Phil Hogan was on the news tonight. So, back from his holiday in Siberia just in time for the referendum count.
Month: May 2012
Irish perjury law: Strictly reserved for the peasants
David Cameron’s former communications chief, Andy Coulson, has been arrested and charged with perjury.
Coulson is suspected of lying under oath at the trial of former Scottish Socialist Party leader Tommy Sheridan
Sheridan, who was on trial for perjury, was found guilty and jailed for three years.
The arrest, trial and jailing of similarly influential people in Ireland is an absolute impossibility.
There is, of course, a law against perjury in Ireland but its enforcement is strictly reserved for ordinary citizens
Gombeens jump on the RTE/Fr. Reynolds scandal bandwagon
I finally found my way through the labyrinth that is RTE’s archive system to Drivetime of May 16th last.
I wanted to confirm some of the comments made by politicians at the Oireachtas Communications Committee hearing into the RTE/Fr. Reynolds scandal.
Eamon O’Cuiv:
How much is it in the groupthink and culture of RTE to decide the story first and then try assemble the evidence afterwards.
This is hilarious coming from a man who, for his entire political career, has loyally served the most corrupt political party in the country.
Such unquestioning loyalty can only arise from the unique groupthink that evolved in Fianna Fail over the decades as each member learned to defend himself, his party and his party leader no matter what the crime, no matter what the scandal, no matter what the damage to Ireland and its people.
I do not believe that this matter should be allowed to rest because I believe that there is evidence of a deep cultural problem within RTE.
O’Cuiv has yet to acknowledge the deep corrupt cultural problems of Fianna Fail.
He went on to demand an independent review of all news and current affairs programmes broadcast in recent years.
The man is a complete idiot.
Michael Healy-Rae:
RTE had lost the run of themselves. Are we going to have in the future more stringent controls because otherwise it will be RTE and our journalists who will be running the country and that’s not fair and it’s not right.
Well, what can be said about this man? When they invented the gombeen they didn’t throw away the moulds.
They’re still up and walking around in the form of the Healy-Rae’s.
The curious case of the anonymous councillor
Gardai are to prepare a file for the Director of Public Prosecutions after arresting and questioning a town councillor in Cork over the alleged fraudulent claiming of expenses for attending a conference earlier this year.
Curiously and, to my knowledge, unusually, the individual involved is not named in the report.
There was, for example, no problem naming former Fianna Fail TD, Ned O’Keeffe when he was arrested and questioned in relation to similar allegations.
In his case there is also a file being forwarded to the DPP.
I rang the Garda Station in Bandon where the councillor was questioned but they declined to name him.
I rang the Garda HQ Press Office and, predictably, was fed a wagonload of pure waffle.
The DPPs office was similarly unhelpful.
Recently, however, an interesting message came to my ear concerning a particular councillor, which may be connected to the case – time will tell.
It’s noteworthy that the arrest followed a complaint by a concerned citizen who became suspicious of the councillor’s activities.
Cleary, Irish citizens are waking up to the damage done to the country by wayward politicians.
Same crime; different messages
I wrote recently about a woman convicted of social welfare fraud totalling €229,000.
Even though the woman repaid the money the judge said it was important to send out a message to deter such crimes, or words to that effect.
Meanwhile, a struck-off solicitor who stole more than €9,000 during what was described as a schematic criminal fraud has also been before the courts.
The solicitor’s lawyers asked the judge to note that he had repaid the stolen money but the judge was clear.
A message has to be sent out to deter such crimes.
Seven months jail –suspended.
Senator Mullen: What is he on?
Senator Ronan Mullen thinks that politicians who are calling for heads to roll over the Fr. Reynolds case are missing the point.
If we are only going to hyperventilate, shout and scream and demand that heads roll, the public will not take us seriously as people with a genuine and important role to play in establishing the truth about matters of public controversy.
Politicians have a genuine and important role to play in establishing the truth????
What is this man on?
Social welfare fraud – Jail. Banking fraud? – Still waiting
A Dublin woman, Mary Connors, has been jailed for three years for making fraudulent social welfare claims totalling €229,000 over a 14 year period up to 2010.
Ms. Connors fully cooperated with the police and has paid back all the money.
Gardai had searched her home and a detective from the Criminal Assets Bureau (CAB) was assigned to her case.
So, no messing there. Gardai dealt with the case directly, special detective from CAB assigned to the case to make sure justice was done.
The judge presiding was clear; this is a serious case, public money, three years.
Meanwhile, it seems that former Senator Ivor Callely is unlikely to be pursued for the return of €6,000 he has been overpaid in expenses.
Apparently, there’s no legal basis to pursue him because the error was made by the Department of Transport.
The law is different for ordinary peasants on social welfare. Every penny can and is pursued whether it’s fraud or an error by a civil servant.
If it’s fraud by a peasant, it’s jail.
If it’s an error by a civil servant, it’s a bonus and promotion.
Ms. Connors was caught in 2010 and is now on her way to jail.
The bankers who destroyed the state were caught in 2008 – We’re still waiting.
Mary Kenny: An unrepentant Catholic militant
Journalist and Catholic militant Mary Kenny recently wrote an article (Irish Catholic, 10th May) in which she called for more clarity in the media when the crime of child abuse is being reported.
I think the word child abuse is a catch-all phrase and quite often in reports it doesn’t make clear what the offence actually was.
In her opinion there should be three categories of child abuse.
Category one: Molestation, which, according to Ms. Kenny, is known as ‘fiddling’.
Category two: Masturbation, which, according to Ms. Kenny, is known as ‘a hand job’.
Category three: Rape, which is penetration of the anus or vagina.
Her article, rightly, generated a great deal of anger particularly from child abuse victims.
When interviewed by Pay Kenny (11th May) on the issue Ms. Kenny began by saying:
Well, I’m not a specialist in this area at all and I’m not a lawyer. I write simply as a journalist and I try to follow George Orwell’s great rule that the first duty of a writer is to express clarity.
This, of course, is untrue. Ms. Kenny does not write ‘simply as a journalist’.
She writes and defends her extreme religious views because she is a militant Catholic who believes that her god and her church is the one true god/church.
I have no doubt that she understands, at least to some degree, the pain of those abused by her church.
I have no doubt that, generally speaking, she is a good person but I also have no doubt that she suffers from one very serious flaw.
Her reasoning faculty, like that of all religious militants, has been damaged by religious indoctrination.
Such damage allows religious militants to defend their particular religion no matter how many or how horrendous the crimes carried out in its name and under its protection.
Broadly speaking; those who are of a religious disposition can be broken down into three categories.
Those who are happy to continue practicing whatever beliefs they happened to be indoctrinated into as children.
Such believers usually deal with criminal behaviour within their church by separating the actions of their religious leaders from the goodness of their particular god.
Those who simply cannot accept the crimes done in the name of their god.
Such people either join another church or abandon religious belief altogether.
And then there are the militants.
These people go to enormous lengths to sound reasonable in the face of the horrendous crimes committed by their church.
Their church is, first and foremost, the most important aspect of their lives. They will allow nothing, absolutely nothing, to override their total dedication to their particular god.
Such people have an innate ability to defend the indefensible.
I include below part of the Pat Kenny interview of Mary Kenny and some responses from Marie Collins, a victim of Mary Kenny’s church.
Mary Kenny: Well, I’m not a specialist in this area at all and I’m not a lawyer.
I write simply as a journalist and I try to follow George Orwell’s great rule that the first duty of a writer is to express clarity.
I think the word child abuse is a catch-all phrase and quite often in reports it doesn’t make clear what the offence actually was.
Simply as a writer I would say there should be three categories of explaining what this offence is.
The first category would be molestation, which I think, in the vernacular, is called fiddling.
The second is masturbation, which is usually called a hand job in the vernacular.
And the third is rape, which is penetration of the anus and the vagina.
Sometimes when I read a report or read an interview and they talk about child rape I’m not sure whether they actually mean actual penetration or whether they mean it in a metaphorical sense.
Now all attacks on children are odious but I still think we should be told in clear language and follow that Orwell rule, what do they mean?
Many interviews with victims of child abuse, as it’s called, conceal more than they reveal, they don’t tell you what actually what went on.
I do think that context is very important. It’s very important exactly what age the victim was at the time.
Pat Kenny: Why is that important?
Mary Kenny: Because some people are very vulnerable at fourteen and some people are very street wise at ten.
Pat Kenny plays a clip from the recent BBC documentary concerning then Fr. Brady’s part in interrogating Brendan Boland, a child abuse victim.
BBC journalist: What did they ask you?
Boland: Did you ever do anything like this before with another boy or grown man and I said no.
They said, if not, why not? They kept asking me, did my body change, did I get an erection, did seed come from my body?
BBC journalist: What kind of questions are these to ask a fourteen-year-old boy?
Boland: One of the priests came over; I’m not sure, with a bible and made me put my hand on the bible and say:
I Brendan Boland do solemnly swear that I have told the truth, the whole truth and I will speak to no one about this meeting unless to authorized priests.
Then I signed it and the other signature on the document was Fr. John B. Brady. Now Sean Brady, Cardinal of all Ireland.
Pat Kenny: You see there a fourteen-year-old boy who found it difficult and inappropriate to discuss the nature of these offences with priests.
Mary Kenny: Of course and it was absolutely wrong of Fr. Brady getting the boy to swear to secrecy.
Marie Collins: (abused by a priest as a child)
I was totally sickened when I read the article.
After so many years of knowledge and awareness of child abuse, I couldn’t believe what I was reading.
What Mary is not covering here is that the whole suggestion in this article is directed at Brendan Smyth’s victims and the whole suggestion running through it as a sub text is that somehow these boys, because they’re not coming out with the gory details, that they could have been colluding in their own abuse.
She says at one stage ‘I accept that if John was a victim of an odious crime’ but I want to know more about the circumstances, much more.
I would ask, why? What does she want to know about the circumstances? An adult male sexually interfered with a minor, that’s a criminal offence.
If Mary Kenny wants to know the categories of child abuse they are laid down in every child protection document that you ever read.
She is obviously ignorant of the fact that a child can be abused without being touched and I’d like give a personal example:
I was abused and category three, as Mary would define it, was part of my abuse and that was a penetration.
But I was also photographed intimately and that photography did more harm to my childhood and did more harm to the rest of my life than the actual category three abuse.
Mary Kenny is totally ignorant and her ignorance in this case is just so…I just hope victims don’t read this because there is already guilt connected with abuse and to suggest that ‘oh only this happened to you but not that so therefore it’s not as serious’.
Somebody’s life can be destroyed by being fiddled with as she says. It is just ridiculous to come in the context of Brendan Smyth the demand to know the actual details.
What Mary Kenny is saying is we want to ask the sort of questions those three priests asked that young boy, Brendan Boland, in 1975.
Does she have no idea how hard it is for a victim to talk to anybody about what has been done to them?
And she wants them to put it in print and if they don’t she’s suggesting they’re being evasive or that there’s not enough honesty.
The whole thrust of this argument in this article is sickening.
Mary Kenny: I respect everything Marie Collins says.
Marie Collins: Read the documents if you want clarity.
Copy to:
Mary Kenny
The genius of Patrick Honohan to solve all our problems
I watched in utter astonishment as the governor of the Central Bank, Patrick Honohan, in just one stroke of absolute genius came up with the solution to all our problems (Six One News).
Some of our analysis suggests that if unemployment could be got under control and could come down even part way towards where it was before the crisis that this would have a very, very substantial effect on curing those mortgage arrears, a surprisingly large effect.
Mr. Honohan is an international economics professor and and expert on financial crises so I suppose it’s not that surprising that he has come up with the solution that will see all our worries dissolve into thin air.
But, my goodness, why did nobody else see this obvious solution?
I suppose becasue he must be the only expert on financial crises.
Anyway, Mr. Honohan has inspired me. Here’s some ideas I’ve come up with after some overnight analysis.
Drill like mad all around the coast and we’re sure to find billions of gallons of oil. This will pay off our national debt with enough left over to give one million to every man, woman and child in the country.
Make contact with an alien species who have no idea of the concept of wealth but live on a planet made of solid gold. Offer them the one thing they crave – the mad analysis of a central banker, in exchange for their gold.
Ask every expatriate to donate $5 to the nation and before you know it all our problems will be a thing of the past.
No, wait, that last suggestion has already been made by some politician – No, really, it has.
He must be a member of Mr. Honohan’s analysis team.
Another question for the Data Commissioner
Just couldn’t get that answer I received from the Data Commissioner out of my mind regarding the naming of companies in his annual report so I’ve asked for some clarification.
Dear…,
Thank you for the information regarding the naming of companies/individuals in the Data Commissioner’s Annual Report.
I am, however, still puzzled and would be grateful if you could explain further.
My understanding is that, under the rule of absolute privilege, a statement cannot be sued on as defamatory even if made maliciously.
The most visible example, as you will know, is the absolute privilege extended to politicians speaking in the Houses of the Oireachtas.
My understanding is that this legal facility is given to politicians so that they can bring certain matters to public attention without fear of being sued.
In other words, the facility acts as a protection for politicians and, I presume, the Data Commissioner, so that they can serve the public interest by making pubic, information which could not otherwise be made available outside of absolute privilege.
I would be grateful if you could help clarify the matter for me by answering the following question.
How is it possible to name some companies under the protection of absolute privilege but not to name others given that the entire report clearly enjoys the protection of absolute privilege?
The decision to name some but not others is especially puzzling when it is realised that some of the breaches are practically identical.
For example:
Case 13 deals with a company refusing to divulge information to a customer and the company is named.
Case 10, on the other hand, deals with financial institutions refusing to divulge information to customers but the Commissioner decided that these companies could not be named.
Yours etc.,
Anthony Sheridan