Corrupt Senate elections

I’m not sure how but could the non implementation of the 1979 referendum to extend the franchise to all graduates have something to do with the corrupt manner in which Senate elections are conducted?

I’m thinking perhaps that if the franchise was extended it might have diluted political manipulation of the election outcome.

This would explain why no political party has ever objected to the non implementation.

Here’s part of an RTE interview with Stephen Collins during the 2007 Senate election after the Green Party (naively) objected to illegal supervision of voting.

Collins: The Greens find that supervision is an intrusion and in fact it’s illegal. The political parties have done this over the years.

The big parties, Fianna Fail and I think Fine Gael have tried to ensure that their councilors voted in ways the party HQ would like and at times ballots have been supervised.

There has been deals before, the PDs voted for FF candidates in the last election and in return got Seanad seats.

Again there was talk of the votes being supervised but in fact it’s illegal to supervise voting and the Green councilors had legitimacy making that point.

How is it done?

Collins: Well, Councillors get their votes, ballot papers in the post but they have to have a witness to ensure they have voted in the correct manner.

There is a declaration and usually a County Manager signs the declaration which goes into another envelope.

What the parties try to do is get the Councillors in a group so that as well as the County Manager verifying that it’s being done legally, that parties can have influence over how Councillors vote.

Denis O'Brien blackmailed?

On The Late Debate last Tuesday Irish Times journalist Colm Keena related an incredible story of how Denis O’Brien was blackmailed over alleged false documentation to the Moriarty Tribunal.

There was a fellow up in the North called Kevin Phelan, he didn’t give evidence to the tribunal but according to the judge he knew that some of the documentation that had been given to the tribunal was false and had been doctored.

He used that information to put pressure on Denis O’Brien and was paid 150,000 Sterling by Denis O’Brien in what the judge said was an effort to get him to desist from his threats to undermine the stories that had been told to the tribunal.

New government/new dawn: How long before the fall?

This government will hit the ground running.

said Enda Kenny

And indeed it did, reducing TDs pay, taking away the mercs but there was a stumble when the promised reduction of junior ministers from 15 to 12 didn’t materialize.

Now Kenny has hinted the abolition of the Senate is more complicated than he first thought, another stumble.

How long before the fall?

Ireland: An irretrievably corrupt state

I’ve just discovered that a referendum held in 1979 (32 years ago) which asked the people if they wanted to extend the franchise in Senate elections to include all third-level graduates was passed but never implemented.

I rang the Dept. of the Environment to inquire how this was possible in a so called democratic state.

Specifically, I wanted to know if there was any legal/legislative obligation on the part of civil servants or politicians to implement the will of the people as a result of a referendum.

The official I spoke with said, to her knowledge, there was no such obligation, that there was no time limit in which a referendum result had to be legally activated.

I took the following explanation of Article 46 of the Constitution from the Dept’s website.

Under Article 46 of the Constitution, a proposal to amend the Constitution must be introduced in the Dail as a Bill. When the Bill has been passed by both Houses of the Oireachtas (Parliament), it must be submitted to the people for approval as a referendum. If a majority of the votes cast at the referendum are in favour of the proposal, the Bill is signed by the President and the Constitution is amended accordingly.

This is crystal clear; if a majority is in favour the Bill will be passed.

It seems the people who drew up the Constitution never dreamed that our republic would ever degenerate into an irretrievably corrupt state.

They assumed that political and civil service standards of honesty, accountability and professionalism would remain at a level that would not require every possible angle to be legislatively and forensically covered to avoid official trickery.

I’m getting to the point where I feel the need to take a hot, cleansing shower after every news report.

Copy to:

Dept. of Environment

Joe Higgins: Last honest politician to join Gombeen land

There was some guy by the name of Paul Murphy on Liveline today claiming that the title MEP had been bestowed on him by Socialist Party leader Joe Higgins.

An angry caller to the show accused Higgins of gross hypocrisy for doing something he is constantly condemning other political parties for doing – handing out lucrative jobs to his own supporters.

Murphy, whoever he is, defended himself by making the following points:

He would use his position to help the people he represents.

If Higgins didn’t apppoint a successor the Government would appoint one of their own.

On the question of salary and expenses Mr. Murphy, whoever he is, said that if he didn’t take it the EU would. He said that most of the money would go to help his party’s cause.

The angry caller (rightly) said that this defence was beside the point, that all political parties could make the same case.

He suggested that Joe Higgins, if he wanted to remain true to his principles, should have let the job go altogether.

I agree with the angry caller.

Denis O'Brien accuses the judiciary

The following extremely serious accusation was made against the Irish judiciary by businessman Denis O’Brien on live television (Six One News, 34.10).

This judge (Michael Moriarty) is flawed…you have to challenge and I don’t care who it is, a judge when he’s flawed.

I lost my challenges against this judge because the judiciary have put a ring of steel around him because they know he was never up to the job of actually writing this report and subsequently said’ God, we better protect this man’.

In a real democracy with proper law enforcement O’Brien would by now find himself before a judge explaining his accusations.

Ireland's economic earthquake

It was reported on RTE News tonight that the Japanese earthquake, at €200 billion, is the world’s worst disaster in economic terms.

I think our economic disaster, coming in somewhere around €250/300 billion, easily beats that.

Moriarty Report: First reactions

The first and most important thing to be said about the Moriarty Report is that nobody will be made accountable. This, of course, is no accident.

While tribunals have power to produce facts they are specifically prevented from bringing the guilty to account. Any subsequent police investigation is barred from using evidence uncovered by the tribunal. In other words, they must begin the entire investigation again without any assistance whatsoever from the tribunal report.

Of course, there will be no Gardai investigation; Irish police do not concern themselves with the activities of politicians or white collar individuals, it’s a well established tradition.

Now that the report has been published we will move into the next phase – discussion.

Just as tribunals are designed to sideline proper investigation into serious corruption and the ban on police using tribunal evidence has the effect of protecting the guilty, national discussion, conducted through a largely captured media, is designed to allow everybody to indulge in the great Irish tradition of pretending that Ireland is a functional, democratic state.

Miriam O’Callaghan set the ball rolling tonight on Prime Time by asking a question she has asked on countless occasions in the past concerning an endless line of previous scandals – Do you think there will be criminal charges?

Pat Rabbitte, just like dozens of politicians before him intoned in a sombre voice, well I hope so.

Gay (Mad) Mitchell suggested that Mary Robinson should investigate the tribunal report, picking out those parts which, in her opinion, could be forwarded to the DPP.

So, an investigation into an investigation to be forwarded to another state agency for yet another investigation, sounds familiar.

The absolutely critical factor in all this farce is – never, ever allow reality to impinge on the delusions of the nation.

Life savers and wasters

The following text message was received during a discussion on the economy and banking crisis on an RTE programme last week.

I’m a nurse and my staff and I saved two lives today. I’m 52, funded my Masters myself and my take home pay is just over €1,300 per fortnight.

Compare this to the following wasters.

Mary Coughlan (45): Received a lump sum of almost €240,000 and an annual pension of over €140,000.

Paul Gogarty (42): Received lump sum of more than €110,000 and an annual pension of over €20,000. Gogarty served just eight years as a backbencher.

Sean Haughey (49): Lump sum of almost €240,000 and an annual pension of almost €72,000.

These payments and the millions paid out to the other traitors who have destroyed our country are nothing less than obscene.

Libya: Only hours to act

I know I’m writing with the benefit of hindsight but I have always been skeptical of media reports from Libya telling us that Gaddafi was finished.

What puzzled me was the actual pictures from Libya which showed disorganized, untrained rebels armed with little more than AK 47s and some heavy machine guns while Gaddafi’s forces had well trained battalions, regiments of tanks and an effective air force.

Media reports always attempted to bridge this gap by telling us that what the rebels lacked in military hardware was more than compensated for by their high level of enthusiasm.

Unfortunately, enthusiasm does not stop bullets or bombs or make up for lack of professional strategy.

Undoubtedly Gaddafi is a ruthless dictator but his military and political strategies are succeeding.

Initially, he retreated to Tripoli and immediately began to consolidate his forces while at the same time launching a twin pronged propaganda campaign.

A local campaign to convince his supporters that they were under attack from outside forces principally al-Qaeda and a global campaign to convince the international community that he was still in charge and would win.

The rebels, on the other hand, made two fatal mistakes.

First, they failed to establish a central political authority backed up by a well organized military force.

Second, and most disastrously, they steadfastly refused to ask for outside assistance. This is akin to a non swimmer telling a would be rescuer not to throw a lifeline insisting that somehow he would safely reach the shore.

The rebels were naïve in the extreme to think that they could defeat a vastly superior military force by idealism alone.

They should have asked the Devil and all for every and any assistance. The total defeat of the enemy by whatever means available should have been their first and overriding aim.

Time enough to sort out lesser details once the country had been secured.

Machiavelli got it right when he warned:

Before all else, be armed.

I’ve just heard the news that the UN Security Council has backed a no-fly zone over Libya and all necesary measures short of invasion to protect civilians.

The ‘all necessary measures’ obviously means the targetting of Gaddafi’s forces in the air and on the ground to prevent them taking Benghazi.

The international community have only hours to act.