Alice overwhelmed as Rangers go on alert

Ivan Yates continues in his very clever exploitation of Pat Kenny (Thursday) and RTE.

The figures today are (at minimum) €30,000 for Ivan in very valuable exposure on the national airwaves and minus €75 for Pat.

The €500 so far given to Pat to bet on horses at Cheltenham has resulted in a loss of €75, so the chosen charity is ‘up’ €425. And remember, it’s Ivan who is advising Pat on ‘best’ bets.

The lucky charity to receive such incredible munificence is the Alice Leahy Trust. It’s reported that special security arrangements have been made with the Army Ranger Wing to escort the final winnings to Alice.

Alice herself was unable to make comment as she is still overwhelmed by the sheer generosity of it all.

Copy to:
Pat Kenny

Healy Rae gravy train

Last year taxpayers gave Independent TD Jackie Healy Rae the following:

€106,000 in salary.
€89,000 in expenses. (Many, if not most, unvouched).
€40,000 for a secretary.
€41,000 Independent TD allowance.
€10,000 for acting as a committee chairman.

Total: €287,000

No TD should be paid more that €75,000 in absolute total. There should be no other payment whatsoever with the exception of expenses which should be vouched and very carefully checked.

The bookies always win

Ivan Yates got another golden ten minutes on Today with Pat Kenny (Wed).

Yesterday’s charity betting brought in a grand total of €225. Pat hasn’t yet revealed what charity is to receive the huge sum and this is very wise on his part as there is bound to be vicious competition for such a vast amount of money.

I have no idea what the going rate is for commercial advertising on such a high profile show as Pat’s but it must be at least a few thousand per minute, but let’s be conservative and say €1,000 per minute.

So, to date, the score is €20,000 for Ivan – €225 to charity. Those feck’in bookies you just can’t be up to them.

Trusting Haughey; like trusting a pickpocket

Even those who supported and bankrolled the corrupt Haughey knew that he was a gangster who couldn’t be trusted as we see from this extract of the Moriarty Tribunal report.

Clearly, Michael Smurfit knew that handing over a very valuable painting to a man of Haughey’s flawed pedigree was akin to asking a pickpocket to mind his wallet.

Moriarty Tribunal report

7-178 Dr. Smurfit also informed the Tribunal that in 1990, the Smurfit Group made a personal gift to Mr. Haughey of a painting by Jack B Yeats entitled ‘‘The Forge’’, in recognition of Mr. Haughey’s assuming office at the Council of Ministers on Ireland’s assumption of the residency of the European Union. At that time, the Smurfit Group made a presentation to Mr. Haughey of a painting by Sir John Lavery of the raising of the flag at Aras an Uachtara´ n. This latter presentation was a gift to the Irish Nation by the Smurfit Group and the Tribunal understands that it is currently hanging in the State Collection.

7-179 Dr. Smurfit recalled that on the day that he had an appointment with Mr. Haughey at Government Buildings to present the Lavery painting to him, on behalf of the State, he decided on the spur of the moment to make a personal gift in the form of the Yeats painting. The presentation was made during business hours in Government Buildings, and only Dr. Smurfit and Mr. Haughey were present. Dr. Smurfit recalled that he had made the presentation to Mr. Haughey personally, subject to the caveat that he did not expect ‘‘the painting to be sold the following day’’.

As I recall, Smurfit, who had hoped that the painting would be retained as a family heirloom, was shocked to learn that soon after receiving it Haughey did in fact sell it on for a knockdown price.

The all powerful 'independent legal advice' defence

Before Patrick Neary completely disappears into his very rich sunset there’s one fact that needs to be put on the record.

The board of the Financial Regulator gave themselves the power to decide what they should be paid. In other words Patrick Neary himself decided that he was worth a lump sum of €428,000, a special sum of €202,000 for keeping his mouth shut and an annual pension of €142,670 (Irish Independent).

Some politicians ranted and raved when they discovered that civil servants had taken on such amazing powers but, to date, they’ve done nothing to bring these greedy and incompetent people down to size.

It seems that this reluctance to act is closely related to that most powerful and mysterious concept of Irish public life – Independent legal advice.

Once these holy words are uttered no more questions can be asked. Not even simple questions like; what, precisely was the advice offered and who gave it? No, once these most powerful of words are uttered the silence is total, complete, nothing more can be said on the matter.

It is even said that a member of this special club could get away with robbing a bank operating under the ‘independent legal advice’ concept. In fact, such robberies are quite common in Ireland.

It should be noted, however, that the ‘independent legal advice’ defence is only available to certain classes of people like senior civil servants, politicians and the higher echelons of the business sector. Peasants do not qualify as they are provided with their own special system commonly known as criminal law.

Ivan Yates: Not a man to look a gift horse in the mouth

Former Fine Gael TD, Ivan Yates, is chairman and managing director of Celtic Bookmakers, a chain of 64 betting shops around the country so I think it’s fair to say he’s a very rich man and all I can is – fair play to the man.

But you don’t get to be that successful in business without possessing great business acumen and Yates obviously has that in spades when it comes to promoting his business. His annual exploitation of the naivety of RTE and in particular Pat Kenny can only be described as pure business genius.

For the tiny sum of a €250 per day donation to charity Yates has managed to get himself a full, very valuable, ten minutes on the Today with Pat Kenny Show over the four day Cheltenham horse racing festival which must be one of the most lucrative racing events of the year for bookies.

I doubt there’s a businessman in the country who could afford to pay for such golden access to the airwaves if they were paying, by the minute, commercial advertising rates.

Even if Yates was to offer, say, €5,000 per day to charity over the four day period, he would still be getting very valuable airtime on the cheap, but at a mere €250 per day, it’s a giveaway.

Pat ended the piece (advertisement?) by thanking Yates for his generosity.

It’s likely the wily businessman was thinking to himself: ‘No Pat, thank you and RTE, very, very much for your generosity.’

Ivan Yates is certainly not a man to look a gift horse in the mouth.

Copy to:
Pat Kenny
Ivan Yates

The Haughey's: A renegade family

Katherine Rodgers upset many Fianna Fail supporters when she wrote the following in the Star newspaper recently.

“Security was beefed up for the Fianna Fail Ard Fheis this weekend, only to be expected at a convention of the biggest criminals in the country.”

Seems like a pretty reasonable comment to me but Dick O’Leary, head of a Cumainn founded by the corrupt Haughey, was angry.

“It’s a scurrilous remark and is 100% wrong.” “Mr. Haughey did an awful lot of good for the country; he’s the greatest Irishman that ever walked.”

(Liveline, Tuesday 2nd March).

Later, the discussion moved on to the sale of the corrupt Haughey’s art collection. A caller wanted to know if Mrs. Haughey would be keeping the proceeds of the sale or making a donation to charity.

Joe Duffy, who obviously has a soft spot for Mrs. Haughey, said:

“Even if it was going to Mrs. Haughey, Mrs. Haughey of all people in this country is in most people’s, sorry, in everyone’s eyes totally above reproach and indeed much admired for her dignity.”

So, not just some, not just most but everyone in the country thinks Mrs. Haughey is above reproach and is a woman of great dignity. Well, here’ one citizen who takes the complete opposite view.

In my opinion the Haughey family, including Mrs. Haughey, are renegade citizens.

She was happy to live off the proceeds of her husband’s corruption and obviously had no concern whatsoever about the huge damage done to Ireland and its people by that corruption.

When the Moriarty Tribunal finally exposed he husband for the criminal he was she and her family contemptuously rejected the findings of this agency which represented the Irish people.

A sizeable percentage of the monies now in the hands of this renegade family are the proceeds of criminal activities by the corrupt Haughey. His mansion, for example, was sold for an estimated €45 million.

Ireland will never rid itself of the disease of corruption for so long as people like Joe Duffy are happy to bow and scrape before ruthless and greedy people like the Haughey’s.

Copy to:
Joe Duffy

Tax on deadly (political) emissions

I see there’s talk of introducing a ‘cow tax’ to help meet new tough targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions laid out in the EU’s climate change strategy. Proposed levies for gas emissions are: €13 for each dairy cow, €7 for non dairy cow and €1 for sheep.

What about a levy on gas emissions from Leinster House, say €1,000 for each member? Such a levy would greatly reduce deadly gas emissions and make a significant contribution to improving the environment.

Cronyism: Alive and well in Ireland

Former Secretary General of the Department of Foreign Affairs, Dermot Gallagher, has been appointed the new chairman of the Garda Siochana Ombudsman Commission (GSOC).

On ‘retirement’ from Foreign Affairs, Mr. Gallagher received an estimated gratuity of €400,000 and a pension of €126,000.

During the controversy surrounding his nomination last month Mr. Gallagher said he could yet decide to do the job at no cost to the taxpayer. At the time he said:

“I think everybody has to make a serious contribution in the current climate, I certainly would be prepared to do not just my bit, but significantly more than that.” and “Quite seriously, I am not interested in the money.”

(Has this man been talking to Mark Duffy?).

On reflection, (and after the controversy has died down) Mr. Gallagher has forgotten all about ‘doing his bit for his country’ and opted to take a salary of €90,000, the maximum allowed to him under pension abatement rules (About three times the average industrial wage).

There was no open and transparent recruitment process and the Opposition was not consulted. Finance Minister, Brian Lenihan said

“There was no constitutional convention or legal obligation on the Government to consult the Opposition.”

Here’s what a recent Transparency International report on how things are done in Ireland had to say about such Government decisions.

“Significantly however, Ireland is regarded by domestic and international observers as suffering high levels of ‘legal corruption’. While no laws may be broken, personal relationships, patronage, political favours, and political donations are believed to influence political decisions and policy to a considerable degree. The situation is compounded by a lack of transparency in political funding and lobbying.”

I have no doubt that Mr. Gallagher is a man of the highest integrity and will carry out his duties in a very professional and honest manner.

He is, however, human and given the very sensitive nature of his new job there will always be a cloud hanging over his work particularly if he finds himself dealing with a case involving a member of Fianna Fail, the party that has been so generous to him.

In other words, Mr. Gallagher begins his job tainted by the manner in which he was appointed and that is not in the best interests of the country.

Copy to:
Dermot Gallagher
Brian Lenihan