Broken promises

Irish Independent journalist Sam Smyth spoke on Liveline last Monday (21st Jan) about his daughter who has Cystic Fibrosis. As I recall she is in her early twenties and so has entered the danger zone for CF suffers.

If she lived in Northern Ireland or any other country in Europe she wouldn’t enter the danger zone until she was in her thirties. This is because in those countries CF patients are provided with the basics necessary to keep them as safe as possible.

Irish politicians, by their consistent failure to provide even such basic facilities, have clearly demonstrated that they don’t care.

One very upset parent of a CF sufferer suggested that the Government/HSE don’t care because those with CF die young anyway so why waste resources. I agree with her.

The odd thing about Smyth’s interview was his complete lack of anger. He even praised Harney and Ahern for their ‘efforts’ and spoke as if he really believed the promise made by Prof. Drumm that proper facilities would be provided sometime next year. This promise has been made and broken for the last 14 years.

From a distant fantasy land

Sunday Independent journalist and Bertie worshipper Jody Corcoran did a forensic examination of Ahern’s tax affairs in last Sunday’s paper. The article makes extensive use of correspondence between Ahern and Revenue in an attempt to rationalise the Taoiseach’s fantasy tales.

Working from a place far more distant than Bertie’s fantasy land, Corcoran makes the following defence.

1. Ahern saw no reason to contact Revenue because he was advised (by his tax advisor) that he had no tax liability in relation to funds received in 1993/94.

2. When Ahern told the Dail on September 27, 2006 that he had checked with the ‘tax authorities’ in relation to the Dublin payments what he actually meant to say was that he had consulted with ‘authorities on tax’ i.e., his tax advisors.

Corcoran puts this error down to Bertie’s ‘unique ability to mangle the English language’.

3. Because there are no written records of the various ‘dig outs’ Revenue has no case. Corcoran triumphantly concludes;

“Without evidence to the contrary, Mr. Ahern’s account of the Dublin loans and Manchester gifts still hangs together.”

“It seems likely the taxman, without evidence to the contrary, must accept the Taoiseach’s account.”

In summary:

Bertie has no responsibility for non payment of tax because that’s what his tax advisor told him. In other words, ‘nothing to do with me’ It’s the tax advisors fault.

Bertie didn’t actually lie to our parliament when he said he had checked with the tax authorities. He was, apparently, misunderstood because he doesn’t know how to speak properly.

Revenue will have to take Bertie’s word for it because there is no written evidence to the contrary.

This logic can also be used to prove that Santa Claus exists.

The ultimate oxymoran

While browsing the website of the Law Society of Ireland this morning in search of some information I came across this little gem.

RULE OF LAW IN THE DEVELOPING WORLD
The objective of the Rule of Law Project is for the Law Society, through its members, to develop and enhance the Rule of Law in the developing world with the assistance of Irish Aid or otherwise, so that human rights, democracy, good governance and justice may be available to all people. This project is being run in cooperation with the Bar Council.

The Irish Law Society; is a quasi-secret society that both represents and allegedly regulates its members. An organisation whose members, mmm…let’s be charitable and say, are often involved in dodgy activities but yet, miraculously, never seem to find themselves made accountable under the same law as the rest of us mere mortals.

This crowd is now off to the developing world to enhance the rule of law. It’s the ultimate oxymoran.

The Party Departed

The shocked crowd gathered around the body. It was obvious that there was no hope, that there was no possibility of putting the parts together again.

The head lay at some distance from the body; it wasn’t even looking in the same direction. It seemed to be preoccupied with something else, some other mission. It seemed to have lost any interest in reconnecting to the main body.

The body itself had obviously suffered heavy damage; there was clear evidence of a recent beating and it had shrunk to an almost unrecognizable size, obviously starved of what had previously kept it healthy.

Various limbs lay scattered around looking lost and unattached, some desperately attempting to connect themselves to other bodies. Incredibly, one limb seemed to be having some success in attaching itself to a nearby putrid but amazingly healthy body.

There was a wide divergence of opinion as to the exact cause of death but everybody agreed that a complete lack of guts was a major contributory factor.

Clearly, a number of those present had had a close relationship with the recently departed. Some became hysterical, refusing to accept the awful reality. A Mr. Paul McKay repeatedly called on the body parts to reassemble, to continue as before; he was led away sobbing.

A Mr. Cannon made a desperate call for help in breathing new life into the corpse but his pleas fell on deaf ears as the ever diminishing crowd drifted away to make funeral arrangements.

It was clear that the Party Departed was permanently redundant.

HSE – Out of control and deadly

There are people in the Health Service Executive (HSE) who go to work everyday and make decisions that result in great suffering and sometimes even death for patients.

This diseased, out of control, bureaucratic monster was created by and is strongly defended by cowardly and incompetent politicians.

In the O’Malley cancer misdiagnosis case, for example, somebody within the HSE decided that it was better to risk the lives of women who may have been misdiagnosed rather than admit that a mistake had been made.

All last week on Liveline we listened to horror stories from patients suffering from Cystic Fibrosis who are dying at least ten years younger than suffers in Northern Ireland and elsewhere.

Their lives are put in danger because the HSE/Government refuses to provide isolation units. These units are absolutely vital for CF suffers in order to avoid picking up potentially fatal infections.

Promises going back many years are still being broken so patients continue to suffer and die before their time. Those who have the power to provide these units are well aware of what is needed, yet they consistently and consciously fail to take the necessary action.

The plight of the CF suffers drew a huge response from the general public and businesses, here are just some of the offers of help.

The Construction Workers Health Trust offered a ready to go state of the art modular unit consisting of 12 individual en-suite rooms. They have also promised €60,000 to fund the unit for one year.

Aqua Fire Prevention has offered to supply all fire safety equipment.

Taxi drivers have offered to transport CF patients wherever needed.

A private citizen has offered a five bed roomed en-suite house situated at the gates of Beaumont hospital.

Ordinary PAYE workers have offered to pay for the care of a CF patient for a year.

It is highly unlikely that any of these generous offers will be accepted by the HSE/Government.

To do so would be to admit that the system had failed, it would be to tacitly admit that all the politicians and bureaucrats involved are incompetent.

It would also mean admitting that our health system is in need of the same type of charity that we provide for Third World countries. The offer by the Construction Workers Health Trust to provide modular units could be seen in the same light as the Niall Mellon Township Initiative which builds brick houses for shack dwellers in South Africa.

On his visit to South Africa last week Bertie Ahern was puffed up with pride by the great work being done by Irish citizens to help these poor Africans. But it simply wouldn’t do to admit that a so called First World country like Ireland was accepting the same type of charity to prop up its health system.

There is already a precedent of the HSE refusing badly needed help. In May 2005, Ben Dunne donated €30,000 towards the cost of three portakabins after numerous callers to Liveline recounted stories of spending days on trolleys in the A & E section of Dublin’s Mater Hospital.

The HSE refused the offer on the grounds of patient safety. Janette Byrne of Patients Together was not amused;

“The refusal principally due to patient safety issues was farcical. There is no way they could make A & E any more unsafe than it is at the moment.”

The bottom line is that politicians and bureaucrats are more than willing to put patient’s lives at risk in order to cover up their own incompetence.

Is there any hope?

The first question on last weeks Questions and Answers was;

“Should the Taoiseach continue in office without a tax clearance certificate?”

Irish Times columnist John Waters answered as follows;

“I think he should. I think it’s all just a game and a fairly tedious one at that. The whole basis of all this tribunalism, all this palaver is the false idea that there is some clear line of demarcation between party political donations and personal donations to a politician.

If I’m a politician and running for public office I need money to get myself elected. So if you’re offering me ten grand it really doesn’t matter to me whether its for my party , for myself as a politician or into my own pocket because at the end of the day if you don’t give it to me I’m going to have to find it from somewhere, more than likely in my own pocket.

I think we have come from a culture in which there was no line and we should agree that that line didn’t exist until now and we should now make that line.”

John Bowman: “We have made that line.”

“Yes, but now declare a line under the past, declare an amnesty on all that, accept that there was all kinds of dodgy things going on, forget about it, wrap up the tribunals and get on with real life.”

If John Waters was editor in charge of the astrology column of the Ballymagash Herald, his stupid, uninformed and naïve opinions wouldn’t matter. Unfortunately, this man writes for the most prestigious paper in the country, regularly appears on a wide section of media outlets and is, apparently, accepted as a serious journalist by a great many people.

Is there any hope?

Call from Enda

Enda Kenny phoned me today in response to the post below.

The conversation was amiable but not very productive. He assured me that while I was entitled to my opinion Fine Gael was going to do things their way.

I explained my position and the core philosophy of this website – that Ireland as a country is a corrupt entity and that nothing much would change until the body politic recognised and acted on that fact.

I genuinely believe he didn’t really hear a word I said.

Fine Gael: Back to the depths of spineless opposition

The Fine Gael policy of attacking Taoiseach Bertie Ahern while he was out of the country is a perfectly legitimate and intelligent political strategy.

It is certainly more legitimate than the Government’s undemocratic attempt to enforce a news blackout on the continuing scandal surrounding Ahern’s fantasy finances.

In addition to putting Ahern under more pressure to tell the truth the strategy exposed our Prime Minister on the world stage for what he is, a man of low ethical standards.

As part of their strategy, Fine Gael had indicated that they intended lodging a complaint with the Standards in Public Office Commission concerning Ahern’s tax affairs.

Such a strategy, if courageously followed through, could have had the effect of getting rid of this low grade politician and thus make Ireland a better place.

Unfortunately, Fine Gael flunked it; they dropped the strategy like a hot potato when Fianna Fail made the hilarious charge that the strategy was treasonous. Here’s what Mary O’Rourke had to say on Newstalk 106 yesterday:

“Can I say about Enda Kenny, I cannot believe that a leader of a very proud party called Fine Gael committed such a disloyal treasonous act.”

(Attacking the Taoiseach while he was abroad).

So who is Mary O’Rourke?

She’s a long time servant of Fianna Fail, the most corrupt political party in Ireland; a party that Oliver Cromwell would have been proud to serve such is its record of damage to the interests of the Irish people.

She’s a loyal supporter of Charlie Haughey, the most corrupt and disloyal politician in Irish history, a man who dumped her brother, Brian Lenihan, out of office in an effort to keep himself in power and a man who robbed a fund collected to finance an operation to save her brother’s life

She’s the politician who recently, bored with proceedings in our national parliament, skived off to do a bit of shopping. On the way she was approached by eleven desperate women who told her of the trauma they were suffering because of our Third World health system. She probable told them to eat cake.

In other words, Mary O’Rourke is a typically arrogant, incompetent and unaccountable Irish politician.

There were some signs since the election in May that Fine Gael had finally got its act together, that at last it was going to perform like a real opposition. Uncompromising attacks on the low standards and incompetence of this government made by Leo Varadkar and James Reilly gave rise to some hope that things were about to change.

Depressingly, it is not to be.

Fine Gael TD Fergus O’Dowd was on Morning Ireland (2nd item) this morning leading a full scale retreat from the high ground of political accountability back down to the depths of spineless opposition.

He point blankly refused to discuss the party’s cowardly decision to defer the complaint to SIPO concerning Ahern’s tax affairs until the Taoiseach returns to the country next week.

Copy to:

Fianna Fail
Fine Gael
Mary O’Rourke
Fergus O’Dowd