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Exactly what you would expect in your typical banana republic

November 2, 2011 in Civil Service, Government by Anthony | 3 comments

The €3.6 billion accounting error made by some incompetent civil servant is exactly what can be expected in your typical banana republic.

The announcement that a special session of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) will be held tomorrow to look into the matter is exactly what is to be expected in your typical banana republic.

The Committee, which has no power whatsoever to make anybody accountable, will ask stupid, pointless questions.

The civil servants will respond with stupid, pointless answers before everybody heads off for lunch – at the taxpayer’s expense.

Exactly what you would expect in your typical banana republic.

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State sponsored legal rackets

May 25, 2011 in Body Politic, Civil Service, Government by Anthony | 1 comment

A United Nations committee on torture has described as stunning the high number of Nigerians whose applications for refugee status are refused by Ireland (Nine News).

The Secretary General of the Dept. of Justice, Sean Aylward, defended the record by saying that there was a legal racket going on in stringing things out.

Could it be that those Nigerians, who Mr. Aylward so casually accuses, are taking their cue from the multitude of legal rackets engaged in by Irish politicians and civil servants?

Never ending tribunals, useless Dail Committee inquiries and numerous police investigations that never seem to end in convictions.

Ruthless and corrupt politicians, bankers and other white collar criminals all rest easy in their beds in the secure knowledge that they and their ill gotten gains are well protected by a myriad of state sponsored legal rackets.

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‘Royal’ taxi regulator grants press interview

May 18, 2011 in Civil Service, Regulatory Agencies by Anthony | 1 comment

The taxi regulator, Kathleen Doyle was, as Pat Kenny put it, ‘flushed out’ by the media and forced to answer questions in connection with the latest scandal involving that industry.

The attitude of this so called public servant was accurately summed up by a caller to a radio show. The Queen of England grants more interviews than our taxi regulator.

In November 2008, in response to another controversy, I wrote about the ‘royal’ tendencies of this particular public servant.

Ms. Doyle is a public servant and therefore, in theory, should be accountable to consumers. There has been a disturbing tendency in recent times for people like Ms. Doyle to adopt a certain royal distance from the great unwashed.

When public servants adopt such arrogant attitudes consumers are entitled to form their own conclusions. Here’s how I imagine Ms. Doyle would address the general peasantry if she ever deigned to dismount from her high horse.

Dear Peasants,

I have been elevated to a position of great importance and therefore feel it is entirely inappropriate that I should deal directly with ordinary people.

I have therefore, at great expense to you, employed a public relations company to deal with all awkward questions from an impertinent media. All questions of a suitably respectful and non awkward nature will be dealt with by my underlings – eventually.

Of course, I do acknowledge and indeed, on rare occasions, feel a degree of gratitude, that my high status, large pay packet, very generous expenses and myriad other perks are all paid for out of your meagre resources.

I would like to take this opportunity to wish all of you the very best of luck in your struggles during the coming economic depression.

I would ask you not to worry too much about my prospects as I am guaranteed regular pay rises, total job security and a very generous pension on completion of my reign.

Yours etc.

(Note to private secretary: Make sure that fellow Duffy gets a copy, it might keep him quiet)

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Electoral law? – Whatever you’re having yourself

May 13, 2011 in Civil Service, Government, Regulatory Agencies by Anthony | 2 comments

I wasn’t happy with the response I received from the Dept. of Environment, Heritage and Local Government to my complaint regarding Fianna Fail TD Eamon O’Cuiv so I rang seeking further clarification.

Specifically, I wanted to know; what exactly was the role of the department regarding complaints from the public in respect of suspected breaches of electoral law.

Me: As a senior official in the dept responsible for the proper enforcement of electoral law, have you any concerns whatsoever regarding these events?

Official: When it comes to electoral law we’re forever changing the law on electoral issues. Tweaking here and tweaking there and those tweaks always reflect the fact that there’s something not quite right in the electoral law, that’s how we generally respond to these things.

But in terms of the law there are two approaches, there’s what the law is at the moment and what the law could or should be and we do a lot of entertaining about what the law could or should be and in that regard we would be taking on concerns that people might express.

Me: (In growing astonishment at the answers I was getting) Is it a crime to submit a false name on a nomination paper?

Official: Life isn’t as black or white as all that.

Me: It either is a crime or it’s not or you don’t know.

Official: You’re using very emotive words. It’s the nomination process and you’re supposed to use the name you’re ordinarily known by.

Me: Are you not the regulatory body in charge of electoral law?

Official: Yes, we’re in charge of electoral law.

Me: So it’s up to you to investigate?

Official: No.

Me: It’s not? (Accompanied by astonished laughter).

Official: What I’m willing to do here and I’m perfectly willing to acknowledge is that law as made is never perfect, law is an ongoing process and should be reviewed from time to time.

The information gleaned from this official can be summed up as follows.

The department is forever changing electoral law, tweaking here, tweaking there.

(Irish) Electoral law is never static, there’s what it is at the moment and there’s what it could or should be.

The department is in charge of electoral law but doesn’t investigate complaints.

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Ireland: An irretrievably corrupt state

March 24, 2011 in Civil Service, Government, The State by Anthony | 6 comments

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

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‘We were acting on the best advice’ – Not true

March 2, 2011 in Civil Service, Government by Anthony | 3 comments

Letter in today’s Irish Times

Ministers ignored Finance advice

Madam,

So it turns out that the much vilified Department of Finance was providing, better, clearer and higher quality advice than that provided by so-called external experts. This advice was routinely rejected by Cabinet (Breaking News, March 1st).

Is it not time for the media, across all platforms, to offer humble apologies to the many fine public servants, whose years of training and innate skills were so disgracefully thrashed by so-called journalists and pretentious minor celebrities posing as economists?

Maybe now, finally, the incoming government will begin reforming the system at the very top and clear out all advisers, experts, programme managers and gombeens who infest every Minister’s office in every department, soaking up salaries and expenses and believing they are minor deities.

Let the real experts do their job. The civil service has the training and the skills to provide expert advice to this government; they must be listened to. Their only mission, unlike many others, is to serve the State, which they have done unswervingly, in the face of opprobrium, pay cuts, pension levies and anything else a rotten administration has thrown at them over the years. Enough is enough. – Yours, etc,

JG Lacey,

Lough Atalia Grove,

Renmore,

Galway.

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Law enforcement – Irish style

January 25, 2011 in Civil Service, Consumer interest, Government, Regulatory Agencies by Anthony | 1 comment

The Data Protection Commissioner has written to political parties to caution them about communicating with individuals using text, email or phone in the forthcoming election.

The Commissioner said that his office had received numerous complaints during previous election campaigns.

He said subsequent investigations revealed that contact details were obtained from sources such as sports clubs, friends, colleagues and schools.

Obtaining personal data in such circumstances constitutes a breach of the Data Protection Acts.

I rang the Data Protection Commissioner to find out how many politicians or political parties had been prosecuted as a result of these investigations.

Before ringing I made a mad guess that the answer would be zero and indeed that mad guess turned out to be, well, not so mad.

Here’s some of what I was told by a spokesperson.

If a company sends an email or text to a citizen without permission they can be immediately prosecuted, the law is crystal clear on the matter.

However, there is a special exemption written into the law for politicians and political parties.

In other words these people and organisations have full rights to bombard citizens with any amount of unsolicited material at any time of day or night.

Now we have to stop here and consider this special exemption.

Who made this decision? Was it a politician, a civil servant – or both? Why should politicians enjoy this special exemption?

Is it just another of those occasions where the law and state institutions are utilised (abused?) to provide politicians with an advantage at the expense of citizens?

But there’s good news.

Apparently politicians/political parties can be fined up to €3,000 (about five days expenses for the average TD?) if they illegally obtain contact details of citizens through such sources as sports clubs, friends, colleagues and schools.

In his warning the Commissioner revealed that he had indeed received and investigated numerous such complaints after recent elections so I put the obvious question to the Commissioner’s spokesperson.

Has your office ever taken action against a politician or political party for breaching the Data Protection Act?

No, it hasn’t arisen. You see our first action is never to serve an enforcement order in any of the complaints we deal with.

(Translation: Our first action is never to enforce the law?).

You’re confirming that you’ve never served an enforcement order against a politician or political party.

We investigated complaints in the local government and general elections but it hasn’t been necessary to actually serve an enforcement order because in each case, when we found out, they agreed to delete the details.

This is similar to the strategy adopted by the Financial Regulator when banks were found to be robbing their customers – just pay back the money and promise to be good in future.

This method of dealing with alleged law breakers is one of the principal reasons why our country is now facing total ruination.

The (Tammany Hall) system can be outlined as follows.

An activity is taking place that is damaging to the general public.

Laws are introduced and an organisation is set up to enforce those laws to protect the general public and the good of society.

If it is found that the laws are ‘inconvenient’ for some vested interests (politicians, bankers, property developers, solicitors etc.) a number of options can be considered.

Write an exemption into the law. This is usually buried deep within the legislation.

Ensure that the enforcement agency is provided with only minimum powers and is so understaffed and under funded that it will be impossible to carry out its remit.

The ODCE, presently investigating Anglo Irish Bank, is a good example of this kind of strategy.

Equip the so called regulator with Soviet style secrecy laws which debars any questions whatsoever. The Financial Regulator is a good example of this strategy.

Allow civil servants wide discretion regarding the implementation of the law. This particular case is a good example of this strategy.

The Data Protection Commissioner could have taken action against politicians/political parties for breach of the Act but chose instead to come to a mutual agreement

Ignore the law altogether. This is a very common strategy in Ireland. Ansbacher and DIRT are just two examples where so called regulatory agencies were aware of serious breaches of the law but failed to take action.

The failure to rigorously enforce laws by a wide range of state agencies over a prolonged number of years has led to the inevitable – political chaos, impoverishment and hardship for ordinary citizens and national shame in front of the world community.

Allow me to end by making another (mad) guess/prediction – not a single politician or political party will receive an enforcement order from the so called Data Protection Commissioner as a result of any breaches of the Act in the forthcoming election.

Copy to:

The Data Protection Commissioner

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Power pay

December 2, 2010 in Civil Service, Government, The State by Anthony | No comments

Barack Obama, leader of the most powerful nation in the history of the world earns

$400,000 (€304,690, 25) per year.

Padraig McManus, CEO of the power company in a bankrupt, two bit banana republic on the edge of Europe, is handed

$985,000 (€750,000.00) per year.

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Yet another quango, yet another incompetent assessment

December 1, 2010 in Banks & Finance, Civil Service, Government by Anthony | No comments

On November 18th last (3rd report), John Thredowen, head of office at the Credit Review Office had the following to say in regard to the financial health of AIB.

Allied Irish Banks are now approaching the finalisation of their restructuring and they’re out with their staff and about to approach the market to say – ‘we’re open for business’.

A couple of days later AIB announced that investors had withdrawn €13 billion from the bank.

John Thredowen is head of just one of over 800 quangos that costs the taxpayer over €13 billion per annum.

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Yet another scandal, yet another excuse, yet another rip off

October 22, 2010 in Body Politic, Civil Service, Government by Anthony | 1 comment

Yet another scandal, spawned by a previous scandal, that’s going to be ‘scrutinised’, by yet another useless state ‘watchdog’ (Irish Independent).

This latest scandal concerns payments of €30 million to legal firms, over a nine month period, for advising the government on the banking bailout.

The so called watchdog is the Public Accounts Committee.

Like all government committees the PAC is nothing more than a talking shop, it has no power to act on its investigations and there’s not the slightest hint that our corrupt political system is about to bestow any such powers.

Politicians, (Pat Rabbitte in this instance) are, yet again, outraged at such waste and are demanding immediate action.

Is there anything we can do about these extraordinary fees or do these guys just think they can name any figure?

Well, yes Pat, they can and that will remain the case for so long as our political system remains a dysfunctional entity.

Yet again, we see a super highly paid civil servant coming out justifying the scandalous payments because the super highly paid government ministers who should be answering the questions have absconded in their super expensive Mercedes.

Department of Finance secretary general Kevin Cardiff admitted it was not possible to monitor how many hours were worked by the firms or how many staff were assigned to the task.

Having admitted his department’s total ignorance of the matter he then went on, bizarrely, to state.

I can tell you honestly that the money spent was well worth the money. The risk of not taking that legal support could have cost us a lot more.

Mr. Cardiff also admitted that the firms hired had a potential conflict of interest given that they also carried out work for banks and wealthy clients but, don’t worry, he assured destitute taxpayers, they all had Chinese Walls to avert any problems.

Phew, that’s a relief, for a moment there I thought destitute taxpayers were in danger of being ripped off.

Mr. Cardiff further assured impoverished taxpayers.

We haven’t come across instances where they felt compromised

I can just imagine Mr. Cardiff approaching a staff member at the legal firm Arthur Cox, which got more than €10 million for ‘advice’.

Eh, excuse me sir. Are feeling compromised?

No, oh that’s great, the taxpayer’s will be so relieved.

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