Senate referendum: A once in a lifetime chance to damage our corrupt political system

I don’t know nor care why Enda Kenny decided to allow Irish citizens an opportunity to abolish the Senate in a referendum on 4 October next.

What I do know with absolute certainty is that it is the greatest opportunity Irish citizens have ever been granted to do serious damage to the corrupt system that has betrayed and destroyed their country.

The Senate is much more than an exclusive club for the ruling/ privileged elite. It serves two other crucially important purposes.

It is an important visible symbol of the ruling elite’s power and it serves as an invaluable networking base to maintain that power and privilege.

I have no doubt that people such as Michael McDowell, David Norris, Mary O’Rourke and others are horrified at the prospect of losing this powerful institution that has, over the decades, been corrupted out of its original, legitimate use to become an exclusive club where political and business insiders look after each other’s interests.

The arguments put forward by the NO side are, for the most part, dishonest and ridiculous.

For example, the campaigning group Democracy Matters is asking citizens to vote in favour of retaining the Senate in order to revive the economy.

This ridiculous idea demonstrates the dearth of genuine reasons on the NO side for retaining the rotten institution.

The principal argument put forward by the NO side is political reform. Retain the Senate and we will (really, honestly this time) reform it to serve the people.

Well, we’ve heard that promise many, many times over the decades and 12 reform reports later we’re still waiting.

In 1979 the people voted in favour of a tiny, insignificant reform, the extension of the Senate franchise to graduates of all universities.

What happened?

Government after government, political party after political party contemptuously ignored the will of the people.

This elite club just couldn’t bring itself to share any power whatsoever with the great unwashed.

There will be no real political reform for so long as the corrupt political/administrative system responsible for destroying the lives of so many citizens remains in place. This will be the case whether or not the Senate is abolished.

If the referendum is defeated and the Senate remains in place those promising to reform the institution will, without a shadow of doubt, break their promise, it’s the way of Irish politics.

Instead, we will see the usual pretence of reform that will have just one principal aim – to ensure the Senate remains an exclusive club for the ruling elite.

The YES side led by Enda Kenny is just as dishonest when it promises major political reforms to compensate for the loss of the Senate.

There will be no substantial reform of our corrupt political system. The entire political system needs to be abolished and replaced with a truly democratic system that is publicly accountable and subject to the rule of law.

It is obvious that a great many people will be tempted to vote NO in order to punish this government or because they have given up on politics in general.

This would be a great pity.

This government will go; another will be installed. There will be no change; the corrupt system will continue to exploit Irish citizens as it has done for decades.

Any satisfaction gained by punishing this government will be short-term only.

If, however, the Senate is abolished it will send an earth-shattering shock through the corrupt political/administrative system. It will inflict permanent damage on the system from which it is unlikely to recover.

A vote to abolish will remove, in one decisive blow, a major source of support for those who desperately want to maintain the current rotten political system.

A vote to abolish could see the beginning of the end for the corrupt system that has blighted our country for so many decades and perhaps, just perhaps, set us on the road to building a new republic where politicians of vision and courage work for the good of the country and its people.

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All political parties

Once again the Financial Regulator fails to regulate

Once again politicians are astonished and shocked that the Financial Regulator has failed to regulate (Irish Independent).

Once again the Financial Regulator will face questioning from the shocked and astonished politicians.

Once again the Financial Regulator will fill them with bullshit and by extension tell the people of Ireland to go take a hike.

Once again the absolute refusal of the Financial Regulator to regulate will facilitate the rampant criminal activity within the financial sector.

Once again the people of Ireland will pay the extremely high cost of living in a banana republic.

Senator Norris: Politicians must not display their elite/privileged position too blatantly

The following pompous/patronising statement was delivered by Senator David Norris in May 2011 during the first session of the current Senate.

It is our responsibility by reason of our privileged position not to encourage the notion that we are a special class. Politicians are merely ordinary people who have taken on an extra burden of responsibility on behalf of the wider community. We should not see ourselves or behave as if we were an elite.

On the same occasion Senator Norris pompously compared the parochial, elitist club that is Seanad Eireann with the Roman Republic and its senate.

As if there was even the remotest link between the greatness of ancient Rome and the activities of a crowd of gombeen bog trotters labouring under the delusion that they live in an accountable democracy.

Mary O’Rourke has more respect for the criminal Haughey than she has for the people of Ireland.

In her recent memoir Mary O’Rourke dedicated a chapter in honour of her long-time friend, the criminal politician Haughey.

I say ‘in honour’ because O’Rourke makes no analysis or comment on the criminal’s career/crimes. The chapter simply relates her cosy Christmas visit to the criminal’s home.

O’Rourke’s visit to Haughey after he had been exposed as a corrupt politician and her decision to dedicate a chapter to the criminal tells us that she has more respect and admiration for the traitor than she does for her country.

She is, in effect, saying to the people of Ireland:

I don’t care what damage Haughey’s criminality and corruption did to you, to your children, to your dreams and ambitions or to your country; I place my loyalty to him above all that is important to you.

Michael Martin deploys the Haughey H-bomb

Interesting article in Saturday’s Irish Independent.

Fiendish plan fools no one

Liam Fay 21 September 2013

The truth hurts. Nobody knows this better than Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin, long-time linchpin in a party with a shameful history of corruption and incompetence.

In a stunt worthy of his most devious predecessors, however, Martin (pictured right) has concocted a fiendish plan: he will use the ugly truth about his own party as a weapon to hurt his opponents.

Martin has accused Enda Kenny of behaving like a dictator, adding poison to the lance by likening Kenny to Charlie Haughey.

Inter-party name-calling is hardly news, but Martin’s deployment of the H-bomb is remarkable. Ordinarily, Haughey and his henchmen are never mentioned by Fianna Fáil bigwigs – for fear of reigniting some explosive questions.

But desperate times call for desperate measures. Party bosses have now chosen attack as the best defence, and they have much to be defensive about. These are the guys who shielded Bertie Ahern. They are also the geniuses who told usBrian Cowen is a smart man.

Invoking a former Fianna Fáil leader’s name as a political insult is a brazen move by Martin. Nevertheless, it’s in keeping with the guiding principle of the party’s rebranding strategy: the confident belief that much of the electorate was born yesterday.

Is the DPP warning Michael Smith and Village magazine?

The Director of Public Prosecutions, Claire Loftus, has just published her annual report.

In the Foreword she issued the following warning to the media.

I want to take this opportunity to say something generally about the risks of pre-trial publicity interfering with the right of an accused person to a fair trial.

The media and commentators have a high degree of responsibility to ensure that not only do they not commit a contempt of court by publishing or broadcasting prejudicial material but also that such publicity is not the cause of a trial being postponed for a long period, or even indefinitely.

These risks increase as any trial date approaches.

Could it be that her warning is aimed at the editor of Village magazine, Michael Smith, who issued the following challenge to Ms. Loftus and her office in the August/September issue?

Dear Ms. Loftus,

The whole country wants you to prosecute possible offences arising out of the planning and payments tribunals and banking collapses, which have devastated this country and disenfranchised a generation.

Democracy depends on the prosecutability of alleged white-collar crime.

If you do not initiate prosecutions of UniCredit Bank Ireland, John Bowe (formerly of Irish Anglo Bank), Michael Fingleton (formerly of INBS), Michael Lowry TD and allegedly ‘corrupt’ former Monarch Properties executives as a start, Village will itself generate prosecutions in early September.

Yours sincerely,

The Editor and Directors of Village magazine.

The citizens of Ireland owe a debt of gratitude to people like Michael Smith for their courage in challenging the might of a state that has for decades refused to act against the disease of white-collar and political corruption.

Dan Boyle: Still clueless about the reality of Irish politics

I see Dan Boyle has embarked on a year-long master’s in government and public policy (Irish Examiner).

The course explores the theory behind the Irish political system.

You would think, after 25 years involvement in public affairs, that Mr. Boyle would be an expert on the theory behind the Irish political system.

The theory is as simple as it is deadly for Ireland and its people:

The buying and selling of votes to elect gombeens who travel to Dublin to plunder public funds in order to pay off those who voted for them and lavish favours on all and sundry to ensure re-election.

Here’s Mr. Boyle’s take on Irish political history:

We came out of a period of 70 years of underachievement, followed by 10-years of exuberance and now we’re living through the hangover.

If the Celtic Tiger taught us anything, it was that the Irish could do great things.

Here’s the truth:

We came out of a period of 70 years of a gradual corruption of the political and administrative system followed by ten years of rampant greed and corruption that enriched those in power and their friends.

If the fallout from the Celtic Tiger has taught us anything, it is that nothing has changed, that the same corrupt political/administrative system is still in place and that the suffering of the Irish people is set to continue for some time yet.

Somehow I suspect that even after a year of intensive study Mr. Boyle will still be ignorant of this brutal reality.

McDowell trips over his arrogance

Michael McDowell was getting the better of Fine Gael director of elections, Regina Doherty during a debate on the upcoming Senate referendum (Late Debate, RTE).

But towards the end his arrogance got the better of him and, not for the first time, his elitist mindset betrayed his real reasons for retaining the Senate.

No European legislation is being considered in the Oireachtas – we need more expertise to deal with the EU – Do we really think that Michael Healy Rae, Ming Flanagan and various others are going to now spend their afternoons going through European directives and making suggestions for new laws to Europe, that’s not going to happen.

Doherty was quick to condemn his arrogance but McDowell just couldn’t stop himself.

Let’s look at the directly elected people in Seanad Eireann. Fergal Quinn, John Crown, Sean Barrett, David Norris Ivana Bacik and Ronan Mullen. They’re damned good senators, they’re good people.

Good people perhaps, but all members of an exclusive, elitist club that has long outlived any relevance it may have had.

Mary O'Rourkes's memoir: Dishonest and self-serving drivel

After months on my local library waiting list I finally got my hands on ‘Just Mary’ a memoir by former Fianna Fail politician Mary O’Rourke.

On principle, I would not buy the book. It would have made me physically sick to think I had contributed in any way to the wealth of this low grade, gombeen politician.

As I expected the book is nothing but a dishonest, self-serving attempt by O’Rourke to distance herself and her beloved Fianna Fail from any blame for the catastrophe visited upon Ireland and its people by her party.

On what went wrong for Fianna Fail and the country.

The biggest factor in our decline as a party was the blight of the global recession which hit us in 2008.

This is a dishonest claim: It was political corruption that destroyed the country and led to Fianna Fail’s downfall at the last election.

The Progressive Democrats:

O’Rourke claims that loose financial regulation was a key tenet of the PDs and became possible with the cooperation of Mary Harney’s friend Charlie McCreevy.

There is no escaping the fact that some aspects of their central philosophy and the concrete measures which this engendered – such as policies on taxation and financial regulation – undermined our effectiveness during a crucial time in government.

This is a dishonest and sly attempt to put the blame on others.

But most of all, this arrogant and dishonest politician blames the people of Ireland (My emphasis).

Banks can be blamed for speculation but they were responding to demands from the people – ‘It is the people who pressed for such financial facilities.’ Everyone wanted the bigger house, the next holiday the private school for their offspring and so it went on and on.

This is just a taste of the drivel that seeps from every page of this rag of a book.

More analysis later.