Moriarty Tribunal

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Gavin continuing to make an impact

January 28, 2010 in Government, Moriarty Tribunal by Anthony | 2 comments

Gavin, my nephew, continues to do Trojan work on his Freedom of Information campaign and is beginning to get noticed by the wider media.

Here’s a report from the Sunday Times on 24th January.

Blogger gets big discount on the price of freedom

Hats off to Gavin Sheridan, the blogger who has embarrassed the Moriarty tribunal into posting all the transcripts of 370 days of public sittings on the internet.

Sheridan first applied for the transcripts to the Department of An Taoiseach, under Freedom of Information.

It refused on the basis that they can be purchased from Doyle Court Reporters.

Doyles quoted a fee of €16,600 with a discount of 25% for anyone bulk buying.

“I did suggest that since the public had already paid nearly €1 million for the transcripts, it seemed a little odd that I, as a citizen, have to fork out another €16,600 to get copies.”

Sheridan writes on thestorey.ie.

Talk to the Moriarty tribunal, it suggested. So he did, and they said copyright rested with Doyles.

They later relented, offering Sheridan a disc with the transcripts, but such was the volume of requests that the tribunal is now posting everything online.

A small, but significant victory for freedom of information.

Some questions that come to mind.

What kind of contract does Doyle Court Reporters have with the state and how is it that the Moriarty Tribunal can, on the one hand, say that DCR have copyright and then, on the other hand, publish all the material?

Facing up to corruption

July 31, 2009 in Moriarty Tribunal, The State by Anthony | No comments

Letter today’s Irish Times.

Madam,

Is Elaine Byrne suggesting that it might be better if the Moriarty tribunal didn’t make any adverse findings against the State (Opinion, July 28th)? She speaks of embarrassment, and perceptions on the international stage and suggests that the final findings will be practically irrelevant anyway.

She ends by asserting:

“The challenge is to distinguish between systemic and individual corruption; petty and grand corruption; moral and legal corruption; and rumours and reality of corruption.”

I disagree. The real challenge is that, for once, we face up to reality and do what all other accountable democracies do – prosecute and mete out appropriate punishment to those found guilty of corruption. – Yours, etc.

ANTHONY SHERIDAN,

Denis O’Brien’s media empire and the Moriarty Tribunal Report

July 29, 2009 in Corporate, Media coverage, Moriarty Tribunal, Regulatory Agencies by Anthony | No comments

obrien460Vincent Browne has an interesting article in today’s Irish Times where he asks some searching questions about Denis O’Brien’s media empire and how The Broadcasting Commission of Ireland (BCI) could possibly conclude that:

The media holdings of Denis O’Brien do not constitute dominance in terms of his ability to influence opinion forming power in any of these franchise areas.

Browne makes the connection between O’Brien’s media empire and the soon to be published Moriarty Tribunal Report.

Last weekend two of the newspapers that he now controls, the Sunday Tribune and the Sunday Independent, published two self-serving interviews with him, intended to take the “sting” from the anticipated final findings of the Moriarty tribunal on the award to him of the mobile phone licence in 1996.

He goes on:

If his own version of the Moriarty tribunal findings prove correct, they would be a devastating indictment of himself, along with the then minister for communications Michael Lowry, and of civil servants involved in awarding the licence.

If his version is true, he will be accused of the most spectacular piece of corruption ever in this State, with the possible exception of the Irish Hospital Sweepstake scam.

And, it will seem, if what he says is true, that he has built his vast personal fortune on the basis of a criminal act.

A letter writer to the Irish Times also has his say about O’Brien’s media spinning.

Madam,

I was embarrassed last weekend to read the coverage of Denis O’Brien’s tribunal troubles in the Sunday Times . A front page article took leaked information about the Moriarty tribunal’s conclusions (not very positive it must be said) and managed to portray Mr O’Brien as some sort of hero, who was battling the tribunal to save the State money on legal fees.

Further on in the paper, there was a full-page spread on the excessive costs of the tribunal and yet further on, Mr O’Brien adorned the front page of the Business section about some triviality or other.

What could have been the spur to such embarrassing spin? Perhaps the Sunday Times is in awe of Mr O’Brien’s recent ascent to control of IN&M?

Yet another example of the need for The Irish Times to issue a Sunday version, thus sparing the public from the brainrot of the Sunday press.

Yours, etc,
TOMMY TIGHE,
Grove Park,
Dublin 6.

Denis O’Brien – They’ve damned us all I tell ya, damned us all

July 29, 2009 in Government, Moriarty Tribunal by Anthony | 2 comments

Billionaire businessman, Denis O’Brien is in deep trouble and he knows it.

It seems that the Moriarty Tribunal has found that O’Brien’s Esat consortium was illegally issued with the state’s second mobile phone licence because he, O’Brien, had a corrupt relationship with former Fine Gael minister, Michael Lowry (Sunday Times).

Mr. O’Brien has adopted a two pronged strategy of defence. He has launched a strong attack on the Tribunal while at the same time appealing for public support by claiming that his campaign is in the public interest as well as his own.

His first action was to publish a series of advertisements in various newspapers attacking the alleged extravagant expenses indulged in by tribunal lawyers.

Last Sunday he ramped up his campaign by giving a series of interviews in the following newspapers. The Sunday Times, Sunday Independent (O’Brien holds a 26% stake in Independent News and Media), Sunday Tribune (O’Brien holds a major stake in this newspaper, by proxy, through INM’s stake in the Tribune) and the Sunday Business Post.

He accuses the Tribunal and others of the following:

He believes the tribunal is “out to get a scalp” in order to justify its costs, which are expected to reach 100m.

He claims there was no need to investigate the awarding of the licence because it had already been investigated four times by the European Union, by the senior counsel, investigated on behalf of the Department of Communications and investigated by the Attorney-General’s office.

He claims that this is a very dark period for justice, that it’s rough justice akin to the miscarriage’s of justice in the UK like the Guilford Four.

He asserts that articles written by journalists like Matt Cooper and Sam Smyth were off the wall, crazy theories fed to them by O’Brien’s competitors for the phone licence.

You may as well be reading the Beano as reading the Irish Times on matters relating to the Tribunal according to O’Brien. He further suggested that Irish Times journalist, Colm Keena, is incompetent and not up to the job of covering the tribunal.

On the night O’Brien received the preliminary findings he told a friend he was in shock.

They’ve damned us all, he said. They’ve damned the licence, they’ve destroyed the civil service, they’ve destroyed Lowry and they’ve destroyed me.

These people [the Moriarty lawyers] need to be made to look ridiculous.

O’Brien also alleged that former Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, made a political decision in 2002 to keep the Moriarty Tribunal going to embarrass Fine Gael.

According to O’Brien the Moriarty tribunal, which has cost him €12m in legal fees to date:

Is out of control and the procedures it is allowed to use are more akin to those found in a military dictatorship. It’s unheard of. I mean it’s Burma.

O’Brien also sees himself as a champion of the people and a patriot to his fingertips.

He’s fighting for the good name of civil servants who may be accused of corruption.

People who are halfway through their career would be impugned; I am taking a stand for the civil servants.

He’s fighting to save taxpayer’s money.

People say [I] did two judicial reviews, but they were mainly to stop the tribunal from running up costs.

He’s fighting for Ireland’s reputation.

Ireland’s reputation would be severely damaged if the Moriarty Tribunal’s final report concluded there was wrongdoing by civil servants in the granting of the state’s second mobile phone licence. If the final report concluded that the process of awarding the licence was corrupt, it would be devastating.

To borrow from Shakespeare – The billionaire doth protest too much, methinks.

O’Brien’s strategy of trying to save his own skin by crying crocodile tears for Mother Ireland is as old as the hills but it is very surprising to see Elaine Byrne of the Irish Times apparently adopt the same attitude.

Byrne seems to suggest that it might be better if the Moriarty Tribunal didn’t make any adverse findings against the State. She writes of embarrassment, perceptions on the international stage and suggests that the final findings will be practically irrelevant anyway.

She ends her article by asserting:

The challenge is to distinguish between systemic and individual corruption; petty and grand corruption; moral and legal corruption; and rumours and reality of corruption.

This is classic Irish denial of reality. Let’s get lost in a deep, long drawn out and totally irrelevant discussion on the different forms of corruption. That way we won’t have to face the brutal reality of any adverse findings from the Tribunal.

The real challenge is, for the first time in our pathetic history, to actually act on any adverse findings. To immediately prosecute and punish all those found guilty of corruption.

I won’t be holding my breath.

Trusting Haughey; like trusting a pickpocket

March 11, 2009 in Haughey, Moriarty Tribunal by Anthony | No comments

Even those who supported and bankrolled the corrupt Haughey knew that he was a gangster who couldn’t be trusted as we see from this extract of the Moriarty Tribunal report.

Clearly, Michael Smurfit knew that handing over a very valuable painting to a man of Haughey’s flawed pedigree was akin to asking a pickpocket to mind his wallet.

Moriarty Tribunal report

7-178 Dr. Smurfit also informed the Tribunal that in 1990, the Smurfit Group made a personal gift to Mr. Haughey of a painting by Jack B Yeats entitled ‘‘The Forge’’, in recognition of Mr. Haughey’s assuming office at the Council of Ministers on Ireland’s assumption of the residency of the European Union. At that time, the Smurfit Group made a presentation to Mr. Haughey of a painting by Sir John Lavery of the raising of the flag at Aras an Uachtara´ n. This latter presentation was a gift to the Irish Nation by the Smurfit Group and the Tribunal understands that it is currently hanging in the State Collection.

7-179 Dr. Smurfit recalled that on the day that he had an appointment with Mr. Haughey at Government Buildings to present the Lavery painting to him, on behalf of the State, he decided on the spur of the moment to make a personal gift in the form of the Yeats painting. The presentation was made during business hours in Government Buildings, and only Dr. Smurfit and Mr. Haughey were present. Dr. Smurfit recalled that he had made the presentation to Mr. Haughey personally, subject to the caveat that he did not expect ‘‘the painting to be sold the following day’’.

As I recall, Smurfit, who had hoped that the painting would be retained as a family heirloom, was shocked to learn that soon after receiving it Haughey did in fact sell it on for a knockdown price.

A million here, a million there – Who cares?

February 16, 2009 in Civil Service, Moriarty Tribunal, The State by Anthony | 2 comments

A typographical error by a government official in 2002 resulted in two barristers employed by the Moriarty tribunal earning an extra €1m over the past six years.

The “typo” seven years ago added €250 per day to the agreed €2,250 “per diem” fee paid to John Coughlan and Jerry Healy, the two highest-earning barristers in all the recent tribunals.

Despite being spotted shortly after it occurred, the mistake was not corrected by the Department of Finance. After legal advice the higher payment of €2,500 was sanctioned, so Coughlan and Healy were paid a higher per diem than any barrister in any tribunal.

The mistake was revealed in the Comptroller and Auditor General’s report published last Thursday.

The Sunday Times

My comments:

What’s to stop civil servants arranging such ‘errors’ across a wide range of departments and splitting the spoils with confederates? Citizens can be forgiven for assuming that such ‘deals’ are common.

Has the senior official in the Department of Finance, who make the mistake, been sacked or promoted?

If senior counsel had been underpaid by a million would the legal advice have been – ‘Tough, you have to suffer the loss?’

If somebody on social welfare was over paid by, let’s say, €50, could they, like the learned gentlemen, (legally) refuse to give it back or would the full force of the State come down on them like a ton of bricks?

Damn them all

June 7, 2007 in Moriarty Tribunal by Anthony | 1 comment

My heart goes out to poor Denis O’Brien. Beleaguered by a mob of begrudgers he is valiantly fighting for the rights of the small man.

Besieged behind his solid gold barricade Denis stands four-square with Bertie to stem the onslaught of those nosey judges and their greedy barristers.

Damn those who accuse the blonde billionaire of avoiding tax, of legging it out of the country with his €290 million Esat Telecom profit, damn them.

But now he’s back, back to fight the good fight. Yes, millions have already been wasted on tribunals but the golden boy has now joined forces with Bertie and on behalf of all the peasant taxpayers of the green and pleasant land of Ireland he is going to stop them, stop them in their tracks.

Damn them I tell you, damn them all.

What’s new?

April 27, 2007 in Moriarty Tribunal by Anthony | 23 comments

What was unusual about the news this week that former Fine Gael, now independent TD, Michael Lowry will not face charges for cheating on his taxes?

Not that he cheated on his taxes. He’s one of a long line of so called public representatives who obviously believe that paying tax is strictly for the ‘little people’.

Not that he portrayed himself as a victim of the system, moaning about the media, the tough time he had with Revenue, how he had to re-mortgage his house. Irish citizens are well used to tax cheating public representatives blaming everybody else for their own dodgy activities.

Not that he failed to apologise for cheating the state of monies that could have been used to help citizens who are genuinely in need of sympathy and support. Most public representatives who are caught with their grubby fingers in the till feel hard done by when they are politely asked by Revenue to repay their ill gotten gains.

No, what was new about this latest sordid episode involving the dodgy activities of an Irish politician was that it was the tax cheater himself who made the announcement of his escape from prosecution.

No Government official, nobody from Revenue, nobody from the DPPs office felt the need to make a formal announcement to the public they claim to serve that yet another ‘person of influence’ had somehow escaped the ultimate penalty from what we are constantly told is now a rigorous no nonsense system of tax accountability.

Accountability and advice

March 29, 2007 in IFSRA, Moriarty Tribunal by Anthony | 3 comments

“I want to get out of here,” he said. “I’ve had enough of it. I’m weary, I’m tired of it. This tribunal has taken over my life,” he said. “This tribunal has been a cancer to me.” The tribunal has had “a massive impact” on him emotionally and intellectually.

Michael Lowry’s plea to be rid of the Moriarty Tribunal is, I think, genuine. His claim that the tribunal is like a cancer is evident when he appears on television. His face is drawn and anxious and he is, at times, on the verge of tears as desperately tries to escape from his self inflicted ordeal.

We can only hope that Michael and his political colleagues will eventually get rid of this grossly inefficient, expensive and sometimes cruel method of (non) accountability and submit themselves for judgement through the courts, just like ordinary citizens.

And speaking of accountability, I see that the so called Financial Regulator has issued yet another leaflet advising consumers to shop around.

When are we going to see a leaflet listing the financial institutions who have robbed their customers so that consumers can do their business in a safe financial environment?

FT on Haughey and Moriarty

December 28, 2006 in Haughey, Media coverage, Moriarty Tribunal by Gavin | No comments

Quentin Peel, with his reaction to Moriarty:

Ireland needs to do more to tackle legacy of Haughey’s graft

Six months after Charles Haughey, the former Irish taoiseach (prime minister), was awarded the honour of a state funeral in Dublin, a 600-page judicial report has confirmed what most people suspected all along: that he was guilty of corruption in public office.

According to the Moriarty tribunal, which considered and weighed the evidence against him for the past six years, the scale and frequency of the secret payments Mr Haughey received from “senior members of the business community . . . can only be said to have devalued the quality of a modern democracy”.

Justice Michael Moriarty concluded that the former taoiseach managed to salt away a conservatively estimated £9.1m – worth about €45m today, or 171 times his gross salary – during his period of high office.

Apart from taking backhanders from businessmen, he even managed to expropriate – for his personal and extravagant lifestyle – money that was raised by public subscription to pay for the liver transplant of one of his closest political colleagues.

It is a devastating document, understated but unambiguous in its “inescapable conclusions . . . that he received a wide range of substantial payments . . . and that certain of the acts and decisions on his part while taoiseach were referable to some of those payments”.

In other words, he gave favours in return.

It is all profoundly shocking – and utterly unsurprising.

For most of the population of Ireland, and many who followed its affairs from outside, can never have been in any doubt that Charlie Haughey – “The Boss”, as he was known – was thoroughly and quite ostentatiously corrupt. His lifestyle of grand houses, racehorses, fine food and handmade shirts bore no relation to the relatively modest income of an Irish politician.

What is surprising, and needs to be more thoroughly explored, is why he was allowed to get away with it. He was defended to the last by his close colleagues, including Bertie Ahern, the present taoiseach, who does not emerge unscathed himself from the report.

Mr Ahern was found to have co-signed blank cheques for an account for party leaders’ public allowances, which Mr Haughey then drew on for personal use – a practice that was “both inappropriate and imprudent”, the judge concluded.

Yet Mr Haughey was widely admired, and voted for at the polls, by electors who admired him as “cute” – a very Irish concept suggesting both cleverness and dishonesty. He got away with it and he was not condemned.

Of course he is not the only one in politics. Other countries such as Nigeria, India and Italy seem also to tolerate an extraordinary degree of corruption in public life.

Party political financing in the UK, France, Germany and certainly the US often blurs the line between acceptable and unacceptable political donations. But Mr Haughey was particularly blatant.

In Ireland, Mr Ahern and his Fianna Fail party, direct successors of Mr Haughey’s legacy, seem to think they have done enough while the Moriarty tribunal was hearing its evidence to ensure that such corruption cannot continue.

“There have been significant measures of reform and safeguards introduced as the tribunal work was in progress,” the taoiseach’s office said.

That is all very well. The Ireland that Mr Haughey was cheating so royally was much less prosperous than the Ireland of today. There is a culture of materialism rife in the country.

Enda Kenny, leader of the opposition Fine Gael party, says the report confirms “a culture of corruption, self-enrichment and the abuse of public and private monies” in the ruling party. That was certainly true in Mr Haughey’s day. No one can be confident it has been rooted out.

Mr Ahern needs to do far more to repair the damage done by his predecessor and mentor to restore faith in public life. Ireland has become a model of economic success for many new European Union member states. It would be a tragedy if it were also to be a byword for corruption.

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