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Official? – Gardai act according to political priorities

July 29, 2010 in Banks & Finance, Civil Service, Gardai, Government by Anthony | No comments

Unwittingly, Michael Noonan, the Fine Gael spokesperson on finance has let the cat out of the bag regarding the relationship between politicians and the Gardai (RTE News, 5th report).

Last Tuesday, after complaining about the slow pace of the so called Garda investigation into Anglo Irish Bank, Mr. Noonan was asked did he think there was some political foot dragging.

His reply was interesting and very revealing:

Public servants, including Gardai and senior civil servants, always try to act on what they regard as ministers and government priorities and they obviously feel that there isn’t an urgency because these matters are not priorities with government.

In real democracies the police act on crime and reports of crime. In Ireland, according to Mr. Noonan, they act according to political priorities.

This explains why white collar crime is virtually unknown in Ireland.

Idiots and the tragedy of Ireland

July 28, 2010 in Banks & Finance, Body Politic, Civil Service, Government, Media coverage by Anthony | No comments

Apologies in advance for the use of strong language in response to an editorial in last Saturday’s Irish Independent.

The piece must surely qualify as the stupidest, most ill informed editorial penned in recent years.

The editorial, responding to the ‘sensational’ revelation that bankers tell lies, needs to be analysed line by line to expose the full ignorance of the idiot who penned it.

The level of ambiguity displayed by the banks in the lead-up to the €440bn bailout by those taxpayers was finally laid bare before the Dail Public Accounts committee.

Only now is it beginning to impinge on the brain of this idiot that Irish banks are ‘ambiguous’.

At this rate it will take him decades to realise that the Irish financial sector is infested with ruthless scumbags who are supported and protected by politicians and an incompetent ‘regularity’ system that does exactly as it’s told – to do whatever it takes to protect the interests of the scumbags.

It is these scumbags, in collusion with a corrupt political system, who are principally responsible for the destruction of our country and the strongest word the idiot can muster is ‘ambiguous’?

It smacked of an attitude and era which fostered recklessness and risk-taking beyond belief.

Obviously, the idiot believes that the ‘attitude’ and the ‘era’ are behind us.

He obviously believes the bullshit that spews from the mouths of Cowen and Lenihan about the country/economy turning corners.

He believes the bullshit that spews from the mouths of politicians and so called regulators that a new era of financial regulation has dawned, that Irish citizens are now safe from the thieving maws of the scumbags who infest the financial sector.

This is a typical, narrow brained, Irish reaction to unpleasant realities.

Brutal realities can be safely ignored if they’re consigned to the past. And because they’re in the past they don’t require any action so everybody can ‘go forward’ into the future full of light and happiness.

Never mind that the same ruthless bankers are still in place, never mind that the same corrupt political system is still in place, never mind that there is, in reality, no financial regulation whatsoever in this country, never mind all that.

The important thing to keep in mind is that, finally, bankers have been found to be ‘ambiguous’ – halleluiah.

We should not forget what was divulged this week. Banks bluffed in public about the state of their finances. They were, at the very least, disingenuous in the way they presented their financial health.

The idiot obviously believes that Irish bankers getting caught bluffing in public is an event of earthquake proportions, that nothing like it has ever happened before, that such a ‘crime’ must never be forgotten.

Clearly, the idiot has lived his entire life in a hole on the Skellig Islands

In doing so, they (the bankers) increased exponentially the amount of liability taxpayers have had to guarantee. They left our senior politicians and civil servants with few options.

The depth of ignorance displayed by this statement is deeply disturbing. The idiot seems to be totally unaware of the part played by incompetent and/or corrupt politicians and civil servants in the destruction of our country.

He believes, apparently, that all this came upon the politicians and civil servants suddenly, that they, like the idiot, were completely unaware, over many decades, of the rampant criminality common within the Irish financial sector.

It hasn’t yet occurred to the idiot that the total absence of effective financial regulation is no accident.

Perhaps he believes that the Soviet style secrecy laws that provide water tight protection for the scumbags just suddenly dropped out of the sky leaving our politicians and civil servants with few options.

Perhaps the idiot thinks that, despite decades of fraud and criminality within the financial sector, there’s nothing odd about the fact that not a single official or institution has ever faced a judge; that it was only in 2008, after beggaring the nation; that a financial institution came under investigation?

Perhaps the idiot even believes that the current investigation is an actual real investigation and not the standard Irish strategy of bluff, delay and obfuscation that will, ultimately, result in a non effective/irrelevant report years down the line.

What we have learned, and no doubt have yet to discover, about how some lending institutions behaved should never, ever be forgotten. Not this year, not next, never.

What we have learned has already been forgotten. Ansbacher, DIRT and dozens of other scams, costing Irish taxpayers countless millions, have all been forgotten.

How many times have we heard a politician/banker tell the nation – the past is another country, we must move forward, must make sure this never happens again – blah, blah, blah. Apparently, the idiot believes it all.

It is to our eternal credit as a nation that we have, despite a deep-seated anger, knuckled down and borne the inevitable.

The impression given here is that the people of Ireland, realising the seriousness of the situation, have united in a patriotic movement to save the nation.

This, of course, is total bullshit. Irish citizens, since independence, have sold their votes to the local chancer in return for small favours. The local chancer was more than happy to buy power so cheaply and use it to his own advantage.

This buying and selling of votes/democracy has corrupted the administration of the country and resulted in a politically ignorant electorate.

Irish citizens are incapable of voting, thinking or acting in the national interest, they act solely in self-interest or in the interest of a particular group of which they belong.

If Irish citizens were politically educated, if they were aware that it is they and not their corrupt leaders who hold power, the current government would have been thrown out of power in 2008 when disaster struck.

The greatest indictment of Irish democracy is that this government and in particular Fianna Fail are still in power, still working in their own interests at the expense of the nation and Irish citizens just lie down and take it.

Yet when we look in on ourselves, there is a source of great hope. And it is to ourselves we must look, because we are the ones carrying this country on our shoulders.

I don’t know what circles this idiot operates in but my sense of the country is not one of hope but despair.

Yes, ordinary citizens are carrying the country on their shoulders but it is not by choice. Citizens are being forced to suffer and pay for the corruption, incompetence, greed and arrogance of the ruling elite while that same ruling elite are busily insulating themselves against the disaster.

Bitter lessons have been learned.

What lessons? Could this idiot provide the nation with a single example of a lesson learned?

The tragedy of Ireland is that its people are oppressed by their political ignorance to the point of docility when, in this time of national crisis, the complete opposite is required.

The people of Ireland need to do what the people of Iceland did – eject from office all those responsible for betraying the nation.

They need to educate themselves on what real democracy is all about so that if a politician or banker ever threatens the national interest again they will quickly find themselves behind bars.

The very last thing the Irish people need is the self-indulgent; everything will be all right if we just ignore reality, kind of drivel contained in this editorial.

Copy to:
The idiot

Public salaries in a bankrupt state

July 23, 2010 in Civil Service, The State by Anthony | 2 comments

Kevin Cardiff, head of the Department of Finance, is on a salary of €255,304 – after having his salary cut by 20%.

HSE missing millions – Only one certainty

June 18, 2010 in Civil Service, Government, Health/HSE by Anthony | No comments

€2.35 million has gone missing in the HSE.

The Gardai are investigating.

The Comptroller and Auditor General is investigating.

The Department of Health is investigating.

The Department of Finance is investigating.

The HSE is investigating – for the second time.

Health Minister Mary Harney said that if any money had been misappropriated, it was a very serious matter.

No it’s not, the misappropriation of massive amounts of taxpayers money is a very common and fully accepted aspect of the administration of our banana republic, it’s part of what we are.

As with all such scandals in Ireland, there is only one certainty – nobody will be held accountable.

Union official ambushed by RTE/Pat Kenny

March 28, 2010 in Civil Service, Media coverage, RTE by Anthony | 1 comment

Pat Kenny was booed at the Civil Public and Services Union (CPSU) conference in Galway last week by delegates who felt they had been unfairly treated on his Frontline programme.

Kenny defended RTE on Today with Pat Kenny (Friday 1.12).saying that at all times each side in any given dispute is treated fairly. He dismissed the negative reaction from the delegates:

When you hear what you like you cheer, when you hear what you don’t like you boo.

Let’s do a quick analysis of that particular Frontline programme.

It began with a clip of a very angry woman outside the passport office giving staff a hard time.

(Government 1 – Workers nil).

Cut to the studio and Kenny is interviewing a woman who had obviously been carefully chosen because of the emotional impact of her story.

Her children had received tickets to Paris Disneyland as a Christmas gift from their grandmother and now they couldn’t go because of the workers/union action.

I would like somebody to tell my children why they can’t go,

the distraught mother demanded, glaring at Eoin Ronayne, deputy general secretary of the CPSU.

Kenny was enthusiastic in leading her on with emotionally charged questions such as: Do you think it was bloody-mindedness on their part (passport office staff) and, have you told the children yet?

(Government 2 – Workers nil).

With the audience (and viewers) suitably emotionalised Kenny proceeded to interview (attack) Eoin Ronayne who was on his own.

No (highly paid) government minister was present to be questioned about the part they played in destroying the country’s economy which sparked the industrial action. No representative from the extremely well paid higher civil servants who enforce government policy within the civil and public service.

(Government 3 – workers nil).

Kenny’s interview stance was angry, confrontational and accusatory. Ronayne was at all times courteous and calm. At one point when Kenny was running out of steam he called in the distraught mother for another dollop of emotionalism.

Maybe you could ring my children tonight, Peter 10, Christine 13 and explain to them why they’re devastated that you will not let them fly on Friday. What are you going to do for me and the other 40,000 people that are in my situation?

What price do you put on the disappointment of children demanded Kenny of Ronayne and later suggested that staff at the passport office had deliberately sabotaged passport machines to make things worse for ordinary people.

(Government 4 – workers nil)

With the exception of one person all comments from the audience were anti worker. The piece finished with the distraught mother being given yet another opportunity to make an emotional attack on Ronayne.

You took away my children’s chance of their Christmas to go and travel. They have no choice; you’ve made us suffer for your cause. I hope you’re happy.

(Government 5 – workers nil) (RTE/Pat Kenny – disgraced)

This disgraceful anti union, anti worker ambush by the national broadcaster was not an isolated incident.

All through the week on Liveline, Today with Pat Kenny and RTE News the trend (policy?) was the same – The general public were the victims of the evil Union/workers, the Government was an innocent party doing its best to help out.

It really is time somebody challenged the politicalisation of RTE.

Copy to:

The Frontline
Today with Pat Kenny

Entertaining FÁS and friends

February 5, 2010 in Civil Service, Regulatory Agencies, The State by Anthony | No comments

The following is a list of entertainments enjoyed by FÁS staff and others at taxpayer’s expense (Comptroller and Auditor General
Special Report).

Note that these luxuries were being availed of right up to 2008 when the economy was falling apart and there’s no reason to believe that anything has changed.

Expenditure on Events
3.52 Over the period 2002 to 2008, FÁS paid a net €35,000 for tickets to events including match and concert tickets and hospitality associated with some of the events. The details of the tickets purchased were as follows

€43,100 was paid for four ten-year match tickets. Two tickets were purchased in 2005 at a cost of €20,000 and two further tickets in 2007 at a cost of €23,100.

Following the appointment of a Director General on an interim basis in late 2008 a decision was taken to cancel the tickets.

In May 2009, FÁS received the sum of €33,800 as reimbursement for the unexpired terms of the tickets. The net cost of the tickets was €9,300.
€7,000 for tickets for the All Ireland hurling and football finals.

Ten tickets were purchased for each final for the years 2006 to 2008 inclusive while between four and eight tickets were purchased for each final for the years 2002 to 2005.

€4,640 for tickets for rugby internationals between 2006 and 2008.
€1,960 for tickets for soccer internationals in 2007 and 2008.
€3,724 for concert tickets in the period 2005 to 2008.
€8,299 for hospitality at events. This included €2,255 at the Robbie Williams concert in 2006 and amounts incurred at the All Ireland Finals (€2,244 in 2005, €2,300 in 2006 and €1,500 in 2007).

3.53 All but one of the payments were approved by the former Director General. The remaining payment was approved by the ADG who was Secretary to the Board.

There was no evidence on the FÁS files to indicate how the expenditure was relevant to FÁS’s business.

FÁS could not provide this information and wrote to the former Director General seeking information about the payments.

No response was provided before the finalisation of this report.

Once again we see a senior civil servant (perhaps that should be changed to self – servant) giving the two fingers to taxpayers.

In this case it seems former Director General of FÁS, Rody Molloy, is too busy spending his €900,000 to bother answering questions.

Lies, secrecy and arrogance is still the prevailing attitude

February 4, 2010 in Banks & Finance, Civil Service, Government, Regulatory Agencies, The State by Anthony | No comments

The latest report by the Comptroller & Auditor General (C&AG) into FÁS reveals some very questionable activities by its staff.

€200,000 on flights for people not working for the agency. Apparently, this gravy train, funded by the taxpayer, included journalists, politicians, spouses and friends.

There was also questionable expenditure on golfing events, sporting events and concerts, the majority approved by the incompetent, disgraced but well compensated Mr. Molloy.

Money was spent without authority, the FÁS board was effectively lied to and credit cards were thrown around like drunken sailors in a brothel.

But the most shocking and disgusting aspect of this scandal is the arrogance of the civil servants involved including the C&AG himself.

For example, it is reported that up to six top executives at FÁS were paid bigger bonuses than they were entitled to in 2008. These bonuses were approved by the incompetent Mr. Molloy and sanctioned by the Departments of Enterprise and Finance.

Incredibly, the executives have not been asked to pay back the money which FÁS says was paid in error.

If this was a social welfare ‘error’ the applicant would instantly find himself the subject of an investigation and the money would be deducted from his income forthwith.

A spokeswoman for the Department of Enterprise declined to comment. The incompetent Mr. Molloy also declined to comment.

These people are effectively telling the ripped off taxpayer – take a hike, we don’t have to account for how we spend your money.

Despite constant praise from the media the office of the C&AG also has questions to answer.

Former acting chairman of FÁS, Mr. Niall Saul, was told by Mr. Buckley that controls at FÁS were excellent, that there were no serious problems.

Mr. Saul rightly concluded that if the C&AG was a private company it would be lucky not to be fired.

This shouldn’t surprise ripped off taxpayers when we remember the infamous Bord na gCon investigation carried out by the C & AGs office.

Despite findings of at least one case of serious fraud and many other questionable activities the C&AG, who, bizarrely, is also the auditor of Bord na gCon, concluded that

in general the funds of Bord na gCon were properly applied.

As I write another scandal has broken involving the C&AG and the Central Bank. The media is focusing on an error made by the C&AG when he reported that 52 spouses of staff attended meetings on a single trip when in fact the meetings involved several trips.

The real scandal here was the refusal by the C&AG to disclose what organisation was responsible for this alleged abuse of taxpayer’s money.

Once again, Irish citizens had to rely on the media, RTE on this occasion, to provide them with information that should be immediately forthcoming from state agencies.

Just who does Mr. Buckley think he is in refusing this information to Irish citizens? What were his motives in putting the interests of Central Bank staff above the interests of the people he is allegedly representing?

And what does this affair tell us about the new and much praised Central Bank governor, Patrick Honohan?

On the first occasion he is asked to account for his office he tells us to take a hike. Even now he is refusing to disclose who went on the trips or how much they cost. Irish taxpayer’s have a right to know this information.

And what does all this say about the so called reform of the political and financial sectors? Well, it’s obvious;

There is no reform, secrecy is still the name of the game, ripping off the taxpayer is still rampant, lies, half truths and dissembling is still the favoured response and arrogance is still the predominant attitude.

The political, administrative and financial system that has run this country into the ground is beyond reform.

Nothing will change until the Irish people wake up and throw these people and their corrupt system out of office and out of power.

Copy to:
Central Bank
Comptroller & Auditor General
FÁS

Time for Niamh Brennan to come down from her ivory tower

February 1, 2010 in Civil Service, Corporate by Anthony | 3 comments

Professor Niamh Brennan is obviously a highly educated woman but unfortunately a good education does not guarantee what I would call an informed intelligence.

Brennan was on the Marian Finucane Show yesterday (Sunday) commenting on a number of matters and it was clear from listening to her that she has no idea what life is like outside of her ivory tower.

On industrial action by public servants.

They should be grateful for the fantastic jobs they have and should be contributing to helping to get us out of this mess.

Clearly, Brennan is unaware that thousands of public and civil servants are living on a pittance and it is those people the Government has targeted for the biggest pay cuts.

She had nothing to say regarding senior civil servants, judges, army officers, and academics like herself who have all received special treatment when it comes to pay cuts.

On the HSE and professor Drumm’s bonus.

Professor Brennan is in agreement with some guy called Gerry Robinson who thinks that professor Drumm should be paid €2 million.

She further defended Drumm’s bonus by saying it was a contractual entitlement and related to a period well before the current public sector pay cuts.

It’s curious how this argument is valid for professor Drumm and the rest of the governing class but invalid for the great unwashed.

On the Government.

According to the professor the rest of the panel were being unfair to the government. She thinks the government is being very effective in speedily recalibrating public sector costs.

If, she continued, the French government took the same action there would be riots. Bizarrely, she suggests that our ability to talk things through, to engage in public soul searching is keeping the rioters at bay.

On the Irish Glass Bottle site scandal.

Professor Brennan is chairperson of Dublin Docklands Development Authority and clearly finds the position a little unnerving.

When asked about the Irish Glass Bottle site scandal she seemed shocked when telling listeners that it cost €412 million but was now only worth €50 million.

Apparently about a third of the remaining €360 million went to Dublin Port and the rest went to a guy called Paul Coulson, who, Brennan tells us is now a fabulously wealthy man as a result of the transaction and, not surprisingly, no longer lives in Ireland.

Dublin Docklands Authority has a curious feature on their website where they publish interesting facts about the area. Here’s the current piece.

Docklands Fact
A downtrodden Leprosy hospice was located on Misery hill, hence its name! It was believed lepers were “the unclean” and would be walked to the hospice on Misery Hill with a man tolling a bell and another carrying a 40 foot pole to keep everyone at safe distance. Today this is where we get the expression “I wouldn’t touch him with a 40 foot pole!”

Ironically, this piece is a perfect metaphor for the position of the taxpayer after the glass bottle site debacle.

All the leper taxpayers are up on Misery Hill paying for the stupidity and greed of the DDA and there’s not a businessman in the world that would touch such an incompetent body with a 40 foot pole.

On child abuse by the Catholic Church.

Brennan was ‘uncomfortable’ with the panel’s criticism of those involved in the child abuse holocaust.

Like most defenders of the Catholic Church she labours under the delusion that only a minority of priests were involved in the horror.

This suggests that she disagrees with the Murphy and Ryan reports which between them found that abuse was systematic, widespread and well planned.

They also found that church authorities went to extreme lengths to cover up the horror thus condemning hundreds, if not thousands, more innocent children to torture and rape.

It really is time professor Brennan came down from that ivory tower.

Revenue: A failed entity

January 14, 2010 in Civil Service, Government by Anthony | 1 comment

Revenue recently published its preliminary business results for year ending 31 December 2009.

There are some interesting figures in the report. For example, in 2009 there were just 6 convictions for serious tax evasion, 4 more are under consideration by the DPP and there are 78 ongoing investigations.

Special investigations last year generated a total of €114.4 million compared with €54 in 2008.

By any standards these are paltry sums but by Irish standards, where tax evasion is still widespread and still widely seen as a misdemeanor rather than a crime, they are miniscule and they tell us just one thing about the Irish Revenue service – it’s a failure.

But this failure, like the failure of the financial regulator and the Dept. of Finance, is not due to incompetence, it’s due to deliberate, well planned policy.

Tax amnesties are at the core of Revenue’s policy since the disgraceful amnesty of 1993 which, I believe, allowed a good number of serious tax evaders off the hook. As I wrote in 2007:

Ireland is the only country in the world that operates a policy of continuous amnesties for tax criminals, all other jurisdictions preferring the option of law enforcement.

In that article I wrote about Revenue’s lazy and cheap habit of sending out gentle letters to tax evaders offering them all kinds of incentives if they agreed to pay their taxes.

An Irish Independent article on the matter tells us that because of the current budget deficit of €24.6 billion Revenue is taking an aggressive stance on tax evasion (In accountable jurisdictions aggressive action is the norm when it comes to tax evasion).

So what is this ‘new’ aggressive stance by Revenue?

Well, er, they’ve sent out letters to 7,000 people who own second homes or investment properties inviting them to obey the law in relation to capital gains tax. In other words – another tax amnesty.

At the launch of every amnesty law abiding citizens are assured by politicians and officials that henceforth the full force of the law will be brought down on those who fail to pay their due taxes.

These assurances are nothing but lies and the statistics confirms this.

The report (probably due to embarrassment) has nothing to say about the number of people jailed for tax evasion so I gave Revenue a call to find out.

In 2009 just two people received jail sentences but an even more incredible and disgraceful statistic is that between 2000 and 2008 only seven people were put behind bars for tax evasion.

O’Donoghue’s ‘servants’ should also be brought to account

October 7, 2009 in Civil Service, Fianna Fail by Anthony | 1 comment

The Sunday Tribune staff is to be congratulated for their hard work and determination in ridding Ireland of at least one of the wasters that rule from on high.

The same cannot be said for the so called civil servants involved in the scandal. In a strategy that is becoming ever more common civil servants demanded an exorbitant sum of money for an FOI in an obvious attempt to suppress information that might be damaging to a politician.

There can be no doubt that this was a deliberate and dishonest action on the part of the civil servants as we now know the information was readily available.

These civil servants were not serving the people of Ireland; they were cravingly and knowingly serving the interests of their greedy and arrogant political master.

They also should be brought to account.

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