Prime Time/Fr. Reynolds scandal: The religious vultures are out

RTEs mismanagement of the Fr. Reynolds scandal has released the religious vultures from their cages.

For years they were kept in check, busily defending their church as the full horror of the child abuse holocaust spewed out its dark secrets.

These militant Catholics are now using the Reynolds/Prime Time scandal as a stick to assault the entire media effectively claiming that their obnoxious church is a victim of media prejudice.

Some of the principal militants are: John Waters; David Quinn; Breda O’Brien, Mary Kenny, Fr Sean McDonagh and Senator Ronan Mullen.

This group have already begun their media campaign of duplicity coupled with the usual warped Catholic moralising.

Mary Kenny has an article in this week’s Irish Catholic with the heading:

We all have to learn humility

Kenny warns her readers not to be too quick to crow over the faults of others and then goes on to do just that; some quotes.

Don’t get too much above yourself – pride will cause you to make a serious mistake.

It is merely human pride to persist in a line of thinking in which your ego is invested.

RTE is so vigorous in calling for ‘accountability’ from other sources; shouldn’t they practice what they preach?

Cllr. Kennedy: It was an honest and genuine mistake

I finally received the Cllr. Kennedy report last Friday. Its contents were predictable.

Cllr. Kennedy outlined the matter pretty much as it appeared in media reports.

His principal point was that he had made an honest and genuine mistake which, when it was brought to his attention, he immediately refunded the payments.

Limerick City Council, after considering Cllr. Kennedy’s excuse, decided that he was telling the truth.

The Council summed up as follows:

The matter highlights the importance of ensuring that claim forms are properly and accurately completed before being submitted for payment.

Having regard to this and the requirement for openness and transparency in the public service, the undersigned have decided to refer a copy of this report to the Standards in Public Office Commission for their information.

It would, of course, have been astonishing if the outcome had been any different.

I considered submitting the complaint to SIPO but it’s an absolute certainty that the outcome would be the same – and Christmas is nearly upon us.

RTE replies

I received the following email from RTE in response to my article on the Fr. Reynolds scandal.

Dear Mr Sheridan

Your email has been forwarded to me with the request that I reply on behalf of RTÉ . There are currently three inquiries taking place into the Prime Time Investigates programme that defamed Fr Reynolds. RTÉ has apologised for the inaccuracy of the programme and paid substantial damages to Fr Reynolds. It would be wrong to anticipate the outcome of those inquiries, but in the meantime the Managing Director of News and Current Affairs and the Editor of Current Affairs have stood down from their positions and the reporter and executive producer have been reassigned.

I do not know what else RTÉ can do until the inquiries report.

Yours sincerely

Peter Feeney
Head of Broadcast Compliance

Reminder: Ireland is not to blame for the catastrophe

At the very beginning of a Prime Time special last night viewers were ‘informed’ of who was responsible for Ireland’s woes.

2,000 miles away a country in turmoil lit the spark in a wildfire that would overwhelm Ireland and threaten to destroy the single currency.

Greece, according to the programme, was brought to the brink of financial collapse by a combination of corruption, chronic indebtedness and a dysfunctional tax system.

Ireland, on the other hand was ‘damaged’ by a combination of reckless banks, inept regulators and disastrous economic policies.

For a full hour the programme analysed the loss of Ireland’s financial independence without once mentioning the word ‘corruption’.

It is no mean achievement to analyse a country brought to ruin by political, financial and administrative corruption without once referring to that reality.

Greece is corrupt; Ireland is not, apparently.

So let’s bring ourselves up to date on who is to blame for the catastrophe visited upon Ireland.

The global financial crisis.

Lehman Brothers.

The German and French banks

And now – the Greeks.

Copy to:

Prime Time

For Marian Finucane's information…

One of the ‘sensational’ claims made by David Drumm to journalist Niall O’Dowd was that Central Bank and the Financial Regulator knew everything that was going on in Anglo and that they in fact acted as a ‘team’ throughout 2008.

O’Dowd admitted that he was completely unaware of this situation and clearly sees it as a major, new, news story.

Finucane was also astonished on hearing the claim. It would be quite extraordinary, she gasped.

Such ignorance from O’Dowd is understandable, he lives in America and is obviously not the brightest of journalists.

But there is no excuse for Finucane who has, for decades, been at the centre of events in Ireland.

She must know (or maybe she doesn’t) that the Dept. of Finance, the Financial Regulator and senior politicians knew about the DIRT fraud, knew about the Ansbacher fraud and knew about dozens of other frauds within the Irish financial sector over the decades.

The authorities never took any action to bring these frauds to an end. The criminals were allowed free rein to plunder the state and its citizens at will, without fear of ever being brought to justice.

And just for Marian Finucane’s information, the situation remains exactly the same as I write.

That is, there is still no financial regulation in Ireland when it comes to the financial sector; crime is still rampant within the sector.

Copy to:
Marian Finucane

Simon Kelly: The scumbag returns

While checking out O’Dowd interview with David Drumm I came across this piece by the journalist.

What’s interesting here is the comment by one Simon J Kelly. (The comment has been cleaned up of spelling and grammatical errors).

David’s (Drumm) story is spot on. Anybody who thinks that pinning the blame on a few bankers for Ireland’s collapse is delusional.

That is also the informed opinion of the official report carried out on the banking collapse by Nyberg.

I screwed up like so many other Irish people and so did David. We need to learn from it and get over it, it’s a witch hunt.

AIB will loose almost as much as Anglo, but I don’t see the government chasing those guys.

There are winners and losers. That’s the nature of all things.

We just need a system that accepts this rather than punished people who try and fail.

The Irish in Ireland need to learn from the Irish in America.

This Kelly is, I believe, one of the scumbag developers responsible for the impoverishment of the Irish people.

Niall O'Dowd: Completely fooled by David Drumm

Niall O’Dowd is an Irish American journalist and author, he’s also a very gullible individual.

He spoke to Marian Finucane (Sunday) about an interview he conducted earlier this month wth former CEO of Anglo Irish Bank, David Drumm, in which the disgraced banker poured his heart out.

Now, the first question that any competent journalist would ask himself is – what’s this man’s agenda, why is he so eager to speak to a journalist?

O’Dowd never noticed that he was being used and fell for Drumm’s bullshit hook, line and sinker.

Some quotes:

He wanted to make his side of the story plain; I think he felt he had been the victim of a witch hunt in Ireland both in the media and personally.

He wanted to give an interview to a journalist in America rather than in Ireland, he was more comfortable with that scenario.

I’ll bet he was and he made a good choice – an obviously uninformed and naïve journalist.

What I was looking for Marian was the human story because behind all these great scandals there are lives and that’s what I tried to bring out in the interview.

I think you’re looking at a guy in very deep anguish for all the obvious reasons.

What was interesting to me was his very deep sense that he was one of many yet he felt he’s been singled out.

Ahhhhh, wouldn’t your heart be broken listening to such tragedy?

Cardiff accepts responsibility – sort of

Kevin Cardiff before the European Parliament’s Budgetary Control Committee.

On the double counting issue, (€3.6 billion) well that’s slightly different. On that I am at the head of the administrative pyramid responsible.

Not entirely, the National Statistics Office also is involved but I have to, as the responsible official say that yes, that was my organisation’s responsibility and therefore mine.

Cardiff just doesn’t have the ability to say – yes, I’m responsible without roping in those below him, the system, politicians or, in this case, the NSO.

But there is no doubt that he is accepting responsibility, without accepting that he should suffer any consequences, of course.

A Christmas fairy tale by Proinsias De Rossa

Welcome Mr. Cardiff and welcome to the hearing here today.

I have to say by way of preamble I’m very pleased that the Irish Government is offering a person of such in Ireland, of such integrity and qualifications for the job of auditor.

I have been arguing for a long time with my colleagues in government that we must that we must make a very serious contribution to Europe and we must do so by having people here who are of the highest quality and the highest qualifications.

I am therefore very pleased that they have, on this occasion at least, listened to me and that they have put forward Mr. Cardiff for this job.

I’m impressed by the openness in which you’re answering the questions here today. I would urge members not to pay attention to emails which are driven by party political considerations rather than considerations of fact and qualifications and the Treaty obligations that are on us as MEPs to ensure that the person we appoint here has integrity, independence and qualifications.

That’s the criteria we have to apply here today.