Haughey will never be remembered as a great statesman

May 18, 2012 in Haughey, The State by Anthony | No comments

Letter in today’s Irish Independent.

It is grotesquely hilarious to witness the Haughey family receiving an apology from an estate agent because it mistakenly claimed that Libyan dictator Colonel Gaddafi and Margaret Thatcher had visited the former Taoiseach’s home in Kinsealy.

It appears that the family is concerned that the former Taoiseach’s reputation could be sullied if associated with these particular people.

Whatever about Col Gaddafi’s reputation Mrs Thatcher’s good name would certainly be damaged by any association with the disgraced former Taoiseach.

The policies and politics of Mrs Thatcher can, and are, rejected by a great many people but it cannot be denied that she was a leader of courage and principles who worked selflessly for the good of her country and people.

Mr Haughey, on the other hand, abused political power to enrich himself at the expense of the Irish people.

Mr Haughey had three overweening ambitions in life — money, power and the hope that he would be remembered as a great statesman.

He succeeded in the first two but will never achieve the third.

Anthony Sheridan
Cobh,
Co Cork

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Department of Finance strategy just keeps on giving

May 17, 2012 in Civil Service, Government by Anthony | 2 comments

The new strategy recently announced by the The Department of Finance just keeps on adding to the mirth of the nation.

We will insist on the highest standards of transparency in the operation of NAMA

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Why is Ireland different?

May 17, 2012 in The State by Anthony | No comments

JP Morgan, one of the most powerful banks in the world, is the subject of an FBI criminal investigation just six days after the bank announced a $2 billion trading loss.

Although the phone hacking scandal in the UK has been simmering for a number of years it is only in the last twelve months or so that the lid has blown off.

Since then a number of investigations, including a police investigation, have been launched.

Dozens of people have been arrested, numerous people, including senior police officers, have resigned or have been fired.

Some of the most powerful people in global media have been hauled before a public, independent, transparent investigation forum and made to explain themselves.

Senior politicians, including Prime Minister David Cameron, are, or are likely to be, the subject of official questioning by independent law enforcement agencies.

Most crucially, these investigations are taking place in real time with real and ongoing consequences for all those involved.

This means justice is seen to be done as those involved are forced to explain themselves by independent state authorities, working on behalf of all the people and the democratic system.

Nobody in the US or the UK has stood up in astonishment and asked – My God, what’s happening, why are these powerful people being investigated, why are they being brought to account. Who introduced this system of law enforcement, accountability and justice?

Irish citizens, and particularly those working in the media, need to stand back and ask the most fundamental of questions:

Why is Ireland different?

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Understatement of the century

May 16, 2012 in The State by Anthony | No comments

Bishop of Ferns, Dr. Denis Brennan speaking at the State commemoration of the 1916 Rising.

Easter Week 1916 set the Irish people on a new path but not everything that has happened since has been glorious.

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Dept. of Finance: Just as secretive, just as arrogant

May 15, 2012 in Banks & Finance, Civil Service, Government by Anthony | No comments

The Department of Finance, just days after announcing to the nation that it was a cuddly, open and accountable entity, has been exposed as the hypocritical, dishonest and secretive organisation it has always been.

The Irish Independent put a series of questions to the Dept. regarding the hiring of a questionable consultancy firm to reorganize the state-owned Permanent TSB.

The Independent, and by extension every Irish citizen, were given the usual two fingers by this arrogant department.

Refusing to answer a single question a spokesman said:

Day-to-day operational matters are a matter for the respective board and management of the institution.

Despite the fact that it will cost Irish taxpayers millions the Dept. of Finance has refused to even name the consultancy firm involved.

So much for openness and accountability.

The Dept. is also continuing the cowardly and very expensive tradition within the civil service of hiring consultants to act as a firewall against being made accountable.

It was a (public relations) consultancy firm employed by the State to represent TSB that refused to name the consultancy firm employed by the State to reorganize TSB.

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Different types of white-collar crime

May 15, 2012 in Banks & Finance, Financial Regulator, Regulatory Agencies by Anthony | 1 comment

Business manager with Bank of Ireland, William Freeland, has been jailed for four and a half years for stealing €3 million from the bank.

Between 2004 and 2009 Freeland set up fake accounts through which he stole the money. He would then open up more accounts to repay the loans taken from the previous accounts.

We can tell from this that Irish authorities do operate some sort of justice system for dealing with white-collar crime, which raises the following questions.

Why are those at Custom House Capital, who defrauded their clients of approximately €66 million in a similar type ponzi scheme, and at around the same time, still walking around as free citizens?

Why is it that the Irish Justice system can make the likes of Mr. Freeland accountable but are, apparently, completely incapable of bringing those bankers who destroyed the economy to justice?

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New comedy at the Department of Finance

May 10, 2012 in Civil Service, Government by Anthony | 2 comments

Recently appointed Secretary General of the Dept of Finance John Moran provided some hilarity on today’s News at One.

He promises his department will provide independent, impartial and well informed advice to the Minister and the Government.

If that happens it will indeed be historic.

He also promises that staff at the department will be allowed to debate how things should be done, that there will be an open culture where everybody can voice their opinion.

This would not just be historic but revolutionary as Ireland is, without doubt, the most conservatively most secretely governed country in the Western world.

The first civil servant to exrpess an opinion is very likely to receive a P45 rather than a pat on the back.

So how do we know that this is all just the usual bullshit talk about reform and change?

Because when it was suggested to Mr. Moran that this represented a big change in how things were done in the past he replied:

Well, I haven’t been around for the last couple of years so I dont know actually what was happening or what discussions were taking place.

So here we have a brand new Secretary General in charge of the most important department in the State admitting on live radio that he has no idea what has gone on in the Department or the country in the last couple of years.

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The corruption of language

May 10, 2012 in Haughey by Anthony | 1 comment

Just heard on the radio that the Haughey family motto is:

By our own efforts

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‘Socialist’ Eamon Gilmore against taxing banks

May 10, 2012 in Banks & Finance, Government by Anthony | No comments

Elaine Byrne has an excellent piece in last Sunday’s Independent outlining how the financial sector, with full support from the Government, are refusing to pay a measly 0.01 Financial Transaction Tax (FTT).

The tax, which would reduce Ireland’s bailout by €500 million annually, would, according to the ‘socialist’, Eamon Gilmore, put Ireland at a competitive disadvantage because the UK would not implement it.

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Sam Smyth responds to Lowryland

May 9, 2012 in Denis O'Brien, Moriarty Tribunal by Anthony | No comments

Journalist Sam Smyth wrote the following very interesting letter in today’s Irish Times in response to a recent article (Welcome to Lowryland) in that paper.

Sir,

The feature on the cover of the Weekend Review (May 5th), “Welcome to Lowryland”, assumes that a legal action taken against me by Michael Lowry has still to be heard.

The legal action against me was finally dismissed in February this year when the president of the High Court ruled against Mr Lowry’s appeal of a decision in my favour made in the Circuit Court.

There is no legal forum open for him to lodge a further appeal.

Mr Lowry is also liable for my legal costs in both defamation hearings.

Mr Lowry chose to launch his legal action against me personally rather than litigate with the newspaper and television station that published the remarks he claimed were defamatory.

His decision not to sue Independent Newspapers suggests that his priorities were to silence me rather than seek compensation.

Yet in “poor me” pleadings in his interview with journalist Colm Keena, Mr Lowry claims that Independent Newspapers led a campaign against him.

Mr Lowry was a senior government minister, the most successful fundraiser in Fine Gael’s history, a potential leader and perhaps even a potential taoiseach when I wrote a story in 1996 telling how he had taken secret payments worth £395,000 from the country’s biggest retailer.

He had to resign from office in disgrace in November 1996, and in March 2011 the final report of the Moriarty tribunal detailed findings of various clandestine attempts by Denis O’Brien to enrich Michael Lowry by more than £900,000.

I wrote the original story in 1996 and enjoyed the enthusiastic support of the then editor of the Irish Independent, the late Vincent Doyle, because I believed that the facts then known showed Mr Lowry was not a fit person for high office.

Further revelations such as Mr Lowry’s €1.4 million settlement with the Revenue Commissioners and Mr Justice Moriarty’s findings of fact in his tribunal’s final report have confirmed my opinion of the Independent TD for Tipperary North.

In his interview with Colm Keena, where the truth plays hide-and-seek with wishful thinking, Mr Lowry made many curious remarks and none more self-serving than his assertion that Mr Justice Moriarty was wrong in his findings.

In the interview, Mr Lowry said: “The Moriarty report will not withstand a judicial test.” Mr Lowry (and others against whom adverse findings were made in the final report of the Moriarty tribunal) had the option of taking a judicial review to challenge the chairman’s findings.

None chose to challenge in the courts the findings of fact in Mr Justice Moriarty’s final report.

Yours, etc,

Sam Smyth

Irish Independent,
Talbot Street,
Dublin 1.

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