The moronic excuses put forward by Senator Callely may seem unbelievable to most normal people but it should be remembered that he’s a member of the most corrupt political party in the country, a party which is populated by the most arrogant, greedy, unethical and traitorous people in the land.

Why should anybody be surprised by his arrogant and brazen excuses when former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern, after failing to convince with several fairy tales to explain the source of certain payments, finally two fingered the people, the law and the country with his ‘I won it on the horses’ excuse.

The infamous Flynn dynasty featured on Scannal last night where we were reminded that Irish politicians and in particular Fianna Fail politicians are supremely confident (with justification) that no matter what wrong they commit they will never be brought to account.

Despite being found by the High Court and Supreme Court of encouraging tax evasion Beverly Flynn continued to deny her guilt.

Padraig Flynn and his wife Doherty gave the following testimony under oath to the tribunal regarding the £50,000 received from property developer Tom Gilmartin some of which ended up in a bogus offshore account in London.

How did you and your wife come to hold this account in London?

P. Flynn: I cannot assist the Tribunal.

Did you ever reside at the address mentioned on the account?

P. Flynn: No.

Doherty Flynn

Did you provide that account?

D. Flynn: No.

How did that address come to be attributed to you and Padraig Flynn?

D. Flynn: I have no idea.

Was the address on the form when you filled it in?

D. Flynn: I did not fill that form.

Was the address on the form when you signed it?

D. Flynn: I have never seen that document.

Was it on the form when you signed it?

D. Flynn: I don’t know, I have no recollection of that.

Padraig and Doherty Flynn are now living in happy and wealthy retirement. Their daughter Beverly is back in Fianna Fail and will properly end up as a government minister or even Taoiseach.

Bertie Ahern is making a fortune out of his Dail salaries and expenses despite the fact that he rarely actually turns up for work.

Why should Callely not follow their brazen example when it is obviously the most rewarding route?

Some opinions of Callely from his former constituents in Clontarf broadcast on Today with Pat Kenny this morning.

He’s a Fianna Fail thug?, he’s a Fianna Fail gangster and I hate Fianna Fail. They have the country ruined, I’d hang Callely, I’d hang the whole Fianna Fail party, they’re a pack of gangsters.

He should be behind bars for what he done, other criminals are behind bars and it starts from the top.

Ryle Dwyer has an excellent piece in Saturday’s Irish Examiner in which in outlines the long history of Fianna Fail’s traitorous behaviour.

It’s good to see Dwyer has changed his views regarding Fianna Fail, for many years he was a staunch defender of the party and its criminal leader Haughey.

He ends the piece with a telling sentence.

In the process the party is not only subverting the Constitution but also betraying the Republic and democracy itself.

Irish Times

Madam,

The Minister for Transport, Noel Dempsey, (Home News, August 7th) spent €13,000 to facilitate his recent trip on the Government jet to the MacGill Summer School in Glenties, Co Donegal.

His driver met him to further accommodate his transportation needs. He sees no shame in this and finds his actions easy to defend.

To put this into perspective, one year on the dole amounts to €10,192 (€196 times 52). A few hours of the Minister’s life during which he flippantly charged the public purse at his own discretion cost more than a year’s income of an unemployed person in this State.

A life that comprises week in, week out, scrounging, budgeting and constantly worrying that this is the week you won’t make it.

This is just another action that truly demonstrates the disconnect members of the Government have with the real purchasing power of money and how people are struggling financially in 2010 Ireland. Do they really believe they’re worth it?

Yours,etc,
Caitriona Gleeson,
Gneeveguilla,
Rathmore, Co Kerry.

Could it be that, finally, somebody within RTE has woken up to the fact that there’s something rotten in the state of Ireland?

Could it be that that somebody has, finally, begun to make connections between current scandals and the dodgy activities of previous politicians?

On Prime Time last week, in a report on the Callely case, a reporter made the following comment against archive footage of the criminal Haughey.

It’s not hard to imagine where Senator Callely might have learned his political skills.

Against archive footage of the chancer Bertie Ahern the following comment was made.

Senator Callely’s habit of answering questions with a combination of anger and bewilderment as to how the matter could be seen as a serious matter at all may well have been learned at the feet of another master.

Irish Examiner.

A very gullible race

I’ve read reports of former Fianna Fáil Taoiseach Albert Reynolds recently enjoying “the craic” at Galway Races.

Is this the same Albert Reynolds who some time ago claimed to be too infirm to give evidence before the Mahon Tribunal?

The Irish are a very gullible race.

Charlie Malone
Powell Street
San Francisco
California
USA

Hugh Linehan, online Editor of The Irish Times, has a good article on the subject of freedom of information in today’s edition.

He gives some well deserved recognition to Gavin Sheridan (my nephew) and Mark Coughlan begin_of_the_skype_highlighting     end_of_the_skype_highlighting for their hard work in extracting information from government departments and publishing it on their website (thestory.ie).

Irish Times.

Madam,

In response to Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan (July 31st), I would say either he doesn’t understand matters or else he’s being deliberately misleading.

This is the kind of confused thinking and manipulative talking that’s been promoted since he and the Government chose to introduce the far too extensive, far too long-lasting two-year (now further extended) blanket bank guarantee scheme and the hugely costly Nama Project.

Mr Lenihan asserts that “Merrill Lynch also recommended a blanket guarantee of Anglo Irish Bank, including, incidentally, subordinated debt”.

This statement is simply untrue.

This can be checked by re-reading carefully all the notes, draft preliminary analysis, memos and records presented to the Oireachtas Public Accounts Committee in relation to Merrill Lynch’s advice.

In regard to the report to Minister Lenihan by the Governor of the Central Bank on The Irish Banking Crisis – Regulatory and Financial Stability Policy 2003-2008, the conclusions are clearly set out on pages 134–136.

In the matter of the guarantee, nowhere in the conclusions, does the quotation “it is hard to argue . . . in the absence of decisive action”, cited by Mr Lenihan, appear.

It does appear that Mr Lenihan has made an inductive reasoning mistake which can easily happen, such as confirming that the sun rose today because a cock crowed at dawn!

Mr Lenihan concludes

“I agree with Mr O’Toole that governments should be sceptical. But they most assuredly should not be reckless.”

Of course governments shouldn’t be reckless. But his Government had been notably recklessly complacent for years leading up to the crisis.

If they hadn’t been so recklessly complacent for so long, the emergence of the full-blown credit bubble banking crisis and the ensuing panic would have been avoided.

It was such reckless complacency, the dereliction from duty by the Government and the supervisory and regulatory bodies to maintain regulatory and financial stability policy, that led to the September 29th panic and the sub-optimal decision to introduce the blanket guarantee for all the banks.

That panic decision, while understandable (to use Prof Honohan’s word) was not excusable.

That’s the point, but Mr Lenihan has missed it entirely.

Yours, etc

PETER MATHEWS,
The Rise,
Mount Merrion,
Co Dublin.

Ivor Callely used forged documents to claim almost €3,000 in Dail expenses.

This is the first line in a story by Luke Byrne in the Irish Mail on Sunday.

It’s an extremely serious allegation, even by the very low standards of honesty within the Irish body politic.

But even more disturbing is the very low key reaction by the mainstream media.

There was a very short interview with Fianna Fail TD Mary O’Rourke on RTEs News at One (1st report) in which she was asked some totally irrelevant questions.

Can the Taoiseach remove him from the Seanad? How damaging to politics is Callely’s continuing presence in the Seanad? Should he be thrown out of Fianna Fail?

No questions relating to political corruption, fraud, crime, police, arrest – no anger, no sense of outrage – just bland questions by the state broadcaster to a member of the most corrupt political party in the country who replied as if this was the first time she had heard of such behaviour.

RTEs flagship news broadcasts Six One and Nine News made no mention whatsoever of the allegations and as far as I can ascertain no report appeared on their website.

Today’s Irish Times and Irish Examiner merely regurgitated the RTE Mary O’Rourke interview.

Perhaps Michael Noonan could ask the Gardai to make the case a political priority?

20% of Irish business owners have said they would vote for Fianna Fail if there was an election tomorrow (Sunday Independent).

Isn’t it incredible that there’s still 20% of people involved in business willing to vote for the party that destroyed the economy?

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