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This seems to have gone below the radar but is a fascinating insight into the minds of TDs, or perhaps more specifically Fianna Fail TDs.

And it goes to the heart of local politics in Ireland – back scratching, vote-buying, cute hoorism and backwoodsman bollocks.

Today’s Evening Echo (Cork) reports:

East Cork TD Ned O’Keeffe has said Rathcormac National School should not be a priority for funding and that it has a “fabulous” layout of Portakabins.

Rathcormac NS has more than 200 pupils and there are nine prefabs in use, at a cost of €83,000 per year.

But it gets worse:

A site alongside the existing school has been identified and architectural designs have been drawn up. The local community has campaigned for a new school for the past decade.

Deputy O’Keeffe insisted, however, that the school was not a priority for him, as Rathcormac was not a place where he gained many votes.

He told the Evening Echo:

“There is a fabulous layout of Portakabins there. There are many other schools that need the funding first. Rathcormac NS will get a new building when funds become available, simple as that.”

Deputy O’Keeffe said he was being honest with the parents’ council of Rathcormac NS when he said he would not lobby the Minister for Education, Batt O’Keeffe.

He explained that he had not received votes in the area when he ran for election to the Dail in 2007.

“I was contacted by a representative for the parents’ council and told her straight out my position. Des O’Malley used to do the same. All things being equal, I asked her why I should look after the people of Rathcormac if they didn’t look after me? I told her there was no funding available.”

Because you’re a fucking elected representative perhaps, Ned, who gets paid by those taxpayers in Rathcormac?

But, there you have it.

Fuck you Rathcormac if you don’t vote for me. And fuck you and your children in their Portakabins.

Fuck you if you don’t vote Fianna Fail. And if you don’t vote for me next time, I might just stop road repairs, reduce the number of gardai, and give planning permission for a dump next to you, too.

[Disclosure] I work for the group which owns the Evening Echo. The opinions expressed are my own.

Madoff gets 150 years and his accountant has been charged with aiding and abetting fraud and four counts of false audit reports.

In Ireland, to my knowledge, not a single accountant has even been investigated never mind actually charged despite the theft of countless millions in a whole variety of criminal scams over the years.

Meanwhile, Jim Flavin of DCC and Sean Fitzpatrick of Anglo Irish Bank are still walking around free men, still supremely confident that they will never have to suffer the indignity of actually accounting for their activities.

Letter in today’s Irish Independent.

Bertie delusional about downturn

IT seems Bertie Ahern missed his true calling — he seems to live in the same sugar-sweet fictional world of his author daughter, Cecelia.

I suppose that with a huge pension and Dail salary for a seat he hardly seems to occupy these days, he can afford to live in a dream world, unlike the poor suckers who, until recently, bought his line that we could keep the country afloat with hot air.

Let’s be honest. The hard work of the IDA created and imported jobs, a boom that was real. The Fianna Fail government then sold off the gains of this boom, brick by brick, to the developers. The very real housing boom went from a boom to a bubble.

With no restraint or call for caution from the Government, housing prices and rents soared, meaning Irish wages needed to increase likewise.

We lost our competitive edge and companies started to look elsewhere.

The developers, flush with the profits stolen from hard- earned Irish wages, then continued to borrow from their mates, the bankers, to build even more ambitious projects, houses and hotels that were not needed.

When the time came to sell, even the most naive of Irish knew the prices were too high.

As companies left, the overstretched budgets of the average Irish family imploded. The irresponsible gambling of the developers exploded like a depth charge at the base of our banking system.

Not the global financial crisis, Mr Ahern — it was developer debts and overvalued housing market that brought down the Irish banks. If the banks had loaned only what the houses were actually worth, and the market wasn’t oversupplied, there would be no problem.

Pauline Bleach
Newtown,
New SOUTH WALES
, AUSTRALIA

Bernard Madoff has been given the maximum prison sentence of 150 years for masterminding a massive fraud that robbed investors of $65bn (£40bn).

Here’s a list of words in sequence as they appeared in an Irish newspaper reporting Madoff’s case.

Crooked…sentenced…swindling…a massive “Ponzi” pyramid scheme…duped thousands of investors…behind bars…prosecutors…fraudster…fraud… perjury…false reporting…fraud…crimes…fraud…wrong…criminal…fraud…fraud…pretence…scam.

Compare this list with the following list of words taken from another Irish newspaper reporting efforts by former National Irish Bank (NIB) boss Jim Lacey to avoid even the minimum consequences for his part in a massive ten year scam that saw countless millions robbed from the State and directly from customer’s accounts.

Improper practices…tax evasion scandal…falsified documents…hot money.

Ah yes the old reliable ‘improper practices’ it’s the term most favoured by politicians, government officials and journalists when reporting/commenting on major crimes within the Irish financial sector.

In most counties it is also common to witness white collar criminals (the term is still not officially recognized in Ireland) express regret and apologise for their crimes. Here’s what Madoff had to say.

I’m sorry I know that doesn’t help…apologised for the “legacy of shame” he had brought on his family and the industry…I’m responsible for a great deal of suffering and pain, I understand that.

As we know ‘errant’ Irish bankers do not do apologies, they don’t do accountability and they certainly do not do time.

Lacey, denying everything, blamed bank managers who weren’t up to the job or were out playing golf. He blamed Revenue for not testing the bank’s systems. He blamed internal and external auditors and he blamed the Central Bank. Everybody is to blame, maybe even the customer, but not Mr. Lacey.

And then there’s the proceeds/profit/loot gained from financial skullduggery.

Mrs. Madoff agreed to give up almost all of her property except for $2.5m (€1.7m) set aside by the Government as part of a $171bn (€122bn) forfeiture order against her husband by the judge.

She will relinquish her interest in the couple’s penthouse in New York and other homes worth an estimated $22m. She will also give up a $39,000 piano; $2.6m of jewellery; silverware worth $50,000; bed linen worth $18,000; 35 sets of her husband’s cufflinks; a $36,000 sable coat and a $12,500 mink.

She and her children are also under suspicion of complicity in the fraud.

Compare this to the family of the corrupt Haughey who were allowed to keep his millions.

Some; if not most of this money, is the proceeds of Haughey’s nefarious activities but there’s as much chance of a Haughey being investigated for complicity as there is of Lacey ending up in jail.

It was reported in the Irish Independent that disciplinary action may be taken against some crew members involved in an incident in which a door fell off an Air Corps helicopter minutes after taking off.

The aircraft had climbed about 500ft at a speed of about 126 knots when the sliding door fell from the helicopter and landed in a remote swampy area in Killarney National Park.

The official report into the incident found that while on the ground the crewman had opened the left-hand door (the one that later fell off) to show two local people around the aircraft.

It was also found that neither the captain nor co-pilot had spotted the warning alert indicating on their display screen that a cabin door remained open.

So we have a situation that could easily have resulted in serious injury or even death because a crewman failed to properly secure a door after, apparently, showing some friends around the aircraft and two pilots failed to see a warning alert.

I think, in the circumstances, the military authorities should be doing more than just considering disciplinary action.

So asked Prime Time in September 1999. Of course the names were released… three years later. I recently put the entire Ansbacher report back online, after seven years of it being unavailable. I also posted the list of all account holders.

What is interesting about this, is the voxpop at the start. There was anger, there was a demand for accountability. It pretty much never happened. Indeed one of the Ansbacher account holders, Clayton Love Jnr, only this year made full settlement of €1.4m with the Revenue. There was no jailing or prosecutions.

Accountability? You must be joking.

Fianna Fáil delenda est.

I’m delighted to see that Sunday Independent journalist and (former?) Haugheyite, John Drennan, has at last realized what kind of a country he lives in.

Here’s some of what Drennan had to say in 2007 in defence of his hero the corrupt Haughey, the man, more than any other, who is responsible for turning Ireland into the banana republic it is today.

Why Haughey was never found to be corrupt:

Mr. Haughey was merely following precedents set by such illustrious figures as O’Connell and Parnell.

Reason for perception that Haughey was corrupt:

Haughey’s ‘corruption’ is the fantastical creation of a petit bourgeoisie of Tim Healy-style hysteria mongers, whose insipid viciousness explains their expertise in the price of everything and their ignorance about the value of anything.

On Haughey’s ‘fiscal probity’:

Mr. Haughey did make money courtesy of some good advice from patriotic sources.

On taking money from businessmen:

Of course Mr. Haughey did take money from Ben Dunne and other public-spirited businessmen. However, this was for life-style as distinct to political purposes.

On Haughey’s ‘insourcing’ of the FF leader’s allowance:

It was in payment for putting his home at Kinsealy at the service of the nation.

On Haughey’s tax problems:

Mr. Haughey did have some minor tax problems. However, unless you are in love with the lifeless technicalities of accountancy it would be easy to believe a gift is not a salary.

On Haughey’s refusal to cooperate with tribunals:

Some would argue that a refusal to obey those semi-legal, amoral instruments of oppression that collude with simpering creeps like Frank Dunlop as both try to save their respective skins was a genuine act of patriotism.

Real reason for hatred of Haughey:

The hatred of Haughey is all about the challenge he posed to a society which was petrified by notions of class…” (Quotes PJ Mara; ‘Haughey’s enemies thought they were ‘the fucking aristocracy.’).

Ireland without Haughey’s type:

…a dandified, foppish, lattefied, hygiene-obsessed, anti-smoking and anti-drinking (unless it’s a glass of red wine for the heart) school of bourgeois… a hissing, pissy, sanctimonious hysterical desert, which could only be invented by the petite bourgeoisie.

Phew – Did this man love Haughey and his standards or what?

Now Drennan, having finally woken up, is talking revolution against the inheritors of the corrupt Haughey’s legacy. Here are some quotes from yesterday’s article.

While the hanging bit is a tad excessive, when it comes to numbers Mr Swift may actually have been too prescriptive — for any bonfire of our Tiger nonentities should include a right good sprinkling of politicians, clerics, regulators, barristers, mandarins and social partners.

Last week, as the IMF unveiled Ireland’s status as a failed political entity, the collective immunity to reason that has gripped our leaders was epitomised by Brian Lenihan’s apparently sincere boast that we were on “the right track”.

What may have far more serious consequences is the apparent belief of our political dullards that, even though the country they created now resembles a pyramid scheme devised by con artists, life should go on as normal.

However, although they are incapable of recognising it, the real truth is that the Ireland created by the “Spoilt Princes” and “Marie Antoinettes” of Fianna Fail is now so damaged that the system needs the sort of revolution where things are busted up and put together again in a radically different way. (This is exactly what needs to be done)

Any transformation in the way this country works needs to start with taking the axe to the top civil service mandarins who have turned this country into an economic tiphead.

we need to select at least six of the top mandarins, line them up against a wall and sack them pour encourager les autres.

The axe need not be confined to our greedy, inept mandarins. It is past time that the salaries of greedy ministers, greedy judges, greedy barristers, greedy university professors and even greedier hospital consultants are halved — and if you people want to revolt, then try your luck in the private sector.

Nothing epitomised the dazed, disengaged incompetent nature of a Cabinet whose capacity to rule is totally compromised by its incestuous relationship with vested interests, more than Dermot Ahern’s recent astonishing claim that he was in politics because it puts money on the table.

So far, the response of the people and our elite to this transformation has been one of dazed stupefaction. However, unless Mr Cowen gets ahead of the people and starts to do the work required to rescue us, he may learn that no amount of sunshine will save him from a revolt by a nation which has been betrayed almost beyond reason by its elite.

Welcome to the Public Inquiry way of thinking Mr. Drennan.

The ongoing financial crisis continues to strip away the pretence that Ireland is a functioning, democratic country. The judiciary is the latest untouchable elite to be exposed as greedy, self serving and unpatriotic.

In 1959 a Supreme Court ruling held that a tax wouldn’t affect judicial independence if it didn’t discriminate against judges. The pension levy applies to all public servants and therefore does not discriminate against judges.

The judges, with the full cooperation of the political elite, are cynically exploiting the Constitution for their own greedy ends.

Only 19 of the country’s 148 judges have volunteered to make a contribution in lieu of the public service pension levy.

According to Brian Cowen judges have until the end of the year to decide whether to make a contribution and he believes more will do so.

Brian Cowen is wrong. There is no time limit by which the judges have to decide whether to pay up or not. How could there be a time limit if, as we are asked to believe, it is unconstitutional to force judges to pay the levy?

When the politicians were asked to play their part in rescuing the country from financial ruin they steadfastly refused to do so. Instead they jettisoned any pretence of leadership and opted to fight tooth and nail to hold onto every cent they could no matter how bad things get for those they would claim to lead.

Similarly, bankers and senior civil servants who played a leading part in the destruction of our country were allowed to walk away with massive pensions and bonuses.

Judges are just the latest cosseted elite who believe that they should be allowed to retain all their wealth and privileges while the peasants pay the full price.

The analogy with Titanic is apt – As the ship (of state) sinks to its doom all the elites are heading for the lifeboats with their jewels and fur coats while the peasants are locked in steerage and told they must make the ultimate sacrifice so that their betters may survive and prosper.

It’s interesting to compare the troubles of Italian Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi with how such scandals are dealt with in Ireland.

Berlusconi was found out by accident in the course of an unrelated corruption investigation. Italy’s Fraud Squad had been investigating corruption concerning contracts for supplying equipment to hospitals.

The Irish Fraud Squad never investigates this type of crime. Yet, I have no doubt whatsoever that such contract corruption is rampant throughout the Irish business and political world.

A chief prosecutor launched an investigation into one Giampaolo Tarantini who is suspected of recruiting young women for Mr. Berlusconi’s parties. Mr. Tarantini is facing a charge of allegedly abetting prostitution.

Ireland doesn’t have chief prosecutors who can independently and courageously decide to launch an investigation into corruption.

Even if we did have such people they would never, in a million years, initiate an investigation that had the potential to damage a politician and in particular a Prime Minister. Irish police do not investigate politicians – full stop.

Italy is generally seen as the most corrupt country in Europe yet they have corruption courts and Italian police do investigate politicians and bring them to justice.

Here in Ireland we have yet to even admit that corruption is a major and extremely damaging aspect of our culture.

Bribery law?

There was an interesting item on Tuesday’s Drivetime concerning the relentless rise in commercial rents despite the downturn in the economy.

The law covering this area of business is bizarre to say the least. Rent reviews are carried out every five years but can only remain static or go up.

If one tenant, say in a shopping centre, agrees to a rent rise then everybody, by law, must agree and pay the same rise with no account taken of profitability or ability to pay.

According to Paul Fitzsimmons of Retail Excellence Ireland, this system is wide open to abuse. His organization has evidence of landlords doing deals with particular businesses by offering them a rent free period or help with a fit out in return for agreeing to a rent rise.

What I find amazing is that this law seems to have been drafted with this ‘bribery clause’ specifically in mind, I can’t think of any other reason for its insertion. But then again, why am I amazed, this is Ireland.

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