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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.

Bizarre decision benefits CRH?

January 30, 2010 in Corporate, Environment, The State by Anthony | No comments

I wrote recently that, while Cement Roadstone Holdings (CRH) have been brought to account for breaking the law in a number of countries, they seem to be immune from accountability in Ireland.

The latest controversy surrounding this very powerful company involves a farmer in Kilkenny who has been trying for the last 19 years to find out what’s been contaminating his livestock (Six One News, 8th report).

The farmer, Dan Brennan, claims that the highly toxic substance cadmium is the cause and most likely comes from a neighbouring brick factory owned by CRH.

CRH strenuously deny the claim.

After years of investigation the Dept. of Agriculture published an 800 page report on the matter earlier this month and it is this report that has shocked MEPs on the EU Petitions Committee.

It seems that because cadmium levels were so high in bovine blood samples that those conducting the investigation decided that the samples must have been contaminated and therefore excluded them completely from the analysis.

The first and most obvious thing to be noted here is that this bizarre decision by Dept. of Agriculture officials appears to be of benefit to CRH, who have always claimed cadmium levels around the factory are in fact very small.

The second point to note is the damage such inexplicable but suspicious decisions do to Ireland’s already tattered reputation.

Such considerations don’t seem to matter, however, when the interests of powerful organisations are at stake as the recent Jim Flavin/DCC farce amply demonstrated.

Developers savaged by (dead sheep) NAMA chief McDonagh

January 8, 2010 in Banks & Finance, Corporate, Government by Anthony | No comments

Have a look at this report (2nd item) where NAMA chief Brendan McDonagh delivers what RTE News describes as a ‘stark warning’ to developers who are not cooperating with NAMA.

“If we don’t think you’re viable we will take enforcement action against you,”

McDonagh (darkly) warns.

If I was a developer listening to Mr. McDonagh I would feel very safe. The NAMA chief sounds like a frightened schoolboy threatening the well built school bully with dire consequences if he refuses to hand back stolen pocket money.

As we start out on the long NAMA road let me make something crystal clear.

No developer will face enforcement action, no developer will lose out financially or otherwise, all developers and especially those who have made generous political donations will be well looked after.

Why? Because that’s the way things are done in a dysfunctional country like Ireland.

Developers are already well ahead of NAMA in protecting their interests. The Mail on Sunday (January 3rd) reports that two members of the infamous Anglo Irish Golden Circle, Gerry Gannon and Joe O’Reilly have signed over several tranches of multimillion property assets to their wives.

The paper also reported last July that developer Liam Carroll and Sean Dunne transferred properties to their wives.

The State will do nothing to stop these transfers until all developers have secured their assets.

Then, at some point in the future we will see politicians and officials like Mr. McDonagh wringing their hands as they tell us that it’s too late to act so the taxpayer must pay but, going forward, we must make sure this kind of thing never happens again.

We only need to read a report on the same page in the same newspaper to understand why the State will not take enforcement action against non cooperative developers.

Developer Michael Bailey has bribed politicians, committed perjury and robbed millions in unpaid taxes and yet he’s still walking around a free man.

The weak and ineffective ODCE has been trying for years, and failing, to impose even the minimum sanction open to the state, to ban Bailey from acting as a director of a company.

Not only is the State allowing this crook off scot free but it seems that Anglo Irish Bank, fully owned by the taxpayer, is preparing to pump millions into his company in an effort to rescue it from financial ruin.

This level of state cooperation and support for a corrupt developer puts Mr. Mc Donagh’s ‘stark warning’ into context – Non cooperative developers can sleep soundly in their beds.

See here for report on possible support for Bailey’s company by Anglo Irish Bank and here for an excellent analysis of the proposal by Fintan O’Toole.

CRH – Immune from the law in Ireland?

December 14, 2009 in Corporate by Anthony | 6 comments

I see Poland’s competition regulator has imposed a massive fine of €26 million on CRH for alleged price fixing and other anti-competitive behaviour (Irish Examiner).

In 1994 the European Commission ruled that CRH was part of an EU wide cartel involved in fixing prices and two years later UK authorities fined the company for similar activities.

Notice that all this law enforcement against CRH took place outside Ireland. The company is never subject to such indignity from so called Irish enforcement authorities.

For example, over 100,000 tons of waste was dumped illegally on a CRH site near Blessington Co Wicklow over a ten year period up to 2001.

The company denied all knowledge of the illegal dumping and, of course, they were believed. The DPP decided to take no action.

The most notorious case involving CRH was the revelation that Haughey’s criminal bagman, Des Traynor, operated the illegal Ansbacher bank from the head office of CRH for years.

This criminal bank, which the Central Bank and Financial Regulator knew about, funded the criminal Haughey for years along with several others from the Golden Circle.

When the mafia operation was revealed CRH denied any knowledge of what had gone on despite the fact that eight of its board members held Ansbacher accounts.

Needless to say, no action was ever taken against CRH or its board members – the very idea!

Nothing new in Ireland

October 28, 2009 in Corporate, The State by Anthony | 4 comments

Serious allegations of widespread fraud have emerged from within CIE. Three employees have been dismissed and there’s a vague reference about a report to the Gardai.

The FAS farce continues apace. We’re told there’s also a Garda investigation there but, please, don’t hold your breadth.

Dentists are under scrutiny over allegations that they made fraudulent claims under the publicly funded Dental Treatment Services Scheme. Here’s a mad prediction – no dentist will be found guilty, nothing will happen.

Fianna Fail backbenchers are up in arms over drink-drive levels even though the retention of the present level will result in at least ten additional deaths every year. When it comes to protecting their power base Irish politicians are completely ruthless.

Practically every financial institution in the country is regularly defrauding elderly citizens of their life savings. All the political parties, the Gardai and every so called regulatory agency in the country are fully aware of the situation but refuse to act.

Approximately 2,000 retired teachers, in receipt of generous state pensioners, are still working as substitute teachers. Around 1,500 of them are working in primary schools at a rate of €206 a day, while the remainder is earning €49.60 per hour in secondary schools.

Apparently, it’s all part of a wink, wink, nod, nod network. Meanwhile, thousands of young, newly qualified teachers are desperately searching for a start in their profession.

250,000 shoppers are now crossing the border into Northern Ireland to do their shopping costing traders in the republic up to €800 million in lost revenue.

Even when factors like the VAT rate are taken into account there still remains the unique Irish rip off (theft) factor.

It seems that no matter how bad things get Irish businesses are incapable of weaning themselves off this long established tradition.

Here’s just one small example. I went into a Dublin café recently for a cup of coffee and a cake. The (very small) cakes were €2.80 to eat on the premises and €2.50 to take away – yes, take away cakes from a café.

Not surprisingly, the café was empty with the (soon to be redundant?) staff twiddling their thumbs.

Sean Fitzpatrick will never be charged

September 30, 2009 in Banks & Finance, Corporate, Government, Regulatory Agencies by Anthony | 1 comment

Brian Lenihan was asked on Prime Time why it was taking so long to see results from investigations into Anglo Irish Bank when the US authorities could charge, convict and send Bernie Madoff in six months.

He said he was frustrated that bankers haven’t been jailed yet, that there was a massive ongoing police investigation and he was confident that investigation would yield results.

The Minister is talking total, absolute, undiluted waffle. Let me repeat once again – nobody will be charged never mind face a jail sentence as a result of what went on at Anglo Irish Bank.

The so called ‘investigation’ is nothing more than the by now well established state strategy of delaying matters until the whole case can be quietly dropped.

The so called financial regulatory system that has long facilitated and protected the scumbags who infest the Irish banking sector is still in place.

The same attitudes, the same strategies, the same secrecy laws are still there and will be used to protect Fitzpatrick and his cronies.

Only a complete clean out of personnel and a revolutionary reform of the system will see standards come anywhere close to international norms. There is not the slightest indication that such reform is in the pipeline.

We can see that nothing has changed by simply analysing a recent report in the Sunday Independent on the Anglo Irish Bank investigation.

The many anonymous ‘sources’ quoted in the article are obviously government sources.

Sources (Garda) say they will not be in a position to make arrests and seek charges until next year at the earliest, because of the complexities of the case.

Sources say there’s a massive amount of paper and electronic documents to be examined so don’t expect any developments this side of Christmas.

So, very complex, mountains of documents to examine. The source didn’t specify which Christmas.

Gardai rejected comparisons with the Bernie Madoff case which saw him in jail after only six months. They point out that Madoff had been intermittently under investigation since the mid 1990s.

This is a pathetic attempt to convince that there’s nothing odd about Irish state and police investigations; that our standards are on a par with any country.

This is rubbish and the Madoff comparison is ridiculous. There had been a number of probes into the activities of Madoff which went nowhere but as soon as substantial evidence became available the police acted immediately and Madoff was put under immediate arrest.

There was immediate and clear evidence of wrong doing in the Anglo Irish case but instead of arrest Fitzpatrick was allowed to head off for a month on a golfing holiday in South Africa. Nearly a year later and we’re still waiting for the Gardai to bring him, or anybody, in for questioning.

The thrust of the Garda investigation is to gather sufficient proof to convince the Director of Public Prosecutions that there was “intent” on the part of Anglo Irish staff to commit offences and not, as they would argue, that there was simple incompetence.

Translation: It’s going to be extremely difficult to convince the Director of Public Prosecutions that anything illegal occurred. The DPP is answerable to nobody, his decisions cannot be questioned and he usually takes a number of years to decide in cases like this.

This is usually the point where all possibility of criminal charges is abandoned and the case is handed over to the safe house of Office of Corporate Enforcement where it will be allowed to harmlessly enter history.

With a total of only 65 investigators in the Fraud Bureau and the emphasis on the Anglo Irish investigation, sources say the bureau is under pressure to complete other high-profile fraud investigations.

They are also “completely snowed under” with credit card and other equally complex computer and internet frauds. The amount of fraud under investigation is so great that cases involving less than €200,000 have been temporarily sidelined, according to one source.

Translation: We would really love to press charges in the Anglo Irish case but unfortunately we just don’t have the resources.

A legal source told the Sunday Independent that the public’s expectation that those identified as being involved in alleged illegality in Anglo Irish should be arrested quickly was “unrealistic”.

He pointed out that fraud cases were notoriously complicated and the Gardai would only move to arrests when they had completed their case, proved intent and already had guidance from the Director of Public Prosecutions.

Translation: The public are stupid and don’t understand that fraud investigations can be very complicated. The public are asked to ignore the fact that most other jurisdictions regularly prosecute fraudsters quickly and efficiently.

There is also relatively little experience here in investigating large-scale share manipulation. The largest case involving alleged share fixing to come before the courts was that of the DCC disposal of shares in Fyffes in 2000.

In fact, there is no experience whatsoever of investigating large-scale or even small-scale share manipulation in Ireland. The Irish Stock Exchange has never in its entire history prosecuted anybody.

We don’t even know if the ISE has ever investigated anybody because, like the Financial Regulator, it operates under an iron curtain of secrecy laws.

The Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement never prosecuted, sources say, because the case would have had no certainty of success and would have “swallowed up all their resources” and would have faced a well-financed legal defence.

Prosecutions in the Fyffes/DCC case should have been taken by the Financial Regulator, the ISE and the Gardai – they did nothing. The case was left with the ODCE because his office has virtually no powers and operates on a pathetic budget of €5.5 million.

As I’ve said before the ODCE is nothing more than a safe house for fraudsters like Flavin where their cases are practically guaranteed to gather dust for years.

Gardai say they expect that well-resourced legal defences will be mounted in any cases arising from Anglo Irish.

Again, this is a standard marker that concern for taxpayer’s money may be used as an excuse for doing nothing.

Let me state once again – Neither Sean Fitzpatrick nor any of his cronies will ever be prosecuted; they will never be sent to jail.

Copy to:
Minister for Finance
Financial Regulator
ODCE
ISE

NAMA: Potential for corruption

September 16, 2009 in Banks & Finance, Corporate, Government by Anthony | 2 comments

During a discussion on NAMA today on RTE news (1st report, 1st item) there was a very interesting exchange between RTEs Business Editor, David Murphy and former Bank of Ireland chief executive Mike Soden on the possibility of corruption entering into the process.

David Murphy:

In this whole process as NAMA begins to try and run these loans as they’ve been acquired it’s fairly clear that there is latitude for corruption unless there’s significant measures in there to stop it…

…if you have corrupt individuals there at the helm within NAMA or elsewhere they are in a very, very powerful position and they are going to be making significant deals with significant investors…

…So there is going to be an issue there and it’s really important they make sure that part of the legislation is watertight.

Mike Soden:

One of the things that I’ve suggested a couple of times is that everything discussed between NAMA, the Government, the bankers and the developers should be done under oath.

The consequences of that is if you commit perjury there’s an automatic jail sentence and until we get some teeth into the legislation we are not going to get the results we want.

You’re saying (assuming) – ‘Everybody will behave as good boys’, well I don’t believe it and I think we have to make sure that they do behave.

But if the NAMA officials and experts are doing the valuations what then is the big risk?

Murphy:

One of the risks is that you’re in a situation where NAMA is going to take over an awful lot of properties and obviously there’s going to be latitude for people who want to buy those sites at certain prices to try to bribe public officials…

…Obviously we’re talking about buying an enormous amount of property in what is a falling market. If that market rebounds that property could be very valuable.

Our history as a country isn’t exactly squeaky clean when it comes to corruption both at government and builder levels.

Soden’s comment about automatic jail sentences for perjury is hilarious.

We have witnessed numerous politicians, businessmen and government officials lie through their teeth under oath at tribunals and other investigations. Not a single one has ever been charged never mind actually jailed.

It is only ordinary citizens who end up in jail for perjury, politicians, property developers and bankers are obviously exempt.

Provision has been made in the legislation that makes it illegal for interested parties to lobby politicians but it is an absolute certainty, given the rampant level of corruption in Ireland. that this law will also be ignored.

Exploiting the judiciary

September 16, 2009 in Corporate, The State by Anthony | No comments

Everybody knows the Carroll group of companies is stalling for time until they come under the protection of the taxpayer via NAMA. This kind of thing is quite normal in a banana republic.

What is unusual but is becoming more and more the norm is the readiness of the judiciary to risk its authority and respect by allowing greedy and ruthless people to exploit it as a vehicle of convenience to escape their responsibilities.

So, all in all, a great big happy (incestous) family

September 14, 2009 in Banks & Finance, Corporate, Regulatory Agencies by Anthony | 1 comment

Senator Shane Ross writes today about the various activities of former Financial Regulator, Liam O’Reilly.

O’Reilly is a director of Irish Life & Permanent and, at the same time, chairman of the Chartered Accountancy Regulatory Body (CARP) which is investigating the €8 billion deposits exchange between Irish Life and Permanent and Anglo Irish Bank last year.

Not to worry though, a spokesman for the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Ireland, the body that oversees CARP, said that in their opinion there was no conflict of interest – Well, that’s all right then. If the ICAI is happy, we’re all happy.

Senator Ross also reminds us that O’Reilly was the Financial Regulator who failed to act against AIB overcharging in the years leading up to 2001. And as we witnessed last week AIB is still faithfully preserving that age old traditon of overcharging by Irish banks.

The Senator didn’t mention that O’Reilly is also a company director of Merrill Lynch which is under investigation for a potentially massive irregularity which may involve undisclosed losses of £284 million.

The Financial Regulator is ‘monitoring’ the situation but, as usual, is unable to make any comment because of strict secrecy laws.

And of course Merrill Lynch is also advising the Government on how to manage the financial crisis.

So, all in all, a great big happy family.

A kind and concerned property developer

September 13, 2009 in Corporate, The State by Anthony | 1 comment

Michael O’Flynn is the latest property developer to cry all over Marian Finucane’s apron (Saturday) as he pleaded for love and understanding.

O’Flynn is not worried about himself, he’s worried about the country, about the economy and most of all he’s worried about the taxpayer.

He blames the collapse in the building sector on inexperienced chancers who came into the industry with no greater motive than to make a quick buck.

When asked about political contributions O’Flynn was heartfelt in his concern for the greater good of democracy.

I have contributed to all political parties because it’s part of our democracy that we support the political system. I see no issue in the world in saying that I have contributed to all political parties.

He denied he was paying for access.

No, absolutely not, how is our political system going to be funded? It’s not a crime to support the political system.

My heart goes out to him.

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