Category: The State

Central Bank governor now well integrated into the system

The astronomer was explaining to his audience that the earth would be destroyed in 4.5 billion years time when the sun explodes.

A lady, shocked to hear this news, checked with the astronomer. Did you say the earth would be destroyed in 4.5 million years?

No, replied the astronomer, 4.5 billion. Oh, said the lady, sitting down, that’s a relief.

The same logic can be applied to the Central Bank scandal where, apparently, everybody was relieved to learn that 52 spouses of staff had gone on 71 trips over two years and not, as was first thought, altogether on one trip.

I can see this ‘trick’ being enthusiastically taken up by politicians and officials as the ultimate red herring. Politician X, discovered to have defrauded the taxpayer of €50,000, will be off the hook when it’s learned that the fraud was only €49.000.

The official reaction to the Central Bank scandal makes one thing clear, nothing has changed.

The new Governor, Patrick Honohan, on first taking up his post naively expressed puzzlement at how banks could have been so reckless and called for an inquiry; he wanted to get at the truth.

Clearly, this unprecedented attempt to bring accountability to a corrupt banking system sent shock waves throughout financial and political circles.

There must, therefore, have been great relief when Honohan’s response to the expenses scandal clearly demonstrated that he had quickly learned how to work the system.

I knew nothing about this, I’m not responsible but I have put a stop to the practice and then, in traditional Irish style, he pulled down the shutters.

Was former governor John Hurley accompanied by his wife on a taxpayer funded trip to a symposium in the Rocky mountain ski resort of Jackson Hole? – Not telling you.

Was former governor John Hurley accompanied by his wife on a trip to Cape Town in 2007? – Not telling you.

Was former governor John Hurley accompanied by his wife on a trip to Paris in 2006? – Not telling you.

What about details on a number of foreign trips taken by senior officials in 2007/08? – Not telling you.

Yes, Mr. Honohan is well and truly integrated into the Irish system of secrecy and non accountability.

We’ll hear no more calls for investigation from this man.

Waiting for the revolution

Thousands of students had gathered to vent their rage. Marching, waving placards and shouting.

We’re standing here united as students; we’re not taking this any longer.

One of their leaders shouted at the nation.

The situation is not acceptable anymore.

Was this the ‘revolution’ Elaine Byrne wrote about recently?

Had the young people of Ireland finally woke up to the wholesale destruction caused to their country by corrupt politicians and bankers?

Had they woken up to the fact that corruption had destroyed any prospects for their future in their own country; that they and their children would be paying for the greed and corruption for generations to come?

Alas, no. The anger and fury was sparked because a dispute in the college was preventing the publication of some exam results (RTE News, 13th report).

Every day I check the headlines, beat the bushes, scan the horizon, waiting for the revolution but, to date, nothing. Not a sign of a ‘revolutionary’ student to be seen.

Vincent Browne was writing about student ‘action’ in the Sunday Business Post yesterday. A group of Trinity College students were invited to give their views on the constitution to the Oireachtas Committee on the Constitution.

Boring and entirely pointless writes Browne. He concluded that nothing can be done about the people who have destroyed our country until the next election.

We can see by this that Browne is just as ‘revolutionary’ as the young people of Ireland. Imagine the revolutionaries of 1916 saying.

The situation is intolerable but let’s waits for the next election and then we’ll show them what’s what.

Sadly, there’s not a revolutionary bone in the body of a single young Irish citizen and ‘revolution’ for most older citizens like Browne involves switching allegiance from one corrupt, ultra conservative party to a slightly less corrupt, ultra conservative party and five years later switching back again.

Entertaining FÁS and friends

The following is a list of entertainments enjoyed by FÁS staff and others at taxpayer’s expense (Comptroller and Auditor General
Special Report).

Note that these luxuries were being availed of right up to 2008 when the economy was falling apart and there’s no reason to believe that anything has changed.

Expenditure on Events
3.52 Over the period 2002 to 2008, FÁS paid a net €35,000 for tickets to events including match and concert tickets and hospitality associated with some of the events. The details of the tickets purchased were as follows

€43,100 was paid for four ten-year match tickets. Two tickets were purchased in 2005 at a cost of €20,000 and two further tickets in 2007 at a cost of €23,100.

Following the appointment of a Director General on an interim basis in late 2008 a decision was taken to cancel the tickets.

In May 2009, FÁS received the sum of €33,800 as reimbursement for the unexpired terms of the tickets. The net cost of the tickets was €9,300.
€7,000 for tickets for the All Ireland hurling and football finals.

Ten tickets were purchased for each final for the years 2006 to 2008 inclusive while between four and eight tickets were purchased for each final for the years 2002 to 2005.

€4,640 for tickets for rugby internationals between 2006 and 2008.
€1,960 for tickets for soccer internationals in 2007 and 2008.
€3,724 for concert tickets in the period 2005 to 2008.
€8,299 for hospitality at events. This included €2,255 at the Robbie Williams concert in 2006 and amounts incurred at the All Ireland Finals (€2,244 in 2005, €2,300 in 2006 and €1,500 in 2007).

3.53 All but one of the payments were approved by the former Director General. The remaining payment was approved by the ADG who was Secretary to the Board.

There was no evidence on the FÁS files to indicate how the expenditure was relevant to FÁS’s business.

FÁS could not provide this information and wrote to the former Director General seeking information about the payments.

No response was provided before the finalisation of this report.

Once again we see a senior civil servant (perhaps that should be changed to self – servant) giving the two fingers to taxpayers.

In this case it seems former Director General of FÁS, Rody Molloy, is too busy spending his €900,000 to bother answering questions.

Lies, secrecy and arrogance is still the prevailing attitude

The latest report by the Comptroller & Auditor General (C&AG) into FÁS reveals some very questionable activities by its staff.

€200,000 on flights for people not working for the agency. Apparently, this gravy train, funded by the taxpayer, included journalists, politicians, spouses and friends.

There was also questionable expenditure on golfing events, sporting events and concerts, the majority approved by the incompetent, disgraced but well compensated Mr. Molloy.

Money was spent without authority, the FÁS board was effectively lied to and credit cards were thrown around like drunken sailors in a brothel.

But the most shocking and disgusting aspect of this scandal is the arrogance of the civil servants involved including the C&AG himself.

For example, it is reported that up to six top executives at FÁS were paid bigger bonuses than they were entitled to in 2008. These bonuses were approved by the incompetent Mr. Molloy and sanctioned by the Departments of Enterprise and Finance.

Incredibly, the executives have not been asked to pay back the money which FÁS says was paid in error.

If this was a social welfare ‘error’ the applicant would instantly find himself the subject of an investigation and the money would be deducted from his income forthwith.

A spokeswoman for the Department of Enterprise declined to comment. The incompetent Mr. Molloy also declined to comment.

These people are effectively telling the ripped off taxpayer – take a hike, we don’t have to account for how we spend your money.

Despite constant praise from the media the office of the C&AG also has questions to answer.

Former acting chairman of FÁS, Mr. Niall Saul, was told by Mr. Buckley that controls at FÁS were excellent, that there were no serious problems.

Mr. Saul rightly concluded that if the C&AG was a private company it would be lucky not to be fired.

This shouldn’t surprise ripped off taxpayers when we remember the infamous Bord na gCon investigation carried out by the C & AGs office.

Despite findings of at least one case of serious fraud and many other questionable activities the C&AG, who, bizarrely, is also the auditor of Bord na gCon, concluded that

in general the funds of Bord na gCon were properly applied.

As I write another scandal has broken involving the C&AG and the Central Bank. The media is focusing on an error made by the C&AG when he reported that 52 spouses of staff attended meetings on a single trip when in fact the meetings involved several trips.

The real scandal here was the refusal by the C&AG to disclose what organisation was responsible for this alleged abuse of taxpayer’s money.

Once again, Irish citizens had to rely on the media, RTE on this occasion, to provide them with information that should be immediately forthcoming from state agencies.

Just who does Mr. Buckley think he is in refusing this information to Irish citizens? What were his motives in putting the interests of Central Bank staff above the interests of the people he is allegedly representing?

And what does this affair tell us about the new and much praised Central Bank governor, Patrick Honohan?

On the first occasion he is asked to account for his office he tells us to take a hike. Even now he is refusing to disclose who went on the trips or how much they cost. Irish taxpayer’s have a right to know this information.

And what does all this say about the so called reform of the political and financial sectors? Well, it’s obvious;

There is no reform, secrecy is still the name of the game, ripping off the taxpayer is still rampant, lies, half truths and dissembling is still the favoured response and arrogance is still the predominant attitude.

The political, administrative and financial system that has run this country into the ground is beyond reform.

Nothing will change until the Irish people wake up and throw these people and their corrupt system out of office and out of power.

Copy to:
Central Bank
Comptroller & Auditor General
FÁS

Bizarre decision benefits CRH?

I wrote recently that, while Cement Roadstone Holdings (CRH) have been brought to account for breaking the law in a number of countries, they seem to be immune from accountability in Ireland.

The latest controversy surrounding this very powerful company involves a farmer in Kilkenny who has been trying for the last 19 years to find out what’s been contaminating his livestock (Six One News, 8th report).

The farmer, Dan Brennan, claims that the highly toxic substance cadmium is the cause and most likely comes from a neighbouring brick factory owned by CRH.

CRH strenuously deny the claim.

After years of investigation the Dept. of Agriculture published an 800 page report on the matter earlier this month and it is this report that has shocked MEPs on the EU Petitions Committee.

It seems that because cadmium levels were so high in bovine blood samples that those conducting the investigation decided that the samples must have been contaminated and therefore excluded them completely from the analysis.

The first and most obvious thing to be noted here is that this bizarre decision by Dept. of Agriculture officials appears to be of benefit to CRH, who have always claimed cadmium levels around the factory are in fact very small.

The second point to note is the damage such inexplicable but suspicious decisions do to Ireland’s already tattered reputation.

Such considerations don’t seem to matter, however, when the interests of powerful organisations are at stake as the recent Jim Flavin/DCC farce amply demonstrated.

Knocking down the brick wall of Irish corruption

Even for a country as corrupt as Ireland, the events of Tuesday 19th January represent a dark day for our country.

At the very moment that Jim Flavin and DCC were being let off with an €83 million fraud on the stock market our national parliament was initiating an inquiry into the banking crisis that will, without a shadow of doubt, result in the same farcical result.

On the same day I was in Dublin with my nephew, Gavin, to attend a meeting by Transparency International (Ireland) on the subject of protecting whistleblowers in Ireland. (Gavin created and maintains this website and also writes, campaigns and helps maintain Gavin’s Blog, The Story and Kildare St.).

What struck me about the meeting was, as far as I could ascertain, not a single ordinary citizen was present. My impression was that everybody present was there because they were victims of state corruption, had a personal agenda of their own or were involved in fighting corruption.

And this is the problem. Despite all the good work of organisations like Transparency International (Ireland), journalists like Fintan O’Toole, Tom Clonan and Justine McCarthy and despite the courage of whistleblowers who risk everything in an effort to bring about change, meetings like this, I am sad to say, are really a waste of time.

The disease of corruption in Ireland has become so bad, has become so ingrained in the administration of the country that campaigns like this are, as I said to Gavin in discussion, like trying to knock down a six foot thick brick wall with a soft rubber ball.

The vast majority of Irish citizens are angry over a whole range of events but that anger is not focused, it’s not being harnessed by visionary and courageous leadership.

Coupled with this lack of leadership is the chronic political ignorance of most Irish citizens. Because of the corrupt system of clientelism most Irish people believe that power comes from the top down instead of from the people up.

They believe the system works by selling votes to the local politician in return for a favour. This is why corrupt politicians continue to be voted in time after time.

Irish voters are almost completely incapable of making the connection between voting for a corrupt politician and the damage that that decision causes to the country and the rest of its citizens.

For so long as this situation continues campaigns like that of TI will make little or no progress and have no affect whatsoever on the brick wall of Irish corruption.

That’s why those who operate within the corrupt body politic have no fear of organisations like TI, they are (justifiably) confident that they are untouchable.

There is only one solution to the problem and that is to knock down the brick wall. The political and administrative system that has destroyed this country must itself be brought down.

The first step in that process must be the destruction of the present corrupt political system and that will require immediate and radical action.

I have no idea what form that action should be nor do I have in mind a potential leadership but I have no doubt whatsoever that those of us who want change, who passionately want to root out the rot will still be attending genuine but ultimately useless meetings in twenty years time unless such radical action occurs.

Just before the meeting came to an end Fine Gael TD Leo Varadkar made a short speech before excusing himself to attend a meeting with Paul Appleby of ODCE.

The announcement made at that meeting tells us all we need to know about how rotten our democracy is and will be the subject of my next posting.

A nation in pathological denial

There was a very good example of denial Irish style on Today with Pat Kenny last Friday.

A panel of commentators, Sean Mac Connell, Irish Times agricultural correspondent, Gina Quinn CEO of Dublin Chambers of Commerce and Diarmuid Mc Dermot of Ireland International were discussing the problems caused to water supplies by the recent bad weather.

The reasons for the problems were correctly identified by the panel – Failure to invest in proper infrastructure, failure to plan ahead, failure to make the best use of money during the boom years, failure to install water meters, failure to make a decision regarding water charges, failure of proper planning and so on.

Now the reason for all this failure is crystal clear for anyone willing to open their eyes and see. Ireland is a corrupt state led by a mafia type body politic where votes, power and influence are on sale to the highest bidder.

This brutal reality, however, must be ignored at all costs, some other reason must be found for our failure as a state no matter how stupid that reason. Here’s what Sean Mac Connell thinks:

Some historians will say that because we have been a rural people for so long that we may not be capable of organizing ourselves into urban societies and the more I look at our society, it’s probably true.

We don’t seem to have the capability of coping with an urban environment because we’ve had the tradition, and of course, because we’re a relatively new country.

We have no tradition of governing ourselves, it’s only 60/70 years (sic) and you can have no civic spirit then. Those two elements should never be neglected when we’re thinking about how we live.

Nobody challenged this moronic opinion before Kenny added his own.

Well there was always the notion that before we won our freedom that the British government did everything for us and there was a certain antipathy towards that government and that never really changed when we started to run our own affairs.

There’s some truth in this view but Kenny failed to follow up with the obvious question – Why are we, as a people, chronically incapable of maturing into a proper nation. Why do we constantly blame the British for our incompetence, corruption and other failures?

Diarmuid Mc Dermot added his piece:

There’s always a rebellious streak in every Irish person.

This is just another cowardly cop out. If such a rebellious streak existed in even a sizeable percentage of the Irish people then criminals like Haughey and chancers like Bertie Ahern would never have survived and prospered.

The only reason politicians, priests and bankers can abuse and exploit their own people is because the majority of citizens are politically ignorant and (still) chronically deferential to authority figures.

Remember, the panel started off by correctly identifying the reasons for our pathetic failure to deal with a spell of bad weather and, effectively, concluded that it’s not really our fault – pathological denial.

Ivan Yates takes the peasants to task

The hypocritical preaching of many commentators never ceases to amaze me. Ivan Yates, in a review of the decade, takes the nation to task over our ‘robust materialism and consumerism‘. He goes on;

The quality of life has been defined by the number and nature of holidays, size and spec of car, interior decor of home and gaudy displays of unnecessary expenditure.

The happiness provided by these shallow desires has been short-lived. Now that we can no longer afford them, we find that they weren’t all that they were cracked up to be.

Judging from this sermon we could be forgiven for thinking that Mr. Yates is speaking from the high moral ground, that he’s lecturing the nation from a dark and damp cave out in the West of Ireland where he has donned a sackcloth and ashes lifestyle to redeem his excesses during the boom years.

Let’s take a quick look at Mr. Yates lifestyle. He’s chairman and managing director of Celtic Bookmakers which is jointly owned by himself and his wife. The business has 63 outlets in Ireland and Wales with an annual turnover of over €100 million.

Clearly, Mr. Yates is a multi millionaire and the ‘we’ he refers to in the above quote is obviously aimed at the great unwashed and not at the great and the good of Irish society such as himself.

Indeed, we can assume that Mr. Yates would be devastated if the great unwashed actually took his moralizing to heart and, en masse, decided to abandon their pathetic attempts to satisfy their ‘shallow desires’ for happiness when gambling their hard earned money in his betting shops.

And let’s have a closer look at the above quote.

Is Mr. Yates, the multi millionaire, telling us that neither he nor his family take holidays anymore? Are Mr. Yates and his wife sharing a second hand, banged out Toyota to collect takings from their 63 betting shops or, as I suspect, are they driving around in the latest luxury models?

I look forward to an article from Mr. Yates, complete with colour pictures, that will show the nation that he lives in a modest house without a hint of ‘gaudy display or unnecessary expenditure’.

In addition to his betting business Mr. Yates also presents a radio show on Newstalk, is prominent figure on the after dinner speech circuit and of course writes a column for the Irish Examiner all of which, presumably, he is well paid.

I don’t want to be misunderstood here; I have no problem with Mr. Yates’ business success. I’m a strong believer in (controlled) capitalism and have only admiration for those who go out there and make it in the business world.

I do, however, strongly object to such people telling the rest of us that we must now suffer for losing the run of ourselves during the boom.

The truth is, of course, that when Mr. Yates writes about shallow desires he is not talking about himself or any of the ruling elite of this blighted country.

He’s talking down to the peasantry, who, for a brief few years, gained a small benefit from the corrupt system created and operated by his fellow elites in the political and business world.

That peasantry is now being forced to pay the price for the greed and arrogance of the ruling elite; a ruling elite that Mr. Yates fully supports as we can see from his high opinion of the chancer Bertie Ahern.

The historical annals will declare Bertie Ahern and Tony Blair as the predominant victors and statesmen of this decade.

Only somebody who lives in the rarefied and secure world of the ruling elite could outline the realities of Ahern’s incompetent leadership:

negative equity, unemployment, house repossessions, business failures, emigration, a return to further education and poverty.

And in the same article tell us that this chancer is the statesman of the decade.

And let’s not forget that the peasantry Mr. Yates takes to task for taking more than one annual holiday or outfitting their homes with gaudy displays of unnecessary expenditure are the same peasants who pay both his TDs and minister’s pensions.

Copy to:
Ivan Yates

The most bizarre hypocrisy

Cardinal Connell explained the concept of mental reservation to the Murphy Child Abuse Inquiry as follows.

Well, the general teaching about mental reservation is that you are not permitted to tell a lie.

On the other hand, you may be put in a position where you have to answer, and there may be circumstances in which you can use an ambiguous expression realising that the person who you are talking to will accept an untrue version of whatever it may be – permitting that to happen, not willing that it happened, that would be lying.

It really is a matter of trying to deal with extraordinarily difficult matters that may arise in social relations where people may ask questions that you simply cannot answer. Everybody knows that this kind of thing is liable to happen.

So, mental reservation is, in a sense, a way of answering without lying.

I’m going to treat this concept with the absolute contempt it deserves. At no point am I going to give it even a smidgen of credibility because to do so would damage my own credibility and insult my intelligence not to mention the intelligence of readers.

Unfortunately, and incredibly, this bizarre and corrupt Catholic teaching has been treated as a matter worthy of discussion by much of the Irish media over the past week or so.

I want to be absolutely clear here – anybody, with even the smallest self respect for themselves or their profession, should have reacted to this corrupt concept with total and absolute derision.

People like Cardinal Connell and Archbishop Martin, both of whom apparently fully accept the corrupt concept as perfectly reasonable and normal, should have been publicly derided when they spoke in defence of this corrupt concept.

I’ve already said that Archbishop Martin is a dishonest, sly defender of an obnoxious religion and a recent interview on the scandal confirms my view (This Week).

This man’s aim is the very same as that of the bishops who decided that the good name of their (corrupt) church was more important than saving children from rape.

Right throughout the interview he dissembles and evades,refusing to make any direct criticism of his church or any of those responsible for putting children in danger.

Asked what should happen to those named in the report Martin replied that they should be given the chance to give their side of the story in the court of public opinion.

The interview is worth quoting at length to demonstrate how far this so called priest is prepared to go to defend his corrupt church.

Do you think that’s satisfactory?

Public opinion can be sharper than the sword of the law.

How is that to be measured?

It will be measured by the way public opinion acts. Public opinion can act in a way that is lynch law or it can act in a way that the citizens of the country are able to express their…

Has the church no mechanism to act?

I don’t have that authority, I think in the past the resignations have come from those who, they resigned.

On mental reservation:

Mental reservation is where you make a declaration and it’s not untrue but you don’t necessarily tell the entire truth. I’m told that this is precisely the mechanism that was used to take the oath of allegiance at the beginning of this state.

On O’Connell’s evidence regarding mental reservation:

He said he cooperated but what he didn’t say was he had cooperated fully.

I saw that, that isn’t mental reservation.

What is it?

That’s being scarce with the truth.

A lie?

A lie, I won’t go into the intention of somebody, it could be a comment that was made afterwards. It was a comment of somebody else on the action of…

Isn’t the idea of mental reservation to give somebody the opportunity to take things up the wrong way?

It is but a sharp investigator should be able to notice those things. (So the victims who approached the liar Connell for help and comfort didn’t have much hope).

Have you used it?

Have you anything to declare? We all use mental reservations.

Was Desmond Connell right to use it in the context in which he used it?

The question there about cooperating fully, I think it was somebody else actually who said that.

(He doesn’t have the courage to simple say that Connell is a liar).

There was a specific example where he used the were and are, it was a difference of tense to avoid telling the full truth. Was it right to use it in that context?

If there was a deliberate attempt to hide the truth it was not right but I can’t judge exactly what was going on in a man’s mind at that stage, it would be unfair to do that.

This is the man who is almost universally praised for his response to the child abuse holocaust. He simply doesn’t have it in him to make any serious criticism of his church or any of the ruthless perverted criminals who populate its ranks.

If Martin was the man he likes to portray himself as he would, after learning the full horror of what had happened, have ripped off his collar and threw it in the gutter.

I agree completely with Richard Dawkins when he says that religious indoctrination amounts to child abuse.

In my opinion Cardinal Connell’s response to the wholesale rape of children stems largely from the psychological damage inflicted on him by religious indoctrination.

Archbishop Martin’s defence of his corrupt church is also an indication of psychological damage caused by religious indoctrination when he was a child.

The only difference between these two men and the terrorists who flew planes into the twin towers is one of degree; both actions resulted in massive suffering to innocent human beings.

It is an absolute certainty that that suffering will continue until such time as the Catholic Church is destroyed.

Calls for bishop to resign a bit over the top?

The horror visited upon children by the Catholic Church is now been completely ignored by those with the power to bring justice to the victims. Instead, all discussion is focused on the relatively minor matter of resignations.

Dave O’Connell, editor of the Connacht Tribune, thinks that calls for resignations are a bit extreme.

We need to see the Garda inquiry reach whatever findings it can do on this and then whatever criminal investigation, criminal action or whatever resignations need to take place should take place at that point.

Enda Kenny’s call at this time is a little bit premature. I don’t claim to have read the report in graphic detail. I wouldn’t like to be seen to be defending or in any way condoning but I don’t think he has emerged from this in a position whereby a resignation is the best way forward for him (The bishop of Galway).

I have no axe to grind for him I don’t know him at all but I think that we have to have some measured reaction to this.

By all means when the Garda inquiry is completed if people are found to have been in any way complicit on this, yes they must resign and face whatever legal and court action but I think at this point in time there’s nothing to be served particularly from a resignation of the bishop of Galway.

O’Connell hasn’t read the graphic details of the report, he thinks we should have a measured reaction to the wholesale rape of children and he thinks that no purpose is served by resignations.

Here’s a mad guess: No child of Dave O’Connell’s has ever been raped by a priest, no bishop has ever provided protection for a priest that raped a child of Dave O’Connell’s.