Dodgy dogs

As I have said before, every time the lid is lifted on any aspect of Irish life whether it is business, politics, Government administration the church or whatever, there is inevitably a very strong smell of something rotten.

The latest involves Bord na gCon, the Irish greyhound board. The chief executive, Aiden Tynan has been sacked, apparently because he disagreed with the board’s decision to keep instances of doping, secret.

The sports minister, John O’Donoghue has asked for a report from the chief executive of Bord na gCon, Mr. Paschal Taggart.

Asking the chief executive, the person who the allegations are against, to report on himself, has echos of AIB investigating itself and the thieving solicitors being allowed to police themselves without any interference from the State.
Watch this space…

Unused refugee centre cost taxpayer over €2m

So you thought property prices were increasing? Not, it seems, when it comes to State assets:

The Department of Justice bought Lynch’s Lodge Hotel in Macroom, Co Cork, in October 2000 to use as a refugee accommodation centre for over €3.5 million.

Five years later, with security and other costs at over €800,000, the property was sold for €2.3 million.

The information came from a parliamentary answer given by Minister of State with responsibility for the Office of Public Works Tom Parlon.

Garda treatment of mother 'outrageous', judge says

I just wonder if any of the Gardai involved here will face disciplinary action, not to mention criminal:

A High Court judge has described as “outrageous” the treatment by gardai of a mother-of-five who was arrested at her home for non-payment of a parking fine and who sustained injuries after the garda car taking her to Mountjoy Prison crashed was in collision with another vehicle.

Mr Justice Paul Butler yesterday awarded €25,000 damages to Ms Geraldine Coleman arising from the incident and also awarded costs to her on the Circuit Court scale.

The judge said: “She failed to pay a parking fine and at least five gardai, four of them male, arrived at her home at 6am. That is the Garda case.

“Taking every word the gardai said as true, it is still outrageous. She tries to go back for her shoes and she was grabbed by a garda and flung up on the bonnet of the car and handcuffed. There is no excuse whatsoever for such behaviour.”

Ms Coleman, (45) from Beechmount Grove, Navan, Co Meath, had sued the Minister for Finance and Mr Andrew Hyland, from Trim, Co Meath, the driver of a vehicle which was involved in the collision with the Garda patrol car.

She alleged she sustained injuries when the car crashed.

The judge found Mr Hyland blameless and “entirely innocent ” and made the award against the Minister only.

The accident occurred on the Dunshaughlin Road at the junction for Trim in heavy traffic on the morning of September 20th 2002 and extensive damage was caused to the cars involved.

In his judgment, Mr Justice Butler said it was most outrageous and outlandish that gardai had impressed on the State in the case to blame Ms Coleman for not wearing a seatbelt in the car when she was handcuffed with her hands behind her back.

He said the patrol car which crashed was straddling the island and was being driven at least partially on the wrong side of the road. The “excuse” for this behaviour” from the “poor” garda driver was that she was subject to verbal abuse from Ms Coleman.

Cowboy planning culture

Last Friday, RTEs Five Seven Live programme reported on the “Cowboy culture’ that passes for good planning in Ireland.

Apparently, the vast majority of illegal developments are granted retrospective planning by local authorities. In the last four years Dublin City Council has given retrospective planning permission to 85% of those who couldn’t be bothered applying before they started building. The figures for Waterford and Galway are 83% and 82% respectively.

A significant number of offenders are developers, who are very familiar with planning laws, rampaging around the country, building hundreds of houses and then looking for, and getting, planning permission.

But then again, they are taking their example from our so-called leaders. In today’s Irish Times we read that former Fianna Fail minister of state, Ivor Calley is in breach of planning laws for converting a garage into a house next to his family’s holiday home which (hilariously) was also built without permission.

We can only guess what future generations will make of the massive damage done by this rampant gombeenism.

The price of (non) drink

Dropped down to the local last Saturday to watch the rugby – what a game?
Anyway, I asked for a Becks non-alcoholic. After rummaging around under the counter for a while, the young bartender eventually found a bottle and opened it for me. Obviously not used to serving this particular drink, she didn’t know the price and so asked to barman/owner.

Although I couldn’t hear the conversation, the body language indicated that she was both amazed and puzzled by what he was telling her. She apologetically informed me that this small bottle (275Ml) would cost me €3.60.

The same bottle cost just €1 in the local supermarket. Out of this €1, I presume, the distillery, Government and supermarket get their share. So how does the publican justify the extra €2.60? The answer is, of course, he doesn’t have to justify anything, he just picks a price out of the air – And the publicans are puzzled as to why more and more people are socialising at home.

In any case, I have been told that I was “lucky’ enough with the price, that some pubs are charging up to €4.20 for the same drink. I would be interested to hear if anyone else out there can beat that.

Attack on Freedom of Information – Reaction

The following is an editorial from yesterday’s Irish Examiner. I think it’s worthwhile reproducing here because it is strong and to the point, unusual for a mostly conservative Irish media.

Could it be that there is a growing realisation of the damage being done to our democracy by corrupt and arrogant politicians?

Freedom of Information – Government failing to live up to pledges

THE insidious erosion of the public’s basic right to information is one of the more cynical faces of the current administration.
Motivated by a culture of secrecy that would not be out of place in the Orwellian world of Big Brother, this Government ranks as the least accountable ever to hold sway in Ireland.

The Coalition’s blatant disregard for basic principles of openness and transparency is reflected in the increasing exclusion of public bodies from the remit of the Freedom of Information (FoI) Act.

As revealed in this newspaper yesterday, the latest example of its shoddy denial of people’s right to know involves the Health and Safety Authority (HSA) which until recently was open to FoI queries.

Inexplicably, the lid has been tightly clamped on its work, removing its investigative activities from the public gaze.

At a stroke, workers have been deprived the right of access to information about their accidents.

This means, for instance, that where documents relating to HSA investigations of workplace accidents are concerned, a worker seeking compensation for injury will in future be denied easy access to them.

Instead, the injured party faces the daunting prospect of having to go through a costly legal process in order to ascertain the relevant information.

Rightly or wrongly, a cynic could be forgiven for perceiving the hand of powerful elements with strong political associations behind this mysterious departure.

Rather than giving people greater access to what is going on behind the closed doors in the corridors of power, the shutters are coming down. Clearly, in the HSA case, the FoI process has been turned on its head.

The question is, who is being protected? Undoubtedly, the latest change militates against the rights of vulnerable individuals.
And, arguably, it is manifestly to the benefit of powerful factions with deep pockets.

Not before time, an Oireachtas committee will next month scrutinise the gradual strangling of the FoI process with a view to making recommendations to the Government about how the system should be improved.

But the committee members would be unwise to hold their breath, judging by the contemptuous attitude of faceless civil servants towards Ombudsman Emily O’Reilly.

When she contacted officials at the Department of Finance concerning the surreptitious HSA change, about which she had been kept in the dark, the Information Commissioner was told it was up to her to find out what was going on.

That speaks volumes about this Government’s arrogance towards the public.

Originally, when the FoI Act came into force in 1997, more than 100 bodies or sensitive divisions of Government departments were excluded from its remit. Since then, 50 more bodies and agencies have been brought into the exclusion zone.

An unflinching champion of people’s right to information, Emily O’Reilly has openly complained about the exclusion of from public scrutiny.

When greater restrictions and higher charges were attached to FoI queries, it was widely seen as a deliberate attempt to make it more difficult for the average person, and the media, to access information on decisions which influence people’s lives.

As predicted, there has since been a significant fall-off in the use of FoI channels. Not only is the culture of secrecy still operating, it is flourishing.

By any standard, the cynical denial of the public’s right to information makes a mockery of Coalition pledges to bring greater accountability and transparency to governance.

The growing exclusion of public bodies from the FoI spotlight is a matter of the gravest concern.

Predictable political waffle

“There will be some anger, especially from the parents of the children involved but they will be fobbed off and the usual Banana Republic excuses will be mouthed – Yes, it was terrible but it’s all in the past, things are different now, we must make sure that this never happens again, going forward, blah blah blah

The above quote is part of my reaction to Mary Harney’s decision last February to wind up the Dunne enquiry which was investigating the taking of children’s organs and selling them to pharmaceutical companies. Specifically, I was predicting how Mary Harney would respond to the Madden report which was published last Wednesday.

A law lecturer at UCC, Dr Deirdre Madden was asked to trawl through the material gathered by the Dunne enquiry and produce a quick report. The following is an edited version of Mary Harney’s reaction to the publication of that report. (Full reaction here, if you can stomach it)

Standards as applied today are very different from those applied in the past. We have all learned lessons, what happened was wrong, it was the culture of the time, must put in place legislation ensure this never happens again, blah blah blah

This is the standard response from arrogant, incompetent and uncaring politicians who are very happy to wallow in the comforts of a corrupt and unaccountable administration.

Prosecutors – real and imagined

I see the Japanese Stock Exchange went into crisis after prosecutors raided a company suspected of providing misleading information about an acquisition.

The Cologne Re fraud, hatched in Dublin’s IFSC, resulted in prosecutors in Australia and America raiding offices and bringing charges against the fraudsters.

It is quite common to read of prosecutors in any number of countries raiding, charging, jailing those who decide to take a gamble on making a quick buck through fraud.

Ansbacher, Dirt, Faldor, Tax evasion, Over charging, Direct and organised theft from accounts, Perjury – just some of the gambles taken by fraudsters in the Irish jurisdiction that have paid off handsomely in recent times.

A prize for anyone who can identify a real prosecutor in the Banana Republic.

Political stooge

The late Brian Lenihan Snr. was, by all accounts, a very intelligent man. Unfortunately, by allowing himself to be used as a public stooge by Fianna Fail he was better known, at best, as a loveable clown.

On every occasion when the indefensible needed to be defended, Brian was wheeled out to tell everybody that there was “no problem’.

It seems now that Brian’s son, Conor Lenihan is happy to maintain this legacy. On last Sunday’s Marian Finucane show (43rd min.) Conor defended the on-going emasculation of the Freedom of Information Act by claiming that the new restrictions would save taxpayers’ money.

Using this logic, Conor would, presumably, be in favour of disbanding the Gardai, thus saving the taxpayer millions.

Seems it’s a case of – like father, like son.