Business Notes Scandals

The talk these days among the Irish is of "fiddles." Not the kind that make music but the ones that make money. Fiddle is a coy Celtic epithet for the sort of financial finaglings plaguing the Irish republic even as scandalmongers have their eyes on Tokyo and Manhattan:

-- Tycoon Michael Smurfit, chairman of the state-owned phone company Telecom Eireann, resigned after disclosures that he owned an interest in the company that sold land to Telecom for its new headquarters.

-- The head of Greencore, formerly the state-owned Irish Sugar Co., resigned after it was learned that he and other investors had borrowed $1.7 million from Irish Sugar to buy shares of a company later bought, in turn, by Greencore. The arrangement earned them a handsome profit on their stake.

-- Goodman International, Europe's biggest beef processor, is being investigated for possible fraud, including the export of 13-year-old meat. The firm rejects the charges.

Modest by Wall Street standards, these scandals are no small potatoes in Ireland. Prime Minister Charles Haughey is sufficiently close to some fiddle figures to be suffering a drastic drop in popularity.