Featured

RTEs Sarah McInerney – Fianna Fail supporter?

By Anthony Sheridan

The RTE scandal continues to unfold at the Oireachtas where some questions have been asked about RTE ‘stars’ working for non RTE media outlets.

On 23 September 2020 I responded to an article written by RTE News and Current Affairs presenter, Sarah McInerney in The Times newspaper in which she expressed strong political support for then Taoiseach, Michael Martin. 

At the time Martin was taking a lot of flack from his Parliamentary Party over his leadership style.  Not only did McInerney defend the Fianna Fail leader but gave him strong advice on how to deal with those challenging his leadership. 

Her advice could have come from the mouth of the Taoiseach’s most loyal advisor:

You have to play the political game, no matter how distasteful it may be. If Martin wants to survive two years as Taoiseach, with his party still intact, it’s time for a mini makeover. No more Mr Nice Guy.

Remember, this is one of the most prominent Current Affairs presenters in RTE whose guidelines on impartiality are crystal clear: [Section 8.4 Impartiality]

Our audiences should not be able to tell from our output the personal views of our journalists or news and current affairs presenters on matters of public policy, political or industrial controversy, or on ‘controversial subjects’ in any other area.

And McInerney is not alone.  It is clear when listening to RTEs News and Current Affairs presenters/journalists that professional standards of objectivity and integrity have been abandoned, particularly when interviewing left wing or anti-establishment politicians.

Featured

Joe Duffy is dishonest and untrustworthy

By Anthony Sheridan

In an article supportive of RTE and Ryan Tubridy, an extremely naïve Fintan O’Toole tells us that the broadcaster can be trusted and suggests that when RTE repairs the damage, Tubridy can return to his job.

O’Toole tells us:

[RTE] makes mistakes and misjudgements – but they are failures of performance, not of intent.

Liveline presenter Joe Duffy gives the lie to that naïve statement.  On yesterday’s show [June 26] the following question regarding his contract was put to him by a caller.

You have the same agent [as Tubridy], your signature goes on it, your agents signature goes on it, who signs off on it for RTE?

Duffy waffled and waffled, continuously cutting in on the caller’s attempts to get an answer.  In the end Duffy succeeded in his dishonesty, the question was not answered.

This was not, as O’Toole tells us, a failure of performance rather than intent.  Duffy deliberately barracked and interrupted the caller until he successfully avoided answering the question.

Like Tubridy, Duffy is not a broadcaster that can be trusted.  He dissembled when asked to tell the truth, he insulted the intelligence of the caller and listeners. He is, in a word, a typically dishonest RTE presenter, the station is full of them.

Tubridy’s response to the scandal was naïve to the point of idiocy.  He blamed RTE, complained that he had been taken off air for a week and looked forward to resuming his job very soon.  This is the mindset of a man living in a bubble of delusion. 

Joe Duffy lives in the same bubble of delusion and dishonesty and Fintan O’Toole thinks that, in time, all will be well in the cesspit of lies, arrogance and dishonesty, that is RTE.

This idiocy, delusion and dishonesty paints an accurate picture of the state of Ireland’s establishment media.

Copy to:

Fintan O’Toole

Joe Duffy

Ryan Tubridy

Featured

Robert Watt complaint: Time for decision by SIPO

By Anthony Sheridan

On 12 July last year, I submitted a formal complaint to the Standards in Public Office Commission [SIPO] against Robert Watt, the Secretary General of the Department of Health.  Watt is the highest paid civil servant in the country and by far the most arrogant. 

Watt and the former Chief Medical Officer [CMO] Dr. Tony Holohan hatched, what was, effectively,  a secret plan that would have seen Holohan ‘retire’ from his position as CMO to take up a position in Trinity College while, incredibly, retaining his full salary and all pension rights for the rest of his working career. 

The estimated cost to the taxpayer would have been 2 million a year and 20 million if Dr. Holohan remained in his post for ten years.

Neither Watt nor Holohan had the authority to create this position.  No civil servant, no matter how senior has the authority to spend such sums of taxpayer’s money without the knowledge and permission of his minister.

In a report compiled by Watt, he blamed everybody for the scandal but himself – a clear example of his ruthless arrogance.

My complaint against Watt is based on his misbehaviour and failures as a senior civil servant.

After a number of enquiries to SIPO on the progress of my complaint I was informed that no action would be taken until after the publication of an independent report ordered by the Minister for Health into the scandal.

That report, published yesterday, was damning of Watt’s behaviour and supports, in large part, the points made in my complaint.

I now look forward to the Standards in Public Office Commission making a quick decision on the charges against Mr. Watt contained in my complaint.

Featured

RTE in breach of its own editorial principles

By Anthony Sheridan

I have submitted the following complaint to RTE regarding the broadcaster’s failure to abide by its editorial principles.

To Whom It May Concern:

Please find complaint submitted for breach of Section 3, RTEs Editorial Principles – Trust, Accuracy and Impartiality. 

This complaint consists of two parts:

Part one:

The Taoiseach Michael Martin, Tanaiste Leo Varadkar, Minister for Justice Helen McEntee and other Fianna Fail and Fine Gael politicians have accused Sinn Fein of operating a strategy of exploiting the legal system by taking or threatening to take defamation actions in order to hamper investigative journalism and stifle political debate.

For example:

Taoiseach Michael Martin:  Sinn Féin was placing restraints on freedom of speech because people feel that they could be sued or threatened by legal threats.

Justice Minister Helen McEntee and Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe:  Sinn Féin’s use of the courts is having a chilling effect on democracy and the free media.

Tanaiste Leo Varadkar: The strategic use of legal action to try and stifle debate is worrying.

No evidence has been provided by these politicians to verify their claims that Sinn Fein is engaged in a strategy of using the courts to undermine democracy and free speech. 

In other words, all the accusations against Sinn Fein are hearsay, that is, information received from other people which cannot or has not been substantiated.

Professional journalists and media outlets, particularly national broadcasters, usually dismiss such unverified claims until such time as at least one reliable source is identified and quoted.

RTE has been reporting the claims without the usual caution to the public that there is no evidence to back up the charges.

By reporting the story without a source or verifiable evidence RTE is in breach of its own editorial principles of trust, accuracy and impartiality [Section 3, RTEs Editorial Principles – Trust, Accuracy and Impartiality]. 

This is particularly relevant to Section 3 [3.4] on the matter of sources which states:

3.4 Sources of Information We normally identify sources of information and significant contributors, and provide their credentials, so that our audiences can judge their status. • We normally require two sources before we broadcast something as a fact. • We must be very confident that the information is accurate and the source is reliable if we have to rely on a single source. • We should acknowledge when we have been unable to verify material sufficiently and attribute the information.

This complaint is specifically centred on a question put to Sinn Fein TD Eoin O’Broin by Sarah McInerney on Drivetime on Monday 17 October last.

Sarah McInerney: I want to ask you about comments by Leo Varadkar today saying that he’s aware of at least three Fine Gael politicians who have received legal letters from Sinn Fein and he questioned if Sinn Fein was underwriting the financial cost of those legal actions saying if they were it was a strategy to stifle public debate.

I just wanted to ask you – does SF underwrite the financial cost of legal actions that their members take against other people or other organisations?

The following issues of trust, accuracy and impartiality arise from this question:

One:  RTE/McInerney failed to state if they had asked Mr. Varadkar for the names of the Fine Gael TDs to confirm the source.

Two:  RTE/McInerney failed to state if they had verified the claim that Sinn Fein may be underwriting the financial cost of claims taken by party members.

Three:  RTE/McInerney failed to state if they had verified the accusation that Sinn Fein was engaged in a strategy aimed at undermining investigative journalism and public debate.

Four:  RTE/McInerney did not, at any point while putting the question, utter a caution to listeners in respect to the accusations such as ‘alleged’ or ‘ claims were made without evidence’. 

This failure by RTE/McInerney to abide by the most fundamental professional standards of broadcasting is a clear breach of RTEs Editorial Principles of Trust, Accuracy and Impartiality

Part two:

The leader of Sinn Fein, Mary Lou McDonald, is currently suing RTE for defamation.  That action forms an element of the unverified, unsourced accusations made by the above named Fine Gael and Fianna Fail politicians against Sinn Fein.

For RTE/McInerney to engage in questioning a Sinn Fein member on the basis of the unverified, unsourced accusation that Sinn Fein is underwriting the financial cost of legal actions by its members while the leader of Sinn Fein is currently engaged in a legal action against RTE is reckless and unprofessional. 

Such interference by RTE/McInerney in a live legal case involving RTE could reasonably be seen as an attempt to influence the case in favour of RTE.

Such interference is a clear breach of RTEs own editorial principles of trust, accuracy and impartiality [Section 3, RTEs Editorial Principles – Trust, Accuracy and Impartiality]. 

Yours sincerely

Anthony Sheridan

7 November 2022

Featured

Waiting for SIPO

By Anthony Sheridan

On 12 July last I submitted a formal complaint to the Standards in public Office Commission [SIPO] against Department of Health secretary general Robert Watt. 

Watt was the principal architect behind the arrangement which could have seen the unauthorised spending of several millions of taxpayers money to fund the secondment of Dr. Tony Holohan to Trinity College Dublin.

I received the following acknowledgement:

The matter is under consideration and you will be notified by the office in due course.

 101 days later, having heard nothing I emailed the following:

I would be grateful if you could update me on the progress, if any, of my complaint.  

I would be happy to simply know if the issue has moved on from the ‘under consideration’ phase.

Regards

There was no reply.

Five days later I sent the email again and, finally, got a reply.

I acknowledge receipt of your emails dated 20 and 25 October 2022.

The Commission considered your complaint at its meeting on 21 October and has asked the Secretariat to provide some additional information for their further consideration.

You will be notified when the Commission has made a decision on the matter.

So, the complaint was submitted on 12 of July but only ‘considered’ on 21 Oct after two reminders from me.

Will I be waiting another century of days?

Featured

Formal complaint against Robert Watt

By Anthony Sheridan

Department of Health secretary general Robert Watt recently committed several millions of taxpayer’s money to fund the secondment of Dr. Tony Holohan to Trinity College Dublin.

Mr. Watt had no authority to commit such public funds without the knowledge and permission of the Minister of Health.

I have submitted the following formal complaint to the Standards in Office Commission [SIPO] in response to Mr. Watt’s actions.

To Whom It May Concern:

Please find a formal complaint against the Secretary General of the Department of Health, Robert Watt, submitted under the Civil Service Code [The Code] of Standards and Behaviour.

I believe Mr. Watt is in breach of  several sections of the above standards and requirements as set out in the Code.

This complaint is based on evidence taken from Mr. Watt’s Briefing Note and his letter of intent to Professor Linda Doyle of Trinity College Dublin. 

This complaint is divided into two parts.

Complaint – Part One

The drafting and sending of the letter of intent by Mr. Watt to Professor Linda Doyle of TCD.  Mr. Watt was in breach of his duties and responsibilities on two counts regarding this letter.

One:  He did not possess the authority to write such a letter without the knowledge and permission of the minister.

Two: He did not possess the authority to offer a contract to TCD that involved a potential cost to the state of several millions. In his briefing note Mr. Watt defends his actions by claiming that the final details regarding Mr. Holohan’s secondment were not finalised. 

This defence does not stand up.  Whether or not the final details were agreed is irrelevant.  

It is the act itself of drawing up the letter and sending it to Professor Doyle for signature that constitutes Mr. Watts breach of the code under section 11. Regard for state resources [11.1] [11.2]

11.1 Civil servants should endeavour to ensure the proper, effective, and efficient use of public money.

11.2 Civil servants are required to: • take proper and reasonable care of public funds and departmental property and not to use them, or permit their use, for unauthorised purposes; • incur no liability on the part of their employer without proper authorisation and • ensure that expenses, such as travel and subsistence payments, are not unnecessarily incurred either by themselves or by staff reporting to them.

Complaint – Part Two

In his Briefing Note Mr. Watt, in an obvious attempt to spread responsibility for his own decisions and actions, dishonestly implicates other agencies and individuals in those decisions.

Two examples:

[1] He promised an allocation of €2 million for the duration of Mr. Holohan’s secondment to be administered through the Health Research Board [HRB].  The HRB have made it absolutely clear that they were neither informed nor consulted in regard to this decision.  Whether or not the HRB would have administered Dr. Holohan’s salary is irrelevant in the context of this complaint. 

What is relevant is that Mr. Watt failed in his responsibility to inform or consult with the HRB on a decision that would have had a serious impact on the obligations and resources of that organisation. 

Furthermore, Mr. Watt’s failure to inform or consult with the management of the HRB regarding his decision demonstrates a serious lack of respect and consideration for his civil service colleagues.

[2] Mr. Watt strongly suggests that the Secretary to the Government, Martin Fraser, the Taoiseach and other members of the Government were aware of the proposed secondment.

Mr. Watt writes:

The Secretary to the Government was aware of the proposed secondment move (but not of course the precise details) and I understood that the fact of discussions regarding the CMO’s future plans were known in the Department of An Taoiseach. I assumed that key decision-makers were aware of the proposal but of course not the precise details. [Source: Robert Watt’s Briefing Note: Other Matters [5].

The facts are:  The Taoiseach has made it crystal clear that he had ‘no hand, act or part’ in the plans surrounding Dr. Holohan’s secondment. 

Similarly, no other government minister had any knowledge whatsoever of the details as drawn up by Mr. Watt and Dr. Holohan and agreed to by the provost of TCD, Linda Doyle. Mr. Fraser and Mr. Watt’s boss, the Minister for Health, were given only the vaguest details of what was planned. 

Mr. Watt’s use of terms such as ’I understood that’ and ‘I assumed that’, in mitigation of his actions are not credible coming from a public official of his rank, power and responsibilities.

I believe that Mr. Watts’ decisions and actions in respect of the above are in breach of Part 2 [4] [Impartiality] [paragraphs [a] [b] and [c] of the Code.

Civil servants in the performance of their official duties: 

(a) must conscientiously serve the duly elected Government of the day, the other institutions of State and the public; 

(b) must advise and implement policy impartially and, in particular, be conscious of the need to maintain the independence necessary to give any future Minister or Government confidence in their integrity and 

(c) should not display partiality whether as a result of personal or family ties or otherwise.

Yours etc.,

Anthony Sheridan

Featured

RTE bias complaint

By Anthony Sheridan

I have submitted the following complaint to RTE regarding the broadcaster’s disgraceful and disturbing bias against Sinn Fein.

To Whom It May Concern:

Please find complaint submitted for breach of Section 39 [1] [a], [b] of the Broadcasting Act 2009.

Substance of complaint:  RTE News and Current Affairs is heavily biased against Sinn Fein.

This bias takes several forms, for example:

Stacked discussion panels where Sinn Fein representatives/supporters are ambushed not just by opponents of Sinn Fein, but invariably, by RTE presenters.

The creation of fake news stories which generate a damaging impression of Sinn Fein.

Minimising or completely ignoring stories that favour Sinn Fein, for example, good poll ratings.

Giving precedence to those opposed to [and fearful of] Sinn Fein’s electoral success particularly the centre parties in the republic and unionism in the North.

The following is an example of the creation of a fake news story that was then used to ambush Sinn Fein representatives.

During an interview with the Irish Examiner [5 Jan 2022] Sinn Fein president Mary Lou McDonald expressed the following view regarding reform within the civil service

There is immense talent in our civil service, our public service, and our public administration, that’s the first thing that needs to be said.  But we have, in many respects, a system that is constipated, a system that is slow, and a system that needs to be jolted into more efficient actions.

This is a perfectly legitimate and reasonable comment for a politician to make. Nobody can seriously deny that the civil service is in need of radical reform.  It is in no way a major story that would warrant further coverage and comment from a national broadcaster such as RTE.   

But somebody of authority within RTE, ignoring the positive elements of the comment,  made a decision to select one word, ‘constipation’, and weaponise it to cast Sinn Fein in a bad light – For example:

Today with Claire Byrne [7 Jan] – Ms. Byrne upbraided Sinn Fein TD Louise O’Reilly for the potential offence caused by use of the word. She [Byrne] then invited the [stacked] panel for their opinion, all of which, predictably, condemned Sinn Fein. 

News at One [10 Jan] Bryan Dobson, ignoring Ms. McDonald’s reasonable account, repeatedly badgered her with the question – Do you stand over those remarks?

My specific complaint against RTE is as follows:

On Friday May 20 last,  An Taoiseach Michael Martin travelled to Belfast for talks with all political parties concerning the crisis surrounding the refusal of the Democratic Unionist Party [DUP] to partake in the newly elected Assembly.

The dramatic result of the election saw Sinn Fein become the largest party in the North, a truly historic moment in the history of the province.  The Sinn Fein victory was, at least partly, the reason the DUP refused to participate in the new assembly leading to the crisis that saw An Taoiseach travel to Belfast.

Despite the central and important role played by Sinn Fein in these developments, somebody of authority in RTE decided to severely restrict the party’s access to the airwaves over the three days the story remained live.

Friday 20 May

Morning Ireland – RTE journalist interviewed by RTE journalist on the issue. No Sinn Fein [27 MLAs].

Today with Claire Byrne – No Sinn Fein [27 MLAs].

News at One – No Sinn Fein [27 MLAs]. The programme featured much analysis and opinion with An Taoiseach, Jeffery Donaldson of the DUP [25 MLAs] and Doug Beatty of the Ulster Unionist Party [UUP] [9 MLAs].

Drivetime – No Sinn Fein [27 MLAs]. Programme featured An Taoiseach, a journalist and an interview with the leader of the SDLP [8 MLAs]

Six One News – No Sinn Fein [27 MLAs]. Programme featured DUP leader Jeffery Donaldson and An Taoiseach

Nine News – Ditto for Six One News – No Sinn Fein

Saturday 21 May

Saturday with Philip Boucher-Hayes

DUP MLA Gregory Campbell facilitated with an 8 minute uninterrupted interview.

This was followed by a brief interchange with the panel which included SF TD Darren O’Rourke.

The last word was granted to Campbell in a two minute, uninterrupted, summing up of his party’s position.

Sunday 22 May

Brendan O’Connor Show – The issue completely ignored.

This Week – Extended interview with Bertie Ahern – No Sinn Fein

The Week in Politics – Relatively brief chat with panel of politicians including Sinn Fein TD Louise O’Reilly.

It is reasonable to conclude from the facts outlined above that Sinn Fein was deliberately excluded particularly on Friday 20 May when the issue was the main news story of the day. 

It is also reasonable to conclude that the exclusion of the party was not accidental or due to incompetence.  Preparations for such programmes are carefully planned, meetings are held with presenters, producers and other decision makers.  Decisions are made about content, questions/issues to be explored and what person[s] parties should be included.

Yours sincerely

Anthony Sheridan

Featured

Junk journalism attack on Sinn Fein spreads to Europe

By Anthony Sheridan

On Monday 25 April last, Sinn Fein president Mary Lou McDonald, filed a writ against RTE in response to comments made by an RTE presenter on Morning Ireland.

This is a newsworthy story because it involves the leader of the Opposition and the national broadcaster but it is a single issue story – prominent politician sues national broadcaster. 

But Irish Times political editor Pat Leahy did not report it as such.  Instead, he effectively created a fake news story around the core facts.

Without evidence he strongly suggested that Sinn Fein was operating a policy of encouraging its members to pursue media outlets in the courts.  The trend is unmistakable, he writes.

Later, in a disgraceful example of junk journalism, he went on to suggest, again without evidence, why Sinn Fein was operating such a policy. 

Sinn Féin’s political opponents – and many people in the media – see all this as part of a strategy to muzzle criticism of the party by trying to generate a “chilling effect” to dissuade opponents and the media from robust criticism and investigation of the party, its members and its controversial history.

If so, it is a tactic often used by powerful people and institutions to discourage scrutiny.

The next day, this junk journalism was parroted in an Irish Examiner editorial. [owned by the Irish Times].  The anonymous author patronisingly suggested that perhaps it would be best if the electorate were informed of this ‘belligerency’ by Sinn Fein.

This kind of low grade journalism is now common throughout the establishment media particularly when it comes to Sinn Fein.  But what’s really disturbing in this instance is the response of the National Union of Journalists [NUJ], a response curiously appearing in the same edition of the Irish Times as Leahy’s hostile article.

The secretary of the NUJ, Seamus Dooley, took the same line as the Irish Times

“Defamation proceedings can have a chilling impact on press freedom. It’s important that media organisations are not inhibited by libel threats, from whatever source and that editors and journalists continue to ask awkward questions.”

Here’s a few awkward question for Mr. Dooley:  Why is the NUJ questioning the right of any citizen to take legal action for alleged defamation?  Why does the NUJ think it appropriate to lecture any citizen on how they should proceed when the believe they have been defamed and, most worryingly, why is the NUJ supporting junk journalism that appears intent on damaging the reputation of a legitimate political party?

But the story becomes even more bizarre.

The Index of Censorship, a media freedom NGO based in London, filed a media freedom alert known as a strategic lawsuit against public participation [SLAPP] with the Council of Europe’s Safety of Journalists Platform, in response to Ms. McDonald’s legal action.

A SLAPP is, according to the Index of Censorship:

A strategy used by powerful actors in an attempt to stop individuals or organisations from expressing views on issues of public interest. Although they are disguised as ordinary civil claims, such as defamation or privacy, they are not intended to succeed in court.  Instead, their goal is to saddle critics with prohibitively expensive, time-consuming, and nerve- wracking  legal processes.  SLAPPS threaten not only freedom of expression and media freedom, but access to information, rule of law and our very democracy.

This is a very strong and, in my opinion, dangerous generalisation.  It suggests that those with power and wealth, who feel they have been defamed, should be treated differently under law, that they should not enjoy the universally accepted principle of ‘innocent until proven guilty’.

And that, in effect, is what the Safety of Journalists Platform has done in response to Ms. McDonald’s action.

They have issued a formal alert notice with the heading:

Ireland

Sinn Fein Leader Files SLAPP against RTE – No. 175.2022

Created 25 May 2022

Harassment and intimidation of journalists

Source of threat: Non-State

Level 2

This is untrue, McDonald did not file a SLAPP against RTE.  She has filed a writ against the broadcaster for alleged defamation – nothing else.

The alert, among other things, claims that McDonald’s legal action against RTE is a disguised strategy to attack the broadcaster and therefore poses a serious threat to media freedom, offline or online.

[See end of article for details of a Level 2 charge]

Here’s Jessica Ní Mhainín, policy and campaigns manager with Index on Censorship.

“We are alarmed at the legal action that has been filed against RTÉ by the Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald as we believe the action is characteristic of a strategic lawsuit against public participation…

…fundamentally they [SLAPPS] involve powerful people making legal threats or taking legal actions against public watchdogs – such as media outlets – in response to public interest speech that may be inconvenient to them or their interests.”

To my knowledge no evidence has been provided by The Index of Censorship, The Safety of Journalists Platform or the Council of Europe to back up the SLAPP charge.  

I’m no legal expert but I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that the Sinn Fein president is considering her options in response to this arrogant, self-righteous and, potentially, false charge.

[Personal note: While writing and researching this article I couldn’t help noting the apparent interweaving between The Irish Times [and other Irish media], the NUJ, Index of Censorship and the Council of Europe.

Could it be, I wondered, that all this feverish activity was somehow connected to the democratic challenge posed by Sinn Fein to the power of the ruling regime in Ireland?]

Copy to:

Sinn Fein

NUJ

Council of Europe

Safety of Journalists Platform

Index on Censorship

Irish Times

Irish Examiner

Level 2

Covers all other serious threats to media freedom, including but not limited to physical assaults causing actual bodily harm, acts of intimidation and harassment; use by public figures of threatening or severely abusive language towards media members; unwarranted seizure or damage to property or equipment; laws and regulations that unduly restrict media freedom or access to information; actions that jeopardise the confidentiality of sources or the independence of the public sector broadcasters; abusive or disproportionate use of legislation; misuse of governmental or other powers to direct media content or to penalise media or journalists; interference with media freedom through ownership, control and regulation; and other acts posing a serious threat to media freedom, offline or online.

Featured

Fergus Finlay and the maternity hospital ‘gotcha’ trap

Illustration by Tom Halliday

By Anthony Sheridan

HSE board member and Irish Examiner columnist Fergus Finlay is so strongly in favour of the current arrangement for building the National Maternity Hospital that he took the unusual step of breaking board confidentiality rules to support the Government’s plan for the project.

In his column he clearly stated where he stands on the issue. 

Here’s my bottom line. As a citizen, campaigner, and advocate; as a husband; as the father and grandfather of women and girls; there are simply no circumstances under which I would support the development of a new national maternity hospital in Ireland that was influenced by anything — anything — other than the public interest and the interests of women.

He then went on to outline the enormous amount of work he and his colleagues on the audit and risk committee put into checking every aspect of the deal to ensure that nothing was left to chance.

We devoted many, many hours, over many months…examining and analysing the huge set of documents that had been developed to give legal underpinning to the project. We worked with senior management colleagues and had the benefit of legal advice at every stage.

Given all that, it would be reasonable to assume that Mr. Finlay is familiar with all aspects of the project and would have no difficulty in answering questions put by those who are deeply concerned about the entire project.

Such an assumption would be badly mistaken. 

During a discussion on RTE radio with Prof. Louise Kenny, who has serious question on the issue, Finlay was unable to answer even the most basic questions. 

For example:  Why is St. Vincent’s so determined to hold on to ownership of the site?

Finlay: 

Well, you would need to ask them that but I would hazard a guess:  I think they see it as a great act of generosity and they don’t understand why they should be asked to go further.  The rest of the world would like them to gift the land to the state, but they haven’t. 

St. Vincent’s have claimed that ownership of the land is required in order to facilitate integrated care.

Prof. Kenny refutes this.  It doesn’t stack up, she said.  There are many hospitals across the UK  and Europe where the leasehold has no effect whatsoever on care integration.

Incredibly, Finlay agreed, contradicting his core claim that everything has been checked,  that months of forensic investigation with the best legal minds has answered all the questions:

I think you can work out arrangements for integrated care without owning the land…I don’t think that’s a good reason.  My hunch is that it’s about tradition, it’s about history, it’s about pride in their own ownership. 

So here we have  a member of the HSE board, the authority that will decide whether the project proceeds or not, guessing and expressing hunches surrounding the most fundamental questions being asked by those who are deeply worried about the consequences if the project is allowed to proceed in its present form.

Finlay was equally befuddled when asked about the worrying inclusion of the term ‘clinically appropriate’ in the contract.  Kenny said the term was incredibly vague and open to interpretation.  It could mean a doctor having the power to override the wishes of a woman seeking a particular service. 

Finlay:

I think that phrase has been misinterpreted and I wish to god we could find a better phrase that wouldn’t be open to misinterpretation.

When asked if lawyers should come up with a better phrase Finlay did a lot of muttering before lamely concluding with the by now standard excuse of those defending the project – it would involve further delay.

In addition to his ignorance of the facts Finlay’s attitude was also patronising and insulting, not just to Prof. Kenny but to all those who have genuine worries about the Byzantine conditions surrounding this project.  Effectively accusing Prof. Kenny of being a conspiracist, he asked:

Is it that you really believe that somewhere in the background there’s someone waiting to leap out and say ‘we gotcha now’?

Clearly Finlay is unaware of or not concerned about a number of clauses in the contract.  For example, the strong possibility that the apparent generous €10 per annum rent could mushroom into an astonishing €850,000 per annum if certain conditions are not adhered to.

Given the shady and convoluted shenanigans surrounding this whole deal, only the most naïve would believe that it will not eventually turn into a very, very expensive ‘gotcha’ trap for Irish taxpayers.

Featured

Irish Examiner and fake news

By Anthony Sheridan

Hardly a week passes without a sermon from one mainstream media source or another reminding people of the vital role the sector plays in presenting news and current affairs with honesty and integrity.   

The Irish Examiner is particularly strident in warning of the dangers posed by non-mainstream news sources. This example from an editorial marking the first anniversary of Marian Finucane’s death.

The importance of those attributes and the need for good journalism have never been more important at a time when fake news and groundless clickbait continue to flood our social media channels.

In the year ahead, accurate news from trusted sources will continue to play a vital role in dispelling the corrosive force of misinformation.

Unfortunately, for those who place their trust in the Irish Examiner, the ‘corrosive force of misinformation’ is often employed by the paper, particularly against those who pose a threat to the power of the ruling political establishment.

Just last week [20 April] the paper published what was, in effect,  a fake news story, strongly suggesting that Sinn Fein was responsible for a violent parade by the dissident republican group Saoradh. 

Despite the fact that Sinn Fein had nothing whatsoever to do with the parade, the Irish Examiner had no scruples about making a damaging link between the party and the organisers of the parade.

If Ms McDonald is serious about having companions on historic travels then Sinn Féin will have to address the law and order contradictions which allow extreme republicans to prematurely present an event which ended with petrol bombs and arrests as a “dignified parade” allied to a tone-deaf refusal to listen to a reasonable request from a family not to march on the anniversary of the murder of a young woman. A murder for which there has still to be a criminal conviction.

This cheap and obvious attempt to blame Sinn Fein for the parade and subsequent violence was all the more reprehensible for falsely linking the party with the murder of journalist Lyra McKee in 2019.

In a crude attempt to pretend the article was balanced, and not an attack on Sinn Fein, the anonymous author added:

Events such as masked parades incrementally take the shine off their [Sinn Fein’s] standing even where they are not seen to be the organisers.

This manipulation of news stories by the Irish Examiner is not new.   An even more odious example occurred just before the 2020 election.  Context is vital in understanding this disgraceful example of so-called professional journalism.

Seven days before the election on 8 February an Irish/Times MRBI poll reflected a dramatic rise in support for Sinn Fein over Fianna Fail and Fine Gael. 

The development sent shock waves through the establishment media.  Here, for example, is how the political editor of the Irish Examiner, Daniel McConnell, began an article in response to the poll.

So, just what in the hell is going on?

Three days before the election, on Wednesday 5 Feb, there was an attack on the Glasnevin cemetery memorial wall. The monument commemorates those who died between the Easter Rising in 1916 and the end of the Civil War in 1923,  including British soldiers killed in the conflict. 

The vandals have never been identified but that did not stop the Irish Examiner from, effectively, blaming Sinn Fein for the attack.

It would be utterly wrong to link Sinn Féin to Wednesday night’s attack on Glasnevin cemetery’s memorial wall…

…However, it would be wrong too to pretend that strands of this election campaign, especially Sinn Féin’s online echo chambers, have not created an atmosphere if not encouraging such criminality then making it seem ordinary, almost praiseworthy.

This is sewer journalism at its worst and most dangerous. 

In the lead up to this warping of a news story, the anonymous author wrote of:

the anger, poison and basic dishonesty associated with Sinn Fein supporters on social media. 

Reading this journalistic garbage I can see only one difference between the standards practiced at the  Irish Examiner and the anonymous trolls on social media –  The trolls don’t preach and pretend they operate from the high moral ground.

Copy to:

Irish Examiner editor

Featured

Labour Party: The unvarnished truth

Prior to 2016 election
After the 2016 election

By Anthony Sheridan

Writing in the Irish Times recently about the continuing decline of the Labour Party, historian Diarmaid Ferriter asks:

Is there really much difference between the Labour Party and the Social Democrats and would it not make sense for them to coalesce?

The same question has been asked many times by journalists and politicians since the people effectively rejected the party in the 2016 election.  The question is always advanced as a possible strategy for rescuing Labour from extinction.

That mainstream journalists and politicians would scramble around looking for strategies to save the party is not surprising but it is disappointing to witness a prominent historian engaging in the same hopeless delusion when he really should know the answer.

So, for Mr. Ferriter’s benefit and other’s hoping that, by some miracle, the Labour Party can be saved – here’s the unvarnished truth.

The Labour Party is heading for extinction because it is, first and foremost, a loyal member of the ruling political class.  A large and increasing number of voters have come to realise that the party does not represent their interests and vote accordingly.  Election results do not lie, the brutal political reality is out there for everybody to see. 

Also, in recent years, particularly since the economic catastrophe of 2008, more and more voters have come to realise that the political establishment itself is rotten to the core.

The people have delivered the same message in every recent election – a demand for radical political change.  Labour, instead of answering that call, has doggedly remained loyal to the corrupt political regime that the electorate is rejecting in their droves.

And this is where the difference between the Labour Party and the Social Democrats crystalises, this is what Mr. Ferriter should know. 

The Social Democrats are anti-establishment, they were created as a direct result of political corruption within the establishment.  The party’s raison d’être is to rid the state of the disease of political corruption that has infected the body politic for decades.

If the Social Democrats was to merge with Labour they would almost certainly suffer the same fate as the Progressive Democrats.  They too came into existence in protest against political corruption, principally under the corrupt politician Haughey.  But over the years and particularly under the leadership of Mary Harney, the party returned to its rotten Fianna Fail roots.  That betrayal of hope and trust signed the party’s death warrant. 

In the run-up to the 1992 election Labour Party leader, Dick Spring convinced many, including myself, that the party was determined to represent the people rather than powerful interests. 

I was particularly impressed when Spring, most unusually, revealed the truth about a fellow ruling elite party when he accurately described Haughey and Fianna Fail’s influence on politics as ‘a cancer in the body politic’.

Shortly afterwards, Spring cravingly led Labour into coalition with the ‘cancerous’ Fianna Fail exposing the naked truth that his true loyalties lay with the power and privileges of the ruling political class and not with the people.

Mr. Ferriter, in common with all mainstream commentators is unaware of or refuses to acknowledge the truth behind the rapidly changing political landscape.  Instead of facing reality, he clutches at straws of hope for the doomed party.

Perhaps, he suggests, Labour may regain momentum if Sinn Fein suffers as a consequence of making hard decisions in government. 

That a negative performance by one party might help save Labour is as ridiculous as the idea that a positive performance of another [Social Democrats] might do the same.

The choice facing Labour is simple – remain loyal to the current dying political regime or respond to the demands of the people for radical political change by becoming a genuinely radical left wing party.

No prizes for guessing which road Ivana Bacik will take.

Featured

Humanity: Zero chance of survival

By Anthony Sheridan

Just over a century ago Europe and the world was ravaged by war [1914-1918] [Casualties: About 20 million] When the killing was done disease took its turn in the form of the Spanish flu [Casualties: 25 to 50 million]

Today, war and disease are still ravaging Europe and the world [Casualties are in the millions and mounting]

During the week the IPCC issued yet another stark truth concerning human behaviour:

The scientific evidence is unequivocal: climate change is a threat to human well-being and the health of the planet. Any further delay in concerted global action will miss a brief and rapidly closing window to secure a liveable future.

The critical words here are ‘brief and rapidly closing window’. 

So, if over a century, humans failed to end war and prevent disease, what are the chances of keeping that rapidly closing [extinction] window open?

The answer is brutally obvious – Zero.

Featured

RTE gives balance – accidentally?

By Anthony Sheridan

Irish Examiner columnist Alison O’Connor found herself all alone on Valentine’s night last. Claire Byrne/RTE had invited her to participate in a discussion on the dramatic rise in Sinn Fein’s popularity. 

As a favourite of the establishment media and strident anti-Sinn Fein commentator Ms. O’Connor probably expected that she would be joining the usual RTE anti-Sinn Fein panel.

But, amazingly, that didn’t happen, the panel was balanced and fair.  O’Connor seemed to be genuinely confused with the situation.  She began by telling the nation that, given how bad things are, even an opposition of chimpanzees would find it easy to pick it [the Government] off.

This crude and insulting political analysis was followed up with the usual tired guff about Sinn Fein being a ‘strange, cultish party’ that could cause a lot of offence if it got into power.

But then, O’Connor ran out of words. It was as if she suddenly realised that nobody was really listening to her, that they had heard it all before, and, of course they had, ad infinitum

So, in desperation, she did something that no establishment journalist has ever done before – she criticised RTE for imbalanced broadcasting.

I would say about some of the debate I heard tonight…that there was some imbalance there.  Listening to some of it you’d think we live in a banana republic and that’s not true… I think balance is important.

O’Connor was confused because by the time she joined the panel, the anti-Sinn Fein side had been routed.

Passionate, articulate Sinn Fein members backed up by others such as Martin Ward and Tony Groves dismantled every argument put by supporters of the political establishment. 

Property developer Michael Flynn’s condescending claim that people were being ‘over simplistic’ on the housing crisis, and Fine Gael TD Jennifer Carroll MacNeil’s defence of the private sector’s role in solving the crisis was torn to shreds by a well-informed opposition.

The opinions expressed by the eccentric financial advisor and failed politician Eddie Hobbes provided some light relief.  Anybody tempted to take Hobbes seriously has only to recall that after co-founding the far-right party Renua Ireland, he refused to stand for election because he was too busy with other stuff.

And then there was the Fianna Fail politician, Cllr. Briege Mac Oscar who said parties should be judged on their record.  Let’s just repeat that – a Fianna Fail politician thinks that parties should be judged on their record.  Surely, if that was true, Fianna Fail would be struggling for its very survival…oh, wait.

So what happened in that RTE studio on Valentine’s night when Ms. O’Connor, at one point, found herself all alone in her titanic struggle against the evils of Sinn Fein?

Could it be that RTE was testing out a new producer who was unaware of the station’s long-established policy of packing discussion panels with anti-Sinn Fein commentators?

Or…could it be that the national broadcaster has finally conceded that Sinn Fein is a legitimate political party and the 500,000 plus citizens who voted for the party deserve a fair hearing?

Copy to:

Alison O’Connor

Claire Byrne Live/RTE

Featured

Fintan’s pain

By Anthony Sheridan

It appears from a number of recent articles by Irish Times columnist Fintan O’Toole that he is suffering from a very special form of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder [PTSD]. 

His PTSD is special because it is, apparently, only triggered by flashbacks to republican violence during the Northern Ireland conflict which ended 24 years ago. 

Fortunately, Fintan is not burdened with memories of the violence carried out by unionists and agents of the British government.

He recently expressed his anguish to Irish Times colleague Deirdre Falvey.

I can’t vote for Sinn Féin, because I remember too much stuff, that was so cruel, so inhuman. Planting bombs in cafes and pubs just to kill as many young people randomly as you possibly could. I just can’t deal with it, until they’ve dealt with it.

It seems that PTSD has also affected Fintan’s memory because, to my knowledge, the IRA never pursued a policy of blowing up as many young people as they could. The IRA did, in common with Unionists and British government agents, carry out acts of violence but the age of victims was never a specific policy.    

Cynics might say that Fintan was engaging in a strategy practiced by other less sensitive journalists of portraying Sinn Fein as evil incarnate to young voters in the hope of halting the ongoing decline in support for Fine Gael and Fianna Fail. 

Of course that just couldn’t be true because, according to Fintan, the Irish Times is the most unbiased newspaper in the entire world.  In an astonishing revelation he says:

I don’t think there’s any other journalist in the world who can say what I can say now. I’ve worked for 34 years for a newspaper, and nobody’s ever told me what to write, or what I couldn’t write. The lawyers might get involved. But an editor has never said to me, stay away from that, or we don’t agree with that, so you’re not allowed to say it. Never, ever, ever. That’s really precious. l don’t know of any of my colleagues in America or Britain who could say that, even people working for really good respectable newspapers

So, you see, nobody can accuse Fintan’s Irish Times of political manipulation because, as he says, it’s the most perfect newspaper in the whole world, a newspaper that would never, ever, ever tell a journalist what to write.

In another article Fintan again revealed the absolute torment he continues to suffer as a result of the war that ended 24 years ago when he strongly suggested that Sinn Fein TD David Cullinane shouting ‘up the Ra’ after the 2020 election could lead to renewed slaughter on the streets of Northern Ireland.

Shouting “Up the ‘Ra” is not a performance by historical re-enactors – it is a live device, primed to explode into contemporary reality.

Surely there’s no better argument for outlawing Sinn Fein, introducing internment and tearing up the Good Friday Agreement.

Ok, that would probably have the side effect of saving Fine Gael/Fianna Fail from political extinction but that would not be Fintan’s intention.  His only wish is to recover from the trauma he has suffered throughout the decades.

He wants to be in the same place as the countless thousands of actual victims who have accepted that the war is over, that Sinn Fein is not planning a return to war, that it’s ok to vote for the party. 

He longs to join with the United States of America, the United Nations, the European Union, the vast majority of citizens of the Republic, the United Kingdom, including Northern Ireland and even the British Royal family, who were direct victims of the conflict, in accepting Sinn Fein as a legitimate political party.

But Fintan can’t deal with the pain, not even after 24 years of peace, not yet – he remembers too much.

Copy to:

Fintan

Featured

RTE: Don’t mention the police investigation

By Anthony Sheridan

One of the most memorable clips from the hilarious BBC comedy Fawlty Towers involved Basil [John Cleese] upsetting a group of German diners by constantly making references to the war.

Blissfully unaware of the upset he was causing he warned staff member Polly:

Listen, don’t mention the war! I mentioned it once, but I think I got away with it.

‘Don’t mention the war’ has since become a byword for those wishing to avoid discussing embarrassing issues.

But, it seems, RTEs London correspondent Sean Whelan has never heard of it. 

Reporting on the scandal surrounding Boris Johnson, he had this to say on RTEs News at One:

He’s the only Prime minister in Europe as far as I’m aware that’s being investigated by the police and that’s just not a good look.

Here you have somebody who is making the rules for the rest of the country and the police force, the people who investigate crime, are now going to be investigating him and his immediate staff and that just looks dreadful, doesn’t it?

Bryan Dobson, immediately realising that Whelan was blissfully unaware of the embarrassing parallels between the UK prime minister under police investigation and our soon to be Taoiseach, Varadkar, also under police investigation, studiously avoided responding to such a dangerous question.

I suspect that somebody from RTE/Fianna Fail/Fine Gael has since had a word in Whelan’s ear to castigate him for being the only journalist to breach the mainstream media bias protecting Varadkar.

Copy to:

RTE News and Current Affairs

Sean Whelan

Featured

Irish media mote in the eye

By Anthony Sheridan

Here’s a quote from today’s editorial in the Irish Examiner criticising ethical standards in UK politics:

The sane, sensible and, at times, sedate manner in which politics is generally conducted in Ireland makes us ill-prepared to understand how otherwise civilised nations can tolerate the most outrageous shenanigans of their political leaders.

Here’s a reality check for this publication:

Leo Varadkar is due to become Taoiseach again within months.  He is still the subject of a criminal investigation.  There has been practically no recognition, analysis or outrage from mainstream media to this impending disgrace on our country.

In the UK, the ‘outrageous shenanigans’ of political leaders are mercilessly scrutinised and condemned.  In Ireland, mainstream media is ultra-selective about which political parties are to be condemned.

Featured

King Hammurabi: Builders law

By Anthony Sheridan

Nearly 4,000 years ago Hammurabi, king of Babylon, wrote a code of laws. 

Here’s one of his laws for builders:

If a builder constructs a house for a man but does not make it conform to specifications so that a wall then buckles, that builder shall make that wall sound using his own silver. (233)

If our government adopted this law the estimated €3.2 bn cost of the Mica redress scheme would fall on the builders responsible and not on the taxpayer.

But for that to happen the government would also have to adopt Hammurabi’s principle motive for writing his code of laws.

To prevent the strong from oppressing the weak and to see that justice is done to widows and orphans.

For so long as the current political class remain in power the weak will never receive protection from the strong.

Featured

Michael Clifford: low standards in journalism

By Anthony Sheridan

‘Please note, although this controversy occurred over a month ago and was the subject of an excellent article by Vanessa Foran, I believe the hostile reaction by mainstream media to Paddy Cosgrave’s anti-corruption campaigning deserves as much coverage as possible.’

On November 6 last, Irish Examiner journalist Michael Clifford wrote an article that can only be described as gutter journalism at its very worst.

The target of Clifford’s attack was entrepreneur and anti-corruption campaigner Paddy Cosgrave. 

Cosgrave is co-founder of the hugely successful Web Summit and used that platform at this year’s event to highlight very serious allegations of corruption against then Taoiseach Leo Varadkar. 

The allegations, published by Village Magazine, claims that Varadkar illegally leaked a confidential document related to negotiations for a new General Practitioner contract.  The allegations are so serious that Varadkar is now the subject of a criminal investigation.

Cosgrave brilliantly used the event, attended by 43,000 people from 128 countries, to expose to the world the rot that lies at the heart of Ireland’s governance. 

After projecting a giant image of the Village Magazine cover that described Mr. Varadkar as a ‘law breaker’, Cosgrave invited the whistleblower, Chay Bowes and the editor of the magazine, Michael Smith, onto the stage. 

Clifford focused his attack on Cosgrave and whistleblower Bowes.  He openly questioned Bowes integrity by comparing his courage to the guest of honour at the event, Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen.

To present the whole farrago as an introduction to Ms Haugen, a genuine, courageous whistleblower, was arguably insulting to her.

Clearly, Clifford does not believe that Bowes is a genuine whistleblower despite the fact that his revelations triggered a criminal investigation into the then prime minister of our country.  

The journalist then attacked Cosgrave by inaccurately claiming he linked the notorious activities of Weinstein and Epstein with Varadkar’s alleged crime.

Clifford wrote:

To leave open the possibility to an uninformed audience that whatever he did could be bracketed in notoriety with the activities of Weinstein and Epstein is contemptible.

Clifford then, hypocritically,  did exactly what he had just [falsely] condemned Cosgrave of doing.  He linked the notorious journalist, Gemma O’Doherty with Cosgrave’s actions.

Once upon a time, Gemma O’Doherty held a similar role in the public square before she took a sharp turn to the right. There is no reason in the world to believe that Paddy would follow her but you have to wonder what exactly he will do next.

So why the hypocrisy, why would Clifford insult and condemn one whistleblower and his supporter and praise another?

The answer, I believe, depends on who the whistleblower is and who they are exposing. 

Ms. Haugen is an American citizen, she’s an outsider.  Her whistleblowing poses no threat to those who rule the roost in Irish politics. 

But, in the eyes of an establishment journalist like Clifford, Cosgrave’s relentless and effective anti-corruption campaigning is a direct threat to the power of the ruling political class that he and his newspaper so strongly support.

And Clifford himself, helpfully, provides the evidence for the truth of this claim.

In defence of Varadkar he writes:

He [Varadkar] was stupid rather than corrupt and he may have broken the law but there was no personal gain in it for him. 

If it was just a case of stupidity on Varadkar’s part then surely we can expect the Gardai to drop their criminal investigation now that this journalist has delivered his judgement on the case? 

It also appears that Clifford does not believe that political corruption is a crime.  How else can we reconcile his view that ‘Varadkar may have broken the law but he’s not corrupt’? 

Even more bizarre, particularly for a journalist, is Clifford’s suggestion that there should be no accountability if there was no personal gain in the crime.

But Clifford doesn’t operate alone in the establishment media bubble. His boss, political editor of the Examiner, Daniel McConnell expressed similar views in defence of that other stalwart of the political establishment, Simon Coveney, during the Zappone cronyism scandal.

Coveney is not a crooked politician, McConnell told the nation adding –

The true scandal here has been Coveney and Fine Gael’s utter failure to kill this off long before now. 

Here we have a journalist, the political editor of one of the most influential newspapers in the country suggesting that the ‘killing off’ of a serious scandal involving cronyism and possible law breaking should take precedence over political accountability.

I wrote before about the disturbing malaise that’s eating away at standards in Irish journalism.  Clifford’s intemperate and biased rant is a particularly nasty example of that malaise.

Copy to:

Michael Clifford

Paddy Cosgrave

Chay Bowes

Michael Smith

Daniel McConnell

Featured

Are the wheels of justice creaking into action?

By Anthony Sheridan

On September 23 last I submitted a complaint to Cobh Gardai regarding the alleged criminal leaking of information at Cabinet table discussions.  Over the years I have submitted a number of similar complaints regarding alleged political corruption. 

I do not submit these complaints with the expectation that those suspected of corruption/criminality will face charges or even be investigated.   

Irish citizens will be painfully aware that when it comes to political corruption the wheels of justice remain rusted to the tracks.

The principal reason for submitting the complaints is to substantiate my belief that we live in a dysfunctional democracy where the rich and powerful are allowed to operate outside the law.

I was therefore surprised and delighted to get a telephone call from Cobh Gardai requesting my presence in the station to make a statement regarding the complaint. 

It would appear that somebody in Garda Headquarters has decided that the matter warrants investigation.  

Could it be that those rusty wheels are beginning to move?

Featured

Middle class revolution

By Anthony Sheridan

You’re talking absolute bullshit, journalist Larissa Nolan told economist Dan O’Brien on RTEs Brendan O’Connor Show. 

The issue was housing and O’Brien was telling the nation that house prices and rents were declining and that people should stop catastrophising everything. 

It’s astonishing that O’Brien, the chief economist with the Institute of International & European Affairs, is so ignorant of the extent and causes of the housing crisis. 

Ms. Nolan also admitted that she didn’t fully understand the underlying reasons but during the discussion she uttered two words that come into common use when a political system becomes hopelessly corrupt – treason and revolution.

Government policy on housing is tantamount to treason

Why treason, O’Connor asked in surprise?

Her reply [paraphrased]: 

Because the government has betrayed the people by ignoring their needs in favour of facilitating profit for private landlords.

She’s not the only person to hold this opinion.  Here’s Dr. Rory Hearne, Assistant Professor of Social Policy at Maynooth University:

Rising rents is Government policy, and has been since 2011, in order to attract the vulture and real estate investor funds and raise property values to benefit banks.

Ms. Nolan outlined her personal position in stark terms:

I’m in the professions, I work 52 weeks of the year and I am nowhere near to being able to buy a one bedroom apartment for me and my son, and that is wrong.  There will be a revolution on this soon if it isn’t fixed.

O’Brien, in a further demonstration of his ignorance, asked Ms. Nolan:

Why would any government who wants to win votes have a policy to make housing more expensive?

Nolan admitted she didn’t know but then, unwittingly, provided the answer:

They wanted the rents to go higher and it is now out of control and everybody’s being affected.  It didn’t matter so much when it was a certain class being affected, that’s not my view but I notice that socially…and now that it’s moving up the ladder, it’s affecting middle class people with good wages.

As Ms. Nolan says, things have got out of control.  The disease of corruption has debased the political system to such an extent that there is now only one policy – ensure that house prices and rents continue to soar in order to feed the greed of the rich few.  That policy, long inflicted on the poor, is now beginning to destroy the wealth of the middle class.

All corrupt regimes exploit and abuse the powerless poor at the bottom of the pile principally by denying basic rights and inflicting oppressive taxes. 

European aristocracies engaged in this despotism for centuries until an emerging merchant/middle class found it necessary to begin cutting off heads in order to gain power and respect.

Ms. Nolan describes herself as being ‘in the professions’.  In other words, she [accurately] sees herself as middle class.  And it is the middle class that invariably leads the people in destroying corrupt political regimes. 

When the middle class begin to [correctly] describe government as treasonous and suggest revolution as a possibility then a bout of head rolling cannot be far away.

Copy to;

Larissa Nolan

Dan O’Brien

Featured

Allegations of political criminality reported to An Garda Siochana

Politician holding a mask in front of his face speaking to a large crowd of people. (Used clipping mask)

By Anthony Sheridan

The political administration of Ireland is corrupt.  There’s an endless list of examples of such corruption stretching down through the decades but there is no need to delve into the past to make the point. 

We only have to note that serious criminality occurs on an ongoing basis at the very heart of our democracy.  A small group of just 18 citizens [ministers] wields executive power on behalf of the people.  Under the Constitution it is a criminal offence for any of these ministers to breach Cabinet confidentiality.

We know this law has been broken in the case of the proposed appointment of Catherine Zappone.  We also know that no member of the Cabinet has acted to protect the integrity of the Constitution by bringing the minister[s] involved to justice.

With this in mind I have submitted the following report to An Garda Siochana [Cobh] requesting that they investigate the alleged crime.

For attention of:

An Garda Siochana – Cobh

22 September 2021

I wish to report a number of allegations concerning breaches of Cabinet confidentiality as laid down in Article 28.4 of the Constitution.

First allegation:

That a minister in the current Cabinet illegally leaked information to a media source concerning the Katherine Zappone appointment.

I submit the following information in support of this allegation.

On September 1 2021 the Minister for Finance Paschal Donohoe was interviewed by RTE presenter Claire Byrne. It is clear from Minister Donohoe’s comments that he is aware of the allegations of criminal activity within the Cabinet. 

Claire Byrne:  ”One of your party colleagues leaked the news about the Katherine Zappone appointment while the Cabinet meeting was still in session. Do you understand what the problem is?”

Minister Donohoe:  ”Of course I understand what the issue is here. I know there are allegations and the case is being made that material did emit from Cabinet when decisions were being made.”

A number of other ministers were also interviewed by media indicating that they are aware of the criminal allegations, including: Taoiseach Michael Martin, Minister Catherine Martin….and others.

The Irish Examiner newspaper is a possible link to the ministerial leak as evidenced by a comment in that newspaper by the paper’s political editor, Daniel McConnell on September 2:

”As Cabinet was still ongoing, news of the appointment was reported online by the Irish Examiner.”

Second allegation:

Fine Gael senator Regina Doherty has accused former minister Shane Ross of breaching Cabinet confidentiality.

I submit the following information in support of this allegation:

Report in Irish Examiner, 29 Oct 2020

Former Minister for Social Protection, now Senator, Regina Doherty demanded action to be taken against Mr Ross for the book [by Mr. Ross] which she says breaches Cabinet confidentiality.

In the same report Mr. Ross appears to confirm that breaches of Cabinet confidentiality were common:

”You might as well have an RTÉ camera in the room the way information was being live tweeted to journalists.”

Report in the Irish Independent, 28 Oct 2020 concerning the same allegation.

Mr. Ross admitted he did not seek a High Court ruling to reveal details of Cabinet meetings as required under the Constitution.  He justified his action with the following comment:

”I don’t expect there will be any prosecutions, either, as the precedent is there for them having done this.”

Mr. Ross further revealed that leaks were a big issue when he served as minister and revealed an incident concerning Foreign Minister Simon Coveney.

”The result of that was one day Simon Coveney said,

This item we are now discussing, okay, it is out on RTÉ already what is being said at this cabinet meeting.’’

Relevant section of the Constitution:

Inserted a new subsection in Article 28.4:

3º The confidentiality of discussions at meetings of the Government shall be respected in all circumstances save only where the High Court determines that disclosure should be made in respect of a particular matter-

i. in the interests of the administration of justice by a Court, or

ii. by virtue of an overriding public interest, pursuant to an application in that behalf by a tribunal appointed by the Government or a Minister of the Government on the authority of the Houses of the Oireachtas to inquire into a matter stated by them to be of public importance.

I request that this matter be investigated as a matter of urgency.

Yours sincerely

Anthony Sheridan

Hard copy to:

Garda Commissioner

Clerk of the Dail

Minister for Justice

Featured

Minister Catherine Martin: Not fit to serve

By Anthony Sheridan

Green Party TD Catherine Martin is unfit to represent the people of Ireland.  On Thursday 2 September she cashed in her political integrity when RTEs Claire Byrne asked her how she felt about the abuse of Cabinet confidentiality.

I think that’s an internal matter for Fine Gael. 

This is a lie because Ms. Martin knows that breaching Cabinet confidentiality is a criminal act and that she, as a cabinet minister, is not only obliged to acknowledge the crime but to act on that knowledge.

By failing to act Ms. Martin has tainted the seal of office bestowed on her by the people of Ireland and thrown in her lot with the cabal of political shysters who have inflicted so much damage on Ireland over the decades.

Whenever an individual or party decides to enter government in Ireland they must make a choice.  Challenge and expose the rot eating away at the core of the state or abandon all principles and collaborate with those who have no regard for democracy or the interests of the country. 

Clearly, Ms Martin has chosen the latter.  It’s likely that her motives are based on the genuine but naïve belief that the end justifies the means. That the implementation of her party’s political agenda is worth the abandonment of her political principles – if so, she is seriously wrong in that belief. 

Ireland is not a normal democratic state.  The disease of political corruption has polluted the administration of the state to such an extent that all who associate themselves with the diseased become diseased themselves. 

This disease must first be eradicated before our country has any hope of becoming a healthy democracy.  For that to happen good people must deploy the weapons of courage and principle against the political shysters.

Ms. Martin’s failure to do so will see the people remove her and her party from power at the first opportunity.

Copy to Catherine Martin

Relevant section of interview with Minister Martin.

Claire Byrne: How do you feel about Cabinet confidentiality being abused?

Catherine Martin: I think that’s an internal matter for Fine Gael.

Byrne: But it’s not just a matter for one party, it’s a very serious matter for government.

Martin: And that’s why I’m saying I’m not happy with the process. I hope lessons are learned and transparency is put in place.

Byrne: But when it comes to the leak, that’s a criminal offence?

Martin: That’s an issue for, you know, that is absolutely unacceptable that leaks would happen like that but it’s up to that individual…interrupted.

Byrne: No, it’s not, it’s a really serious matter for government, it’s a really serious matter for the entire cabinet and a really serious matter for you as a member of that cabinet.

Martin: It is and it’s a really unnecessary distraction from… blah, blah, blah…

Copy to:

Catherine Martin

Featured

Establishment media and delusional analysis

By Anthony Sheridan

There’s a constant stream of articles by mainstream journalists struggling to explain why the political establishment they so loyally serve, continues to lose popular support.

The articles all take similar form.

A brief history of the failing fortunes of their favoured party, be it Fine Gael, Fianna Fail or Labour.  Sometimes we’re presented with bizarre reasons for the collapse in support for these parties but more often than not, no explanation whatsoever is given.

In place of truth and reality these journalists invariably resort to delusional analysis.

Harry McGee, the political correspondent with the Irish Times, provided one such example recently.

Writing about Fianna Fail’s continuing decline, he makes the following points without providing any explanation or analysis.

The rapidly changing nature of Irish society [forced] Fine Gael and Fianna Fail into coalition.

The 85% vote received by Fianna Fail and Fine Gael in the 1982 election was halved by 2020.

Sinn Fein leader, Mary Lou McDonald, will almost certainly be the next Taoiseach.

So here, briefly, is the reason for the above developments which McGee fears to address.

It was not the changing nature of Irish society that led Fine Gael and Fianna Fail to form a coalition.  It was an act of desperation by both parties to hold onto the power and privilege they have enjoyed for decades. 

The continuing fall in support for the parties of the centre between 1982 and 2020 is a direct consequence of the incompetence, arrogance and corruption of the ruling political class.

McDonald is likely to be the next Taoiseach because the people are desperate to get rid of the current corrupt political class. The people want radical change, that’s what they have been voting for over the past several elections. 

Establishment journalists do not see this because they operate within the same bubble occupied by the ruling political class.

So, instead of exposing the rot at the centre of Irish politics, journalists such as McGee resort to attacking those who are challenging the old, dying regime.  Sinn Fein, because it poses the greatest threat to the power of that regime, is usually the prime target.

McGee’s analysis is both amateurish and delusional. He claims that a section of the electorate is strongly opposed to a Sinn Fein led government because of

 The horrible, inhumane and cruel things the republican movement did during the troubles for which there were no grounds to claim justification.

There is no doubt that there are many opposed to a Sinn Fein led government because of what happened during the troubles but for a journalist to make such a political point without a balancing context, is to indulge in cheap propaganda.

For example, an unbiased journalist would balance the activities of the republican movement with the ruthless apartheid system operated by Unionists over a period of 50 years. 

Next, he praises the openness of Fine Gael and Fianna Fail’s weekly parliamentary meetings and condemns the so-called secrecy of Sinn Fein meetings, suggesting that the party is acting undemocratically.  

Of course, McGee knows very well that all political parties strive to keep their weekly meetings private.  The only reason we know what goes on at FG/FF meetings is because they leak like a sieve.  He also knows that the leaks are a reflection of the rancour and disunity within these two parties while Sinn Fein’s success in keeping their deliberations confidential is an indication of the party’s unity of purpose.

The purpose of this fake analysis is, of course, to throw mud in the hope that some will stick. It’s an effective propaganda tool but one that is spurned by professional journalists.

McGee ends his article on a note of high arrogance when he wonders how Sinn Fein will deal with sensitive security departments if they enter government. 

How will it deal with the Department of Justice, the Defence Forces and the Garda? Sinn Féin is an erstwhile enemy, there is no other way of putting it.

Actually, there is another way of putting it. 

Sinn Fein is a 100% legitimate political party with massive and growing support.  That support stems from the democratic power of the people who are more than willing to trust Sinn Fein representatives serving in any department. 

It is the height of paternalistic arrogance for a journalist to take upon himself the notion that the people’s democratic choice should be conditional or limited in any manner, in forming a government. 

In his unquestioning loyalty to the rotten centre of Irish politics McGee is blind to the fact that the people are increasingly seeing his beloved political class as the enemy and Sinn Fein as the only hope for an accountable democracy.

This type of journalism is not without consequences.   Good quality political analysis is critical in a democracy.  When journalists speak truth to power, political behaviour improves and democracy remains healthy.

When politicians are confident that journalists will not only defend their errant behaviour but actively attack those who challenge the rotten status quo, the political system and democracy is exposed to serious damage.

That is exactly what is happening in Ireland today.

Copy to:

Harry McGee

Featured

Youth power – Don’t ask – Take

By Anthony Sheridan

Irish Examiner journalist Aoife Moore is not happy.  The young people of Ireland are suffering because they don’t have a seat at the table [of power] she thundered in a recent article.

Focusing mainly on the youth wings of political parties Moore tells us the young are bullied, harassed, their complaints go unanswered, they’re not viewed as important, all of which is driving them away from politics.

Nothing will change, she asserts, until the grown-ups give the young a seat at the table of power.

This bizarre idea that young adults are children waiting for the ‘grown-ups’ to hand them power portrays a serious lack of understanding about the role young people play in politics.

Instead of whinging about being ignored by those at the table of power the young should be upending that table and forcibly taking their rightful place in the governance of the country.

Young people should be organised and focused in challenging the ‘grown-ups’, they should give no quarter in their determination to gain power and implement their policies.

The regular injection of political radicalism by the young is one of the mainstays of a healthy democracy.

Sadly, such political radicalism has never taken root in Ireland and forced emigration is the principal reason.  The primitive economic strategy of boom and bust has always suited the ruling establishment.  In boom times friends are looked after, when bust inevitably follows ordinary citizens are made to pay and forced emigration is just one of the costs.

Banishing young people to the four corners of the world removes political radicalism from the body politic thus eliminating any threat to the stale but very comfortable political establishment. 

This is why successive Irish governments, unlike most other governments in the world, have staunchly refused to grant a vote to emigrants. Out of sight, out of mind and forever out of power has always been the self-interested strategy of the ruling political class when it comes to young people.

Those who remain behind are usually politically apathetic or become members of youth wings of the establishment parties.  Within these ultra-conservative entities the young morph into clones of their ‘grown-ups’. They are quickly indoctrinated into the ways of political gombeenism which includes stamping out any sign of political radicalism – and so, the rotten establishment wheel continues to spin.

But change is coming as we’ve seen from recent elections but it’s not coming from the lost youth in the establishment parties that Ms Moore is so concerned about.  It’s coming from outside the ruling political class, from an increasingly radicalised electorate determined to create a decent country not just for the young but for all citizens.

Copy to:

Aoife Moore

Featured

When the establishment betrays the people’s trust

By Anthony Sheridan

The political establishment that has [mis]ruled Ireland since independence is on the verge of extinction.

For clarity, here’s a good definition of the term ‘establishment’.

The ruling class or authority group in a society; especially, an entrenched authority dedicated to preserving the status quo.

An establishment’s greatest resource is the people over whom it exercises power.  Its success depends on the people’s willingness to tolerate its behaviour.

When an establishment betrays the people’s trust one of two things will happen.  The ruling elite will attempt to preserve its power by becoming ever more oppressive, even to the point of violence, or the people will bring it down and replace it with a new establishment that will return the balance between rulers and the ruled.

For example, abuse of power and an abject failure to respond to the needs of ordinary people trigged the French revolution in 1789.  The revolution marked the beginning of the end of the divine right of kings to rule and the eventual emergence of the middle class political establishment we see in France today.

In addition to getting rid of corrupt regimes revolutions also serve to enlighten citizens to the fact that it is they, and not the ruling elite, who are the rightful owners of political power. They become aware that power flows from the bottom up, that those at the top exercise power solely on sufferance from the people. This sense of people power is as strong in France today as it was in 1789. 

Unfortunately, the opposite is the case in Ireland. This is because there has never been a political revolution in our country and as a consequence there has never been a change in the mindset that sees power as belonging to the powerful. 

We had a rebellion in 1916 that ultimately persuaded the British establishment, who were distracted by the brutality of WWI, that a degree of independence for Ireland within the Commonwealth was better than more war and rising criticism from the international community.

This resulted in the relatively smooth replacement of an oppressive, self-serving colonial establishment with an equally oppressive, self-serving home-grown version. 

This home-grown establishment immediately set about creating a political regime that ensured the subservient mindset instilled in the population over centuries of colonialism lived on as a powerful means of political manipulation.

They created a system of gombeen clientelism where crumbs were handed out in payment for votes.  Citizens were led to believe that the natural order of power in a democracy was a top down system, where the ruling establishment knew best.  

This is why, unlike functional democracies, Ireland never benefitted from the healthy tension between a Left/Right political system.  There was never any real political opposition in our parliament. We never witnessed political parties seriously competing with each other to promote and implement their own political ideologies for the greater good of the country.

All we got was a political ruling elite, principally made up of Fianna Fail and Fine Gael, masquerading as separate political parties. They are, and always have been, one political class with one overriding ambition – to exploit the people and resources of Ireland for their own benefit.  The only competition they engaged in over the decades was in the Tweedledee Tweedledum race for government where the opportunities for self-enrichment are most plentiful.

As the political establishment became weaker in recent years smaller parties such as the Progressive Democrats, Labour and, currently the Greens were recruited to support the ruling political class.

The abandonment of most, if not all, of the ideals and policies of these smaller parties was the price demanded and received in exchange for admission to the exclusive ruling elite club.

The British left-wing journalist, Owen Jones, provides the best definition of this particular type of establishment:

The establishment represents an attempt on behalf of powerful groups to “manage” democracy, to make sure that it does not threaten their own interests.

But the century long manipulation of the people and contempt for democracy by this political regime is rapidly coming to an end.  Irish citizens are beginning to realise that it is they who are the rightful owners of power and not the ruling political establishment.

It is crystal clear from recent elections and polls that the people are rejecting the old regime and are demanding real change in how the country is governed. That this demand for change is being ignored not just by the political centre but also by mainstream media demonstrates just how out of touch the establishment is with this revolutionary redirection in Irish political history.

The consensus among the ruling regime is that housing, health and the economy are the reasons for their continuing loss of power, that if these problems are fixed they will survive – it is a vain hope.

While these problems are obviously of huge concern to the electorate they take second place to the demand for radical political change.  People have come to realise that the old regime must be abolished and replaced with a genuinely democratic system. This change of mindset in the electorate is not a temporary phenomenon, it’s permanent – the old corrupt regime is finished.

The dramatic and historic rise in support for Sinn Fein is the most visible sign of this new emerging political landscape.  But that party should take note.  If it fails to radically overhaul how the state is governed, if it fails to abolish the old establishment and create a genuinely democratic balance between rulers and the ruled then it too will be rejected by the power of the newly enlightened electorate.

Featured

The day Eoghan Harris went bad

By Anthony Sheridan

Any rational person listening to Sarah McInerney’s interview of Eoghan Harris could be forgiven for thinking that he suffers from an illness known as Delusional Disorder. People suffering from this mental illness are incapable of telling what’s real from what’s imagined. 

In this context it is pointless responding directly to his ramblings with any seriousness.  However, the failure of the establishment media to unequivocally condemn the behaviour of Harris and his collaborators is another story altogether.

Take communications guru Terry Prone for example.  Writing in the Irish Examiner she was in no doubt where the blame lay.

In 50 years, nobody stopped Eoghan Harris. That’s our shame, not his.

This bizarre attempt to exonerate a favoured son of the establishment by blaming everybody, except him, suggests that Prone may also be experiencing a touch of Delusional Disorder. 

But for the record and for Ms. Prone’s information somebody did notice the moment when Harris went off the rails as a journalist.  Here’s an article I wrote six years ago in response to Harris’ refusal to criticise Denis O’Brien, the then owner of Independent Newspapers, during the Siteserv scandal. 

Eoghan Harris: A ‘journalist’ with little integrity

16 June 2015

In response to the ongoing Siteserv scandal Sunday Independent columnist Eoghan Harris has effectively admitted that he’s a coward and a man/journalist of little integrity.

On prudent reflection, I decided to take the advice of the Kerry sage, Tommy the “Kaiser” Fitzgerald: Don’t say anything, and don’t write anything, because when you put the black on the white, you are fucked boy.

What a sad end for a man who, wielding a razor sharp brain, used to tear strips from the hypocritical, arrogant and corrupt gangsters who misrule our country.

Now he’s a fully signed up toady of the rotten culture he once so brilliantly challenged. Whatever dulled his rapier like pen over the years has also dulled his mind to a state of stupidity where he effectively admits that he’s an intellectual slave to Denis O’Brien.

At least his many colleagues at ‘Independent’ Newspapers, also toadies to the master, make some effort, no matter how pathetic, at journalistic integrity.

The rest of Harris’ article accurately reflects the only ‘talent’ he still possesses – chief cheerleader for the establishment’s anti-Sinn Fein propaganda campaign. He begins this section of his article with the words:

Let me turn to a safer topic.

Propaganda is, of course, always a safe topic for a journalist because there’s no need for truth or honesty but how sad to witness any journalist actually write, in black and white, the words

‘Let me turn to a safer topic’.

Copy to:

Terry Prone

Eoghan Harris

Featured

Declining standards in Irish journalism

By Anthony Sheridan

In 2018 Stephen Donnelly Fianna Fail TD was refused permission to erect a fence around his home.  In 2021 a fence was erected around his home at taxpayer’s expense.   

Just two things changed between 2018 and 2021- Donnelly became the Minister for Health and sometime between the end of January and early Feb this year, a number of incidents were alleged to have occurred at the Minister’s home. 

But this article is not about the Minister or the alleged incidents. It’s about declining standards in Irish mainstream journalism. These declining standards are clearly evident in how this particular story was reported.

The story broke on 20 Feb last when Irish Examiner journalists Paul Hosford and Aoife Moore reported they had received an anonymous tipoff that a security fence had been erected outside the Minister’s home as a result of the incidents.

An unidentified source said the fence was erected after items were thrown at windows and left on the minister’s doorstep.

An unidentified spokesperson for the Minister declined to comment except to say the fence was for security reasons.

The story was accompanied by an outraged [anonymous] editorial condemning the alleged attack on the minister’s home.

So, what have we so far?

An anonymous tipoff followed by an unidentified source, followed by an unidentified spokesperson alleging, without providing any evidence, that at some point in the recent past, persons unknown threw items at the windows of the Minister’s home and left items on his doorstep.

In other words, what we have so far is – hearsay

Later that day Ms Moore was interviewed by Damien O’Reilly on RTEs Brendan O’Connor Show where RTE had upped the language surrounding the story from ‘incidents’ to ‘an attack’ on the minister’s home.   

Unfortunately, Ms Moore did not provide any additional information but did expand on what she did not know – some examples.

Is there any evidence that this is related to his work?

It appears it is but we can’t go into detail.

Do we know what was thrown at the house?

We don’t know.

Did it involve an individual, a group, was it over a prolonged period?

We don’t know. The advisor didn’t really want to go into it in any more detail.  I think they would rather if the story was a private family matter.

So here we have a journalist reporting an [alleged] attack on a government minister and happily accepting that such a serious event can be treated as a private family matter.

Ms. Moore was however very supportive and even emotional on behalf of the minister.

He has three young children…and obviously he’s up in Dublin for a lot of the time…and of course he’d be really concerned about his children and his wife.  It’s just really rotten to be honest. I think everyone is really disgusted that politicians can’t go to work without having to worry about the safety of their families.

Staying with the emotional angle O’Reilly/RTE linked this alleged attack with the perfectly legitimate, peaceful protests held outside the then Minister for Health Simon Harris’ home in 2019. 

Ms. Moore was also happy to go along with this unprofessional linking of two completely different stories. 

He had a very young baby at the time, his wife and daughter were at home, it was very scary.

O’Reilly concluded the interview with a strong note of outrage:

Who would want to go into politics when you hear stories like that?

That appeared to be the end of the story but then, curiously, a full seven weeks later, on April 9, the story was resurrected when Newstalk journalist Ciara Kelly interviewed Minister Donnelly in his constituency in Greystones Co Wicklow. 

Listening to the interview it was clear Ms. Kelly is a great admirer of the minister, excitedly telling listeners that both of them were locals and even attended the same school. 

The form of the interview was very similar to that on RTE between journalist Aoife Moore and journalist Damien O’Reilly.  Very friendly, no challenging questions and buckets of sympathy for the minister for the alleged attack on his home.

Does it frighten you that your family is being swept up into all of this?

Obviously, but I don’t want to get into it too much details for reasons you’ll understand. 

If Ms. Kelly did understand why a government minister would want to keep the details of an alleged attack on his home secret, she wasn’t telling her listeners.  Just as journalist Aoife Moore was happy to accept that such an attack could be treated as a private family matter.

Ms. Kelly’s co-presenter Shane Coleman concluded the piece in a similar manner as Damien O’Reilly did on RTE by angrily asking:

Why would anyone go into politics and subject themselves to such abuse.

So here we have five journalists reporting a story as fact without any real evidence.  Apparently cooperating with anonymous sources and the minister to keep details of the story secret and expressing strong support and sympathy for the minister’s unsubstantiated claims. 

This is not journalism, it’s hearsay bordering on false reporting.  Journalists cannot retain credibility when they publish stories without corroborating evidence. 

Respect for their profession is also seriously damaged when they take sides, particularly when they take the side of a government minister who stands to gain from such media support.

Copy to:

Aoife Moore: Irish Examiner journalist

Paul Hosford: Irish Examiner journalist

Damien O’Reilly: RTE journalist

Ciara Kelly: Newstalk journalist

Shane Coleman: Newstalk journalist

Stephen Donnelly: Minister for Health

Featured

Mainstream media: Failing to speak truth to power

By Anthony Sheridan

A deep and disturbing malaise has taken hold of journalism right across mainstream media.  The infection stems from the decades long close and  inappropriate association of journalists with the rotten centre of Irish politics principally composed of Fine Gael, Fianna Fail and Labour.

For a long time the sickness was hardly noticeable but the brutal austerity implemented by the political centre in response to the 2008 economic collapse opened the eyes of many Irish citizens.  And not just to how power was wielded in the interests of the powerful, but how mainstream media provided unquestioning support for the actions of the political establishment.

The unhealthy relationship between mainstream media and the ruling political class has become so close that the journalists themselves seem to be genuinely unaware of it.

A recent political podcast by the Irish Times, in which readers were invited to submit questions to journalists, provides a startling example of how mainstream journalism has become a parody of what good journalism should be all about.

I submitted the following question to the podcast which was selected for discussion:

Why is the link between the rise of Sinn Fein and the ongoing disintegration of the political centre ignored by mainstream media? 

Almost all comment and analysis surrounding this historic development focuses on attacking Sinn Fein on behalf of and in defence of the political centre. 

There is virtually no analysis or comment as to why this is happening.

Harry McGee, the Irish Times political correspondent, responded but failed to adequately address the question.  Instead, he unwittingly revealed the true nature of the tainted relationship between mainstream journalism and the political establishment.  

We’re working in an environment that is like a big boarding school and the thing is, you do forge relationships with politicians.  And journalists depend on politicians especially when they’re looking to get stories in advance.  And that makes it slightly problematic when it comes to criticising politicians – suddenly you have to pounce and bite the hand that feeds. 

Effectively, McGee is making the shocking admission that Irish mainstream journalists do not observe one of the central principles of international journalism – the obligation to speak truth to power.  

He is candidly admitting that mainstream journalists do not come down hard on establishment politicians because they depend on them for stories.

It is, of course, true that journalists line up like ducks in a pond to be fed tit bits by politicians in return for favourable reportage but it is rare to witness a journalist actually admit to this reality.

McGee went on to deny that there was any concerted attack on Sinn Fein feebly claiming that the problem lay with Sinn Fein’s reluctance to make itself accessible to media.

It’s not so much that there’s any attempt to attack Sinn Fein.  I think there’s just been a difficulty of getting access to Sinn Fein but that has become less of a difficulty in recent years.

The notion that Sinn Fein is shy about engaging with media is almost as ridiculous as claiming that there’s no concerted campaign against the rise of that party.

So here’s the truth that McGee and his colleagues in mainstream media are so fearful of confronting.

The political centre is on a death spiral after decades of corruption, incompetence and arrogance wrapped in a blanket of delusion that they have a divine right to rule. 

This is not opinion, it’s fact.  Labour are in the waiting room to extinction, Fine Gael effectively lost the last three elections and Fianna Fail are struggling to remain relevant as the the party begins to tear itself asunder in an internal civil war.

All of this has come about for one simple but powerful reason – the Irish electorate, in election after election, has rejected the old corrupt regime and is demanding radical change.

But this ongoing revolutionary shift across the entire political landscape is practically ignored by mainstream media.  Instead, in an increasingly desperate effort to defend and preserve the old regime, we see an avalanche of ‘end of civilisation’ type articles and broadcasts warning of the dangers of populism, Trumpism, the so-called evils of social media and increasingly bizarre anti-Sinn Fein propaganda.

The sickness that has resulted in mainstream media abandoning its obligation to speak truth to power is best summed up by McGee’s mindset:

‘We fear criticising politicians in case they stop giving us stories’

This dangerous mindset is in stark contrast to the highest principles of the profession as expressed by the French philosopher Michel Foucault:

Only the courageous may pursue the truth-to-power course as they risk losing their friends, their liberty, even their lives.

Copy to:

Irish Times

Harry McGee

Featured

David Quinn’s selective tolerance

By Anthony Sheridan

Recently, militant Catholic David Quinn blocked me on Twitter. Mr. Quinn was defending the reputation of the Catholic Church[CC].

 Here’s my ‘offending’ tweet:

Wrong.  The CC is global and Ireland was a particularly good breeding ground for brutal priests and nuns who obeyed orders without question.

I’m an atheist so it might be thought a block was to be expected but in fact myself and Quinn have engaged in various twitter discussions over a number of years without a block in sight. 

His decision to block me is all the more puzzling because just nine days later he wrote an article in the Sunday Times extolling his virtues of tolerance. 

He was writing about a matter of which both of us are in full agreement, the hilariously stupid decision of the Trinity College Historical Society to cancel an invitation to atheist Richard Dawkins to speak at the college.

Quinn strongly believes, as I do, that Dawkins should not have been banned, that free speech, no matter how controversial, is paramount.

To demonstrate his unlimited respect for free speech Quinn quoted some views held by Dawkins. 

That raising a child as a Catholic can be compared to sexual abuse.

That the Catholic Church is a disgusting institution. 

That the god of the Old Testament is a genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.

Obviously, Quinn does not agree with these views but, because of his [apparent] respect for freedom of speech he’s prepared to defend Dawkins’ right to express them.

The decision by the Trinity Historical Society to cancel Dawkins’ speech was, according to Quinn:

Another example of cancel culture, which seeks to deprive people of platforms when their views are deemed offensive to certain groups.

So why, I ask, did Quinn ‘cancel culture’ me from his twitter link for making a relatively benign [and truthful] comment?

Hypocrisy, I suspect, is the answer.  In public Quinn pretends to be a hero of tolerance while in private he deletes those who challenge his beliefs, just as his Catholic Church has been doing for centuries.

Copy to:

David Quinn

Featured

A Woulfe in judges clothing

By Anthony Sheridan

Ok, let’s get the obvious truth out in the open – Seamus Woulfe is a dud judge.  He’s not fit to judge a dog show never mind sit in judgement in the highest court in the land.  [With sincere apologies to all dog show judges.] 

We only have to look at some of his judgements surrounding Golfgate to see how unfit he is to hold such a high position.  As a Supreme Court judge he felt it was acceptable to:

Party with politicians.

Break Covid 19 rules he had helped draw up.

Blame everybody else for the consequences of his bad judgements.

Furthermore, it is clear that his overweening arrogance has completely blinded him to the core reality surrounding his behaviour – the obvious requirement for his immediate resignation.

In addition to all this he has completely misread the clear signals encouraging him to take the honourable course of falling on his sword.

The first signal came from retired Supreme Court judge Susan Denham’s report when she found it would be unjust and disproportionate to call for his resignation.  The key words here are ‘to call for’.  Anyone not overwhelmed by their own self importance would have clearly understood the subtle message – wield the sword yourself.

Clearly, Judge Woulfe does not do subtlety so a second signal was necessary.

This occurred when the Judicial Council released the entire transcript of Woulfe’s first interview with Ms. justice Denham.  This unprecedented public washing of judicial dirty laundry had the entire country cringing in embarrassment at the bizarre and abject excuses proffered by justice Woulfe. 

Everybody, that is, except Woulfe himself.  He seems to be genuinely puzzled by the angry response of politicians, colleagues in the judiciary and the general public.

It was time to call in the heavy gang, so to speak.  Three senior judges met with Mr. Justice Woulfe to discuss how the matter could be resolved.  It has been reported that the meeting did not go well, that Woulfe was shocked by the proposals they were offering to resolve the matter.

Did not go well, is, without doubt, the understatement of the year. 

It is highly likely that the judges [metaphorically of course] took Woulfe by the throat, pinned him up against a wall and shouted in his face:

Resign you fool before you do any more damage to our reputation.

But still, the thickness of his skull prevented  the message from getting through.  Instead of recognising the brutal fact that his Supreme Court career is over, Woulfe decided to call in sick.

There is now no way back for justice Woulfe nor, indeed, the judiciary. All the dirty laundry is out there.  If he is not removed or forced to resign the reputational damage to the judiciary will be enormous and permanent.

And Mr. Justice Woulfe will not primarily be responsible for that damage. His complete lack of understanding of the responsibilities and propriety expected of a Supreme Court judge has earned him a gold plated fools pass.

No, responsibility lies with the judiciary and the mainstream political parties who, over the decades, formed a relationship so close it left no room for the accountbility that is the norm in other jurisdictions.

It was inevitable, sooner or later, that a Woulfe in judges clothing would gain entry and wreak the havoc we are now witnessing.

Featured

Sarah McInerney and political impartiality

By Anthony Sheridan

23 Sep 2020

Sarah McInerney is one of RTEs top news and current affairs broadcasters.  As such she is required to exercise strict impartiality on all matters controversial but particularly in relation to political issues.

The general public should not be able to tell the personal views of broadcasters such as McInerney.  So my question is, why is she allowed to express strong personal political opinions in her column in the Sunday Times? 

Just last Sunday, for example, she expressed the opinion that the Taoiseach’s debilitating amiability is a liability in government. 

Martin has been too nice for too long; she thundered before going on to say that his softly, softly approach to challenges from his Parliamentary Party and Tanaiste Leo Varadkar was not good for Fianna Fail.

Her final paragraph could have come from the mouth of the Taoiseach’s most worried advisor:

You have to play the political game, no matter how distasteful it may be. If Martin wants to survive two years as Taoiseach, with his party still intact, it’s time for a mini makeover. No more Mr Nice Guy.

RTEs guidelines on impartiality are crystal clear: [Section 8.4 Impartiality]

Our audiences should not be able to tell from our output the personal views of our journalists or news and current affairs presenters on matters of public policy, political or industrial controversy, or on ‘controversial subjects’ in any other area.

And, more precisely:

…may not express personal views in RTÉ output, online or elsewhere, [my underline] and must be careful in their use of social media to avoid any perception of partiality.

Everyone who read the article now knows that McInerney is concerned about Michael Martin’s performance as Taoiseach and the continuing drop in support for Fianna Fail.

This is damaging to her credibility as a news and current affairs broadcaster.  Any robust questioning of opposition TDs will be seen as support for Fianna Fail.  Any perceived soft interview with Fianna Fail TDs or ministers will be seen in a similar light.

As one of the most popular and admired news broadcasters in the country McInerney has the potential to wield enormous political influence. 

She should not be allowed to do so.  Time RTE management had a word in her ear.

Copy to:

Sarah McInerney

RTE management

Featured

Did RTE journalists collude against Sinn Fein?

By Anthony Sheridan

In an interview with Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald on RTEs This Week programme, David McCullagh quizzed her about the use of the word ‘collusion’ in the Dail during nominations for a new Taoiseach.

You said the Government parties colluded in frustrating the voice of change, in what way was it collusion?

McDonald confirmed her belief that there was collusion between Fianna Fail and Fine Gael but she didn’t get much further before being interrupted by McCullah who declared triumphantly that he had looked up the word in the Oxford English dictionary.

Secret or illegal cooperation or conspiracy in order to deceive others.

This type of ‘journalism’ is bizarre and disturbing.  McCullagh/RTE picked out one word, from one person in one political party and went to the bother of researching the exact meaning of that word with the obvious intention of embarrassing the leader of that party.

McDonald made the reasonable and correct argument that the word ‘collusion’ has a far wider application in the English language.

But McCullagh was determined in his attack:

Some people would see the use of the word as almost Trumpian.

McDonald, rightly, berated him:

Don’t be ridiculous.

The grilling was continued the next day on Today with Sarah McInerney.

Speaking with Sinn Fein’s Louise O’Reilly McInerney demanded to know why McDonald had used the ‘collusion ‘ word.

As with Mary Lou McDonald, O’Reilly didn’t get far in her reply before being interrupted by McInerney who expressed her personal opinion that the word was used deliberatly by Sinn Fein.

The use of the word and this impression being given, deliberately, I think by Sinn Fein that the two parties were plotting.

O’Reilly, stating the obvious fact that Fianna Fail and Fine Gael did work together to keep Sinn Fein out was again interrupted by McInerney in her eagerness to support the establishment parties.

How do you know that, I mean they would say they came together because their party policies were more aligned than they were with yours.

As McDonald said, the word ‘collusion’ has a broad application in language but if we take McCullagh’s strict definition and apply it to his and McInerney’s behaviour we can see that the definition fits perfectly.

Secret or illegal cooperation or conspiracy in order to deceive others.

Any objective observer could be forgiven for concluding that this was a [non] story generated behind closed doors by RTE journalists with the intention of deceiving listeners into believing that Mary Lou McDonald had done something wrong.

This is not journalism, it’s not professional reporting or analysis. It appears to be the deliberate targeting of a political party that poses a challenge to the fading power of the ruling political class.

Copy to:

David McCullagh

Sarah McInerney

Featured

Irish Examiner bias

By Anthony Sheridan

Irish Examiner journalist Michael Clifford believes there is an organised social media campaign by some in politics to discredit mainstream media.

Increasingly in some quarters of politics, social media is used to attempt to systemically discredit the media. This is designed to encourage the public to ignore anything negative that appears in the media about a particular politician or party.

This attack on the media, according to Clifford, encourages people to ignore facts and blame the messenger.  And, he warns, the tactic is undermining the media’s role in holding power to account.

Specifically, Clifford is writing about Sinn Fein supporters who allege that mainstream media is biased against the party.  He goes on to accuse those supporters of using the bias claim to discredit negative scrutiny of Sinn Fein.

Michael Clifford is wrong, as wrong as only an establishment journalist can be when faced with the uncomfortable truth of rampant mainstream media bias. 

There are any number of examples of this bias not just against Sinn Fein but against any person or organisation, such as the water protesters, who threaten the power of the ruling political establishment.

The following is just one example from Clifford’s newspaper, The Irish Examiner.

A few weeks ago the leader of the Green Party Eamon Ryan used the ‘N’ word during a speech in the Dail.  Ryan was referring to an article in the Irish Times by the writer Sean Gallen in which he described how racist abuse during his childhood affected his whole life.

Here’s how the political editor of the Irish Examiner, Daniel McConnell, responded: 

Daniel McConnell: Questionable rush to condemn Eamon Ryan

Eamon Ryan is not racist.

The reaction to {Ryan} was astonishing and, in places, downright nasty.

On social media, the great online sewer, he was slammed.

Was Ryan wrong to use it as opposed to saying ‘the N-word’ or some other variation when making his point?

Or was he justified in saying it within the context of highlighting the abuse suffered by Gallen?

The rush to condemn did on one level smack of the disturbing pattern of the left to preach to everyone as to what speech is acceptable and which is not.

The moral high priests and priestesses who seem to go out their way to take offence do little to progress the cause of inclusivity or equality.

Four years ago, in May 2016, the then leader of Sinn Fein, Gerry Adams also used the ‘N’ word in the exact same manner as Ryan.  That is, he used the word in the context of the suffering of the nationalist population of Northern Ireland under British/Unionist rule, just as Ryan used it to highlight the abuse suffered by Gallen. 

The bias of the Irish Examiner is exposed for all to see when the favourable [and justified] defence of Ryan is contrasted against the damning judgement of Adams by an anonymous Irish Examiner journalist, hiding behind an editorial, for the very same thing.

[I have underlined what I consider to be the contradictions between the two responses]

While Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams has defended using a racist word for a black person in a tweet, his judgement must be called into question.

As leader of a political party, he has a duty to guard against making gratuitously offensive references.

Whether he likes it or not, his Sunday night use of the six-letter N-word is the kind of word that is synonymous with the attitude towards black people in America’s deep south. Whether used unwittingly or not, it a deeply offensive term.

It is simply not good enough to tell his followers on the social media platform Twitter that he was watching a Quentin Tarantino film, Django Unchained, comparing the struggle against slavery in the US to the struggle by Irish nationalists.

If it had been a film about US president Barack Obama, he would hardly have used such a racist term. So why did he use it? Having drawn criticism on both social media and the Washington Times, that is the right question which Mr Adams must ask himself.

The bias and hypocrisy of Irish Examiner journalists to the two incidents is clear to anybody with an ounce of objectivity.

Mr. Clifford tells us that the so-called tactic by ‘some quarters of politics’ on social media to discredit mainstream media is undermining the media’s role in holding power to account.

There’s no need of such a conspiracy. A declining standard of professionalism coupled with an obvious bias against those who challenge the ruling political establishment are doing more than enough to undermine trust in and credibility of mainstream media.

Copy to:

Michael Clifford

Daniel McConnell

Featured

RTE: Propaganda ambush of Sinn Fein

By Anthony Sheridan

Former RTE broadcaster Sean O’Rourke never made a secret of his contempt for Sinn Fein.  At times his contempt bordered on outright hatred as he interrogated and insulted members of that party at every opportunity.  For O’Rourke, journalistic objectivity was never as important as keeping Sinn Fein away from the levers of power.

Sarah McInerney, O’Rourke’s replacement, seems intent on continuing in his biased footsteps.

We witnessed the latest example of this unprincipled journalism in what has become a regular RTE strategy when it come to Sinn Fein – the propaganda ambush.

The ambush followed an interview of the Sinn Fein leader by the Sunday Independent.  The Independent is a propaganda newspaper with a rabid hatred of Sinn Fein so it was no surprise that the interview was manipulated to demonise Mary Lou McDonald and her party.

Someone in RTE then, apparently, decided to follow up on the Independent’s rogue journalism by setting up their own propaganda ambush, Sarah McInerney was more than happy to cooperate.

I should make clear, this article is not about Mary Lou McDonald, Sinn Fein or the IRA.  Those interested in how McDonald handled the interview can listen back here on the RTE website.

This article is about how media organisations with a particular agenda, such as RTE, set out to damage the credibility or reputation of certain people and organisations who are considered a threat to the political status quo.

The form and delivery of questions asked are crucial if such ambushes are to be successful.  In this case the strategy used by RTE/McInerney can be broken down into three parts.

One: Ask a question that’s impossible to answer.

Two: Repeatedly and forcibly put the question in pursuit of self-condemnation while ignoring all answers given in defence.

Three: Include a deeply emotional element to the question.

The impossible to answer question consisted of two parts:

Was the IRA justified in killing people, and, would you have taken up arms in the conflict? 

While repeatedly putting the question RTE/McInerney introduced the emotional element of the ambush by exploiting the death of a 13 year child in the conflict.

Do you really think it was justified to kill a 13 year old child?

Over three thousand people died in the Northern Ireland conflict. Tens of thousands suffered serious physical and psychological injuries. British soldiers, police officers, Unionists militia, the IRA and the British Government all engaged in the killing. 

In a propaganda ambush it is important to leave out this bigger picture because it provides objective context that could weaken the damaging impact of the strategy.

RTE/McInerney didn’t need or indeed expect McDonald to actually say the killing of children was justified in the conflict.  It was only necessary to repeatedly throw the deceitful question at her to create an impression in the minds of listeners that McDonald was being dishonestly evasive and therefore guilty in some way – damage done, mission accomplished.

We know this was a propaganda ambush because the Northern Ireland conflict ended 22 years ago with the signing of the Good Friday Agreement.   To demand explanations from one party to the agreement so long after the conflict has ended without context and without demanding the same explanations from all other parties is clearly an exercise in propaganda.

Practically the entire world, including the United States, the United Nations, the European Union and the vast majority of citizens in the Republic and the United Kingdom, accepted the agreement and by so doing recognised Sinn Fein as a legitimate political party that was genuinely intent on pursuing its policies by peaceful means only. 

Only two groups rejected the agreement, the Democratic Unionist Party and the political establishment in the Republic.  Fianna Fail and Fine Gael along with fellow travellers such as right wing politician Michael McDowell have never accepted what the world has accepted, that Sinn Fein is a legitimate political party.  By so doing they are, effectively, rejecting the Good Friday Agreement.

Their motive is as cynical as it is self-serving – Sinn Fein, as an outsider, poses a major threat to the exclusive power the established parties have wielded since independence.  A power they have consistently abused at great cost to the quality of Irish democracy and the interests of Irish citizens.

The Irish media, led by RTE, is overwhelmingly conservative and pro establishment.  The historic and, for the establishment, shocking public endorsement of Sinn Fein in the recent election has panicked them into abandoning all semblance of objectivity and professionalism in defence of that establishment.

Copy to:

Sarah McInerney

RTE

Mary Lou McDonald

Featured

Hong Kong and democracy

Anthony Sheridan

Hong Kong belongs to the Chinese in exactly the same way as the Isle of Wight belongs to the British.

Here’s how Britain came to own Hong Kong.  In the 19th century the British East Indian Company was making huge profits in the illegal smuggling of drugs [opium] into China. 

This criminal activity did serious damage to the Chinese economy and resulted in widespread drug addiction among the population. 

The Chinese authorities appealed to Queen Victoria to stop the drug trade, she ignored them.  The authorities then offered to allow the merchants to trade in tea in place of opium but this too was rejected.  As a last resort the authorities confiscated supplies of opium and imposed a blockade of foreign ships.

The British responded by going to war.  They defeated the Chinese and in the subsequent peace treaty demanded and were given ownership of Hong Kong.

For the next 150 years Hong Kong was ruled from London through a British appointed governor, there was no democracy under British rule.

Hong Kong citizens were never happy with this lack of democracy and frequently rebelled.  In 1856, for example, when a very limited form of democracy was suggested the Colonial Office rejected the idea on the grounds that:

Chinese residents had no respect for the principles upon which social order rests.

The current Chinese dictatorship holds the exact same anti-democratic view.

Chris Patten, the last Governor of Hong Kong before the territory was handed back to the Chinese in 1997, is outraged by this anti-democratic policy. 

Here’s some of what he had to say in a recent article:

The world simply cannot trust this Chinese regime. Liberal democracies and friends of Hong Kong everywhere must make it clear that they will stand up for this great, free and dynamic city.

But Patten’s complaints are futile and hypocritical. 

They are futile because China is now an empire and Britain a mere backwater on the world stage.  They are hypotcritical because the Chinese are not doing anything the British did not do during their occupation of Hong Kong.

And there’s another important point, Hong Kong is geographically and culturally part of China.  Britain, on the other hand is nearly six thousand miles away from its former colony.

Let’s imagine a reversal of history.  Let’s imagine that China was the most powerful empire in the world in the 19th century and went to war with Britain because it was prevented from selling illegal drugs to the British people.  Let’s imagine that after defeat the British were forced to hand over the Isle of Wight to the Chinese.

Fast forward to the present day and the Chinese, having lost their empire, are forced by the British to give the island back. 

How would the British respond if the former Chinese colonists, from six thousand miles away in Beijing, began to lecture London on how they should govern the newly liberated territory.  

I think we know the answer to that.

China agreed to give some political and social autonomy to Hong Kong through a ‘one country, two systems’ policy for a 50 year period. 

That a ruthless communist regime should actually honour that promise for nearly half that period is nothing short of a miracle.  Again, if the situation was reversed, would the UK honour such an agreement, particularly if its political and commercial interests were threatened – highly unlikely.

And it is principally commercial interests that lie behind the, so far, relatively benign response by the Chinese government to events in Hong Kong. The city is an extremely rich capitalist money-making machine and China is fast becoming the most powerful and richest capitalist country in the world. 

The Chinese government want two things, to continue sharing the wealth generated by Hong Kong but, at the same time, exercise total political power over its citizens.  In a word – they want capitalism but not democracy.

And that policy is a carbon-copy of the policy imposed by the British during their undemocratic rule of the territory.

Featured

Oliver Callan: Back in his box

By Anthony Sheridan

Comedian Oliver Callan is a confused man and his confusion is getting him into all kinds of trouble.

He’s in trouble because he doesn’t understand the difference between harmless political satire and serious political comment.

If Callan was an ordinary Joe Soap comedian his confusion would not be a problem.  But Callan is not an ordinary Joe Soap, much of his income comes from powerful sources within the establishment such as RTE and the Irish Times.

The rule is simple:  If you work for the establishment, you don’t attack the establishment.

There’s just one exception to this rule. If you’re a comedian you can slag off the establishment if, and only if, your comments are made within the strict confines of comedy.

Clearly, Callan doesn’t understand this rule.  Recently he tweeted a very strong criticism of the leader of the establishment itself – Leo Varadkar. 

The arrogance is astounding.  As covid19 kills scores and puts 500k on dole, Taoiseach [on full pay & exp] alleges without proof that workers are seeking layoffs to exploit benefits.  The SF leader gloats the crisis proves she’s ‘’right’.  Are we in  this together or not??? FFS

Somebody must have had a word in is ear.  Perhaps a call from RTE or the Irish Times or maybe even a call from the Great Leader himself.

In any case, Callan quickly deleted the tweet with the following seriously pathetic excuse.

Ok ok, so I deleted my tweet referencing Leo’s comments on welfare applicants and Mary Lou’s opinion piece in IT.  I wasn’t fair to either of them and if we are in this together, I’ll have to simmer down too.

This wimpish but unstandably self-interested climbdown was rightfully torn to shreds on twitter.

So let’s have a look at the difference between Varadkar’s comments and McDonald’s Irish Times article.

McDonald wrote a well balanced, well informed article on the current political situation focusing particularly on the disgraceful, anti-democratic exclusion of Sinn Fein from government formation talks by Fianna Fail and Fine Gael.

Varadkar, on the other hand, obnoxiously and without any proof accused citizens of exploiting layoff benefits.

But, according to Callan’s flaky logic, Varadkar’s vile accusation is no worse than McDonald’s reasoned political analysis. 

This is the mindset of a man running in fear of those with power to damage his interests.

All went quiet then…for a while.  Callan probably thought he was off the hook, that he was still in the establishment’s good books. 

But, once again, he made the massive error of mixing up satire with serious political comment.

In another tweet he described a speech delivered by the Great Leader as wooden and robotic. 

Clearly, Callan was not getting the message – If you work for the establishment you cannot criticise the establishment. 

To hammer home that message, the mistress of the establishment’s high moral ground was called into action, Irish Times columnist Kathy Sheridan.

Personally naming Callan, Sheridan did not mince her words:

Cheap, personal shots at politicians demean everyone involved.

Callan, at last, got the message.

In an article that would embarrass even the most toadying, most servile supporter of the establishment Callan prostrated himself in a spineless effort to regain favour.

The Great Leader, who just days before was described by Callan as  an arrogant robot, suddenly morphed into a man of passion for his country, a man who was going to deal with the [evil] ‘shinners’, a man who was determined to leave a legacy of greatness on history.  

Climbdowns as abject as this only happen after a serious slap on the wrist has been delivered.

And to copper-fasten his total allegiance to his masters, Callan jumped on the bandwagon that is the establishment’s hatred of social media, a hatred second only to its loathing for Sinn Fein:

Here’s Sheridan’s comment:

Just the kind of hot take that characterises the swamplands of social media along with idiotic #notmyTaoiseach hashtags.

And Callan’s servile parrot:

Social media…a place where the cringey hashtag ‘Not My Taoiseach’ trends with regularity.

Ah yes, I think we can safely conclude – Callan has definitely been put back in his box. 

Copy to:

Oliver Callan

Kathy Sheridan

Featured

Elaine Byrne: Lacking moral courage to name names

By Anthony Sheridan

Establishment commentator Elaine Byrne believes Mary Lou McDonald and her party are lacking in moral courage and are therefore unfit to govern.

Sinn Fein does not deserve a pass until Mary Lou and her leadership demonstrate genuine moral courage.

Byrne is not alone in holding such an intolerant, undemocratic and hypocritical view.  The entire horde of establishment journalists have been scrambling around in panic ever since polls indicated that Sinn Fein have become a major force in Irish politics.

This development comes as no surprise to ordinary citizens who have suffered catastrophe after catastrophe as a direct result of political corruption in Fianna Fail and Fine Gael.  

The very fact that Ms. Byrne obviously believes that these two parties are in possession of any semblance of moral courage destroys her credibility as an objective commentator.  

But Ms. Byrne will not recognise this criticism because, like all establishment commentators, she operates from within the extremely restricted realm of the political establishment.

Looking out from that bubble Ms. Byrne can see and is indeed very angry at the massive damage inflicted on Ireland and its people by the disease of political corruption.

We know this because she wrote a book outlining in great detail every major incident of political corruption perpetuated principally by Fianna Fail and Fine Gael since the formation of the state.  

Unfortunately, Ms. Byrne does not, for whatever reason, possess the moral courage to name the guilty.

Instead, she falls in with the rest of the baying mob of ‘journalists’ in passing judgement on those who challenge the power and privilege of our corrupt ruling political class. 

Copy to:

Ms.Byrne

Featured

Real democracies and referendums

By Anthony Sheridan

(Photo by Tim P. Whitby/Getty Images for Sky UK)

In a functional democracy like the UK the will of the people in a referendum is supreme no matter how inconvenient or disruptive the outcome is to the ruling political class.

In a dysfunctional democracy like Ireland the will of the people in a referendum is supreme only on the strict condition that the outcome is in line with the wishes of the ruling political class.

Featured

Public Services Card: Some still forced to comply

By Anthony Sheridan

Two years ago I qualified for the Free Travel Pass but was denied the entitlement because I refused to accept the legitimacy of the Public Services Card.  The Data Protection Commissioner [DPC] has now ruled on the issue:

The Department does not have a legal basis for processing personal data when it’s in the case of a person who’s seeking to avail of a service with the public sector body other than the department itself.

But…there’s always a ‘but’, the DPC has also ruled that:

The legislation only allows the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection to insist on its use for its own services.

They [the ID cards] can continue to be used in the context of availing of free travel or availing of benefits that a person is claiming from the department.

So, not withstanding further clarifications, my current understanding is:

All citizens outside the remit of the Department of Social Welfare now have the option of using the card as identification if they so choose.

Those citizens within the remit of the Department of Social Welfare are not granted the right of choice, they must accept this illegal and very dangerous card if they want to receive their entitlements.

I will not be accepting this card until I am granted the same rights as all other citizens.

Featured

Catholic Church: Dark influence still active

By Anthony Sheridan

Letter in today’s Irish Examiner.

The editor decided to remove a section from the final sentence.  I’ve reinstated the section in brackets.

There has been a great deal of outrage expressed at the treatment of former Garda Majella Moynihan.

Much of the comment has focused on the apparent cosy relationship between the An Garda Síochána and the Catholic Church, particularly on sexual and moral issues.

You might think that that dark period of Irish history has been firmly consigned to the past but current events tell a different story:

According to Social Democrat TD Roisin Shorthall, the State is awaiting a series of approvals from the Vatican before the new National Maternity Hospital can be handed over to state control.

Just two weeks ago, during the RTÉ documentary Divorcing God, we learned that a diocesan advisor monitors the teaching of sex education in Athenry Presentation College and reports his findings to the local bishop.

At the same school a religious teacher admitted that sex education is only taught because of a directive from the Department of Education. 

She went on to give an example of how the school flagrantly contradicts this State directive:

“I remind my students that this is a Catholic school and as a Catholic, you do not use contraceptives.”

So, as outpourings of outrage fill the air about the oppressive religious culture of decades ago we are currently appealing to a theocratic foreign state for permission to open a maternity hospital and instructing our children, on the brink of adulthood, not to use contraceptives.

Once again we are witnessing a strain of hypocrisy unique to Irish culture that expresses outrage about religious abuses so long as they are safely buried in the past. […while tolerating current abuses without lifting a finger to protect its victims.]

Anthony Sheridan

Cobh

Co Cork

Featured

Tom Parlon launches new career in comedy

By Anthony Sheridan

Tom Parlon, former politician and Director General of the Construction Industry Federation [CIF] has come out as a comedian. 

It’s not clear if Parlon intends continuing with his job at the CIF but the quality of his comedy sketch on yesterday morning’s Today with Sean O’Rourke would surely indicate that he’s bound for global fame on the comedy circuit.

Basing his sketch on the Government’s open cheque book joke  for contractors to build the National Children’s Hospital Parlon led with one of his oldest but most hilarious jokes.

This is the one about contractors, while struggling to make a few cents profit against all the odds, recklessly risking everything they possess in order to help out the national economy and those seeking to put a roof over their heads.

He continues with some brilliant one liners on why costs continue to rise into the stratosphere.

It’s a busy, busy time for contractors.

There’s been some big accidents in China and elsewhere in the world.

Stuff is scarcer.

Contractors don’t get a penny more than they’re entitled to.

[No, seriously, he did say ‘stuff is scarcer‘.]

And the new comic genius introduced a brand new type of joke – the one worder.

Brexit…snapped Tom and the audience fell about in stitches. 

Before listeners could catch their breath with their laughing he followed up with some great new jokes.

The rising costs of the 2 billion hospital, said the budding comedian, can be compared to someone ordering a gear-change car and, when going to collect it, suddenly says:

Jesus, I want to change my mind and buy an automatic, only to discover that it will cost more.   

And, like all great comedians Parlon roped in a member of the audience to help him make his jokes even funnier.

After telling Sinn Fein health spokesperson Louise O’Reilly that a delay in the delivery of fireboards had added substantially to cost overruns she helpfully asked:

Tom, what percentage of the 1.7 billion overrun is down to the delay in fireboards?

Haven’t a clue… the hilarious Tom responded.

Poor old Sean O’Rourke finally realised he had been set up by his producers.   This wasn’t a serious interview analysing the out of control billions for the National Children’s Hospital. 

 It was the launch pad for Tom Parlon’s new career in comedy.

Listen to the full comedy sketch here, highly recommended.

Copy to:

Tom the comedian

Sean O’Rourke

Featured

Presumption of innocence does not universally apply in Ireland

By Anthony Sheridan

During a discussion on Today with Sean O’Rourke surrounding the controversial bail granted to a taxi driver accused of sexual assault Senior Counsel and lecturer in Law at UCD Paul Anthony McDermott was crystal clear:

We have the concept of bail because of the presumption of innocence. Under our system nobody can decide you have committed a crime other than the jury. So, not the media, not the Gardai, not anyone.  It is only a jury. 

So we take the view that unless and until twelve members of the public decide you have committed a crime the system works on the basis that you didn’t commit it. 

That is regarded as a constitutional right but even if we amended the constitution in the morning the European Convention on Human Rights to which Ireland is a party also requires a presumption of innocence.

I’m sure Mr. McDermott will be greatly surprised to learn that his statement is incorrect.

The Irish state does not universally extend the presumption of innocence to its citizens.

There is one very specific crime that the State considers to be so heinous that those found guilty are not just liable to a prison sentence of ten years or a €300,000 fine but are also deprived of the presumption of innocence principle.

That crime is the selling of even one Mass card without the written permission of a Catholic bishop.

There are many who will find it difficult to believe that such a law could exist in a modern democratic republic; so here it is in black and white.

Charities Act 2009

99: [1] A person who sells a Mass card other than pursuant to an arrangement with a recognised person shall be guilty of an offence.

[2] In proceedings for an offence under this section it shall be presumed, until the contrary is proved on the balance of probabilities, that the sale of the Mass card to which the alleged offence relates was not done pursuant to an arrangement with a recognised person.

I am not a legal person so I am open to challenge on my interpretation of this law; which is:

A person who sells a Mass card without the permission of a Catholic bishop will be presumed guilty until he/she can prove the contrary.

The crux of the presumption of innocence principle is very straighforward:

It is not for the accused to establish his/her innocence. It is for the prosecution to prove the guilt of the accused.

Article 99 [1] turns this principle on its head.

Therefore; in Ireland:

The presumption of innocence that is implicit in Article 31.1 of the Irish Constitution does not apply to those accused of this crime.

The presumption of innocence under Article 6 of the European Convention of Human Rights does not apply to those accused of this crime.

The presumption of innocence under Article 11 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights does not apply to those accused of this crime.

To my knowledge nobody from the legal profession has challenged this draconian law so it is reasonable to assume that, for that profession, there is no difficulty.

It is, however, reasonable to expect members of the legal profession such as Mr. McDermott to include this exemption to the presumption of innocence principle when delivering an opinion on the issue.

Copy to:

Mr. McDermott

Today with Sean O’Rourke

Featured

The poor standard of Irish political journalism

By Anthony Sheridan

The standard of political analysis within Irish journalism is disturbingly poor.  There is one simple but very troubling reason for this. 

Most journalists are loyal members of the establishment and as a consequence refuse to even acknowledge never mind actually write about the dark, underlying reality that lies at the heart of Irish politics. 

The dark reality is that the three centrist parties, Fine Gael, Fianna Fail and Labour, are not separate political parties struggling to attain power in order to implement policies for the greater good of Ireland and its people.   

The dark reality is that these three parties constitute a corrupt political class that, for the most part, works to enrich itself and those who support its agendas. 

The economic catastrophe and consequent extreme austerity inflicted on the people of Ireland by this ruling political class since 2008 has resulted in very serious damage to its credibility and as a consequence to its power. 

Labour has been virtually wiped out by an angry electorate while Fianna Fail and Fine Gael have been so damaged they have been forced into a coalition of desperation where they are engaged in a life or death struggle for political dominance.

The establishment media plays a major role in propping up the power of this corrupt political class.  Journalists do this by simply ignoring political corruption altogether or by retreating into a parallel reality.

A recent article by Irish Times journalist Pat Leahy provides us with a good example of how establishment journalists ‘analyse’ politics from within this parallel reality.    

In the article Leahy is making the point that the Left in Irish politics is not serious about achieving its political goals.  They prefer talking to doing, he says.  He goes on:

If power is impossible without compromise and personal sacrifice, they prefer the empty dance of politics without the prospect of power.

This, of course, is a ridiculous conclusion.  But such silly opinions are not unusual among journalists like Leahy because, while they can see the rot in the political system, they are not, for whatever reason, prepared to expose it. 

Clearly, Leahy doesn’t realise that the three centrist parties are a political class masquerading as separate entities.  We witness his ignorance by his use of the term  ‘go figure’  when describing how Fianna Fail and Fine Gael can operate on any point of the political spectrum without apparent scruple.

Political parties of integrity and principle do not do this.  They avoid associating with parties of opposite ideologies altogether or lay down very strict conditions for any coalition deal. 

A single ruling political class, particularly one infected with the disease of corruption, has no scruples about moving to any position on the politcal spectrum if it suits its purpose.  That’s why, for example, the Labour Party had no difficulties in collaborating with Fine Gael’s extreme right-wing austerity policies. 

Leahy further demonstrates his ignorance of the political landscape by asking the following question:

What, exactly, is the difference between the Labour Party and the Social Democrats apart from the fact that they cannot get along together at a personal level?

The answer, of course, is that the Labour Party is a loyal member of the corrupt ruling class.  The party sold out on its socialist principles and political integrity in 1992 when Dick Spring went into coalition with the criminal politician Haughey shortly after [accurately] describing Haughey and Fianna Fail as ‘a cancer on the body politic’.

The Social Democrats, on the other hand, represent the complete opposite of what Labour has become.  The Social Democrats came into existence as a direct result of exposing corruption within the ruling class. 

The party’s leadership know very well that they would be signing their political death warrant if they were to associate themselves with any of the parties that constitute the corrupt political class.

It is incredible and deeply disturbing that a journalist such as Leahy, who is considered an expert on political analysis, is not aware of this obvious political reality.

But, as I said at the beginning – the standard of political analysis within Irish journalism is very poor.

Copy to:

Pat Leahy

Featured

RTE bias: A failure of objective journalism

By Anthony Sheridan

Falling revenue coupled with a serious challenge from social media has in recent times prompted the establishment media to emphasise how important professional, objective and well researched journalism is to society  [See here and here for examples].

Unfortunately, these claims of high quality journalism are more fake news than fact particularly when the establishment media is reporting on those who pose a threat to the interests of the ruling political centre made up of Fine Gael, Fianna Fail and Labour.

Sinn Fein represents the greatest threat to this exclusive political club and for that reason is frequently targetted by establishment media.

RTE in particular has effectively abandoned all pretence of objectivity when it comes to interviewing Sinn Fein representatives. 

A comparison between an RTE interview with DUP leader Arlene Foster and what can only be described as the interrogation of Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald on the day of the funeral of murdered journalist Myra McKee clearly exposes the blatant bias of the national broadcaster.  

Foster was interviewed on Morning Ireland in a carefully  choreographed piece that portrayed her and her party, the DUP, in a largely positive light. 

First we heard a short 37 second clip of Foster speaking earlier on BBC Radio Ulster in which she expressed her feelings during the funeral of murdered journalist Myra McKee.

RTE reporter Tommie Gorman was then invited to respond and proceeded to give a glowing account of how the DUP was ready to engage in talks but [unfortunately] Sinn Fein was adopting a strategy of caution.  

Arlene Foster was then respectfully and professionally interviewed by RTEs Gavin Jennings without interruption or bullying but also without any serious challenge of her views.  She was allowed to promote the view that she and her party were very willing to sit down with Sinn Fein [if only they would cooperate] and sort out any issues they had.  

Tommie Gorman was again invited to give his assessment of Foster’s views. He proceeded to give another glowing account of how the DUP was eager to get politics back on track in Northern Ireland and, again, concluded his analysis with a negative description of Sinn Fein’s election strategies North and South of the border.

Later on in the morning, and in stark contrast, Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald was interrogated, bullied and insulted in a disgraceful display of bias by Miriam O’Callaghan/RTE on Today with Sean O’Rourke.

The interrogation was preceded by yet another clip of Arlene Foster speaking as if her only wish in life was to bring peace and harmony to the whole world.

In the fifteen minute interrogation that followed McDonald was agressively interrupted no less that 31 times.  She got to answer just one question without a bullying intervention. 

It was clear to any objective listener that O’Callaghan/RTE was not in the least bit interested in McDonald’s views but rather in trapping her into expressing a negative opinon on the question of resolving the political stalemate at Stormont. 

It was also clear that O’Callaghan/RTE were not interested in informing listeners that the DUP were responsible for the collapse of the Northern Ireland Assembly.  That it was the DUP who initially accepted but then walked away from a compromise agreement with Sinn Fein in 2018.

In her efforts to trap McDonald, O’Callaghan didn’t bother too much with facts.  For example, she claimed that in his sermon Fr. Magill was asking people to compromise when in fact he did no such thing.

McDonald, rightly, upbraied O’Callaghan for putting words into Fr. Magill’s mouth.

The moment of ‘victory’ for O’Callaghan/RTE came when McDonald said that Sinn Fein would not be capitulating to those [DUP] who wish to hold back progress in every form.

Triumphantly, O’Callaghan crowed:

So am I hearing – ‘Sinn Fein says NO’?

This was the whole point of the interrogation, to extract a negative soundbite from McDonald that would portray Sinn Fein as the party that was refusing to compromise on talks to restore the Assembly.

But there’s a bigger, more important reason for the constant attacks on Sinn Fein by the establishment media and that is the threat that Sinn Fein, as an outsider, poses to the power of the ruling centre of Irish politics. 

For years now, in election after election, this ruling political elite, that has done so much damage to Ireland, has been losing the trust and consequently the votes of Irish citizens. 

The weaker the political centre becomes the more strident and more blatant the attacks on all outsiders who pose a threat to its political power.  Over recent years RTE has drifted from a position of relative objective journalism to a point where many see the station as nothing more than an obedient mouthpiece for the ruling political class.

I would recommend listening to the O’Callaghan interrogation of McDonald to obtain a true sense of just how biased RTE has become.  Alternatively, take a quick scroll down the reproduced interrogation below which signposts every interruption by O’Callaghan.

Copy to:

O’Callaghan/RTE

Mary Lou McDonald

O’Callaghan:  Has anything changed in terms of policy, from any party including Sinn Fein?

McDonald:  Service for Lyra McKee was incredibly moving…those who murdered Lyra do not represent the people of Creggan…

INTERRUPTED…

O’Callaghan:  Ok, let me come back in there Mary Lou McDonald.

Fr. Magill directed very strong comments against  all politicians in the North who have responsibility for the vacuum that has arisen since the Assembly has not sat.  You as president of Sinn Fein are one of those seriously responsible he was pointing a finger at.  Do you accept that the vacuum that has been created has led to that kind of violence in Creggen?

McDonald: Well Fr. Magill hit the nail on the head yesterday. He articulated in the clearest and most uncompromising way the fact that politicians myself included need to roll up our sleeves and get cracking…

INTERRUPTED

O’Callaghan: So what are you going to do?

McDonald: People want the institutions back, people want power-sharing and there’s no gainsaying the fact either and this isn’t an Orange or Green issue. People want equality and people…

INTERRUPTED

O’Callaghan:  But Mary Lou McDonald, with respect, we all know that but for people listening this morning that is just frustrating.  Let’s be specific, are you still holding out for a stand alone Irish languge act?  Is that what’s holding up everything?

McDonald:  Can I just say Miriam…

INTERRUPTED

Callaghan:  Well I’d like you to answer that question if that’s ok.

McDonald:  I will of course answer and can I also suggest to you that the issues at play here aren’t triviliaties. I’m sure you didn’t miss the fact that those saying their goodbyes to Lyra were carrying the rainbow flag, I’m sure you haven’t missed the fact that Lyra herself was a very passionate and very effective advocate  for…

INTERRUPTED

O’Callaghan:  Of course not but Mary lou McDonald, a stand alone Irish language act is trivial compared to the death of Lyra McKee.

McDonald:  Miriam, there is nothing trivial in a society that has been fractured by conflict, in a society where we need sustainable power- sharing. There is nothing trivial at all on insisting on equality and rights for every citizen…

INTERRUPTED

O’Callaghan:  So you haven’t changed an iota of your position is what I’m now gathering?

McDonald:  We stand by the Good Friday Agreement and we’re not going to resile from that position and here’s the reason why.  The worst possible scenario, worse than where we are now…

INTERRUPTED

O’Callaghan:  What can be worse than the murder of a 29 year old woman Mary Lou McDonald?

McDonald:  I’m not and please don’t insinuate on any level that I have in any way suggested anything other than the loss of Lyra to be absolutely outrageous, to be condemned…

INTERRUPTED

O’Callaghan:  I hear that.

McDonald:  Well then if you wouldn’t mind Miriam.  You’ve invited me on to state my position…

INTERRUPTED

O’Callaghan:  But you’re not answering any of my questions with respect,  I’m asking you specifically Mary Lou McDonald.  That priest yesterday Fr. Magill directed his comments at Arlene Foster, at Sinn Fein.  He wants there to be movement in the political process so murders like Lyra McKee don’t happen so I’m just asking you politely. Have you changed your position at all for instance in relation to a stand alone Irish language act?

McDonald:  And you’ve asked me policy and I assume you will allow me to politely answer.

O’Callaghan:  Yes, if you answer that question.

McDonald:  Yes, we need an Irish language act.  That comes as no surprise, that has been the case since the St. Andrew’s agreement.  Fr. Magill laid down a very, very serious challenge for us, a challenge not just to talk, not to tick boxes but a challenge to get power-sharing up and running again in a way that serves the whole community…

INTERRUPTED

O’Callaghan:  But that involved compromise, doesn’t it, on everyone’s part?

McDonald: Yes, of course it does and if you listen to him Miriam you would have heard him say…

INTERRUPTED

O’Callaghan:  I did.

McDonald:   …You would have heard him say that politicians need to get to work, we need sustainable government and that we need to fix the dysfunction that has marked goverance in the past, now the…

INTERRUPTED.

O’Callaghan:  But what are you going to do…[McDonald tries to finish her point…

INTERRUPTED

O’Callaghan:  I hear you, but what are you going to change, in what way will you compromise and I’ll ask the same questions of the DUP.

McDonald:  The only way that you’re going to get to sustainable government is to hardwire equality.  So therefore let me tell you what needs to happens next…

INTERRUPTED

O’Callaghan:  No, tell me what you’re going to do?

McDonald:  Well let me tell you what I have done and more importantly what needs to happen next…

INTERRUPTED

O’Callaghan: No, what are you going to do in Sinn Fein?

McDonald:  Miriam, we are going to stand by the Good Friday Agreement.  I’m sure you’re listeners don’t want a rehash of the past two years…

INTERRUPTED

O’Callaghan:  No, but I want to know if there’s going to be any compromise?

McDonald:  But Miriam, sorry. I obviously have to remind you that February twelve months ago there was a compromise and there was an accomodation on the table and we had landed on what I believe was a fair and balanced accomodation and unfortunately the DUP walked away from that.  So your suggestion that Sinn Fein haven’t engaged and that we haven’t been constructive is just inaccurate.  You’re…

INTERRUPTED

O’Callaghan:  But just let me come back for a moment Mary Lou because it’s an interview.

So, in other words, as you said February last year those talks fell apart.  Many know at the end of the day it was because the grassroots of the DUP have a red line about a stand alone Irish language act.  Can you not in some way shift on that?  They were going to try and incorporate it perhaps in an overall arching act, is that not acceptable?

McDonald:  [Puzzled] Sure that’s what we agreed last February.

O’Callaghan:  Yeah, but as Arlene Foster said, her DUP supporters do not accept that so can you shift a little on that. 

McDonald:  So Miriam, perhaps you might observe that anything that moved the dial towards equality and inclusion and by the way none of these issues, marriage rights, language right, they’re not the sole preserve of Sinn Fein or of Nationalism.  These are equality issues and people in Northern society now understand that sustainable government is based on equality…

INTERRUPTED

O’Callaghan:  So is the DUP position on marriage equality a red line issue for you in Sinn Fein as well Mary Lou McDonald, I’m just trying to clarify. 

McDonald:  I’ve heard some of the commentary around this and I challenged it before and I’m going to challenge it again.  This isn’t a football match where we chalk up one nil, two nil, five nil.  These are issues that citizens in the North really, really care about because the…

INTERRUPTED

O’Callaghan:  Yeah but let me come back.  Mary Lou McDonald, to be honest, you saw the reaction yesterday, there was a standing ovation for Fr. Magill.

McDonald:  Yes…

INTERRUPTED

O’Callaghan:  No, let me speak.  He wanted the politicians to get up and get the Assemply going, that requires compromise.  So all I’m trying to do this morning is try and work out your red lines.  The stand alone Irish language act obviously remains a red line.  I’m just asking you.  The DUP position on marriage equality, is that now also a red line for Sinn Fein?

McDonald:  I’m not even describing them as red lines, these are issues that need to be resolved.  I don’t think you need to dramatise it Miriam…

INTERRUPTED

O’Callaghan:  Well we need a resolution, I’m trying to work out where a compromise can come.  

McDonald:  Well I was about to share my idea with you if you will allow me.  The fact that marriage equality, equal language rights, the Stormont House apparatus, that those matters need to be resolved is not new to anybody.  My god we’ve talked about these issues for months and months and months and we did land on a compromise.  We landed on a compromise and unfortunately the DUP couldn’t bring it over the line.  Those issues still need to be resolved before Lyra was murdered, before Fr. Magill spoke it was my view in any event that the DUP aren’t prepared to lift these issues and resolve these issues with us.  The governments now need to step in, they need to meet urgently.  I believe in the…INTERRUPTED

O’Callaghan: No, no, let me come back. Fr. Magill spoke…

McDonald tries to continue with her point but is…

INTERRUPTED

O’Callaghan:  Ok, let me come back on that.  He wasn’t speaking to the Governments, he was speaking to the politicians.  We all know that the DUP grassroots could not accept that compromise in February 2018.  What I’m trying to work out is that if you do go back even into parallel talks with the DUP will you accept that an Irish languange stand alone act even incorporated within other acts is not going to be acceptable and can you shift on that?

McDonald:  Well if you’re asking me are we going to capitulate on behalf of citizens in the North to people who wish to hold back progress in every form, to people who do not wish to make room for others in an open democratic society then the answer to that is no Miriam.  We will not capitulate on that and I would suggest to you this business of parallel processes doesn’t actually meet the challenge as articulated by Fr. Magill because the challenge is, was and remains to talk certainly…

INTERRUPTED

O’Callaghan:   So am I hearing ‘Sinn Fein’ says NO?

McDonald:  No, you’re not hearing that, we’re not the nay sayers.  We’re the people that landed on the accommodation…

INTERRUPTED

O’Callaghan:  But that didn’t work at the end of the day.

McDonald:  Perhaps I’m not making myself adequately clear. Our review is not NO, our review is absolutely YES.  We need the institutions up but I am a realist…our aim is not just to tick boxes…

INTERRUPTED

O’Callaghan:  OK, so just let me back in there Mary Lou McDonald.

McDonald manages to continue but is again…

INTERRUPTED

O’Callaghan:  I hear that, let me come back in.  This is why I’m asking this question.  You just said you have a deeper responsibility for resolving these issues. Post that very moving ceremony yesterday, post the murder of Lyra McKee, Fr. Magill was almost pleading that all sides shifts position.  I am hearing from you if I’m correct Mary Lou McDonald that you have not shifted your position one iota.

McDonald:  No, what you heard yesterday was a call that has been made consistently right across the North in particular which is to get power-sharing back…

INTERRUPTED

O’Callaghan:  That’s not what I asked you [McDonald managed to keep going]

McDonald: …and what we have said consistently…

INTERRUPTED

O’Callaghan:  But you haven’t shifted at all.

McDonald:  Miriam, you’re not asking us to shift, you’re asking us…

INTERRUPTED

O’Callaghan:  But Fr. Magill was asking people to compromise.

McDonald:  Sorry, I don’t think you should put words into Fr. Magill’s mouth.  That’s not what he said.  He said that we need progress…he said we need to rid ourselves of the dysfunctional pieces that haven’t worked…

INTERRUPTED

O’Callaghan:  He said, Mary Lou McDonald, why did it take the murder of a 29 year old woman for the Northern Irish politicians to meet and talk to each other.

McDonald: Well, the reality is that for just about a year there hasn’t been a substantive engagement.

Featured

Alison O’Connor and professional deceit

 

By Anthony Sheridan

 

Even for a Fine Gael journalist Alison O’Connor’s portrayal of Brian Hayes is way over the top. Hayes, who’s abandoning politics for a more lucrative career in the financial services industry, is portrayed as a virtual Irish Nelson Mandela.

O’Conner writes of the terrible conditions Irish politicians such as Hayes have to endure in order to serve the people. Having to stand for election, having to put your face on a poster, having to survive on €100,000 plus generous expenses – my goodness, such horrors.

But like all establishment journalists O’Conner reveals her bias in the detail. She tells us that Hayes’ greatest talent lay in making the government look good.

I couldn’t understand at the time how the party, and then taoiseach Enda Kenny, felt he would be better off in the European Parliament than at home doing a fine job of making the government look good, despite the slashing and burning that was ongoing.

Note – not fighting for the health and wealth of the people, not badgering his party leader to do what was right for the victims of political and financial corruption, not insisting that corrupt bankers be brought to justice.

No, Hayes’ greatest talent, according to O’Connor, was his amazing ability to ‘make the government look good’ as it destroyed the lives, ambitions and wealth of millions of Irish citizens. In other words, Hayes was a brilliant political liar and propagandist.

And then there’s the accidental admission that Hayes is leaving politics so that he can accumulate even more money.

A politician of Brian Hayes’ experience and profile might stand to earn considerably more in the private sector.

So it’s not about selfishly serving people and country, it’s about who pays the most. And with Hayes’ many connections in politics, government and banking, his new career in the Irish Banking and Payments Federation is sure to make him a very wealthy man.

But there’s always a nagging problem for establishment journalists like O’Conner – how to explain the awkward logical gap between the catastrophic financial, psychological and social damage inflicted on the Irish people over recent decades and the claim that the political system responsible for the suffering is populated by people of high principles and integrity such as Hayes.

The answer – ignore the brutal reality and resort to professional deceit.

And the current choice of deceit is – blame social media.

Quoting a senior Fine Gael source O’Connor writes:

It is proving exceptionally difficult to get them [candidates] to stand because they see the abuse politicians get on social media and feel that a political career just isn’t worth that.

I’ll finish with this thought: Irish citizens will never see the extermination of the disease of political corruption for so long as establishment journalists like O’Connor are willing to loyally defend the rotten system.

Copy to:

Alison O’Connor

Featured

Educating Marian Finucane

By Anthony Sheridan

Marian Finucane does not know the difference between the following sentences.

The Great War

We had a great time on holiday.

In fairness, people do sometimes get confused between these two meanings of the word ‘great’ but if you’re chairing a discussion on one of the most important events in world history the very least listeners can expect is that you understand the basics.

Here’s Finucane introducing a discussion on Armistice Day, the day that marked the end of the First World War:

So Myles, tell us how the First World War ended. I, as you know, hate [with strong emphasis] when it’s called the great war. I think it was just the annihilation of millions of young boys and men and I can’t see the glory in it.

Clearly, Finucane mistakenly thinks that the ‘great’ in the Great War means great as in – ‘We had a great time on holidays’ or, ‘wasn’t it a great war, such fun and glory’. She’s outraged and puzzled as to why anybody would refer to the brutal death of millions as ‘great’.

She seems to be completely ignorant of the fact that the ‘great’ in the Great War means that the war was one of the largest, most brutal conflicts, up to that point, in world history. A conflict that witnessed the introduction of new forms of war technology such as chemical, air and tank warfare. A war that changed the course of history, that led to the collapse of empires, triggered a series of revolutions and led to the emergence of several new countries such as Finland, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland.

Finucane was addressing her question to Myles Dungan who, in addition to being an RTE broadcaster, is also an historian.

He didn’t seem to notice Finucane’s confused thinking but, really, he should have a quiet word in her ear. Her ignorance is not very professional.

Copy to:

Marian Finucane

Myles Dungan

 

 

 

Featured

Denis O’Brien: Are the sharks closing in?

 

By Anthony Sheridan

 

In December 2015 I wrote about how Stock Market sharks were moving in for the kill as a result of Denis O’Brien’s failure to float his Digicel company on the market.

Billionaires like O’Brien can incur instant poverty if they make a mistake in the shark infested market arena and it’s becoming increasingly clear that O’Brien’s massive debts are attracting the killer instincts of his fellow sharks.

Next Friday stock holders will decide whether or not to agree to a plan by O’Brien that would give the company two more years to deal with its massive $6 billion debt.

Now if only Denis had got his hands on Irish Water his problems would be over but a rebellion by Irish citizens put a stop to that possibility.

But wait, what about the billions to be made from rolling out broadband? Well feck it, somebody seems to have made a mess of that possibility too.

There’s just no justice for the super rich anymore.

Note to Fine Gael – must do better.

 

 

 

 

Featured

Kathy Sheridan: Afraid to speak truth to power?

 

 

By Anthony Sheridan

For ordinary Irish citizens, corruption is a dark, malignant everyday reality that causes endless loss and suffering. The political system, the financial sector, planning, property, you name it, corruption is rampant and routine among the top tiers of Irish society. The disease does immeasurable damage to the wealth, health and aspirations of ordinary people.

But in the warm, comfortable bubble where the establishment media happily coexist with the powerful and the corrupt, there is no such thing as corruption. Instead, there is a mysterious entity universally referred to as ‘culture’.

So, for example, there’s no corruption in our police force, our banks or our political system, just this inexplicable abstraction called ‘culture’.

And, apparently, all that’s needed to bring a halt to the massive damage caused by this mysterious ‘culture’ is the application of another magic word – ‘reform’.

So, basically, that’s all establishment journalists write or talk about, culture and reform and it’s off to the Dail bar for drinks – happy days.

But despite the availability of these magic, truth avoiding words, it can still be difficult for establishment journalists to write about corruption without actually using the dreaded ‘C’ word.

Take for example a recent article by Irish Times journalist Kathy Sheridan in which she reflects on the catastrophic economic crash of 2008 which occurred as a direct result of corruption in the political and financial sectors.

The corruption word does not, of course, make an appearance but, to her credit, the truth-avoiding ‘culture’ word only appears in the very last paragraph.

Instead, Ms. Sheridan falls back on another strategy commonly employed by those who are afraid of speaking truth to power. While ostensibly analysing the Irish economic catastrophe she focuses the bulk of her analysis on events in another country thus sparing the blushes of those who wield power in Ireland.

At the beginning of her article she accepts that the people are angry and have lost trust in the system. The bulk of the article is then filled with a long, meandering story about some American financial wizard before ending with a sermonising quote that’s probably meant, somehow, to bring  comfort to the countless victims of the rampant corruption here in Ireland.

It’s about trust, yes. It’s about culture, [oh, there’s that word] behaviour and accountability. But like almost everything that makes life bearable, it’s also about common decency.

Ah yes, common decency. Now if only establishment journalists like Ms Sheridan could bring themselves to speak truth to power, to actually use the ‘corruption’ word, to name those who peddle the disease of corruption to enrich themselves while destroying the lives of so many.

Then, I’m sure, life would be much more bearable for all of us.

Copy to:

Kathy Sheridan

Featured

Una Mullally: The youth of Ireland are on the march

 

By Anthony Sheridan

The revolution has begun. Varadkar and his cabal of gombeens are for the high jump. Their time is up as the youth of Ireland take to the streets and march on Dail Eireann to overthrow the old failed system and replace it with a bright new dawn for Irish democracy.

Sadly, there is no truth whatsoever to this fantasy view of what’s happening in Ireland today. The claim of a mass movement of young citizens on the move is nothing more than the meanderings of Irish Times columnist Una Mullally’s overly fertile imagination.

Here are some examples of Ms. Mullally’s fantasies:

Does the Government know it has a politicised generation on its hands?

A generational shift has occurred that both the political and media establishments have not yet truly grasped.

We are in newly charted territory, and young people are the cartographers.

Altruism, solidarity, and a sense of fairness seems to permeate this generation.

Their values are different from past generations, they do not put self-interest first says Mullally.

She then gives some examples of the great ‘injustices’ that motivates this ‘selfless’ youth revolutionary movement that is determined to overthrow Leo and his cabal of gombeens:

Very little development in Dublin is for young people.

New restaurants and bars are expensive and are aimed at 30 – and 40 -somethings.

Young people are watching their nightclubs being demolished for hotel developments.

Student housing built by international companies charging exorbitant rents is totally out of their reach.

Many young people have to live with their parents because they can’t afford the out-of-control rents in the city.

These examples do not sound like a national youth movement intent on overthrowing the old, failed political system but more like a demand for more nightclubs and cheaper drink.

Mullally does, of course, mention other more serious issues. The marriage equality campaign, legal abortion and the current housing campaign. She wrongly credits young people as the principal motivators in these movements.

The marriage equality and the Repeal campaigns were open door issues. Practically every political party and most of society were in favour of these reforms. It did not take any great courage or sacrifice to come out on the streets and demand reform for issues that were practically guaranteed to succeed and, more importantly, posed no threat to the interests of those who wield power in our country.

And while there is a noticeable increase in youth involvement around the housing scandal this is primarily down to the fact that the crisis is beginning to affect the interests of young people particularly students.

This was evident during the recent Take Back the Streets demonstration in Dublin. There was a large, very well organised student participation but the majority of placards were demanding housing and other benefits for students, there was nothing about challenging the corrupt political system that is responsible for the crisis.

Sadly, there is no history of organised political radicalism among the youth of Ireland. This lack of a revolutionary spirit among the young was clearly evident in the water charges campaign. This was a campaign that required real commitment, courage and stamina because it threatened the vital interests of the corrupt elite that have ruled and ruined our country for decades.

If the student unions or any other youth movement were on the streets for the anti-water charges campaign I didn’t see them. In fact, in my experience and observations the bulk of water warriors were made up of middle aged and elderly citizens many of them accompanied by children. Yes, of course, young people were involved but they did not, as Mullally claims, constitute the bulk of campaigners.

In common with all establishment journalists Ms. Mullally operates in a media bubble that has little understanding of the reality out on the streets.

If she ever manages to burst out of that bubble she will immediately realise that there is no revolutionary youth movement in Ireland and that political corruption is the sole reason for the housing catastrophe.

Copy to:

Una Mullally

 

 

Featured

Gombeen democracy v real democracy

 

 

By Anthony Sheridan

There has been a great deal of arrogant criticism in this country about the manner in which the British political system is dealing with the Brexit crisis.

But comments in a recent speech by the British Prime Minister, Theresa May, highlighted the difference between a real democracy like the UK and a gombeen democracy like ours.

May was responding to those who are calling for a second referendum:

The latest plan is to hold a second referendum. They call it a ‘people’s vote’, but we had the people’s vote and the people chose to leave. A second referendum would be a politician’s vote, politician’s telling people, you got it wrong the first time so try again. Think for a moment what it would do for faith in our democracy if having asked the people of this country to take this decision politicians try to overturn it. Those of us who do respect the result, whichever side of the question we stood on two years ago need to come together now.

May is spot on in describing the idea of a second referendum as a ‘politician’s vote’. In our pretend democracy we’ve had two such ‘politician’s votes’ in recent years when the democratic will of the people wasn’t in line with the interests of the ruling elite so the result was thrown out and the people were forced to ‘try again’.

 

Featured

RTE news bias – Destroying credibility

 

By Anthony Sheridan

When RTE was a national broadcaster the station provided a reasonably balanced news output. In recent years, however, since the station began to serve government rather than citizens, news manipulation has taken precedence over factual reporting and professional analysis.

On yesterday’s Marian Finucane Show, for example, listeners were subjected to an intelligence insulting, extremely short, cartoon-like discussion on the disturbing events that occurred on North Frederick street during the week involving Gardai and housing protesters

Panelist: In fairness, Josephine Feehily and Drew Harris came out and said, no, that shouldn’t have happened.

Finucane: And yet and yet and yet..its tough on gardai. I thought it looked… I mean I was astonished at how it had come about.

Panelist: Look, there is an issue around social media , there’s no doubt about that, but look, we expect to see people in balaclava’s in the Basque country or dealing with the Real IRA or whatever. We don’t expect to see Gardai in balaclava’s policing genuine protests about housing.

I think the public were very, very upset about it and I’m thinking of something Theo Dorgan said once ‘I thought I was born into a republic’ and you see these private balaclava-clad guards arriving in a van.

But protesting has changed, I think the Gardai are very measured in the way they handle the physical and verbal abuse they get.

Then a panelist changed the subject by referring to a protest Finucane had participated in 48 years ago. Finucane, delighted at the diversion, went on to reminisce about another protest she attended in the last century – and that was it.

That was the sum total analysis of the disgraceful and disturbing events in North Frederick street where the Gardai behaved more like second-rate nightclub bouncers than a professional police force.

Clearly under pressure by her producer to keep discussion of this embarrassing Government/Gardai scandal to an absolute minimum Finucane, in a fluster, did as she was instructed.

Mmm…well…ah…I mean..we’ll move on very quickly. I think that deserves more conversation but I’m just watching my clock here and….

Watching her clock??? The discussion was taking place just half way through a two hour long show and this major public interest story gets a grand total of 1 minute 56 seconds coverage.

This is not news analysis, it’s blatant news manipulation. No doubt, Fine Gael and the Gardai are delighted with RTEs collaboration in this type of warped current affairs analysis.

But RTE cannot escape the fact that, day by day, its reputation as a professional and balanced current affairs outlet is reaching the same zero credibility rating as that of our police force.

Copy to:

Marian Finucane Show

RTE News and Current Affairs

Featured

Dan Boyle: Corruption…what corruption?

 

By Anthony Sheridan

I recently engaged in a twitter discussion with former Green Party TD Dan Boyle on the question of politican corruption. Incredibly, and somewhat depressingly, Mr. Boyle does not believe that political corruption is a major problem, he does not believe that political corruption is principally responsible for most of the damage and suffering inflicted on Irish citizens over the decades.

Indeed, despite years of direct political involvement Mr. Boyle claims he has no direct evidence of the disease.

I believe corruption exists but I have no specific evidence of it.

Here’s the verbatim account of our discussion.

 

Dan Boyle:  The significant whataboutery of many in Irish life, reacting negatively to the latest in horror homelessness stories, shows the horrible link that when becoming richer as an economy we seem to become poorer as a society.

Anthony Sheridan: Ah yes, once again it’s the royal ‘we’ that’s to blame. This avoids the brutal truth – the corrupt Centre of Irish politics is responsible

Dan Boyle:  We all exist in a society. You don’t isolate. Nothing ‘royal’ about it. Bigger picture exists despite personal animosity.

Anthony Sheridan:  You do isolate, you identify the guilty (in this case, corrupt politicians) and make them accountable. The ‘we’ generalisation is a cop out.

Dan Boyle:  To you it is. Choose isolation if you want. All it leads to is constant conflict and little, if any, progress.

Anthony Sheridan:  Your reply does not make sense. Focus on the brutal truth – our corrupt politicians are responsible.

Dan Boyle:  Your use of the phrase ‘corrupt politicians’ is meaningless. It’s a convenient catch all phrase that doesn’t forward debate in any way at all.

Anthony Sheridan:  Wow…that’s an incredible comment given the massive suffering, loss and even death as a direct result of political corruption. No wonder the Greens are in the waiting room of extinction.

Dan Boyle:  Of course there are politicians who are corrupt, but most politicians regardless of where they sit on the policy spectrum, are not. Pretending they are, and using politicians as a generic reason for all that is wrong in society, is just plain wrong.

Anthony Sheridan:  It is not just some corrupt politicians, the political system itself is rotten to the core. You are an insider and like all insiders you are blind to the rot all around you. The countless victims of political corruption do not have the luxury of ignoring the brutal reality.

Dan Boyle:  I’m not an insider but I am someone who has had experience of where and how the system falls down. You put this down to corruption, I put it down to competence. Where the system most falls down is where those in charge have no accountability mechanisms.

Anthony Sheridan:  You are an insider, It’s deeply disturbing how unaware establishment politicians are of the true nature of political corruption. I’m confident that in time the rotten system will be brought down and replaced with honest politics. We’ll have to agree to disagree until that day.

Dan Boyle:  I’m not an insider I hold no public office. I believe corruption exists but I have no specific evidence of it. Laws need to be strengthened and greater resources given to help prosecute more. Corruption needs to be eliminated but lack of competence is the real problem.

Anthony Sheridan:  Your admission that you have no specific evidence of corruption defies belief. The disease of corruption is obvious and rampant throughout the political and administrative system. You live in a bubble of denial Mr. Boyle, a fact that does enormous damage to the Irish people.

Dan Boyle:  I speak honestly on the basis of my experience. If specific evidence was made available to me I would have acted on it. If such evidence is available to you, I would encourage you to have it acted on. Most failures in Irish politics are as a result of cock ups not conspiracies.

Anthony Sheridan:  I am genuinely astonished at your apparent ignorance of the rampant corruption within the political/administrative sectors. Clearly, you pay little attention to news and current affairs. Such ignorance is a guarantee that the guilty will continue to thrive.

Dan Boyle:  Again not what I’m saying. Convictions depend on evidence of sufficient quality. Corruption exists. It is notoriously hard to prove. But I’ll repeat lack of competence is the greater cause of maladministration in Irish public services.

Anthony Sheridan:  We’re going around in circles now. Just to finish, it is deeply disturbing and bodes ill for the future of our country if your ignorance and naivety are common [and I suspect that is the case] within the body politic. Thank you for engaging in the discussion.

Dan Boyle:  You can call me ignorant as much as you like. You have no greater information or experience on this than anyone else has. Your shock and scorn is immaterial.

Anthony Sheridan:  It’s not about me, it’s about ridding our country of the disease of political corruption, clearly there’s a long road ahead.

Copy to:

Dan Boyle

 

Featured

Tuam – time to uncover the truth

 

By Anthony Sheridan

This short letter in the Irish Times, signed by 97 writers and artists, is the most powerful comment I have so far witnessed in response to the horror of Tuam.

Minister Katherine Zappone, the woman who will make the final decision on what is to be done, should have this letter enlarged, framed and placed on her desk to remind her that there is just one decision that leads to justice.

Any other decision will lead to cover-up and more suffering for those involved.

 

Tuam – time to uncover the truth

Sir,

We the undersigned writers and artists appeal to the Government to use the full force of its purse and power to undertake a complete excavation, identification where possible, and dignified reburial of the victims of Tuam. We further appeal for the Government to undertake an active and authentic attempt to identify the many missing individuals who will have been illegally adopted at home and abroad.

In light of significant, possibly criminal, failings at Tuam – of which the lack of burial records for 796 infants and children, the missing bodies of women, the verified existence of “significant quantities” of human remains, and the ongoing testimony of survivors are ample evidence – mere memorialisation is inadequate. Systematic exhumation is necessary to uncover the truth. The Government must use any and all resources (including, as necessary, resources of the Bon Secours Order) to complete a full excavation and identification of all remains on the site as has been consistently requested by Catherine Corless, survivors, and family members of those who lived in the Home. – Yours, etc,

MARY O’DONNELL,

DR AILBHE DARCY,

KIMBERLY

CAMPANELLO,

AIDEEN BARRY,

CARMEL BENSON,

MELONY BETHALA,

DR DYLAN BRENNAN,

MAIRÉAD BYRNE,

FIÓNA BOLGER,

JUNE CALDWELL,

MARY ROSE

CALLAGHAN,

ANNA CAREY,

EILEEN CASEY,

PAUL CASEY,

SARAH CLANCY,

JANE CLARKE,

PATRICK CHAPMAN,

BRÍD CONNOLLY,

SUSAN CONNOLLY,

JUNE CONSIDINE,

BRIGID CORCORAN,

MARION COX,

ENDA COYLE-GREENE,

CATHERINE

ANN CULLEN,

MADELEINE D’ARCY,

MARTINA DEVLIN,

MOYRA DONALDSON,

THEO DORGAN,

CATHERINE DUNNE,

ANNE ENRIGHT,

ATTRACTA FAHY,

TANYA FARRELLY,

ELAINE FEENEY,

KIT FRYATT,

MIA GALLAGHER,

ANTHONY GLAVIN,

SINÉAD GLEESON,

SHAUNA GILLIGAN,

JACKIE GORMAN,

DYLAN COBURN GRAY,

SARAH MARIA GRIFFIN,

VONA GROARKE,

MARY GUCKIAN,

MAURICE HARMON,

JACK HARTE,

JOANNE HAYDEN,

CLAIRE HENNESSY,

RITA ANN HIGGINS,

ELEANOR HOOKER,

VICTORIA KENNEFICK,

ANATOLY

KUDRYAVITSKY,

DAVE LORDAN,

AIFRIC MAC AODHA,

CATHERINE PHIL

MacCARTHY,

JOHN MacKENNA,

NUALA MACKLIN,

ALICE MAHER,

CHRISTODOULOS

MAKRIS,

OANA SANZIANA

MARIAN,

EMER MARTIN,

JOHN McAULIFFE,

FELICITY McCARTAN,

FLISH McCARTHY,

MOLLY McCLOSKEY,

MARIA McMANUS,

DECLAN MEADE,

PAULA MEEHAN,

LIA MILLS,

SINÉAD MORRISSEY,

PAUL MULDOON,

HELENA MULKERNS,

ANNE MULHALL,

SONYA MULLIGAN,

CHRISTINE MURRAY,

UNA NI CHEALLAIGH,

ANNEMARIE

NÍ CHURREÁIN,

NUALA NI CHONCHUIR,

DOIREANN NÍ GHRÍOFA,

EILEEN

NÍ SHUILLEABHÁIN,

LIZ NUGENT,

JEAN O’BRIEN,

MARGARET O’DONNELL,

JOHN O’DONOVAN,

NESSA O’MAHONY,

GERALDINE O’REILLY,

Dr ROBYN ROWLAND AO,

KARL PARKINSON,

JUSTIN QUINN,

CONNIE ROBERTS,

ANNETTE SKADE,

KELLY E. SULLIVAN,

ANNE TANNAM,

SUSAN TOMASELLI,

JESSICA TRAYNOR,

SAMANTHA WALTON,

DAVID WHEATLEY,

ADAM WYETH.

 

 

 

Featured

Why the establishment media is silent on O Cuiv’s rebellion

 

By Anthony Sheridan

Sinn Fein’s decision to field a candidate to challenge the current President has wrecked the cosy arrangement between Fianna Fail, Fine Gael and Labour to keep their man in the office.

But consider what would have happened if the following scenario had evolved. Imagine if Sinn Fein had decided to support the conservative centre and then, dramatically, a leading member of the party broke ranks and attempted to force the leadership to change its decision by putting himself forward as an independent candidate.

Here’s exactly what would have happened:

There would have been an immediate wall to wall, seven days a week attack on the party by the establishment media led by the government broadcaster, RTE.

Sinn Fein members from Mary Lou McDonald down to local councillors would be relentlessly paraded, harassed and questioned across the establishment media for reactions and explanations.

So here’s my question:

Why is the establishment media completely silent on the dramatic decision by Éamon Ó Cuív to challenge his party’s presidential election strategy by putting himself forward as an independent candidate which, by extension, constitutes a direct and very serious challenge to Michael Martin’s leadership?

Here’s the answer:

The establishment media does not serve the interests of Ireland or its people. Their loyalty lies entirely with the ruling political class made up of Fianna Fail, Fine Gael and Labour.

The undemocratic attempt by these three parties to keep their man in the Park received strong and widespread support from the establishment media. Across radio, television and print the people were arrogantly told that they would not be getting an election, that it would be too expensive, that it would distract from Brexit and sure wasn’t ‘Michael’ doing a great job anyway.

But Sinn Fein’s strategy put a stop to all that patronising, insulting guff. Now, the establishment media has just one aim – to protect the interests of the corrupt centre of Irish politics by preventing a powerful outside force such as Sinn Fein from occupying what the ruling political class have always considered to be their personal fiefdom in the Phoenix Park.

To that end, the Irish people are about to witness the biggest, most ruthless anti-Sinn Fein propaganda campaign ever mounted by the establishment media. The campaign will, as always, be led by the cheerleader of the establishment media – the government broadcaster, RTE.

Copy to:

Fianna Fail, Fine Gael, Labour Party, Sinn Fein

RTE/Media

Éamon Ó Cuív

Featured

Citizenship status has been removed from the Irish people

 

 

By Anthony Sheridan

The people of Ireland should know that Fine Gael, Fianna Fail and the Labour Party have removed the status of citizenship from them and replaced it with the inferior status of ‘customer’.

The process was initiated in 1997 and has been refined and expanded upon ever since. Ministers and civil servants no longer address citizens as citizens but as customers.

For example, during a recent interview on RTEs Today with Sean O’Rourke  [July 2 – 2nd report] the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection Regina Doherty referred to old age pensioners as ‘customers’.

Thinking that this may have been a ministerial slip of the tongue I had a look at Ms. Doherty’s department website and found that the status of citizenship had indeed been removed and substituted with the lesser title of ‘customer’ [See below for example].

A quick search across other departments confirmed that this is official policy. Here for example is an extract from the Department of the Taoiseach:

Our Commitment to our Customers

The Department of the Taoiseach is committed to providing a professional, efficient and courteous service to all our customers…We will treat all our customers equally and make every effort to ensure that the services we provide reflect your needs and expectations.

This is a deeply disturbing development as it strikes at the very core of the democratic relationship between citizen and state. It strongly implies that ministers and state officials have taken ownership of the power, wealth and resources of the state. That they, and not the citizenry are – The State.

It implies that [now former] citizens are mere ‘customers’ that must comply with laid down conditions if they wish to ‘do business’ with the new owners of the state.

This quote, taken from the Dept. of Public Expenditure and Reform, makes it crystal clear that it is the department that is the provider of goods and services and the citizen is the customer:

Deliver quality services with courtesy, sensitivity and the minimum delay, fostering a climate of mutual respect between provider and customer.

The development further implies that ministers and civil servants no longer see themselves as (civil/public) servants, elected and employed to serve people and country but rather as wielders of state power over and superior to the power of the people.

I spoke about the issue with a senior official in the Dept. of the Taoiseach who was genuinely surprised that I thought the matter was of any importance.

Here’s why I believe the issue is of crucial importance:

Democracy literally means ‘rule by the people’. Not by politicians or civil servants but by the citizenry. In representative democracies certain elected citizens are temporarily appointed to govern on behalf of the people. They are granted state power by the people to govern on behalf of the people but the possession of that power does not raise their status above that of any other citizen. It does not create a relationship whereby the politician is master and the citizen is a customer.

Similarly, many citizens are employed to serve the State on behalf of the people across a wide range of government departments but no individual civil servant possesses a status or a power above that of any other citizen, they remain servants to the democracy of the people.

This policy of downgrading the sacrosanct status of citizenship by replacing it with the inferior and cheap status of ‘customer’ is obnoxious to the very meaning of democracy.

Customer means:

A person who buys goods or services from a shop or business.

In the world of trade this is a perfectly legitimate definition. An individual becomes a customer when they decide to purchase goods or services from the owner of a business.

In a functional democracy citizens do not purchase goods or services from politicians or state officials operating under the illusion that they own these goods and services. Citizens avail of goods and services that they (the citizens) have provided for the greater good of all the people. It is the function of politicians and officials to serve the people by organising and dispensing these goods and services according to need. They do so as fellow and equal citizens, not as overseers doing business with customers.

Citizenship means:

The status of a person recognised under the custom or law as being a legal member of a sovereign state or belonging to a nation.

It’s unlikely that this removal of the status of citizenship is a deliberate conspiracy to weaken democracy but that is exactly what it will do.  Once a concept is accepted by an authority it quickly becomes the norm.

That’s why the official I spoke to at the Dept. of the Taoiseach was so puzzled by my concerns. She has already accepted those who deal with her department are not citizens but customers and therefore should be dealt with as such.

Similarly with Minister Doherty. She obviously feels totally at ease in referring to citizens as customers. But by so doing she is over-turning the centuries long democratic principle that politicians and state officials are servants to the people and not, as the term ‘customer’ suggests, masters over the citizenry.

But even more crucially the Minister has lost sight of the most important democratic principle of all – that citizens ARE the state and therefore can never be customers to it.

Copy to:

Minister Doherty

Official at Dept. of Taoiseach

All political parties

Media

 

 

From the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection website:

The Department of Social Protection delivers an extensive range of services nationwide, to a wide and diverse group of customers including families, jobseekers, people in employment, people with illnesses and disabilities, carers, older people and employers. These schemes and services are delivered locally through a national network
of Intreo Centres and Branch Offices and from centralised offices countrywide.

 

 

From the Dept. of Public Expenditure and Reform

Foreword by the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform

Mr. Brendan Howlin, T.D.

On 17th November, I launched the Government’s Public Service Reform Plan.

This Plan sets out our strategy to radically reform how we deliver public services in the years ahead. One of the key themes of the Plan is placing Customer Service at the core of everything we do. An important commitment in this regard is to continue to drive the Customer Charter initiative in the Public Service, particularly with regard to consultation with customers, identification of service targets and channels, and reporting annually on progress.

The Customer Charter Initiative gives customers a clear and unambiguous statement of the level of service they can expect. It also provides a framework that allows us, as public servants, to measure and improve the quality of services provided and to report on this publicly.

Our interactions with customers, whether this is with the general public or businesses, set the basis for how we are perceived. We all know that Ireland is currently in a challenging position economically, but we must also bear in mind that we have an increasingly complex and diverse customer base with growing customer expectations.

The Customer Charter process allows organisations to engage with their customers to design their services better and to become more flexible and responsive to the needs of services users. While the Charter process has been successful, we must continue to aim higher and to further strengthen and deepen the customer service improvement process. The Customer Charters and Action Plans being prepared for 2012-2014 should build on past successes and learn from previous challenges.

These practical guidelines for Public Service organisations for the preparation of Customer Charters were first published in 2003, and revised in 2008. I am now pleased to introduce the third iteration of these Guidelines, which have been revised and updated in light of the Programme for Government, the Public Service Reform Plan and the evolving nature of service delivery generally. These Guidelines also cover Customer Action Plans, which should be used as the vehicle for achieving the objectives set out in Charters.

Finally, I would like to take this opportunity to thank the Quality Customer Service Officers’ Network, who have been central to the Charter process over the past decade, for their work in the preparation of these Guidelines and for their continuing commitment to the implementation of Quality Customer Service in the Irish Public Service.

Brendan Howlin, T.D.

Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform

January, 2012

 

Featured

Tuam babies: Minister Zappone to opt for cover-up?

 

 

By Anthony Sheridan

Children’s Minister Katherine Zappone will shortly make a recommendation to Government on what is to be done about the remains of the hundreds of children dumped in a septic tank in Tuam by the Catholic Church.

She has two choices:

She can recommend a full forensic excavation of the site along with DNA analysis or she can recommend the erection of a memorial to the victims

The first option will mean the State accepting responsibility for its part in the horror and by so doing force the Catholic Church to admit its crimes against humanity. In a sentence, this option will deliver justice and closure to the victims and survivors of the horror.

The second option is to leave the remains where they were discarded, place a memorial over the site and walk away. In a sentence, this option will inflict another injustice on the victims and protect the guilty politicians and clergy from being made accountable.

We don’t have to wait for Minister Zappone’s decision, we already know she will opt for the second option – why?

Because Minister Zappone operates within a corrupt political/administrative system that will instruct her to opt for cover-up rather than justice.

She may, of course, possess the courage to challenge state power and be willing to suffer the personal and career consequences that would inevitably follow.

Unfortunately for the people of Ireland, courage among politicians is as rare as justice for the State’s many victims.

Copy to:

Minister Zappone

 

Featured

Michael Clifford and the dark evils of Social Media

 

 

By Anthony Sheridan

Irish Examiner journalist Michael Clifford is probably correct in his suggestion that the two politicians who objected to the gender imbalance at this year’s MacGill Summer School were jumping on a bandwagon.

But, as an old school establishment journalist, Clifford just couldn’t resist jumping on his own bandwagon – to rant about the dark evils of Social Media.

Much of Clifford’s article is tongue in cheek lightness but his core message is the same at that of all establishment journalists:

Social media bad – establishment media good.

His own words make the point:

But the row over gender balance at the Glenties gabfest this week is unsettling for different reasons. The unfolding of the row is a salutary example of how narratives are formed in public discourse today.

Twitter began to tremble with rage.

Once outrage travels across cyberspace these days, there’s no calling it back. One of Twitter’s functions is to feast on righteous indignation.

Once social media gets in on the act, reason is completely dwarfed by inflated — and often manufactured — emotion.

And there are prevailing orthodoxies, which must be adhered to rigidly in every facet of public life or the trolls will descend like vultures.

Establishment journalists such as Clifford just cannot accept the reality that social media provides ordinary people, for the first time in history, with the means to directly challenge state and media power without having to first go through a filter of censorship and approval.

Copy to:

Michael Clifford

 

Featured

RTE presenter accidentally tells the truth

 

By Anthony Sheridan

Sinn Fein held their Ard Fheis last weekend amid an increasingly tense pre election atmosphere.   And because Sinn Fein poses the greatest threat to the corrupt centre of politics, the Government broadcaster RTE, was put on full propaganda alert to badmouth the party.

However, not all of the station’s presenters were paying full attention as the following hilarious incident demonstrates.

Brendan O’Conner, standing in for Marian Finucane, had just launched the standard RTE attack on Sinn Fein when one of the panelist’s, Norah Casey, strayed from the propaganda line and began to speak in high praise of Mary lou McDonald’s inspiring leadership.

O’Connor, probably dreaming about his Sunday dinner, initially didn’t seem to notice that the discussion was drifting away from the Government propaganda line. But the monitoring producer did notice and must have screamed something like the following into O’Connor’s earpiece:

Brendan, for fuck sake, wake up. That woman is praising McDonald and Sinn Fein, put a stop to it.

Confused and flustered, O’Connor struggled to get the propaganda line back on course:

Ok…eh…but now, given that this is..eh extraordinarily…for the first time, turning into a kind of love-in of Sinn Fein.

Can Mary Lou be a feminist icon given the quite recent history of Sinn Fein/IRA and the treatment of women and everything. Are people going to forget that quickly?

Laughing, Casey teased O’Connor over his confusion:

I knew I’d wake you up Brendan

While this was an amusing little incident it is noteworthy that O’Connor, in his confusion, accidentally spoke the truth:

Extraordinarily and for the first time [my emphasis] this is turning into a love-in for Sinn Fein.

And, as listeners know very well by now, it is only by accident that Sinn Fein and other anti-establishment parties will ever get a fair hearing from RTE.

Copy to:

RTE/Brendan O’Connor

Featured

Orwell’s 1984 arrives in 2018 Ireland

 

 

By Anthony Sheridan

 

Here are some quotes I’ve taken from Wikipedia’s description of the George Orwell dystopian novel ‘1984′.

An environment of omnipresent government surveillance and public manipulation. A government invented language that replaces English. A system enforced by a privileged, elite Inner Party that persecutes individualism and independent thinking.

The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. It is not interested in the good of others; it is interested solely in power.

It is in no way an exaggeration to say that the above description is fast becoming a reality in Ireland today.

A corrupt political elite made up of Fianna Fail, Fine Gael and Labour masquerading as democratic politicians as they manipulate power for their own benefit while attacking those who would challenge their privileged position.

We only have to observe the ruthless and often illegal tactics employed by the State during the water war. The manipulation of information by the Government’s Strategic Communications Unit and the unlimited funds available to elite schools while the schools of the poor fall into disrepair, to see just how close ‘1984’ resembles the Ireland of 2018.

 

 

Those who may consider this a bit over the top might consider the following headline:

Bin lorry cameras are on hunt for thousands of homeowners who break rubbish rules

Here we have private companies monitoring and imposing punishment on citizens who fail to obey instructions. Initially, the Government information machine attempted to persuade citizens that these instructions, to separate refuse into different categories, was for the benefit of the environment.

To a degree this is true but it is also true that encouraging people to separate refuse saves the collection companies an absolute fortune in having to do it themselves.

But now the days of encouraging are over, now the Government has handed over power to private companies to monitor and punish citizens who fail to do as instructed. Education (of the masses) is also a priority for the companies as this comment makes clear:

Clearly a huge challenge lies ahead and education is needed.

The state tyranny described in Orwell’s ‘1984‘ is controlled by a mysterious leader known as Big Brother. All citizens are required to give unquestioning loyalty and respect to the great leader.

Winston Smith, the rebel who challenges state power in the story, is eventually defeated and brainwashed into a feeling of intense love for Big Brother.

The Irish ‘Winston Smith’ is none other than former rebel Bono who recently sent messages of intense love to his hero Varadkar.

Dear Leo,  I am utterly proud to call you my Taoiseach. I look forward to lots of plotting and planning. Yours with respect, Bono.

 

Featured

Elaine Byrne: Not speaking full truth to power

 

 

 

By Anthony Sheridan

Corruption expert Elaine Byrne and two or her colleagues, Hugh O’Connell and Barry J Whyte, recently wrote an extensive piece on the failings of the Standards in Public Office Commission (SIPO).

Similar articles on the issue of poor or non-existent state regulation have been penned by a long line of journalists in a long line of newspapers over a timescale of many decades.

They all have one thing in common – they fail, for various reasons, to speak the full truth.

So here’s the full truth in just four sentences:

One:       Those who wield power are responsible for enacting and enforcing anti-corruption laws that are critical to the proper functioning of a state.

Two:     When those in power fail in their duty to confront corruption, the state and its people suffer.

Three:   Ireland and its people have suffered enormously from the disease of corruption over the decades as a direct result of this failure.

Four:     The people who are directly and indisputably responsible for this failure are the three mainstream political parties – Fianna Fail, Fine Gael and the Labour Party.

These four points should form the basis for every single article written by Irish journalists when they are addressing the issue of political and state corruption.

Unfortunately, Irish journalists have a very poor record of speaking truth to power. Instead, we get articles like that written by Ms. Byrne that pulls punches all over the place out of fear, ignorance or support for those who corruptly wield power.

For example, Ms. Byrne speaks of ‘governance failures’, ‘mistakes’, ‘shortcomings’ and ‘blunders’

Here’s the truth: Those who wield power strip all regulatory authorities of power in a deliberate strategy that is specifically designed to protect the corrupt. The evidence for this truth is overwhelming and indisputable.

Ms. Byrne also uses the royal ‘we’ instead of precisely identifying those who facilitate political and state corruption. For example, she tells us that:

We excel at the disease of implementation deficit.

Here’s the truth: The ‘we’ Ms. Byrne speaks of consists of the three mainstream political parties who have wielded power since independence. The evidence for this truth is overwhelming and indisputable.

Ms. Byrne also writes about the ‘national addiction to reports’. There is no national addiction to reports. Irish citizens are fed up to their back teeth with reports and reports on reports that result in zero accountability.

Here’s the truth: The establishment of reports, reviews and tribunals is a strategy specifically designed by those who wield power to protect the corrupt.

So, as Mary and Joe soap make their case before an empowered judge the politically protected corrupt casually perjure themselves in front of a disempowered judge at a tribunal. The evidence for this truth is overwhelming and indisputable.

To her credit Ms. Byrne is one of the very few commentators who have come even close to speaking truth to power.

Here’s how she wrote about a speech she made at the McGill Summer School in July 2012. She was speaking to an audience that would have included many of those responsible for protecting the corrupt.

Official Ireland is predominantly male, predominantly over 50 and predominantly people who earn over €100,000. For the most part, it includes the speakers at this MacGill summer school and those that attend it.

That didn’t go down too well. That part of my speech was greeted with an audible murmur of disapproval (my emphasis) at MacGill in Donegal last week.

Yet every single inquiry into public life that we have had in this country over the past 15 years has come down to one singular thing, the operation of power by Official Ireland. The political tribunals, the church scandals, the police inquiries, the hospital failures and the banking crisis were ultimately about the abuse of power.

She ended her article with this:

These mostly male, middle-aged decision makers are responsible for the (economic) collapse in the first place because they never shouted stop.

This is an example of what I mentioned at the beginning of this article – a failure to speak the full truth to power.

Here’s what needs to be said to the powers that protect the corrupt:

The three mainstream political parties of this country, Fianna Fail, Fine Gael and the Labour Party are directly responsible for infecting the political and administrative systems of our country with the disease of corruption.

The evidence for this is overwhelming and indisputable. These are the parties that have wielded power since independence. These are the parties that have consistently and intentionally failed, power swop after power swop, to challenge the disease of corruption.

These are the parties that must be permanently removed from power if the people of Ireland are ever to enjoy the benefits of living in a functional democracy free of rampant political corruption.

Copy to:

Elaine Byrne

 

 

Featured

Israel/Ireland: Corruption comparison

 

 

 

 

By Anthony Sheridan

The ongoing corruption scandal involving the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu provides a stark comparison with just how corrupt Ireland’s political/state system is.

Here’s a brief list of some of the charges against Netanyahu:

Receiving expensive gifts from wealthy businessmen in exchange for favours.

Striking an illicit deal with a newspaper in exchange for favourable political coverage.

His wife, Sara, is also under investigation accused of using government money to pay for private chefs at family events and electrical work in the family home.

In Ireland, this kind of corruption is casually accepted as part and parcel of normal political activity.

For example, it has just been revealed that the Government’s Strategic Communications Unit (SCU) paid out €1.5 million of taxpayers’ money to favoured newspapers to publish propaganda articles in favour of Fine Gael.

Or, to put it another way: The Government struck an illicit deal with newspapers in exchange for favourable political coverage.

The response to this corrupt act in Ireland was to appoint a senior government official to review the actions of senior government officials.

The response in Israel saw the police directly investigating the chief suspect, the Prime Minister. As a result of that investigation they have recommended that he be charged in a court of law. This is the norm in functional democracies.

Here are some more stark comparisons between how things are done in a functional democracy such as Israel and a corrupt state such as Ireland.

In Israel the police are independent of the political system and are therefore free to investigate political corruption.

In Ireland the police are, effectively, a branch of the political system and therefore do not investigate political corruption.

In Israel there is a specialised anti-corruption police unit.

In Ireland there is no such unit.

In Israel, all crime, including political corruption, is dealt with through police investigation and the courts.

In Ireland, there are two separate systems for dealing with crime. One for ordinary citizens that involves police, courts and punishment and another made up of tribunals, commissions and committees deliberately, and very successfully, designed to ensure there is no accountability or punishment for those with power and influence.

In Israel regulatory agencies such as the Central Bank or corporate enforcement operate independently of the political system.

In Ireland all regulatory agencies are subject to political control and influence.

In Israel the media use the word ‘corruption’ when writing and speaking about corruption.

In Ireland the word ‘corruption’ is never used by establishment media. Instead, the fuzzy word ‘culture’ is used.

So, for example, there’s no such thing as police corruption in Ireland but rather a ‘culture’ that provides journalists and politicians with a safe area in which to endlessly discuss reform of the ‘culture’ while completely ignoring the brutal reality right in front of their eyes.

In Israel, Prime Ministers and former Prime Ministers can face prison when found guilty of corruption.

In Ireland the notion that a Prime Minister or former Prime Minister would be the subject of a police investigation never mind actually do jail time is so ludicrous as to border on the insane.

 

 

Featured

Irish cowboy town and fake regulatory agencies

 

 

 

 

Elaine Byrne is, once again, writing about scandal and regulatory failure in today’s Sunday Business Post (Sub reqd). This time it’s about the failure of the Standards in Public Office Commission (SIPO) to do its job regulating the political system. I hope to respond to her article in the next day or so.

In the meantime, I’m republishing this article (with some minor editing) I wrote in April 2015 outlining how all regulatory bodies in Ireland are, in reality, fake.

 

 

Irish cowboy town and fake regulatory agencies

2 April 2015

It’s not often a minister for justice makes me laugh but the latest comment on police reform from Frances Fitzgerald had me in stitches.

Making excuses for her complete failure to establish a police authority the minister said that, in the meantime:

“A kind of shadow board would be set up.”

Ok, let me first state an absolute fact. This government will not set up a police authority. The next government; if it is spawned from the same corrupt political/administrative culture, will not set up a police authority.

The reason is simple; the establishment of a genuinely independent police authority would end the corrupt nexus between the body politic and the police force. That corrupt nexus has served the interests of politicians, their friends in the Golden Circle and senior police officers since the foundation of the state; it will remain firmly in place for so long as that culture exists.

What we will see is the establishment of a fake police authority, an authority that from the outside looks and acts as if it’s the real thing but, in reality, is a fraud.

The setting up of fake regulatory agencies is the single greatest achievement of our corrupt political system. These fake authorities are so successful that they have not only fooled ordinary citizens, they have fooled the media, the international community and even many of the politicians who established them in the first place.

The system can best be understood by comparing it to those fake Hollywood wild west towns built to make cowboy movies.

Walking down the main street everything looks real so long as nobody actually believes there’s anything of substance behind the facades.

So, for example, when a citizen opens the door marked ‘Financial Regulator’ they find themselves in a wilderness populated by drifting tumbleweeds, each one with a tag reading – secrecy laws forbids the answering of any questions.

When the door marked ‘Standards in Public Office’ is opened citizens are met by an official endlessly chanting – Political accountability? No, never heard of it. We just dig holes in the sand and fill them in again.

When the Troika arrived they already knew there was something odd about the way things were done in this town so they opened more doors than usual.

Inside the austere and impressive door to the legal system, for example, they found mountains of stolen loot surrounded by hundreds of partying solicitors and barristers. Clear out this den of iniquity they instructed the government, we’ll be back to check on it.

When they returned a year later they failed to notice that what appeared to be a reformed legal system was actually an act performed by actors hired for the day from a nearby spaghetti western movie set. The drunken solicitors and barristers were still partying just over the hill.

Down at the end of the town there’s a brand new, freshly painted building with the title, Charity Regulator. Inside there’s a large office with an impressive array of filing cabinets, computers, desks and stern looking officials.

On closer inspection however, the files are just blank paper, the desks and computers are made of balsa wood and the officials are shop mannequins.

So what, at first glance, looks like a real regulator turns out to be nothing more than the usual cynical exercise in deception. Because this is a new regulator, no citizen has yet been damaged by its fraudulent front but, in time, thousands will inevitably suffer heavy financial loss and perhaps worse.

Irish citizens have lost faith in the State and its administrators. They know that almost all state agencies are steadfastly loyal to the corrupt political system that created them and exercises control over their activities.

The long-suffering people of Ireland are waiting for somebody to lead them in knocking down all the buildings in Irish cowboy town.

Copy to:

Frances Fitzgerald

 

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Elaine Byrne: Failing to join up the dots on state corruption

 

 

 

By Anthony Sheridan

State corruption is rampant in Ireland and does enormous damage to the country and its people. The disease of corruption originated from and still thrives within the political system. In 1979, with the coming to power of the criminal politician Haughey, the disease became malignant and spread to most areas of governance and then to the private sector.

Ireland is not, and never has been, governed by a political party or a coalition of parties. It is ruled by a corrupt political class who simply take turns in plundering the state.

That corrupt political class is made up of Fianna Fail, Fine Gael and Labour (now nearly extinct) with willing support, when unavoidable, from smaller parties such as the Progressive Democrats (now extinct), the Green Party and currently the Independent Alliance.

The disturbingly low standard of Irish journalism is one of the major contributing factors in not just allowing political corruption to exist but to flourish without any serious challenge.

The great majority of journalists are either willing participants, state captured, in denial or are simply ignorant of the brutal reality regarding the extent and source of state corruption in Ireland.

Corruption expert Elaine Byrne appears to be one of those who are completely ignorant of the source of corruption.

Writing recently [Sub. required] about the ineffectiveness of the Garda Siochana Ombudsman Commission (GSOC) Ms. Byrne finished her article with this question:

Does the Government actually want the GSOC to do its job?

That a person whose job it is to analyse corruption and who has been writing and commentating on corruption for many years has to even ask this question is a disturbing indication of the abject failure of Irish journalism to even acknowledge the disease of state corruption never mind actually expose those responsible.

To answer Ms. Byrne’s question – no, the Government does not want the GSOC to do its job. That’s why the Commission is chronically underfunded and understaffed. The strategy of underfunding regulatory agencies is just one of a long list of well established tactics utilised by parties of the ruling political class to prevent any threat to their power.

Ms. Byrne goes on to ask another question the answer to which is right in front of her eyes should she ever choose to open them.

Why was it necessary for a tribunal and all its costs to be deployed when GSOC should have done the job?

This question relates to the political decision to instruct the Disclosures Tribunal to investigate a matter surrounding allegations made by Garda whistleblower Maurice McCabe, allegations that should have been properly dealt with by GSOC.

The answer to Ms. Byrnes question is:  The ruling political class enacted laws that strips tribunals of any power to bring to account those found guilty of corruption. This guarantees that any corruption exposed during the course of a tribunal is merely recorded in the final report and deposited on a government shelf to gather dust.

This deliberate strategy provides the ruling political class with a powerful tool with which to permanently sidetrack any scandal that may pose a threat to their power. The strategy has been immensely successful in protecting the corrupt and the Disclosures Tribunal will be no different.

Commentators and journalists like Ms. Byrne spend much of their time and energy analysing the never-ending stream of corruption that inflicts so much damage on Ireland and its people but, for a number of reasons, are incapable of joining up the dots that are lying all over the corrupt political landscape.

Here is a list of just some of those dots that may be of some help to puzzled commentators such as Ms. Byrne.

Tribunals have just one function – to protect the corrupt.

Dail Committees (all of which are deliberately powerless) have just one function – to endlessly jump up and down in futile anger while the corrupt walk free.

So called state regulatory bodies such as GSOC, Central Bank, SIPO, An Garda Siochana, Charities Regulator to name just some are all deliberately underfunded, understaffed, willing participants in corrupt practices or act out of justified fear of state reprisal if they enforce the law.

Laws are frequently written with the deliberate intention of protecting the corrupt. For example, laws governing the operation of GSOC are drafted in such a manner as to make it almost impossible to properly investigate complaints. (I’ll be writing about this particular scandal soon).

Irish journalists are constantly writing and talking about corruption scandal after corruption scandal but studiously avoid joining up the dots – why?

Because when the dots are joined up they point straight at those responsible for infecting our country with the disease of corruption – the corrupt political class made up of Fianna Fail, Fine Gael and Labour.

And therein lies one of the greatest barriers to eradicating the disease of political corruption that has inflicted so much suffering on the Irish people – the total loyalty and support afforded to the corrupt centre of Irish politics by a disturbingly large percentage of journalists.

Copy to:

Elaine Byrne