Category: Government

Simon Kelly: The scumbag returns

While checking out O’Dowd interview with David Drumm I came across this piece by the journalist.

What’s interesting here is the comment by one Simon J Kelly. (The comment has been cleaned up of spelling and grammatical errors).

David’s (Drumm) story is spot on. Anybody who thinks that pinning the blame on a few bankers for Ireland’s collapse is delusional.

That is also the informed opinion of the official report carried out on the banking collapse by Nyberg.

I screwed up like so many other Irish people and so did David. We need to learn from it and get over it, it’s a witch hunt.

AIB will loose almost as much as Anglo, but I don’t see the government chasing those guys.

There are winners and losers. That’s the nature of all things.

We just need a system that accepts this rather than punished people who try and fail.

The Irish in Ireland need to learn from the Irish in America.

This Kelly is, I believe, one of the scumbag developers responsible for the impoverishment of the Irish people.

De Rossa: Nothing but an obnoxious bully

We know from De Rossa’s aggressive behavior towards fellow MEP Nessa Childers that he’s nothing but an obnoxious bully.

He was at it again on The Last Word (Thursday) in a discussion with Independent TD Shane Ross.

After De Rossa came to the end of a long rant in defence of Cardiff, the presenter, Matt Cooper asked Ross – Well, Shane what do you make of that?

Deputy Ross got to speak just nine words before the obnoxious De Rossa made an ignorant interruption.

Sorry Shane, you had a long run at this on this programme. I just want to take up a few points with you.

Cooper, with some difficulty, put the bully in his place before Ross could proceed.

Here are some other idiotic things De Rossa had to say.

It’s completely unfair to say that somebody at the top is incompetent because somebody else underneath him is incompetent.

The function of the head of an organisation is to try to ensure that it works effectively and efficiently.

When errors are discovered they have to investigate and ensure they don’t’ happen again. It doesn’t make sense that when a piece of important information gets stuck at a certain level and the person who has ultimate responsibility is not informed until late in the day that that person then takes the hit for an incompetent presumably at another level of the organisation.

It’s their responsibility to ensure that that incompetence is rooted out and that the mistake doesn’t happen again.

That’s what they’re ir paid for.

Following this logic the person at middle management who, according to Cardiff, was responsible for the accounting error, could claim:

Nothing to do with me Gov, my job is to root out incompetence by those beneath me.

So we can assume the janitor at the Dept. of Finance is down in the basement tearing his hair out trying to figure out how the hell he missed out on €3.6 billion.

Cardiff's sinister attack on freedom of speech

During a discussion on the Cardiff scandal (Today with Pat Kenny; Friday) economist Jim Power made an interesting revelation.

Apparently, about four years ago, Cardiff made a formal complaint to Power’s employer because he felt that the opinions expressed by Power were injurious to the state of the nation.

Power had expressed the opinion that if the Irish didn’t get their finances in order very quickly the country would ultimately default on its dept.

Clearly, Cardiff wanted Power’s employers to shut him up or even sack him.

This kind of sinister attack on freedom of expression is typical of all corrupt states.

'Accountability' without consequences is not accountability

Here’s a snippet from an interview with the Director General of RTE after being asked should those involved in the Fr. Reynolds scandal remain on while investigations are ongoing (Six One News).

I wasn’t directly involved in the decisions that led up to the broadcast of the programme.

But you’re editor in chief of RTE?

Absolutely, and I absolutely take absolute responsibility in that regard.

Here’s a snippet from Kevin Cardiff when he appeared before the Joint Oireachtas Committee of European Affairs.

My role as accounting officer is to take responsibility for these things, to deal with them when they arise, to rectify them as best I can, to account for them to this committee, to account for them to the Minister.

Brian Cowen and other politicians gave similar replies when asked about their responsibility for the financial catastrophe visited upon the nation.

This saying of the words, I accept full responsibility, without accepting the consequences of that accountability is a typical and uniquely Irish attitude among Western nations.

These people are more than happy to accept the power, privilege and enormous salaries that come as part of their jobs but absolutely refuse to accept any consequences when they make mistakes.

This inability or refusal to accept actual responsibility rather than just saying the words is a common feature of all failed states.

We need more Lou McDonalds

Brian from Dublin sent a text to Today with Pat Kenny accusing Sinn Fein’s Mary Lou McDonald of being rude and personally offensive to Mr. Cardiff.

After rejecting the charge that she was rude and offensive Ms McDonald went on:

My entire interest in this has been driven by an absolute commitment and determination that we will have accountability at very senior level.

That we will see change and that we will see an end to the kind of cosy club and cronyism that has been a real, real problem in Irish politics for generations.

If other TDs were as committed to reforming our corrupt political system the Brian’s from Dublin and the Kevin Cardiff’s of this world could be safely consigned to the dustbin of history.

Cardiff rejection: The fallout

UK Independence Party MEP Marta Andreasen is one of the strongest objectors to the appointment of Kevin Cardiff.

Here’s her response to Cardiff’s rejection with my own comments.

The evidence was self-explanatory.

Correct, but only to politicians/countries where accountability is taken seriously. That is, countries where the common good is put above cronyism.

Kevin Cardiff’s reward for his blunder would have been a six-figure salary in an EU institution.

Such rewards/strokes lie at the heart of how things are done in Ireland.

It would have been a farcical appointment.

Correct but farce and embarrassment for Ireland doesn’t bother our gombeen politicians so long as their friends are looked after.

An auditor’s credentials must be beyond doubt.

This is not, and has never been, a requirement in Ireland.

Had he been given the job any integrity the Court of Auditors had would have laid in tatters.

The presence of the word ‘integrity’ in this sentence puts it beyond understanding for most Irish politicians.

Minister for Finance puts interests of Kevin Cardiff before interests of Irish people

Minister for Finance Michael Noonan sympathising with the ‘ordeal’ that Kevin Cardiff faces today when he appears before the Committee on Budgetary Control of the European Parliament.

I’d like to wish him all the best. It’s difficult to go under scrutiny in any parliament and for somebody from Ireland who hasn’t experience of the European Parliamentary system it’s going to be a testing day for him.

I think, actually, of all the people that were nominated to serve on the European Court of Auditors by Irish governments over the years, Kevin Cardiff is the most qualified for the job.

This statement by the Minister sends a clear message to the Irish people.

I am a member of the ruling elite of this country. Kevin Cardiff is also a member of our exclusive club and therefore I will be giving his interests priority over the interests of the Irish people.

Copy to:
Minister Noonan

Response of Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation Richard Bruton to the Cardiff Scandal

The Week in Politics: Sunday 6th November

Clearly a mistake was made in the Dept. of Finance, the issue is what was the seriousness of that mistake and was he culpulable.

I think the general view and certainly it’s Michael Noonan’s view is that he was not culpulable, this was a mistake in how numbers were put together.

This wasn’t an issue of culpulabe failure in pursuing the duties of his office.

These are the words of an incredibly stupid man or the words of a man who has no capability whatsoever of dealing with unpalatable facts.

The Minister goes on:

I think in terms of accountability, we do need to have genuine accountability I think the tradition has not been of pinning responsibility on individuals who are responsible for certain performance and then holding them to account and tying payments to their performance, that’s not a tradition.

But as Brendan Howlin has said it’s going to become a tradition because there’s going to be clear performance indicators set for every head of agency to be accountable so this will be a sea change in the way we measure performance and hold people to account.

In other word;

We don’t have a tradition of accountability in this country but from now on we are going to make people accountable.

I’ve been listening to this bullshit promise for decades.

Copy to:

The Minister

Economist, Colm McCarthy’s response to the Kevin Cardiff scandal.

It was just a classification error.

I had a lot of sympathy for Kevin Cardiff fielding questions from a posse of politicians on the highest horses that they could locate.

It was an unedifying spectacle.

Colm McCarthy may be an expert on economics but he clearly knows nothing about the concept of accountability.