of his lawfully gotten retirement fund into a Cayman Island BY A WELL KNOWN POLITICIAN who was the subject of a high court case for a similar operation —–The revenue took it all
@John Mc Donagh: I forgot to mention that the same class act perjured itself to the scalp at the court hearing— The taking of a false oath is very much secondary to a political career!!
@John Mc Donagh: simply point to the legislation. What somebody you know said to you just doesn’t cut it. Amazingly nobody has come on and said it happened to them or anybody explaining how it adds up. If people know they could explain it that is the very least rather than “happened to my mate”. Some form of calculation would be nice
@Kal Ipers: I refer you to a high court case circa 2001 when R.T.E, Charlie Bird and a Meath farmer James Howard (I think) were sued for libel by a certain former bank employee, who claimed that she was not implicated in any way in enticing James Howard to invest money in an off-shore account.
Look that up and then come back to me with facts not opinions!
@John Mc Donagh: that has absolutely no relationship to how avoiding paying tax on interest on money you earned and payed taxes on will result in fines and penalties that exceed the principle to be 20% more. I know people were given bad advice and never suggested otherwise.
@Kal Ipers: Interest and penalties can easily stack up to and overtake the capital amount the tax was initially due on. Especially if it’s been allowed to go on for very long.
Tommy Tiernan’s an actual show worth watching. He’s quick enough to respond sensitively and cleverly to the spontaneity of the format; a rare skill at RTE.
I respect Healy Rae thought he was doing the right thing, but politicians are not financial advisers let alone solicitors and need to be very careful in reining in their urge to help their constituents on all and any matter.
fair play to him, we all have missed opportunities and missed tell tale signs. we are coming to grips and more open to mental health issues like depression, but people with more serious illnesses like schizophrenia are often left isolated and a lot to do with the stereotype TV characters, a friend jumped from a bridge with this illness , as a community we tended to steer clear and left him isolated, and he never did anything to anyone to deserve our reaction.
@Dáithí Ó Raghallaigh: suspect sometimes depression, and the drugs used to treat it, can mask more serious underlying condition, which GPs are hardly optimal to diagnose much less treat, such as the one you mention. Which with all due respect to sufferers, the vast majority of whom do no harm to anyone (bar themselves perhaps), has been scientifically proven to increase the risk of someone being convicted of a crime of homicide, by as much as 14 times in men and 50 times in women (Erronen et al).
Fair play to Michael,people take the p|ss out of them but they fight tooth and nail every time for Kerry,wish Waterford had representation like him
I was never a fan of the man , but a family I know had a son who died by suicide a few years back . Many politicians show at funerals to be seen to be there . MHR still calls to those parent at least every 6 weeks . He does this on the quiet and only that I know the family , I wouldn’t know .
Hard to find fault with that kind of person in many ways .
@Bríd Uí Mhaoluala: he’s got kind eyes…that’s a very nice thing.
There is widespread dillusion among our politicians about lots of things.
They prefer to fool themselves into thinking they’re doing a good job, accompanied by over inflated salaries, than facing the reality of a dysfunctional society and it’s associated crisis.
@Adrian: he still says that the man did nothing wrong, unreal. Has he really learned from it all?
@David Dickson: What did he do wrong? The investment advisor who recommended illegal investment practices is the one who should be held responsible (as an individual, the bank itself should be dealt with separately) because they are the expert in the scenario. When you pay an expert for their expertise you should have recourse if their advise is basically wrong as in this case.
@Liam Doyle: What did he do wrong? Tax evasion. Not worth committing suicide over, and bank officials should be prosecuted too if they promote illegality, but you’re responsible for your own financial affairs.
@Steve B: We can’t expect everybody to be expert in every area of life in which they have engagement, that’s unrealistic. Tax laws are notoriously complex and convoluted, so it’s reasonable that people would employ the services of an expert in such affairs. Once the expert is employed then they should be held responsible for the legality of the decisions taken, not the person that wisely accepted their lack of expertise and employed the expert. He should not have been permitted to profit from the transaction if it was illegal, but all punishment should be reserved for the investment professional imho.
@David Dickson: if the banking advisors/ officials were made responsible at the time for misleading the people with illegal offshore accounts the story with the banks during the Celtic tiger could possibly be totally different today. But no! The banks will always be protected & never be held responsible for anything only undercharging. no lesson learned & suicide continues.
Don’t have much time for Healy Rae, having said that his answer was honest and compassionate.
@Jed I. Knight: I don’t like them, particularly Danny but I was surprisingly impressed by Michael last night.
Suicide is something that needs to be spoken more openly amongst all parties and media. Too often it’s kept quiet and granted it’s generally from the families involved. Having lost two relations to suicide and know of countless other cases the time to talk about is openly has to happen.
Watch drum the banker and how his trial will run out
I am disgusted that the banker who advised this man who committed suicide is not before the courts and let him tell the truth or else perjure himself. If this was done in each case surely some banker would admit they told their client to put his money offshore.
Why was Healy Ray even talking to revenue….That’s not his job and seems a professional was required here…..Am I wrong to be skepticial here…..
The HR dynasty have been known to fabricate a few stories in their time and to be cleverly expedient with the truth. That being said so it is with most of our politicians unfortunately. Don’t get that Revenue would negotiate with MHR.
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