Interested in maladministration. Estd. 2005
Here’s why the current political system needs to be destroyed
Since the last general election in 2007, over €18m has been paid out to 166 TDs in expenses and allowances on top of their basic salaries of €106,500, the country’s 60 senators claimed a further €5.6m.
Ceann Comhairle John O’Donoghue, who chairs the body that oversees expenses, claimed almost €330,000 since his appointment as Dail chief.
The European Central Bank (ECB) has issued a stark warning to the Government not to pay too much for property loans bound for the National Asset Management Agency (NAMA).
The president of the ECB, Mr. Jean Claude Trichet, has also warned that it will be vital to keep tabs on the banks to ensure that they lend to business and not just use money from NAMA to rebuild their balance sheets.
Irish taxpayers have serious cause to worry at such naivety from the ECB.
It is crystal clear that this government is planning to pay well above the market value for properties in order to bail out the banks and property developers.
As for keeping tab on Irish banks? Mr. Trichet is obviously completely unaware that it is Irish banks that instruct politicians and so called regulatory agencies on policy and not the other way around.
Nigeria, one of the most corrupt countries in the world, has arrested fifteen top bankers on charges of conspiracy and money laundering.
The head of Nigeria’s Economic and Financial Crimes Commission said that the bankers were taken into custody to make sure they didn’t leave the country as officials examined banks that have piled up billions in bad debts.
The governor of the Nigerian Central Bank has also fired the heads of five banks for mismanagement.
Ireland, which likes to see itself as a first division Western democratic state, has never, in its entire history, arrested a banker despite the fact that countless millions have been robbed by financial institutions over the years.
Ireland’s Central Bank has never, in its entire history, fired a banker.
Ireland does not, and never has had, an anti corruption agency equivalent to Nigeria’s Economic and Financial Crimes Commission.
Note: It’s interesting to see that the EFCC has a ‘most wanted’ list. Could Irish citizens, even in their most demented dreams, ever conceive of seeing such a list on the Financial Regulator’s website?
Copy to:
Financial Regulator
Central Bank
On 19th May last I wrote about the passion and honesty of Fine Gael’s new TD George Lee after he suggested Seanad Eireann should be abolished.
Keeping in mind that Fine Gael, in common with all political parties, sees the Senate as a very rich gravy train I warned that it was only a matter of time before George was taken to one side and indoctrinated into the realities of Irish political life. Here’s some of what I wrote:
It’s only a matter of time before George is hauled down into the dark, damp pit of Irish politics where all new arrivals on the political scene are strapped into a seat, have a very bright light shone in their faces and ruthlessly indoctrinated into the realities of Irish political life.
And judging from a report on Newstalk 106 it seems that George has had his first session in the pit. He has denied that he called for the Seanad to be scrapped saying he meant it needed reform.
We can see from Lee’s response to the O’Donoghue expenses scandal (Irish Independent) that he is by now almost totally integrated into the mostly corrupt Irish political system.
After first expressing the usual but meaningless outrage Lee goes on to mouth the standard waffle we have come to expect from politicians who want to give the impression that action is about to be taken on an issue.
I’m going to raise a parliamentary question about this matter, it’s unacceptable behaviour in the present climate, it’s time to tighten up on the rules and I’ll be asking if there are any reforms planned in this area. This is all pure truth avoiding, playing for time waffle – Express outrage, promise reform and hope that, in time, people will forget.
According to the report in the Irish Independent:
Mr Lee said he was more interested in finding out if there had been a culture of over-spending by ministers during the reign of former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern rather than pursuing an explanatory statement from Mr O’Donoghue.
This is the usual cynical strategy, put the focus on the past and restrict your comments to a narrow range of politicians, ministers in this case from a previous Fianna Fail administration.
This sly strategy allows politicians to avoid mentioning the elephant in the room – that practically all parties, including George Lee’s party, have been for decades, feeding out of the same expenses trough at huge cost to the taxpayer. Much of this greedy and unregulated feeding is nothing less than straightforward theft.
When the Ryan Report was published last May there was widespread disgust and anger but in less than 24 hours the denial process took hold when everybody ignored the actual events and focused almost entirely on the Church/State deal brokered by former minister Michael Woods and Bertie Ahern.
Apologists for the Catholic Church went blue in the face from issuing apology after apology before proceeding to blame everybody else. Now we have the awards: For his work as chairman of the Child Abuse Commission, Mr. Justice Sean Ryan was presented with a special award at the Humbert School Mayo at the weekend.
This is the best report we could make, he said. It is for others to do justice to those who suffered abuse in the past — and to decide what can be done to ensure that such events do not happen in the future.
Also present at the awards was the ruthless and callous defender of the abusing institutions Sr. Marianne O’Connor representing the Conference of Religious Ireland (Cori). O’Connor issued yet another worthless apology asking for forgiveness: Without forgiveness one is stuck, unable to move forward she said.
Michael O’Brien, who made that unforgettable speech on Questions and Answers, was having none of it:
I will forgive when I know that these people mean it when they say ‘we are really, really sorry’, I don’t want silly apologies. I want to see repentance.
But Michael O’Brien will not see genuine repentance; he will not see justice and nothing will be done to prevent such events happening again. John Cooney of the Irish Independent hit the nail on the head:
The unspoken hope of Maynooth and Government Buildings is that the survivors’ group will divide and fight among themselves, and that the media and the public will weary of their plight.
And then there’s the money or rather the lack of it. Three months after the report and we’re still waiting for these depraved organizations to tell us how much money they have. I doubt we will ever be told the truth, I have heard reports that they have long ago moved the bulk of their millions offshore.
Former President Mary Robinson has taken a voluntary 10pc cut to her presidential pension; she will now only get €131,400 instead of €146,000 (Irish Independent).
Mrs. Robinson is following in the footsteps of President Mary McAleese who has also taken a voluntary 10pc cut to her €325,000 salary. Judges, politicians and senior civil servants were asked to take a voluntary cut but most of them refused.
The key word here is, of course, ‘voluntary’ and it is this word more than anything else that separates the ruled from the ruling elite.
All common people must accept ruthless pay cuts, must accept penal tax increases, must accept mass unemployment and must accept responsibility for the catastrophe caused by the ruling elite, they have no other choice – except rebellion.
Emmet Scully, a partner in the business department at LK Shields Solicitors, analyses the failure of the government stamp duty trade in scheme for property developers in today’s Irish Independent.
The scheme allowed developers to defer the payment of stamp duty tax in an effort to resolve the overhang problem of 50,000 unsold properties but, according to Mr. Scully, the scheme was just too risky for property developers.
They could, in the present unstable market, lose money by joining the scheme. There was also a danger they could end up paying more tax than necessary and the requirement to value each property was too costly.
Payment of stamp duty tax by developers should have been completed abolished, according to Mr. Scully, so that developers wouldn’t have to take any risks at all.
I wonder if Mr. Scully is planning to analyse the NAMA scheme where taxpayer’s are being forced to take massive risks with no guarantees whatsoever in order to bail out developers?
Brian Lenihan has effectively admitted that the banks will eventually have to be at least partly nationalised but, and this is the crucial point, not before the setting up of NAMA (Irish Independent).
This confirms what NAMA is all about – The transfer of all loans and liabilities currently held by the banks and property developers onto the shoulders of taxpayers before the setting up of NAMA will protect the interests of bankers and developers while leaving generations of taxpayers to clean up the mess with no advantage whatsoever.
Sarah Carey, late of the blogging community, has become a fully paid up member of the ‘established’ media sector.
Here’s what she had to say recently during a discussion on the challenge facing printed newspapers from online versions (Sunday Supplement, 9th August).
One thing I think newspapers should keep in mind is keep the content quality high because the whole blog thing has died off a little bit, that has plateaued and at the end of the day journalists and their sources and their writing is still the place where people need to go for authoritative content.
Blogging has plateaued? Seems to me it’s going from strength to strength and it’s the printed newspapers industry that’s struggling for survival. In fact, many newspapers, including the Irish Times have adopted the blogging practice of allowing readers make direct comments on content.
Ms. Carey’s Irish Times column is, effectively, a blog albeit with the distinct advantage of getting paid for her efforts.
As for authoritative content – Well, that’s a matter of opinion. I mean, could the mostly crazed writings of John Waters be called authoritative?
Minister of State, Conor Lenihan, was on the Marian Finucane Show (Sunday) parroting the same dishonest arguments made by his aunt, Mary O’Rourke, in defence of John O’Donoghue’s disgraceful abuse of taxpayer’s money. Lenihan did, however, add some twists to his own particular waffle.
Starting off with the usual ‘John is a good friend of mine’, Lenihan said he wouldn’t put pressure on him to explain his actions because that might lead to an inquiry that would involve everything that has happened in the last ten years.
Like his aunt Lenihan then blamed the civil servants:
John O’Donoghue had no hand, act or part in booking reservations; they were all made by civil servants.
He immediately added that he wasn’t blaming the civil servants and later said it was just the administrative system but he wasn’t blaming the system either. Actually, this makes perfect sense in our corrupt state – When bad things happen nobody is ever to blame.
John O’Donoghue is, according to Lenihan, a hard working politician who isn’t interested in a lavish lifestyle but if people want him to properly represent Ireland a price has to be paid. A good example of the price paid by Irish taxpayer’s is revealed in yesterday’s Sunday Tribune.
O’Donoghue spent €472 on a limousine to take him from Terminal 3 in Heathrow airport to Terminal 1 – a journey which would have taken three minutes on the airport’s free shuttle service.
This, according to Linehan, is not lavish?
Like his aunt, Lenihan claimed that O’Donoghue couldn’t make a public statement on the scandal because it might bring the office of Ceann Comhairle into disrepute but he went further by suggesting that the office of Ceann Comhairle was on a par with that of the President and therefore not even a government minister has the right to demand accountability.
That’s a matter for the Ceann Comhairle (accountability), I have an obligation as a Government Minister not to criticise the President. The Ceann Comhairle is in a similar enough position. It’s not really appropriate for a Government minister to go around telling or ordering the Ceann Comhairle or the President of this country what they should or shouldn’t do and I’m not going to start doing that on this programme.
This, of course, is a ridiculous statement and Lenihan should have been nailed by the RTE presenter, Rachel English. She should have forced him to state on what basis he was making such a claim but yet again RTE simply accepted the word of a politician as gospel.
The response to this latest scandal by O’Rourke, Lenihan and politicians in general is as predictable as it is cowardly. They have little interest in the welfare of Irish citizens or the good of the country. They’re only interested in their own enrichment, the enrichment of their fellow politicians and the interests of those who fund and support them.
They are, in a word, traitors.
Copy to:
Conor Lenihan
John O’Donoghue
Marian Finucane Show