Author: Anthony

Misplaced loyalty

As time goes on it is becoming more and more obvious that civil servants are more concerned about the interests of their political masters than the interests of citizens.

Consider the following letter published recently in the Irish Independent.

Sir,

Your lead headline (July 5) was predictable in its timing, but not only was it boringly repetitive, it was wholly inaccurate. TDs will not ‘cut and run’ for a ‘three-month holiday’.

Rather, the Dail and Seanad will be in recess until mid- September. During what you describe as a ‘holiday’, up to 40 parliamentary committee meetings will also be conducted.

Moreover, members will continue to conduct a wide range of constituency duties, a function that they fulfil seven days a week throughout the year. The Oireachtas actually compares well with other parliaments – it has a below average number of recess (nonsitting) weeks per year, Of parliaments we surveyed recently, it has the fourth least number of recess weeks.

It also has fewer recess weeks than Germany, Finland, Sweden and Denmark – countries often admired for their democracy.

In relation to sitting days, our parliament records second place in the same survey with a total of 1278 sitting hours and 177 sitting days for both houses per year. This is ahead of other two chamber parliaments, such as South Africa and Australia.

Finally, where parliamentary questions arise, the Oireachtas, with 40,875 questions tabled, rates second place out of the nine parliaments we surveyed.
I’d ask your readers to consider these points when forming a more considered opinion of the work of members of the Houses of the Oireachtas.

Mark Mulqueen
Head of Communications
Houses of the Oireachtas

Here’s an extract from the Civil Service Code of Standards and Behaviour as outlined on the Standards in Public Office Commission website.

(d) All civil servants above clerical level are totally debarred from engaging in any form of political activity.

Civil servants in category (d) may not engage in public debate (e.g. letter writing to newspapers, contributions to television or radio programmes, etc.) on politics except if required to do so as part of their official duties.

Fianna Fail tells Green Party to take a hike – again

The Green Party made a pathetic attempt to boost their flagging credibility by abstaining on a vote in the Seanad on the Criminal Justice Amendment Bill.

Green Party Senator, Dan Boyle, who used to be a beacon of plain honest speaking, descended into the dark pit of Fianna Fail speak in an effort to cover up the party’s cowardice.

We’re unhappy about the current situation and we want it to change and the fact that we’re obliged to take a public action is a clear signal that we feel that things aren’t as they should be and they should be done differently and to presume that the Greens are to be taken for granted is not something we want to allow as a public perception and it’s not something we want to allow to be seen in terms of how our partners in government deal with us.

The brutal truth is that Dermot Ahern told the Greens to take a hike – and they did.

Real Madrid enters the same league as FÁS

Real Madrid, one of the richest football teams in the world which proudly includes on its team Cristiano Ronaldo, the most expensive footballer in the world, has arrived in Carton House, County Kildare for pre-season training camp (Irish Independent).

Real Madrid management will, I believe, only agree to send their super rich, super talented people to locations which provide world class facilities and security; only the very best is acceptable and cost is never a factor.

So, how were Real Madrid management finally convinced that Carton House was the very best that money could buy?

Simple, they heard that it satisfied the exacting standards and expensive tastes of FÁS staff.

The truth about Terry Prone

I came across this letter to the Irish Examiner written in response to an article by Terry Prone. In my opinion the writer is spot on in her assessment of Ms Prone.

I write in response to Margaret Browne’s letter (July 2) about the heartlessness of Terry Prone’s column on the subject of cancer (June 29).
As a keen observer of Ms Prone’s columns, may I offer these observations to Ms Browne and others who may have been similarly offended?

For a long time I have had the conviction that the clue to reading Terry Prone is first of all to ask yourself what she is spinning this week because if you look carefully behind all the bon mots, bonhomie and funny stories, she is always spinning something.

On this occasion I believe she was advocating the idea that rather than having expectations of cancer care services, “ordinary people” could regard themselves as better human beings if they quietly laid down and died. This is not the first time she has attempted this theme. Not very long ago, also in her column in the Irish Examiner, Terry Prone decried the patients and others who phone Joe Duffy to describe their experiences of the health service – and ridiculed Mr Duffy, his listeners and his programme for enabling such public expressions of despair and concern.

All this, you see, at a time when the Government, and Mary Harney in particular, are coming under fire for the parlous state of the health service into which billions of taxpayers’ euro have been poured to the benefit of private business “investors” – with no concomitant improvement in the quality of service. If anything, things are getting worse.

As a PR professional, Ms Prone has earned a handsome living advising Fianna Fáil governments on how to sell unpopular policies and equally unpopular politicians.

If she has not quite managed the feat of persuading us that these pigs’ ears have been made into silk purses, then she must resort to the other side of public relations: shaping the attitudes of the population at large.

In this last respect, Ms Prone is a tireless and subtle warrior for the neo-conservative, irresponsible and uncaring policies that have destroyed the country. The plight of cancer patients is a powerful phenomenon and one which has regularly brought successive health ministers into disrepute for doing everything and anything bar the needful to improve standards of care.

It is into the heart of this particular scourge of health policy, I believe, that Terry Prone is aiming her spears. We should keep an eye out for them.

Miriam Cotton
Clonakilty
Co Cork

Good point

Madam,

Was it not unconstitutional for the Dáil to pass a Bill that protects one specific group of people in this country (religious people) from being grossly abused and insulted – while at the same time failing to provide the same protection for non-religious people?

Peculiarly, the passing of this Bill means that the various religions in this country will be permitted willynilly to continue to abuse and insult non-believers from their various pulpits and in their holy writings.

In contrast, the Dáil has now taken away the basic human right of freedom of speech in certain areas of discourse from its non-religious citizens. This is the true outrage. – Yours, etc,

IVOR SHORTS,

Rathfarnham,

Dublin 16.

Irish Times

We'll be waiting…

The discredited head of the discredited Central Bank, John Hurley, was on RTE (2nd report, 1st item) today blaming others for his incompetence.

Asked if he took any personal responsibility for what happened in the Irish banking system over the past year he said:

The international regulatory environment clearly has been found wanting and the rules in which regulators regulated in different markets clearly were inadequate.

Irish citizens are still waiting for an official, a politician, a banker, anybody to say – Yes, I’m to blame. I think they’ll be waiting.

Time for the people to take back their parliament

Fergus Finlay has a very interesting piece in today’s Irish Examiner concerning the relevance of the Dail. He refers to RTEs political correspondent, David Davin Power, from last Sunday’s This Week programme (4th report). (The full report is worth a listen).

Our national parliament has become a nuisance to the real powers in the land. They – and I assume he means the Government and senior civil servants – have come to see the parliament as essentially an obstacle to the orderly running of government. That is why parliament is ignored most of the time and then treated with contempt at times like last week when important and controversial legislation was guillotined through the parliament before they were sent on their holidays.

Finaly goes on to make the following points.

I believe that’s tragic. Actually, it’s also hugely dangerous. The more respect for parliament is allowed to be corroded, the closer we all get to a slippery slope – and it’s the slippery slope, believe it or not, that leads to effective dictatorship.

And the truth is that until it does begin to take itself seriously, as the place where the interests of the people are truly represented, on a basis of conscience and as a place where other institutions are held to account on behalf of the people, then there is little enough reason for others to take parliament seriously.

He concludes;

Our parliament can be made to matter again. But only by its own members – and only if, once and for all, they start earning all our respect.

I strongly disagree with this last point, that only politicians can make our parliament matter again. Politicians long ago squandered any hope of regaining public respect.

The time has come, I believe, for the people to take back their own parliament from the incompetent, greedy and largely corrupt politicians.

The farce of Irish financial regulation continues

The farce that is financial regulation in Ireland continues. The latest joke concerns allegations that banks are overcharging customers who break out of a fixed-rate mortgage (Sunday Business Post).

(Big John Wayne) Lenihan apparently heard that banks were carrying out such dastardly acts and immediately ordered the Financial Regulator to investigate.

The FR, in keeping with its high standards of professionalism and concern for the best interests of consumers approached the banks and politely asked them if they were stealing from customers.

The banks, in keeping with their high standards of honesty, integrity and concern for the best interests of consumers, carried out an in depth investigation which, I believe, included asking the janitor, but found no evidence of wrong doing.

(Big John Wayne) Lenihan was pleased and in that endearing tongue twisting manner of his, he announced:

The regulator concluded, and has confirmed to my department, that its analysis indicates that the early redemption fee calculation in all cases appears to seek to recover costs and that lenders do not generally apply additional fees in the case of early redemption.

But wait – Big John spotted something amiss. The findings were based solely on material provided by the lending institutions themselves so in case there was the slightest risk that the legendary honesty of Irish financial institutions could be blemished in any way Big John Lenihan ordered the FR to carry out at least six on-site inspections.

A spokesperson for the financial institutions said that just because they were aware months ago of media allegations of wrong doing, were aware some commentators had expressed concern about possible wrong doing, were aware of polite questions by the Financial Regulator and were now aware that the FR was about to carry out on-site investigations with, of course, the usual prior notice of exact times and locations, did not mean that they would attempt to organise a cover up of any wrong doing.

A spokesperson for the Financial Regulator (under cover of darkness and wearing a hood) said that because of strict secrecy laws it was unable to confirm or deny reports of any wrong doing, was unable to confirm if (Big John Wayne) Lenihan was the Minister involved, was unable to confirm if it actually had powers to investigate banks and indeed was even unable to confirm if the entity commonly known as the Irish Financial Regulator really existed but the spokesperson did admit that most Irish citizens don’t really believe that it does.

Copy to:
Financial Regulator

Blasphemy law broken?

Ian O’Doherty in today’s Irish Independent.

So, we’re now officially the most religiously deranged country in the civilised world. Now that blasphemous libel has been introduced to the statue books, it will be a crime to have a pop at religions.

So, here we go — Catholicism is a cannibal cult which eats its leader, Jews who believe that God wants them to settle in the Holy Land are deranged lunatics, Muslims who wants to install Islamic law are nothing but fascist terrorists and Scientologists are nothing but a bunch of brainwashed weirdos who have been suckered by the malicious rantings of a failed science-fiction writer.

Alright lads, I’ll see you in court.

Was I dreaming…

Was I dreaming or what? I seem to remember the politicians promising that the brutal religious orders would be forced to reveal exactly how much money they had hidden away from those who would make them accountable.

That must be about two months ago now and not a word since – to my knowledge