Irish Catholic: Voyage of intolerance

The ‘Courtyard of the Gentiles’, a Vatican initiative to promote dialogue with unbelievers opened a two day event in Paris on March 24th.

The initiative, according to one Cardinal, is inviting non-believers to:

Come on a voyage with believers through the desert, to encourage exploration of the ultimate questions.

Writing about the event in this week’s Irish Catholic, The editor, Garry O’Sullivan, took the opportunity to attack the (unchristian) greed and anger prevalent in Ireland, the plan (conspiracy) by the State to take over many religious schools and, for good measure, threw in the standard attack on atheist, Richard Dawkins.

In a comment sure to encourage dialogue with unbelievers he declared;

Secularism has no answers to the great questions of life; those who do (Catholics) should step forward with courage.

So, best of luck with that ‘voyage of exploration’.

Upward only rent law: All clear now

I had always been puzzled by the upward only rent law, I thought there must be some reasonable explanation for such an apparently unfair law.

All became clear on the Frontline last Monday as Ann Hargaden, of Lisney’s Estate Agents, literally squirmed in her seat as she tried to justify this law.

If this law is changed, she warned, it will have devastating effects on international investors coming into Ireland to buy property from NAMA.

When that argument failed to convince Hargaden’s line of thought became even more bizarre.

Think about it, she argued. Who’s going to be hurt by this? (if the law is changed to allow rents to go down). The taxpayer, she triumphantly declared, will pay.

The taxpayer is now the landlord. The taxpayer owns the banks, the taxpayer owns NAMA. If property depreciates in value it’s the taxpayer who will suffer.

So it’s all clear to me now.

The upward only rent law is a scam put in place by our corrupt political system to protect and enrich those involved in the property market at the expense of taxpayers.

Returning Officer rejects O’Cuiv complaint

The Returning Officer for Galway West, Ms. Marian Chambers Higgins, has responded to my formal complaint regarding the name used by Fianna Fail TD, Eamon O’Cuiv in the recent General Election.

I must advise that pursuant to legislation and in particular as follows ” a Dail election may, and may only, be questioned by a petition to the High Court” under Sec.132 of the Electoral Act 1992.

I am unable to assist you any further and your complaint has been noted.

It’s a curious reply.

Ms Chambers Higgins rejection of my complaint is based on the false assumption that I am questioning the election which, of course, I am not.

My complaint concerns a single suspected infringement of electoral law.

As yet I have had no reply from the Franchise Section of the Department of the Environment, Heritage & Local Government.

Marian Finucane: Stop telling me the truth

Marian Finucane (Saturday) began her interview with Pat Cox last Saturday in a very angry tone.

A lot of Irish people are feeling really, really angry with Europe at this stage, that Irish taxpayers have been forced by Europe not by the IMF to pay for loans that the Irish people didn’t take out, there seems a dreadful injustice at the heart of that.

Throughout the entire interview Finucane refused to accept that, as a nation, we were in any way to blame.

It’s the fault of the Europeans; they allowed the nasty European banks to take advantage of our gentle and innocent banks.

Cox tried his best to tell her the truth.

In fact, right throughout the interview he kept on saying – It’s our fault, we did it to ourselves but Finucane was having none of it.

We’re Irish she seemed to suggest, we can’t be expected to face reality, we don’t do reality.

Why, asked Cox, are other European countries both inside and outside the Euro much better off than Ireland, why did Ireland fail?

Yes, said Finucane we know all about bad regulation and the politics of it all but those nasty banks were taking a punt on our financial institutions and they’re getting away with it.

It’s our fault said Cox, we had no contingency plan, we made a mess of it.

But Finucane insisted the European banks were investing here because they figured that the Irish mug would have to pay for it through tax.

Cox was patient.

The unilateral decision made in 2008 to guarantee all the Irish banks was the single most reckless decision in the history of the Irish state.

The decision was made without telling our EU partners, it posed a serious danger to their interests. We put on the Green Jersey, the Germans didn’t make us do it, the French didn’t make us do it, we did it ourselves.

But Finucane was determined, at all costs, to avoid facing reality.

But we’ve made so many sacrifices, tax increases, pay cuts, there’s a lot of pain and the nasty investors who lent recklessly to our gentle innocent banks are getting away without any pain.

Cox is a saint.

We did it to ourselves he said. The EU and even the IMF stopped believing us; they don’t trust the Irish, that’s why they insisted on an external examiner to supervise the latest bank stress tests.

But, said the by now crazed Finucane, the people who put money into Anglo, for example, knew it was a basket case, it’s so unfair that we should have to take the pain.

I switched off, went for a walk.

General Election: Formal complaint against Éamon Ó Cuív

This morning I have submitted a formal complaint to the Franchise Section of the Department of the Environment and the Election Returning Officer for Galway East/West, Ms. Marian Chambers Higgins, regarding the name used by Fianna Fail TD, Éamon Ó Cuív in the recent General Election.

Shortly after the election I heard media reports that Éamon Ó Cuív had used the name Cuív, Éamon Ó on his ballot paper, which, I understand, provides a valuable advantage as the name appears near the top of the ballot paper.

After several phone calls over several days I eventually got to speak to the Returning Officer for Galway West, Marian Chambers Higgins.

Ms. Chambers Higgins refused to discuss the matter with me except to say the following:

He (Éamon Ó Cuív) went to the High Court years ago, long before my time to be able to put himself down as Cuív, Éamon Ó and my understanding is that his name is Cuív, Éamon Ó.

It’s important that Ms. Chambers Higgins has certainty that the name submitted to her for inclusion on a ballot paper is the correct name because The Electoral Act, 1992, section 52 (3) (a), is crystal clear on the matter (my emphasis).

(3) The returning officer shall object to the name of a candidate in a nomination paper if such name:

(a) Is not a name by which the candidate is commonly known.

With the exception of the recent election I have never heard Éamon Ó Cuív, or anybody else, use the name Cuív, Éamon Ó.

Indeed, during my inquiries regarding this matter Éamon Ó Cuív addressed himself to me, in both the spoken and written word, as Éamon Ó Cuív.

It is therefore puzzling, to say the least, that an election Returning Officer, who must make the final decision on the veracity of candidates for election, is of the understanding that Éamon Ó Cuív’s name is actually Cuív, Éamon Ó.

Initially, I had difficulty contacting Mr. Ó Cuív regarding the matter but when I informed an official at his constituency office that I was considering making a formal complaint Mr. Ó Cuív replied by telephone (leaving a message as I was on another call at the time) and email within an hour.

In addition to a great deal of technical detail regarding the use of Irish names on ballot papers Mr. Ó Cuív also informed me that a case taken in the Circuit Court against Galway County Council found that the only logical index of Irish language names was by the surname proper thus allowing him to use the name Cuív, Éamon Ó on election ballot papers.

I contacted Galway County Council with the intention of obtaining a copy of the Circuit Court judgement mentioned by Éamon Ó Cuív and/or the High Court judgement mentioned by Ms. Chambers Higgins.

This judgement, I felt, would be very important as it appears to be in opposition to the above mentioned section of the Electoral Act, 1992.

An official at Galway County Council, after researching the matter, informed me that no such case was ever taken.

EU is bringing down the shutters; it's now up to ourselves

Let’s be absolutely clear about this, the EU is abandoning Ireland.

We’re not going to be thrown out of the EU club altogether, that would damage the EU project, but we will be treated for what we are – an insignificant backwater state that’s incapable of managing its own affairs.

There are a number of reasons for this.

First, on a global and even on a European scale we do not and never have registered either economically or politically.

Even if Ireland was a real democracy with a thriving economy we still wouldn’t matter simply because we’re too small.

Secondly, the EU has finally realised that Ireland is a cancer which could infect the entire EU project and therefore must be put in strict quarantine for as long as necessary.

The massive suffering that this strategy will cause to ordinary Irish citizens is not a factor in EU thinking, why should it be? The EU has rightly concluded that we are solely responsible for the disaster that has befallen us.

It’s pathetically hilarious to hear politicians and journalists whinging on about how the EU is somehow to blame for our disaster because they failed to stop us in our stupidity.

It’s like a burglar pleading with a judge – Please your honour, I only committed the crime because the police didn’t stop me, it’s their fault.

Thirdly, the EU is itself struggling to recover from the global financial crisis and must act ruthlessly in order to win that battle.

Portugal and in particular Spain have now become the main focus of EU resources because if Spain goes the Euro and perhaps the entire EU project is in serious danger of collapse.

EU officials have finally realised that pumping over €160 billion into Irish banks was an extremely dangerous strategy and are now looking for their money back before pulling down the shutters on Ireland for decades.

To cut their losses the EU are forcing Irish banks to sell off all their assets and the Irish Government to sell off a huge chunk of state assets. This will reduce Ireland to what I call a visible banana republic.

We have, in reality been a corrupt state, a banana republic, since the criminal Haughey came to power in 1979 but we have always managed to hide that fact from the outside world principally because, as I mentioned already, we have no significance whatsoever on the global stage, we are not important.

We only register on a global scale when our entire economy collapses and that’s usually for about thirty seconds. On an EU scale we only register when our corruption/toxicity threatens the EU project.

Our corrupt political system is the sole reason for the destruction of our country. No banker, no developer, no regulator could have destroyed the economy without the active cooperation of our corrupt body politic.

The complete destruction of the economy will, ultimately, lead to the complete failure of the state which will, in turn, lead to civil unrest.

Civil unrest is inevitable because there is not the slightest sign of the political revolution that’s necessary to rescue the situation.

Enda Kenny’s claim that the recent general election was a democratic revolution is just silly talk.

Fianna Fail, the most corrupt political party in the state and the party most responsible for our destruction, only suffered significant electoral damage after it had led the country across the cliff of destruction.

In other words, it took the complete destruction of our country before the politically ignorant Irish finally woke up and realised that perhaps it wasn’t such a good idea to vote traitors into power for the price of filling in a pot hole.

The current Fine Gael/Labour government is operating very comfortably within the same corrupt political system that has destroyed the country. There will be no major reform, certainly no reform that would threaten the corrupt system.

The treatment of the traitor Lowry provides us with clear evidence that nothing has changed, that the political revolution that’s absolutely critical if our country is to be save is not even being contemplated.

Lowry, a corrupt, lying, tax cheating, thieving traitor is allowed to infect our national parliament with impunity. We’re told that nothing can be done beyond a mild, ineffective censure.

Wrong:

A government/body politic that was aware of the seriousness of the country’s position would move immediately to change the law to ensure that this scumbag was ejected from power.

If legislation wasn’t sufficient then an immediate referendum should be held to ensure this cancerous object was removed from the political sphere forever.

Such action would not just set a standard for other politicians but would also send a message to the people of North Tipperary and to the wider politically ignorant electorate that the election of political scumbags was no longer acceptable.

In 1922 Ireland became an independent nation full of confidence and hope for the future. On the 29th September 2008 the old corrupt republic that Ireland had evolved into came to a pathetic end.

Since 2008 we have been witnessing the slow, inevitable and unstoppable disintegration of that corrupt republic.

The continued existence of a corrupt political system acting, for the most part, in its own interests coupled with the ever increasing impoverishment and disillusionment of the people is creating an extremely dangerous divide in Irish society.

Neither the EU nor the wider world has any responsibility whatsoever in bridging that divide.

Only truly revolutionary and courageous leadership from within Ireland can lead the country out of its present crisis towards a new and genuine republic.

Pat Kenny defeated by Martin waffle

Michael Martin, traitor and leader of the most corrupt political party in Ireland, a party that is principally responsible for the destruction of the country, a party that never, ever condemns its own corrupt members like, for example, the criminal Haughey.

So it should have been easy for even the most inexperienced greenhorn journalist to completely destroy the hypocritical arguments put forward by this low grade politician when he tries to occupy the high moral ground in respect of Michael Lowry and the Moriarty Tribunal Report.

On his radio show this morning Pat Kenny failed abjectly in this respect.

Martin easily waffled his way around the weak and mostly irrelevant challenges offered by Kenny, for example.

Kenny accused Martin of hypocrisy given that Fianna Fail, who are now condemning Lowry, were more than willing to do business with him while in government.

Martin responded by saying that those dealings took place before the publication of the Moriarty Tribunal Report:

Every person before any tribunal is accorded the right to have their case heard by the tribunal and one does not sit on judgement on that until the tribunal reports.

The delivery of this cynical and dishonest argument was the cue for any greenhorn journalist to close the trap by simply putting it to Martin that Lowry’s reputation had been utterly destroyed years ago after the publication of the McCracken Report.

Kenny, apparently completely unaware of Lowry’s shady past involving tax evasion, lying and planning irregularities, let Martin off the hook by accepting his ridiculous argument.

Copy to:
Pat Kenny

Sarah Carey: Safe to lie in the special realm?

In a mostly self-serving article Irish Times columnist Sarah Carey has admitted that she lied to the Moriarty Tribunal (more on the lie later).

In the article, Ms. Carey, who used to work for Denis O’Brien, says that corporate fundraising should be banned not because of any danger of corruption but because it would stop all the innuendo and accusation surrounding the practice.

It is disturbing that an opinion maker like Ms. Carey, writing for such a prestigious and influential newspaper like the Irish Times, is so naive as to suggest that corporate/political fundraising in Ireland is transparent and honest, that all the corrupt events of the last number of decades is based on nothing more than innuendo and (false?) accusations.

Clearly, Ms. Carey is ignorant of or chooses to ignore the avalanche of corruption that has blighted the people of Ireland over the last number of decades primarily due to the very cosy and to a large degree, corrupt relationship between business and politics.

Indeed, she appears to be blissfully unaware of the fact that it is this diseased relationship that is principally responsible for the destruction of our country and the impoverishment of generations of Irish citizens to come.

Ms. Carey’s admission that she lied to the Tribunal is interesting because, to my knowledge, she gave evidence under oath. If that is the case then surely she has committed perjury?

Or perhaps not because in Ireland perjury is not so much a general crime as a crime that seems to be strictly confined to ‘ordinary’ citizens.

Take the case of poor old Thomas Morey for example.

Morey was given a one year jail term for perjury for refusing to give evidence in a murder trial; he claimed he couldn’t remember the night in question (A common enough excuse, I’m sure you will agree).

But that wasn’t the end for poor old Morey. The Court of Criminal Appeal found that the sentence was too lenient and hauled Morey back to court with the intention of imposing a much stiffer sentence on this ‘ordinary’ citizen.

One of the judges said:

It was important for a functioning society that people required to give evidence in criminal proceedings should do so.

Granted, this is a criminal case involving murder but there are other less serious cases where ‘ordinary’ citizens have been severely punished for lying under oath.

To my knowledge, despite years and years of tribunals and other sworn investigations in which lying under oath was the order of the day, not a single person from the political, business or media world has been charged with perjury.

So even if Ms. Carey lied under oath and I stress, if, she has nothing to worry about because her lies were uttered within a special realm where politicians, businessmen, legal personnel, media people and even policemen can lie under oath with impunity.

O'Brien repeats serious allegation against judiciary

On Thursday last I wrote about Denis O’Brien’s extremely serious allegation that the judiciary had put a ring of steel around Justice Moriarty because they knew he was never up to the job.

During an interview with Pat Kenny (Friday) O’Brien initially seemed to withdraw the allegation when Kenny suggested it would be an appalling vista if the entire judiciary were to collude against one man.

O’Brien said:

You’ve got to separate the wider judiciary from Justice Moriarty. I believe I was stitched by Justice Moriarty but I’m not in any way critical of the wider judicial community.

It’s a measure of O’Brien’s lack of mental coordination that, minutes later, he repeated the allegation when Kenny again suggested he take his case to the courts.

O’Brien:

Look, do you know a lot about the legal profession, the judiciary and the Law Society. There’s a code amongst them all that they don’t take each other on, they don’t criticise each other.

And:

There’s a ring of steel around Moriarty because they knew, the judiciary knew, that he was never up to the job, he’s a Circuit Court judge.

As I wrote on Thursday, in a real democracy with proper law enforcement O’Brien would by now find himself before a judge explaining his accusations.

Minister for Justice Alan Shatter has responded to the hysterical rants of O’Brien and Lowry regarding Justice Moriarty and the judiciary in general saying:

Statements which endanger public confidence in our judiciary and in our courts are entirely unacceptable and are to be deplored.

Legal expert Professor Gerry Whyte of Trinity Law School said that if criticism of the judiciary went so far as to undermine public confidence in the administration of justice then we’re talking about an offence called scandalising the court.

If Minister Shatter genuinely thinks the comments are unacceptable then he should immediately initiate proceedings against O’Brien and Lowry.