Author: Anthony

Mass cards: Update

I spoke to a very helpful civil servant today in the Department of Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs regarding the criminalisation of those who sell Mass cards without the permission of a Catholic bishop.

No commencement orders have yet been made and I am informed that because the Charities Act, 2009 involves the setting up of a new regulatory body it could take between two and three years before it is fully implemented.

The good news is that the particular section dealing with Mass cards could be law within two or three months. I will then be in a position to re-apply to the Bishop of Cloyne for permission to sell Mass cards.

Racist/religious child abuse

President McAleese had some interesting comments regarding the recent racist attacks in Northern Ireland.

“Part of the problem is how children are reared to hate and despise the otherness of others. Northern Ireland is not unfamiliar with that, the old Catholic-Protestant thing, that people are making really big efforts now to transcend and overcome, is replicated in racism, the refusal to see the human person in the other, the refusal to see a potential friend. It’s to see a threat, to see something you despise.”

“That’s taught, it’s learned behaviour, no child is born believing any of that, and so all of us, on the whole island of Ireland … have to bend our minds to how we stop our little children from being turned into wrecking balls as teenagers and as adults.”

The President is, of course, correct. No child is born a racist, their minds are warped by adults who themselves were victims of indoctrination.

But there is a close relationship between racist and religious indoctrination of children. Both constitute child abuse and are founded on instilling in the child a hatred or at least a deep suspicion of the ‘otherness’ of the opposing tribe.

It would be great to see President McAleese come out and condemn the wholesale religious indoctrination/abuse of children in Catholic and Protestant schools.

Ministers pensions

Letter in today’s Irish Times.

Madam,

Apparently, the Attorney General advised the Government that there were legal difficulties implementing a cessation of ministerial pensions prior to the next Dáil on the grounds of legitimate expectation.

Two matters arise from this: 1. Is there any real threat of a politician suing the state to claim his or her entitlement? 2. Do we the public not have a legitimate expectation that leadership and equanimity be shown? I cannot imagine that the low risk of a sitting politician suing constitutes grounds for not proceeding with the cessation of ministerial pensions.

A cynic such as I might suggest that faced with the prospect of losing pensions, some distinguished Government backbenchers might have retired now to realise their pension entitlements and triggered an uncomfortable amount of byelections for the Government. This is a political ruse dressed up in legalese by the Taoiseach to protect his own hide. – Yours, etc,

ROSS McCARTHY,

St James Avenue,

Clonliffe Road, Dublin 3.

Harney's lies – Crown's vision

Crusading consultant John Crown writes a very strong article is yesterday’s Sunday Independent in which he calls Mary Harney a liar. He compares Harney’s lies with a murderer’s defence and Holocaust deniers.

Strong stuff but this country badly needs more people like John Crown, people who are not afraid to speak out, people who are willing to challenge the corrupt and incompetent. The article is worth reproducing in full.

John Crown also features in an excellent article in the Sunday Tribune in which he outlines his enlightened vision for the Irish health service.

All this spin is making me feel sick

HSE management is so bad, even celebrities could do a better job, writes John Crown

The official reaction of the health bureaucracy to the Sunday Independent column last week about budget cuts in Our Lady’s Hospital for Sick Children, Crumlin, Dublin, demonstrated the primacy of spin over substance in the running of the health service.

The column was written in response to the extraordinary and brazenly untrue statement by Minister for Health Mary Harney to the Dail, that ward and theatre closures, lengthening waiting lists and service deficiencies in Our Lady’s (which had incredibly lived and worked within its meagre budget in 2008) had not been caused by the savage four per cent funding cut that she and her officials had inflicted on that fine institution for 2009, but were due to it being overstaffed.

In terms of defences it ranked right up there with Sixties’ record producer and now convicted murderer, Phil Spector’s recent testimony at his trial, that his victim had taken his gun from his hand and shot herself, or perhaps with a Holocaust-denying Nazi stating that the victims of the greatest crime in history had, in fact, committed mass suicide.

The assertion that Our Lady’s Hospital is overstaffed is so utterly ludicrous that it can have only one of two explanations: wilful disinformation on her part or a woefully unacceptable level of ministerial ignorance about the reality of professional staffing levels in Crumlin and other Irish hospitals.
I will leave the reader to decide for themselves which of the two is more plausible.

In my column, I drew some comparisons with Birmingham Children’s Hospital (BCH), a similarly sized institution to Crumlin, but with a substantially larger staff. BCH has 200 full-time consultants, Crumlin has 60. One of the minister’s spin doctors, Derek Cunningham, issued a masterfully spun statement on her behalf which completely avoided the cutbacks, and instead drew inappropriate comparisons between BCH and the totality of paediatric care in Ireland, ignoring the fact that in the English midlands alone, there are 12 other paediatric units.

Mr. Cunningham, please advise your minister how to spin her way out of these facts. We have five paediatric general surgeons in the Republic, Belfast has six. Scotland, with a slightly larger population than Ireland, has 22.

Please note that the UK is a low enough standard of comparison. Denver Children’s Hospital, again about the same size, has 800 consultant-level doctors. UK health administrators love Ireland; we keep them out of last place on all international medical staffing comparisons.

Another spun statement emerged that no emergency surgery was delayed in Crumlin. Well, children who need surgery to correct spinal deformity are perhaps not “emergencies”, but research in Crumlin and elsewhere shows that affected children who have surgery delayed while childhood growth is taking place have less successful outcomes than those who are treated quickly.

The Beacon Hospital in Sandyford, Dublin, officially opened by Ms Harney, is now developing a private paediatric surgery unit. So much for concentration of resources in centres of excellence.

In the same week that the Crumlin cutbacks became an issue of public concern, I was approached by yet another HSE spin doctor (and former Beacon employee) to ask if I would like to meet the senior HSE management, an invitation which had previously been extended to and accepted by Gerald Kean, the successful solicitor and star of Celebrity Bainisteoir who had made a number of thoughtful, insightful and critical public analyses about the management structures of the HSE.

Please note, my invitation, like Mr. Kean’s, came from a spin doctor. So, I have a better idea. Let’s turn the running of the health service over to celebrities altogether. We could call the programme Celebrity Dochtuir.

Paris Hilton, who once famously stated that she always wants to turn left to first class when she boards a plane, could be put in charge of co-location, and the Pussycat Dolls each made HSE regional directors.

They couldn’t do a much worse job than the current leadership structure.

Professor John Crown is a consultant oncologist

2007 – The magic year for property developers

During the week (Mon and Wed) Drivetime carried out a survey on the amount of money local authorities spent on social and affordable housing at the height of the property boom.

Reporter, Fergal Keane, described some of the findings as frightening.

According to Keane the state (taxpayer) is the biggest loser as a result of this buying spree because all these properties are now worth considerably less than the original price.

Some of the properties were bought from controversial people like, for example, those who were involved in propping up the Anglo Irish share deal.

Dun Laoighaire Rathdown:

€88 million in a three year period the bulk of which was paid out in 2007 – the magic year for developers.

Fingal County Council:

€252 million in the last five years. The Council refused to say who bought the houses or how much was paid for individual units on the grounds that they need written permission from those involved. Most of the houses were bought in 2007.

Cork County Council:

2004 – €930,000 for 6 two bed roomed houses.

2005 – €7.7 million for 42 units.

2006 – €12.67 million for 64 units.

2007 – €60 million on 231 social houses. Most of these houses were massively above the market price.

Galway City Council:

2003 – 1 house for €157,000.

2004 – 6 houses for €1.1 million.

2005 – 4 houses for €743,000.

2006 – 26 apartments for €4.48 million.

2007 – €37.1 million for125 houses. Six times more houses than the previous year at nearly ten times the cost.

Dublin City Council:

2006 – Bought 85 houses.

2007 – Bought 416 houses. Five times more than the previous year. Over half a million was paid for some of these houses.

In 2007 Dublin City Council was the biggest property buyer on the market. In the last five years the Council spent a massive €428 million on social and affordable housing, the bulk of which was bought in the developers magic year of 2007.

The most curious response to this survey came from Fingal County Council when they refused to say who bought the houses or how much was paid for individual units on the grounds that they need written permission from those involved.

This excuse is ridiculous and I believe illegal. If it was a legitimate response then we could, for example, have the local drug baron doing deals with officials and nobody would have the right to ask any awkward questions unless the local druggie agreed to release the information.

Revolution – Irish style

When I first heard the report I thought – could this be the moment when, finally, a politician having had enough of our corrupt, incompetent system of government was about to lead the people in revolution?

Fine Gael TD Frank Feighan, (who???) normally a quiet and submissive public representative, challenged the Great One, Brian Cowen, in the Dail yesterday. His challenge was so persistent that he was asked to leave the premises.

Surely it was only a matter of time before this leader of men was exhorting the great masses to follow him in overturning the rotten system?

Ah, no, (as Fr. Dougal would say) he was just acting in his own interest after his bank refused to extend credit to his family business.

Still, RTE was so impressed by this ‘revolutionary’ action by a TD that they had him on Today with Pat Kenny where Myles Dungan excitedly asked “What was it like to tangle with (Ceann Comhairle) John O’Donoghue?”

Revolution indeed – Irish style.

Talking rubbish about rubbish

Investigators from Northern Ireland’s Environment Agency (NIEA) discovered several cases of illegal dumping. It was found that the bulk of responsibility for these crimes lay with the Republic. The Irish Government has therefore accepted 80pc of the cost (up to €35 million) of disposing of the material properly (Irish Independent).

This is a good example of law enforcement in a functional jurisdiction – Crime detected followed by a professional investigation. Perpetrators identified and made accountable.

In our dysfunctional jurisdiction a Department of the Environment spokesperson said they are hoping to reclaim some of the cost through prosecutions.

In response the Minister for the Environment, John Gormley, mouthed the usual meaningless waffle.

“Every effort would be made to track those responsible and to recover the cost from them.”

“We have to pursue those responsible because environmental crime costs the State. The individuals involved have to be brought to justice.”

Nothing will happen, there will be no proper investigation and there will be no prosecutions. The taxpayer will be forced to pay up and it’s on to the next scandal.

Copy to:
John Gormley

Law enforcement, mangled bodies and gombeenism

Even though I am a veteran observer of Irish incompetence and stupidity there are still times when I am absolutely astonished by the sheer ignorance of how we conduct our affairs and in particular how we deal with events that involve life and death situations.

Traffic Blues is the name of a new RTE programme that records the new Garda Traffic Corps in action. A number of people called into Liveline on Monday to comment on the most recent edition of this police programme.

The first incident concerned a motorist who was breaking the law by driving with a provisional licence without an accompanying qualified driver. She also had five young children in the back seat who were not wearing seat belts; three of these children were so young that they should have been secured in booster seats.

After some bizarre behaviour by the driver, which included getting down on her knees on the road to beg forgiveness from the garda, viewers were solemnly informed by a programme voiceover that the Garda was about to make a very serious point.

“It’s an on the spot fine, it’s an €80 fine and two penalty points for having children in the back of the car with no seat belts. So off you go there, thank you.”

We then witnessed a so called officer of the law allow this potential death car, with five children clearly at risk; drive off with an illegal driver in charge.

Unfortunately, this extremely dangerous and stupid decision by the Garda is not unusual in a country where law enforcement, at all levels, is a national joke.

The bizarre reaction of Joe Duffy further confirmed that as a nation we are light years away from understanding the basic connection between breaking traffic laws and the regular sight of dead and mangled bodies all over our roads. When a caller suggested that perhaps the errant motorist should not have been allowed to drive away Joe responded:

“But the thing that struck me was that the Gardai are very civil compared to the UK where every English policeman seems to have a tattoo for a start and every English policeman or woman seems to be have a combination of arrogance and ignorance when they’re dealing with the public as they flash their tattooed shoulders or arms. I just think that Gardai come across very well but you think they’re very soft.”

He later repeated this blanket condemnation of an entire police force that, in my opinion, is one of the most courteous and professional in the world.

“My point is the UK police are extraordinarily rough and uncouth with their tattoos and their mace and whatever else they spray on you. Maybe it’s a completely different environment but compared to our Gardai, our Gardai are civil guardians of the peace.”

This is a straight forward case of pathological denial. Joe Duffy is simply incapable of understanding that road traffic laws are there to protect lives, he’s incapable of making the connection between mangled and dead bodies scattered all over the road and the non enforcement of such laws and most of all he’s completely incapable of accepting for a moment the possibility that our police force has more in common with the Keystone Cops than a modern, professional law enforcement agency. Instead, Duffy reverts to the age old gombeenism of attacking the British.

While researching for this post I came across the following definition of denial:

“A mechanism of the immature mind, because it conflicts with the ability to learn from and cope with reality.”

Tragically, this definition applies to the majority of Irish citizens and is one of the principal reasons why our country is a complete failure as a state.

Copy to:
Joe Duffy

The Greens finally wake up

There has been much discussion about what the Greens are going to do after their wipe out in the recent local elections. Will they jump ship, will they stay the course, will they demand a radical reform of the Programme for Government?

All the talk is just so much waffle, the Greens are in big trouble and they know it. (As predicted by Public Inquiry in Sep 2007). The election result has finally opened their eyes to what happens to any political party that’s stupid enough to risk contamination with Fianna Fail. They have only one course of action open to them – get out as soon as possible.

They can’t go immediately because they would be accused of running scared, of not being able to hack it, of not being a reliable coalition partner. But I have no doubt whatsoever that after a decent amount of time, say about six months or so, they will be on the lookout for an opportunity to remount their ethical horse and put some distance between themselves and the putrid Fianna Failers.

Trouble is, Patricia McKenna, the most honest and democratic politician in the country has already ridden off into the sunset on that particular horse. I was delighted that Ms. McKenna did so well in the election, so well in fact that she qualified for a refund of election expenses.

And although it may not be very charitable I was also delighted that Senator De Burca of the Green Party did not get enough votes to qualify for a refund. De Burca may be a Green in name but in attitude and action she is pure Fianna Fail.