The 'Rubber room' republic

A SENIOR An Post manager has been awarded a bonus of €11,000 on top of his €95,000 salary, even though he only worked for 11 weeks of last year.

The manager was assigned to An Post’s ‘resource centre’ in January 2007, an area known by post office employees as the “rubber room”, where staff that are “surplus” to the company’s needs are deployed.

Politicians are sending out thousands of Christmas card to constituents they don’t even know. It’s all part of the never ending vote buying machine known as Clientism. Each member of the Oireachtas is entitled to 21,000 pre paid envelopes every year. This year, the overall cost of the facility comes to €2.3 million.

Mary Harney said that we must all pull together in the coming year in the face of savage cuts in health. The ‘we’ she speaks of does not include highly paid and well protected politicians.

Two years ago the Equality Tribunal ordered the Department of Education to pay €12,000 to two students who were discriminated against in their Leaving Certificate.

The two students, who are dyslexic, had explanatory footnotes added to their exam certificates which could have put them at a serious disadvantage when applying for jobs.

The department said it was appealing the case to get clarity on the matter. The appeal cost €8 million – I’ll just repeat that – the appeal for ‘clarity’ cost €8 million.

The Government has decided that a certain number of 12 year old girls will have to die because the country cannot afford the €10 million needed for a cervical cancer scheme.

Former Taiwanese president Chen Shui-bian and his wife have been formally charged with corruption. Political corruption has yet to be recognised as a crime in Ireland.

Mr. Chen’s son in law has been jailed for seven years for insider trading. Insider trading has yet to be recognised as a crime in Ireland.

The former chairman of the Nasdaq stock market, Bernard Madoff, has been arrested and charged with securities fraud. He could face up to 20 years in prison. Corrupt businessmen in Ireland are never arrested, never charged, never go to jail.

Marc Dreier, a prominent New York plaintiffs’ lawyer and founder of Dreier LLP, has been charged by US federal prosecutors with securities and wire fraud in a case alleging a multimillion-dollar real-estate fraud involving hedge funds. Dreier could be facing a 10 year jail term.

If Mr. Dreier lived in Ireland it’s likely his case would be ‘looked after’ by his legal colleagues in the Law Society. If he was unlucky he might receive a mild reprimand.