Nasty net, nasty bloggers

Irish Times columnist John Waters does not approve of the internet,

“There’s nothing in it that’s nice and uplifting” he says. It hasn’t lived up to its expectations and as we go forward we will see the more insidious and dangerous side of it, he says

(Morning Ireland, 3rd item).

Waters is especially scathing on the subject of blogging.

Nothing but content-less spice, vitriolic poison, aggression and hate that poses a danger to vulnerable, isolated young people.

These views are not at all surprising coming from a man who doesn’t actually understand what the internet is.

Waters tells us that up to 70% of traffic on the net is pornography and asks the question:

“How seriously would we take a TV station or newspaper with such a high content of pornography?”

Obviously, he thinks the internet is a single unit phenomenon controlled by an editor with a strong interest in pornography.

The obvious question follows; should John Waters be seen as a serious and well informed journalist?

Ahern keeps digging

The controversy surrounding Bertie Ahern is simple. An allegation was made that he received a large amount of money from a property developer. The allegation is connected to alleged planning corruption in county Dublin.

The Mahon Tribunal is investigating these allegations and as a result called in Ahern to give his side of the story in private. If Ahern had given a reasonable explanation for the large amounts of cash he had received at the time there would have been no problem.

No more questions would have been asked, no further investigation and no details of Ahern’s private life would have become public.

Ahern’s explanations were not acceptable to the tribunal and this resulted in him appearing in public session to explain his finances

Polls have indicated that a majority of Irish people do not believe Ahern’s explanations either. They are fantastic, contradictory and details often change depending on what questions are being asked.

Everything else surrounding the scandal, his exploitation of his family to elicit sympathy, his ruthless and systematic attack on the tribunal, his constant attack on the media, his angry charge that the matter is none of our business, all this bluster, all this hot air is peripheral to the core of the matter – Ahern cannot give a believable explanation for the source of large amounts of accepted cash.

The suspicion is that Ahern did accept money from property developers and others and is now desperately trying to cover up. The more he ‘explains’ the deeper the hole gets.

He was on This Week today attempting to explain the tax difficulties that have arisen in connection with his various ‘dig outs’ and ‘gifts’.

Essentially, he is claiming that the large amounts of money that he accepted when he was Minister for Finance and for which he is unable to provide a credible explanation and for which there are still outstanding tax implications, should be a private and confidential matter between himself and Revenue.

My understanding of his tax problems is: He received large amounts of cash in the early 1990s on which there are outstanding tax implications. If this is the case then he has been in breach of tax regulations for all his time as Taoiseach.

He stated on This Week that he was tax compliant for the 2002 election. It’s difficult to see how this claim could be true if his problems originated in the early 1990s.

Perhaps it’s time for a formal complaint to the Standards in Public Office Commission.

Taxing matters

Labour Party leader, Eamon Gilmore was interviewed by RTEs Aine Lawlor (1st item) on the serious questions surrounding Bertie Ahern’s tax affairs.

Here’s an extract:

Gilmore:

“It is now in the public domain. I suppose the argument could be made that correspondence between him and his tax advisors and the Revenue Commissioners shouldn’t be in the public domain.”

Aine Lawlor:

“Well, it’s more than an argument, it’s a fact. An individual’s tax affairs are supposed to be private.”

Gilmore:

“Absolutely, correspondence between an individual and the Revenue Commissioners should not be published, no doubt at all about that.”

The Minister for Education, Mary Hanifin, was equally adamant on the matter (RTE Six One News, 4th item).

“The Taoiseach’s tax affairs are a private matter between him and the Revenue Commissioners.”

An article on the controversy by Senan Molony of the Irish Independent began:

“FIANNA FAIL sources are apoplectic with fury at the disclosure of his private correspondence with the Revenue Commissioners.”

I genuinely believe that I’m missing something here. All these people are speaking as if Bertie Ahern was an ordinary private citizen who was the victim of a malicious leak about his private tax affairs.

They seem to be totally unaware that he is the most powerful politician in the country; that he has failed to answer very serious questions about his acceptance of large sums of money from questionable sources and that he has, by his own admission, yet to fully deal with the matter from a taxation point of view.

Defending Bertie Ahern

“Chaos and confusion is being created willfully and wrongly by the most senior and powerful figures in the State.”

The above quote is how Bruce Arnold sums up his article on the reaction of some Government ministers to the latest developments at the Mahon Tribunal. His views are largely in line with my own (See previous two posts).

Ireland is the only country in the Western world where Government ministers could launch a cynical and dishonest attack on the very foundations of the State in an effort to defend a politician who received vast sums of cash from wealthy businessmen.

Serious charges and unaccountable politicians

The Prime Minister of our county has accused the Mahon Tribunal that was established by our National Parliament, of trying to frame him on very serious charges. This is, in effect, what Bertie Ahern meant when he accused the tribunal of trying to ‘stitch him up.’

In addition, several Government ministers, people who were elected to represent the people of Ireland and defend the integrity of the people’s parliament, the Oireachtas, have also made serious allegations against the tribunal and, by extension, against the State.

Minister for Foreign Affairs, Dermot Ahern, made a direct attack on the tribunal by questioning the length of time it was taking to complete its work. He also expressed astonishment at the line of questioning the tribunal was taking against the Taoiseach (Six One News, 1st item).

An even more serious attack on the tribunal was made by Minister for European Affairs, Dick Roche. He angrily declared that he was not happy with the way Bertie Ahern was being treated by the tribunal. He said it was petty, personal, prurient and at times bordered on voyeurism.

Even more seriously, he accused the tribunal of being biased against Ahern and trampling on his rights as a citizen (Morning Ireland, 1st item).

These are very serious charges and in a functional democracy would result in an immediate political and constitutional crisis that would see the immediate closing down of the alleged rogue tribunal or the immediate forced resignations of the politicians who made the attacks if they failed to substantiate their allegations.

Because Ireland is a dysfunctional democracy we got what we always get – a large gaggle of journalists talking among themselves about the matter before we all head off for the Christmas celebrations.

On Six One News we had John Kilraine, Samantha Libreri and Charlie Bird. Later, on a Primetime special, we had Miriam O’Callaghan, Katie Hannon, Michael Clifford and Stephen Collins discussing the matter between re-enactments of tribunal evidence.

On Drivetime, we had Mary Wilson, Fergal Keane, Brian Dowling Justine McCarthy, Harry McGee and others participating in a major fest of incestuous journalistic analysis and not an accountable or even an unaccountable politician in sight.

Corruption? Not in Ireland

The manner in which the Today with Pat Kenny Show (Friday) handled the latest serious developments at the Mahon Tribunal is also a good indication of how blind we are to what we are.

Again, it was all journalists talking to each other. No Government minister to defend or explain to the people of Ireland what was going to happen as a result of the very serious allegations made by the Prime Minister and others.

The matter wasn’t even mentioned until the 53rd minute when we had yet another report from a journalist.

My point is that if Ireland was a functional democracy this story would have eclipsed all others for days and within days there would have been serious developments for the politicians who made the allegations or for the tribunal itself.

But apart from the reports from Dublin Castle all we got was yet another analysis by a cabal of journalists. There was, however, a very interesting and telling exchange during this debate which demonstrated just how far removed many Irish people are, including journalists, from admitting that Ireland is a corrupt state.

The discussion had turned to the situation in South Africa and the possible consequences for South Africa after the election of Jacob Zuma as leader of the African National Congress. Zuma is seen by many as a dodgy character and could soon be in court on corruption charges.

Pat Kenny referred to Zuma as a Dell Boy character and expressed the view that he would bring his country into disrepute and make the leadership a laughing stock.

Michael O’Regan of the Irish Times who had earlier expressed sympathy for Bertie Ahern and the difficult time he was having spoke of Zuma in an altogether different tone.

“I find him quite sinister, the fact alone that he’s facing corruption charges in the New Year I would have thought precluded him from any kind of public office. He’s quite dangerous, I would have thought.”

When RTE journalist, Katie Hannon, made the obvious connection between Zuma and Ahern O’Regan defended the Taoiseach by claiming he wasn’t facing corruption charges. Hannon replied that neither was Zuma, as yet.

The very fact that a young country like South Africa actually puts corrupt politicians on trial in a proper court of law means that they are light years ahead in their understanding and acceptance of what corruption actually is.

Many Irish people, including journalists like Michael O’Regan, exist in a world of denial where corruption is an activity that only occurs in other countries.

Santa and the Little People

Fianna Fail TD and Minister for Arts, Sport and Tourism Seamus Brennan was on Saturday View this weekend defending the Government.

Here’s part of the discussion concerning the alleged rendition flights through Shannon.

Brennan:

There’s no evidence whatsoever that anyone has been subject to extraordinary rendition through Ireland.

Saturday View presenter Rodney Rice:

You can’t have that knowledge unless you go on the flights and we don’t do that.

Brennan:

We do have an inspection regime. The Gardai Siochana have, and I know this sometimes raises a smile, but it shouldn’t, we have very skilled, specialised gardaí who have been particularly trained in this area.

Rice:

But they’ve never been on a plane.

Brennan:

But they’ve been given extra training in this area, the legislation has been brought to their attention and there is now in place trained Gardai who, as I say, has this legislation brought to their attention and they’ve investigated a number of allegations, they have done that and they have found that there is no basis on which to pursue.

Rice:

How have they investigated it if they haven’t been on planes?

Brennan:

The information supplied to the Dept of Justice is that they have investigated a number of allegations and they have found that there’s no basis on which to proceed.

Rice:

But we don’t know how they have come to that conclusion.

Brennan:

Well, we don’t, I don’t have that information but they’ve been trained specially, the law has been brought to their attention, they have investigated allegations and back have come the story that there is no evidence of any extraordinary rendition taking place.

And later…

Brennan:

We have an inspection regime.

Rice:

Which we haven’t implemented.

Brennan:

We have trained Gardai who assure us that they have investigated a number of allegations and found no basis on which to proceed.

Rice:

You keep saying that but we don’t know how they’ve done it.

Brennan:

We don’t ask the Gardai how they do lots of things, they get in and investigate and then they come back with their assurances to the Department.

(Yes Minister; that’s why we have the Morris Tribunal).

Brennan’s story can be likened to a father attempting to reassure an increasingly skeptical son that Santa really does exist.

Son:

Dad, I don’t’ believe in Santa, I think the truth is that you and mum buy the gifts.

Dad:

Now son, there’s no evidence whatsoever that Santa doesn’t exist.

Son:

But how can it be true, flying through the air, squeezing down narrow and very hot chimneys all over the world. It just doesn’t seem believable. You can tell me the truth dad; after all I’m 35 years old and always vote Fianna Fail.

Dad:

Listen son; and I know this sometimes raises a smile, but Santa has special skills, he’s specially trained and can do all kinds of magic things.

Son:

But I’ve never actually seen him do magic things.

Dad:

Of course you haven’t son. Santa has been given extra special powers for the duration of the Christmas period so that when his sleigh is on the runway, er I mean the roof nobody can see what’s going on. It’s all written down in his instructions and this has all been brought to his notice.

Son:

What about all the people on the street who say it’s all an elaborate hoax, to fool the gullible?

Dad:

Don’t mind that rabble son, they’re just ignorant peasants who are jealous of our luxury lifestyle which I might add also comes from a very generous Santa.

Son:

But I still don’t understand how he does it, I find it so, so hard to believe.

Dad: (Becoming exasperated)

Look son, you know uncle Bertie believes in Santa, that Santa is, in fact, a close personal friend of uncle Bertie.

Son:

Yeah, s’pose so.

Dad:

And you know that uncle Bertie always tells the truth, so if uncle Bertie believes then it’s ok for everybody to believe.

Son:

Yeah, guess I shouldn’t be so suspicious; can I have a raise in my pocket money?

Dad:

Not at this time son, Santa’s little helpers might become agitated. Best to defer it until after Christmas when the little people have gone away.

Copy to:
Fianna Fail
Seamus Brennan