Sir, - I note with interest that in recent times it has emerged that a number of prominent and wealthy Irish business people have pressed what to any ordinary person would seem vast sums of money on some of our blushing politicians. It now appears, if one is to credit these people and their spokespersons, that certain conditions were attached to these munificent acts. These include strictures to the effect that no personal advantage whatever was sought or was to accrue to the donor, nor were any political favours or commercial advantages expected in return.
I accept as unhesitantly the veracity of these statements as I am sure do all decent thinking Irish people, and I salute the altruism of our merchant princes. No doubt if one only knew, there may indeed be many more who, to date, have more successfully hidden the light of their generosity under a bushel.
I am, however, puzzled by one thing. From this welter of largesse I have for some reason been arbitrarily and inexplicably excluded. This is despite the fact that any objective observer would, I believe, have to conclude that I fulfill all the required criteria to be a recipient. Not being as modest as our Irish plutocrats would have themselves appear, I request the assistance of your columns so that I may trumpet my own special virtues as loudly as possible in the hopes of attracting the attention of some of our local money bags.
Therefore, I here solemnly and publicly undertake that in return for any substantial sums, ranging from say the modesty of a ministerial £30,000 to the celestial heights of a taoiseachal £500,000, I will guarantee to confer no benefit, favour or advantage whatever upon my benefactor. Indeed to encourage such acts of disinterested flahoolity I am prepared to follow what I understand is now recognised as the required etiquette of recipients and will, in return for a sufficiently large donation publicly snub my benefactor, disparage their family and business connections to the press and generally bite any hand noble enough to risk feeding me punts or euros. In short no one need feel in the slightest danger of benefitting personally from making me the object of their liberality.
Should you be kind enough to publish this letter I will certainly inspect my morning post with increased avidity and indeed avariciousness. I await the soft flop of cheques in my mail box.-Yours in anticipation, Senator David Norris,
Seanad Eireann, Dublin 2.