Tonio Murfio turns DIRTy

In all the furore over the DIRT inquiry and the infamous non-resident accounts, one small group has been most unfairly slandered, namely the honest foreigners who are holders of genuine, non-bogus, non-resident Irish accounts.

In the last few days, some of these unfortunate people, who invested in our country in a time of great difficulty, have been mocked and derided in the media.

One former senior Revenue inspector, for example, spoke disparagingly of "the futility of examining 20,000 declarations to try and find a Mr John Murphy of 1 Main Street, Manchester".

Similarly, Pat Rabbitte TD noted the currency crisis of the 1980s and said: "If I were the dentist from Dortmund who in some way had wound my way to Swinford I would have known the market situation and would certainly have taken my money out".

I have been contacted by both of these gentlemen (and a number of others), who are extremely upset at the suggestion that they do not exist, and that if they did, they were either up to no good, or were complete fools.

Mr John Murphy (of 1 Main Street, Manchester) first heard of his name being mentioned at the inquiry while he was sitting quietly at home:

"I was putting tea on for Mam an' meself when brother-in-law who is married to nice Irish Catholic girl in Tobercurry calls with news. I ask him straight off if anyone is dead and, this not being the case, I promise to call him back when Coronation Street is over. Anyroad, Mam and me watch the show - no way is that Maxine good enough for our Ashley, by the way - and then I call Jack and he gives me the low-down on what's going on in Dublin.

"I can only say I am flabbergasted and would like just to ask that former senior Revenue inspector why he should need to examine 20,000 declarations to find John Murphy, since I am right here and always have been and he obviously knows my address. Right? I mean who is playing the innocent here?"

Having calmed Mr Murphy down and promised to bring his case to light, I had scarcely replaced the phone when a Mr Wolfgang Schlittke came on the line. Not too surprisingly, this turned out to be Pat Rabbitte's supposedly mythical dentist from Dortmund.

Mr Schlittke, too, was hurt and upset: "I hef the little money, perhaps DM100,000, saved from the many of teeth pulled over 20 years. I am the great lover of Ireland and so I wind my way to Swinford and here I place money in very special account, after which bank manager buy me lunch in local pub, and the two tankards of Guinness, is very good."

I asked Mr Schlittke if he found upsetting the implication in Mr Rabbitte's remarks that "a dentist from Dortmund" would be a bland and boring nonentity, a mere invention as an investor.

"I hef not any opinion on this. I am not to make big claim for personality, it is not German way. But Dortmund! Is so interesting, do you know it in Nordrhein-Westfalen land, with extensive port installations at head of Dortmund-Ems-Kanal?"

I said I had not known this.

"Oh ja, it become free imperial city in 1220 and later joins Hanseatic League, has many medieval churches and moated castles, yet I not mention ruins of Saxon and Carolingian fortresses, you know? Which make me think how can such place be uninteresting, also we produce much steel and coal and beer."

I finally managed to cut Mr Schlittke off, though not before he told me of Dortmund's many educational institutions including the Max Planck Institute for Industrial Physiology.

Next on the line was Tonio Murfio, from 34 South Circular Road, Milan, whose name and address apparently turned up on a Milltown Malbay bank register and drew much sniggering attention at the DIRT inquiry from various Government officials and Revenue officers.

Signor Murfio, who spoke in a low, forceful voice, declined to say how much money he had invested in his non-resident account, or for whom he worked, other than to mention "the firm" and some strange vow of silence - omerta - insisted on by the management.

Signor Murfio drew attention to the remark "Rome can very easily be burned down in a day" made by a principal officer in the Department of Finance in evidence to the Comptroller and Auditor General: "It not a nice-a thing to say. Is a threat. And my firm, it is big in Rome, and in Sicily, too, by the way, bigger than you think. So: perhaps Department of Finance burn down one day too, maybe soon, if it not make more polite to non-residents, capisce? Passa da message. Ciao."