Pat Kenny defeated by Martin waffle

Michael Martin, traitor and leader of the most corrupt political party in Ireland, a party that is principally responsible for the destruction of the country, a party that never, ever condemns its own corrupt members like, for example, the criminal Haughey.

So it should have been easy for even the most inexperienced greenhorn journalist to completely destroy the hypocritical arguments put forward by this low grade politician when he tries to occupy the high moral ground in respect of Michael Lowry and the Moriarty Tribunal Report.

On his radio show this morning Pat Kenny failed abjectly in this respect.

Martin easily waffled his way around the weak and mostly irrelevant challenges offered by Kenny, for example.

Kenny accused Martin of hypocrisy given that Fianna Fail, who are now condemning Lowry, were more than willing to do business with him while in government.

Martin responded by saying that those dealings took place before the publication of the Moriarty Tribunal Report:

Every person before any tribunal is accorded the right to have their case heard by the tribunal and one does not sit on judgement on that until the tribunal reports.

The delivery of this cynical and dishonest argument was the cue for any greenhorn journalist to close the trap by simply putting it to Martin that Lowry’s reputation had been utterly destroyed years ago after the publication of the McCracken Report.

Kenny, apparently completely unaware of Lowry’s shady past involving tax evasion, lying and planning irregularities, let Martin off the hook by accepting his ridiculous argument.

Copy to:
Pat Kenny

Sarah Carey: Safe to lie in the special realm?

In a mostly self-serving article Irish Times columnist Sarah Carey has admitted that she lied to the Moriarty Tribunal (more on the lie later).

In the article, Ms. Carey, who used to work for Denis O’Brien, says that corporate fundraising should be banned not because of any danger of corruption but because it would stop all the innuendo and accusation surrounding the practice.

It is disturbing that an opinion maker like Ms. Carey, writing for such a prestigious and influential newspaper like the Irish Times, is so naive as to suggest that corporate/political fundraising in Ireland is transparent and honest, that all the corrupt events of the last number of decades is based on nothing more than innuendo and (false?) accusations.

Clearly, Ms. Carey is ignorant of or chooses to ignore the avalanche of corruption that has blighted the people of Ireland over the last number of decades primarily due to the very cosy and to a large degree, corrupt relationship between business and politics.

Indeed, she appears to be blissfully unaware of the fact that it is this diseased relationship that is principally responsible for the destruction of our country and the impoverishment of generations of Irish citizens to come.

Ms. Carey’s admission that she lied to the Tribunal is interesting because, to my knowledge, she gave evidence under oath. If that is the case then surely she has committed perjury?

Or perhaps not because in Ireland perjury is not so much a general crime as a crime that seems to be strictly confined to ‘ordinary’ citizens.

Take the case of poor old Thomas Morey for example.

Morey was given a one year jail term for perjury for refusing to give evidence in a murder trial; he claimed he couldn’t remember the night in question (A common enough excuse, I’m sure you will agree).

But that wasn’t the end for poor old Morey. The Court of Criminal Appeal found that the sentence was too lenient and hauled Morey back to court with the intention of imposing a much stiffer sentence on this ‘ordinary’ citizen.

One of the judges said:

It was important for a functioning society that people required to give evidence in criminal proceedings should do so.

Granted, this is a criminal case involving murder but there are other less serious cases where ‘ordinary’ citizens have been severely punished for lying under oath.

To my knowledge, despite years and years of tribunals and other sworn investigations in which lying under oath was the order of the day, not a single person from the political, business or media world has been charged with perjury.

So even if Ms. Carey lied under oath and I stress, if, she has nothing to worry about because her lies were uttered within a special realm where politicians, businessmen, legal personnel, media people and even policemen can lie under oath with impunity.

O'Brien repeats serious allegation against judiciary

On Thursday last I wrote about Denis O’Brien’s extremely serious allegation that the judiciary had put a ring of steel around Justice Moriarty because they knew he was never up to the job.

During an interview with Pat Kenny (Friday) O’Brien initially seemed to withdraw the allegation when Kenny suggested it would be an appalling vista if the entire judiciary were to collude against one man.

O’Brien said:

You’ve got to separate the wider judiciary from Justice Moriarty. I believe I was stitched by Justice Moriarty but I’m not in any way critical of the wider judicial community.

It’s a measure of O’Brien’s lack of mental coordination that, minutes later, he repeated the allegation when Kenny again suggested he take his case to the courts.

O’Brien:

Look, do you know a lot about the legal profession, the judiciary and the Law Society. There’s a code amongst them all that they don’t take each other on, they don’t criticise each other.

And:

There’s a ring of steel around Moriarty because they knew, the judiciary knew, that he was never up to the job, he’s a Circuit Court judge.

As I wrote on Thursday, in a real democracy with proper law enforcement O’Brien would by now find himself before a judge explaining his accusations.

Minister for Justice Alan Shatter has responded to the hysterical rants of O’Brien and Lowry regarding Justice Moriarty and the judiciary in general saying:

Statements which endanger public confidence in our judiciary and in our courts are entirely unacceptable and are to be deplored.

Legal expert Professor Gerry Whyte of Trinity Law School said that if criticism of the judiciary went so far as to undermine public confidence in the administration of justice then we’re talking about an offence called scandalising the court.

If Minister Shatter genuinely thinks the comments are unacceptable then he should immediately initiate proceedings against O’Brien and Lowry.

Corrupt Senate elections

I’m not sure how but could the non implementation of the 1979 referendum to extend the franchise to all graduates have something to do with the corrupt manner in which Senate elections are conducted?

I’m thinking perhaps that if the franchise was extended it might have diluted political manipulation of the election outcome.

This would explain why no political party has ever objected to the non implementation.

Here’s part of an RTE interview with Stephen Collins during the 2007 Senate election after the Green Party (naively) objected to illegal supervision of voting.

Collins: The Greens find that supervision is an intrusion and in fact it’s illegal. The political parties have done this over the years.

The big parties, Fianna Fail and I think Fine Gael have tried to ensure that their councilors voted in ways the party HQ would like and at times ballots have been supervised.

There has been deals before, the PDs voted for FF candidates in the last election and in return got Seanad seats.

Again there was talk of the votes being supervised but in fact it’s illegal to supervise voting and the Green councilors had legitimacy making that point.

How is it done?

Collins: Well, Councillors get their votes, ballot papers in the post but they have to have a witness to ensure they have voted in the correct manner.

There is a declaration and usually a County Manager signs the declaration which goes into another envelope.

What the parties try to do is get the Councillors in a group so that as well as the County Manager verifying that it’s being done legally, that parties can have influence over how Councillors vote.

Denis O'Brien blackmailed?

On The Late Debate last Tuesday Irish Times journalist Colm Keena related an incredible story of how Denis O’Brien was blackmailed over alleged false documentation to the Moriarty Tribunal.

There was a fellow up in the North called Kevin Phelan, he didn’t give evidence to the tribunal but according to the judge he knew that some of the documentation that had been given to the tribunal was false and had been doctored.

He used that information to put pressure on Denis O’Brien and was paid 150,000 Sterling by Denis O’Brien in what the judge said was an effort to get him to desist from his threats to undermine the stories that had been told to the tribunal.

New government/new dawn: How long before the fall?

This government will hit the ground running.

said Enda Kenny

And indeed it did, reducing TDs pay, taking away the mercs but there was a stumble when the promised reduction of junior ministers from 15 to 12 didn’t materialize.

Now Kenny has hinted the abolition of the Senate is more complicated than he first thought, another stumble.

How long before the fall?

Ireland: An irretrievably corrupt state

I’ve just discovered that a referendum held in 1979 (32 years ago) which asked the people if they wanted to extend the franchise in Senate elections to include all third-level graduates was passed but never implemented.

I rang the Dept. of the Environment to inquire how this was possible in a so called democratic state.

Specifically, I wanted to know if there was any legal/legislative obligation on the part of civil servants or politicians to implement the will of the people as a result of a referendum.

The official I spoke with said, to her knowledge, there was no such obligation, that there was no time limit in which a referendum result had to be legally activated.

I took the following explanation of Article 46 of the Constitution from the Dept’s website.

Under Article 46 of the Constitution, a proposal to amend the Constitution must be introduced in the Dail as a Bill. When the Bill has been passed by both Houses of the Oireachtas (Parliament), it must be submitted to the people for approval as a referendum. If a majority of the votes cast at the referendum are in favour of the proposal, the Bill is signed by the President and the Constitution is amended accordingly.

This is crystal clear; if a majority is in favour the Bill will be passed.

It seems the people who drew up the Constitution never dreamed that our republic would ever degenerate into an irretrievably corrupt state.

They assumed that political and civil service standards of honesty, accountability and professionalism would remain at a level that would not require every possible angle to be legislatively and forensically covered to avoid official trickery.

I’m getting to the point where I feel the need to take a hot, cleansing shower after every news report.

Copy to:

Dept. of Environment

Joe Higgins: Last honest politician to join Gombeen land

There was some guy by the name of Paul Murphy on Liveline today claiming that the title MEP had been bestowed on him by Socialist Party leader Joe Higgins.

An angry caller to the show accused Higgins of gross hypocrisy for doing something he is constantly condemning other political parties for doing – handing out lucrative jobs to his own supporters.

Murphy, whoever he is, defended himself by making the following points:

He would use his position to help the people he represents.

If Higgins didn’t apppoint a successor the Government would appoint one of their own.

On the question of salary and expenses Mr. Murphy, whoever he is, said that if he didn’t take it the EU would. He said that most of the money would go to help his party’s cause.

The angry caller (rightly) said that this defence was beside the point, that all political parties could make the same case.

He suggested that Joe Higgins, if he wanted to remain true to his principles, should have let the job go altogether.

I agree with the angry caller.

Denis O'Brien accuses the judiciary

The following extremely serious accusation was made against the Irish judiciary by businessman Denis O’Brien on live television (Six One News, 34.10).

This judge (Michael Moriarty) is flawed…you have to challenge and I don’t care who it is, a judge when he’s flawed.

I lost my challenges against this judge because the judiciary have put a ring of steel around him because they know he was never up to the job of actually writing this report and subsequently said’ God, we better protect this man’.

In a real democracy with proper law enforcement O’Brien would by now find himself before a judge explaining his accusations.

Ireland's economic earthquake

It was reported on RTE News tonight that the Japanese earthquake, at €200 billion, is the world’s worst disaster in economic terms.

I think our economic disaster, coming in somewhere around €250/300 billion, easily beats that.