Interested in maladministration. Estd. 2005
It’s inevitable that the banks will be recapitalised, probably this week.
It’s the other ‘range of measures’ that Cowen mentioned that remain a mystery. Here are some of the questions I think the Government, the Financial Regulator and the banks might be chewing over.
How do we recapitalise using taxpayer’s money but at the same time ensure that the banks are not penalised in any way?
How do we ensure that the greedy chancers who caused the crisis keep their jobs?
The Government doesn’t seem to be aware that the collapse of the global and national economies has a silver lining – Lisbon II is guaranteed a massive Yes vote.
Not only is Ireland a different country since the first referendum but the earth is a different planet and that planet is ruled by one emotion – FEAR.
All the Government has to say is – If you vote No again the EU will cut us adrift in a world of financial chaos. That means we will be fully dependant on our own politicians to run our affairs – People will be tripping over themselves to vote Yes.
That doesn’t mean that the Government will be taking any chances and it will be interesting to see what further abuses of the democratic system they have in mind.
Declan Ganley of Libertas, who gave a fine interview on One to One on RTE the other night, will be a prime target.
He was also answering questions in front of the Oireachtas Committee on Ireland’s future in the EU where he was yet again attacked by the losers.
“The Treaty is dead, you lost, get over it, he told them.”
The ‘Bertie’ documentary continues to portray Ahern for the chancer he is. Monday’s episode reminded us of some of the lies Ahern has told in furtherance of his dodgy career.
We listened to him profoundly state that, in his view, tax dodgers should be sent to jail. We now know, of course, that at the time he wasn’t tax compliant himself.
We also heard his speech criticising those (Haughey) who would abuse public office for private gain. Fianna Fail, we were told, was now a party of integrity and high standards with no room for chancers.
We saw that for the lie it was when Ahern delivered the graveside oration for the corrupt Haughey, describing him as ‘a patriot to his finger tips.’
In the section dealing with the Good Friday Agreement Ahern told of his contacts with Tony Blair and mentioned that all phone calls were taped by the British.
He added, without a trace of irony, “we don’t tape phone calls; it’s not in our culture.”
Yet another so called authority charged with protecting the interests of consumers has been found out.
The Food Safety Authority of Ireland (FSAI) discovered high levels of contamination in bottled water nearly a year ago but decided not to tell the public. Whatever the motives of the FSAI, the actual effect was to put consumers in danger while protecting the manufacturer.
This is a similar strategy to that employed by the so called Financial Regulator. Through a combination of stonewalling and secrecy laws, financial institutions are protected at the expense of the consumer.
It should also be noted that, once again, consumers only found out about this scandal through the media which, effectively, provides the only means of information and protection to Irish citizens.
Copy to:
FSAI
An independent consultant’s report on the waste water treatment plant at Ringsend in Dublin has identified major flaws in establishing its capacity and how odours could be controlled. The findings have prompted the Minister for the Environment John Gormley to say “Someone must be held accountable.”
The report said that serious errors of judgement were made:
“Those errors of judgement have affected people’s quality of life in this area and I think people who have made errors should be held accountable.”
John Gormley (Six One News, 8th report).
Serious errors of judgement that cost taxpayer’s millions are par for the course in Ireland. John Gormley is just mouthing meaningless political words when he talks about accountability – nobody is ever held accountable.
Next scandal please.
According to a panelist on the Marian Finucane Show (Sunday), FAS spent €1,633 on flowers for one of their functions at the luxurious Carton House Hotel in Maynooth. We were also informed that the same crowd spent €146,000 on hotels in 2005.
Carton House Hotel describes itself as ‘a wonderful world of contrasts’.
Given the state of our finances the indulgences of FAS could be described as ‘a grotesque world of contrasts’.
Without question, Ireland is the most centrally controlled, secretive and corrupt country in the EU.
It is therefore hilarious to witness politicians, various commentators and a disturbing number of journalists attack those who ran campaigns opposing the Lisbon Treaty referendum on the basis that, somehow, they were acting undemocratically.
The reality is that it is the politicians and much of the media who pose a threat to democracy by their absolute refusal to accept the democratic will of the people.
Declan Ganley, in particular, has been singled out and portrayed as the Devil Incarnate himself if we are to believe what these so called defenders of democracy think.
At the weekend we saw these defenders of democracy ban Irish media from attending a press briefing given by the Czech president Vaclav Klaus and Declan Ganley.
There is no difference whatsoever between this act of media suppression and similar bans imposed by the former Soviet Union. Not a murmur of protest was heard from the National Union of Journalists.
Here’s how RTE reporter, Sean Whelan, presumably himself a member of the NUJ, reported this piece of state media censorship (Link not available).
“President Klaus gave a briefing to Czech journalists but Irish officials wouldn’t let the Irish media in. It’s unusual not to have media access to a visiting head of state but then it’s unusual for a visiting head of state to be opposed to the Lisbon Treaty.”
Whelan’s view (or perhaps the view of somebody higher up in RTEs news department) seems to be that only visiting heads of state that are in full agreement with government policies will be allowed full media exposure.
Dissenters will be strictly monitored and their views censured by government agents, just like they are in China and other communist countries.
Minister of State, Conor Lenihan is also very worried about the threat to democracy by people who take it into their heads to act democratically. Here’s what he had to say on Today FM yesterday.
“There is an issue around Lisbon that does affect our democracy in one very serious way.
What’s happening is that people who were part of the loose alliance of groups that opposed Lisbon are now being accorded the same status as for instance Lucinda (Creighton FG) and Alex (White Lab) here who are actually quite different, they’re elected representatives.
But one of the issues now is that even in media picking and choosing of panels they’re now being given equal status which I think is somewhat suspect.”
“But there’s a really profound issue here because the people and parties that supported Lisbon represent the democratic will of the people of Ireland yet now we have people who have never being elected, who don’t put themselves before the electorate, yet come out at the time of referendums and campaign.”
Ok, Conor Lenihan is not the brightest but even he should realise that it is the main political parties in the country with massive support from mainstream media that are challenging the democratic will of the people, not those who successfully campaigned for a No vote.
The show’s presenter, Sam Smyth, who I presume is also a member of the NUJ, made no challenge whatsoever to Lenihan’s claim that only elected politicians should be allowed to campaign on political matters.
Clearly, Smyth is a Yes man.
Copy to:
RTE News
NUJ
Dept. of Foreign Affairs
Sam Smyth
Conor Lenihan
Here’s how Donegal Fianna Fail TD Dr. Jim McDaid explained why he could not support the Government’s decision to postpone a cervical cancer vaccination programme for young women.
“We will pass a death sentence on a certain percentage of the 12-year-old girls whose parents cannot afford the cost of it.”Is there anyone in this House who would not give the vaccine to their daughters today?”
“Fifty years from now, it will not be important what my bank account was, what type or car I drove or what size of house I lived in.”It does matter to me that during my stay in this House I may have been, just may have been, important in the life of a child.
“Accordingly, I cannot vote for the Government’s motion this evening,”
“I fully realise the implications of this but I trust that my colleagues understand that, while I will abstain, I will not vote per se against them.
I cannot vote against an oath I took 34 years ago.”
The oath Dr. McDaid speaks of is, of course, the Hippocratic Oath. The following are two promises made in the oath.
“To practice and prescribe to the best of my ability for the good of my patients, and to try to avoid harming them.” and “Never to do deliberate harm to anyone for anyone else’s interest.”
Dr. McDaid seems to be taking a distinctly Fianna Fail attitude to the oath.
He knew that no matter how he voted the Government would prevail. So if he was genuinely determined ‘never to do deliberate harm to anyone for anyone else’s interest’ he should have voted against the motion instead of hedging his bets by abstaining.
As it is he has put himself in the worst of positions. His colleagues will not be impressed by his plea that he is ‘not voting per se against the motion and others will judge that as doctor who took the Hippocratic Oath he felt it was enough to merely abstain on a matter that was important to the life of a child.
He won’t, however, have to worry about the judgement of a ‘certain percentage of 12 year old girls’.
Last week the Minister for Health Mary Harney told the Seanad that there were 10,000 fewer over 70s in the population than the number of those which had the medical card. This means that doctors are being paid millions for patients who are dead.
The HSE says it carries out monthly checks of all deaths registered to ensure patients who have died are deleted from its database of medical card holders.
A doctor speaking on Liveline during the week blamed bureaucratic incompetence and an inefficient HSE IT system for the shambles.
Whatever the reason, we can be sure of one thing – a massive fraud is being perpetrated on the taxpayer by somebody. This scandal has been going on since 2001 and apparently nobody possesses the intelligence or will to resolve the matter.
Last year it was conservatively estimated that doctors owed the State €1.8 million in overpayments but for some inexplicible reason the HSE seem unable to force doctors to hand back the money.
Expressing dissatisfaction with the situationat the time, the Comptroller and Auditor General advised that breaths should not be held by those waiting for repayment from doctors.
Keeping in mind what the above doctor said about inefficient IT systems here’s what Dr. Ronan Boland, Vice Chair of the Irish Medical Organisation’s GPs Committee had to say on Morning Ireland in March 2007.
“New IT systems have been put in place, so for the first time in the last 12 months, doctors like myself or my staff can go online and see in real time whether somebody is eligible for a service but that’s only in the last 12 months approximately.”
So, if new IT systems were put in place over two years ago why are doctors still been paid for 10,000 dead patients and more importantly, why are doctors who, according to Dr. Boland can see in real time who is eligible, accepting such payments?
Bertie fans are really coming out of the woodwork in response to the television documentary.
Corcoran, a fanatical fan, thinks that Ahern will come to regret his participation in what he describes as a ‘crude little series’. In this instance I agree with Corcoran. So far, the documentary paints Ahern in a very bad but truthful light so it’s not surprising that one of his most devoted fans is upset.
O’Dea approves of the documentary. He tells us that the series demonstrates that wealth and personal glory were not the motivating factors for Ahern’s career in politics. Mmm…perhaps all that money Bertie ‘won on the horses’ was donated to charity?
Amazingly, O’Dea actually makes a mild criticism of Haughey – “Haughey polarised, Bertie united.” He tells us. Such ‘courage’ from one of the fearful faithful? Methinks Willie will be receiving a visit some dark night from the great corrupter.
John Cooney: (Author of ‘Battleship Bertie’; Politics in Ahern’s Ireland)
Cooney is another fan although he does refer to Ahern as ‘the disgraced ex-Taoiseach’. He goes on to describe Ahern as a major figure in history, tells us that the nation nostalgically yearns for the vanished Golden Age of the Bertie Era. Well, that’s partially correct – there was a lot of vanished gold.
Cooney aligns himself with all those stupid people who ignore the facts and choose to believe the fairytale that the cunning Bertie got out of power because he knew what was coming down the line.
I say stupid people because if, as his admirers claim, Bertie was a world class leader, a man of the people, a patriot to his fingertips, surely he would have stayed on to lead the nation through the great crisis and out into the glory of yet another Golden Age? Instead, the fecker legged it.
Professor Richard Aldous (Head of History and Archives at UCD).
Never heard of this guy before but he’s certainly a Bertie fan. The professor tells us that the Mahon Tribunal will warrant a mere two paragraphs when history makes its judgement on Ahern.
“The first will be to recount the part the inquiry played in the downfall of a Taoiseach. The second paragraph will be to wonder at the democratic deficit involved in that process.”
Clearly, the professor believes that Ahern is an innocent man brought down by an evil tribunal. I wonder what influence this man has on young students.
Later, Aldous bizarrely and grotesquely equates Ahern’s leadership qualities with those of Barack Obama – Where’s that bucket?
Brendan O’Connor: (Sunday Independent columnist).
O’Connor is Ahern’s number one fan; there are times when I suspect that the columnist is actually in love with his hero. He agrees with Ahern’s ex wife that Bertie has ‘lovely eyes’.
O’Connor attacks all the usual suspects, that is, everybody who hasn’t sworn undying loyalty to the ward boss.
He regrets that the documentary felt the need to trot out all that boring nitty-gritty stuff about Ahern’s bank accounts; it destroyed what could have been a great epic, he tells us. Bertie, according to O’Connor, is a ‘flawed masterpiece.’
Like all the other Bertie fans O’Connor talks about the deep and mysterious Bertie, the man that nobody really knows, the man who doesn’t even know himself, the man who looks in the mirror every morning and asks himself – “Can I trust you?”
Given the culture of corruption and ruthless ambition in Fianna Fail I’d say that’s a question every TD in the party asks every moring as they look in the mirror.