Author: Anthony

Catholic Church: We want to co-operate but…

The Catholic Church suffered a dose of the ‘medieval jitters’ during the week after it was announced that the price of condoms is to be reduced.

“Wrong, regrettable and contrary to the common good”… “Catholic Church utterly rejects the use and promotion of condoms”…“promotes promiscuity” “Outside of marriage, the use of condoms encourages sexual activity, which is always gravely sinful”

(Irish Times, 1st Feb. Sub req’d).

This last pronouncement is especially worrying because a grave sin is a mortal sin and a mortal sin means everlasting Hell, no reprieve, no mercy; no hope.

So; the average lad and lassie who decide to adopt a responsible and healthy attitude towards sex should be aware that they risk everlasting damnation.

Meanwhile, back in the real world of religious hypocrisy and sleaze the Catholic Church is busily protecting itself and its priests from the consequences of the central role they played in the Irish child abuse holocaust.

Cardinal Connell has initiated legal proceedings (RTE Six One News, 2nd item) to prevent the examination of files relating to child abuse but listening to Dr Eamonn Walsh, (Same report) Bishop of Dublin we could be forgiven for thinking that all this legal stuff was forced on them.

“The Archdiocese has made it very clear that they are co-operating fully, it’s in everybody’s interest, but when you have people on legal niceties, you’re always going to go into a legal minefield wherever you have lawyers involved.”

Ah yes, the age old hypocrisy – We want to cooperate but…

What ever happened to Mary…?

Remember Mary Harney? Wasn’t she the leader of some party or other, I think they started out with high principles, strong views on political corruption and some kind of a motto about being radical or redundant.

I wonder what they would have to say, if they were still around, about the latest shenanigans surrounding their former coalition partner.

What ever happened to Mary anyway, somebody mentioned that she had joined a ‘vow of silence’ nunnery – must be true.

A one party corrupt State

Last Thursday’s Irish Examiner carried a hard hitting editorial concerning the latest episode from Bertie’s fantasy land.

Unfortunately, the writer is, like most Irish citizens, still labouring under the illusion that Ireland is a normal democracy. For example he writes;

“It is unimaginable that he thinks this kind of two-fingers-to-you buffoonery is acceptable or plausible to anyone other than a card-carrying Fianna Fáil lifer.”

Poll after poll, election after election over many decades makes it absolutely clear that the majority of Irish people are more than happy with this type of ‘two fingers-to-you buffoonery’.

The editorial goes on;

“What is at stake now is not the political career or reputation of an individual — it is the integrity of our political process.”

The integrity of the political process was completely wiped out in the 1980s when it failed, with the happy co-operation of the Irish electorate, to put the corrupt Haughey in jail.

The media and the Irish people seem to be completely unaware of a brutal reality that faces them every day.

Bertie Ahern and his fellow Mafiosi are not worried or angry about the possibility of Mahon uncovering evidence of corruption; they know that the Irish people have long ago accepted the corrupt ways of Fianna Fail despite the horrendous consequences this has for many of their fellow citizens.

No, Ahern and his fellow Mafiosi are angry by the very fact that they are being questioned at all, that there is still a minority of people out there who have not yet accepted that Ireland is, effectively, a one party corrupt State.

Greens: Still on the road to destruction

Fianna Fail does not do ethics, they do not do integrity; they have no interest in accountability or honesty in politics – Pursuit of power is all.

Any politician or political party that agrees to share power with Fianna Fail must accept that reality and behave accordingly.

The PDs under Mary Harney had no problem in accepting the reality and quickly dumped their much vaunted political integrity. In return they were rewarded with all the trappings of power for many years.

The Greens are finding it much more difficult to reconcile their long standing and genuine reputation for political integrity with the strong stench emanating from their senior partner in Government.

Essentially what they are attempting to do is put the issue of political corruption to one side while they get on with implementing their policies. Such a bizarre strategy, even in a dysfunctional and corrupt democracy like Ireland, is doomed to failure.

Sooner rather than later the Greens will be forced to deal with political corruption or adopt the PD strategy of accepting the disease as a normal part of Irish public life.

On yesterday’s Today with Pat Kenny, Patricia McKenna desperately and unconvincingly tried to avoid the reality facing her party.

While accepting that Ahern had to go she was adamant that it was up to Fianna Fail to do the dirty work; that her party had too much to lose by getting involved.

They had sacrificed a lot of credibility by getting into bed with Fianna Fail and it was unfair that they should be made scapegoats for something that Fianna Fail is responsible for.

I wrote before that the Greens are on the road to destruction, McKenna’s performance has done nothing to change that view.

Copy to:
Fianna Fail
Greens
Patricia McKenna

Ahern's quadruple negative

Here’s how Bertie Ahern tried to climb out of the latest hole he has dug for himself (Drivetime, 38th minute).

“For legal and professional reasons neither myself nor my advisors have been in a position to respond to any of the accuracy and completeness of the reports about those issues so it is not correct, if I said so I wasn’t correct, so I, I can’t recall if I did say, but I did not say, if I did say it I didn’t mean to say it that these issues could not be dealt with until the end of the Mahon Tribunal, that is not what Revenue said.”

Eamonn Gilmore described Ahern’s explanation as a quadruple negative.

Irish Independent journalist, Fionan Sheehan said he was in a state of shock at what Ahern was now claiming because just eight days ago he had asked Ahern.

“Is it the position that the Revenue Commissioners have told your advisors that they’ll have to wait for the Mahon Tribunal to report back before finalizing your situation?”

Ahern confirmed that that was the case and reiterated that ‘fact’ several times during the ensuing discussion.

Sheehan said the Taoiseach’s claim was widely reported across the media that evening and the next day and nobody from Government disputed the reports. Now, eight days later, Ahern was saying something completely different.

Hypocrisy of new Immigration Bill

The Minister for Justice, Brian Lenihan has published the Immigration, Residence & Protection Bill 2008. The bill is designed to combine all the current procedures into a single application to speed up and clarify immigration into Ireland.

Interviewed on News at One; (1st item) the Minister was enthusiastic about that part of the bill designed to quickly eject any illegal immigrants from the State. Here are some of his quotes.

“There are very strong procedures for the removal of those who are not lawfully resident.”

Quote from the bill –

“In future a person found unlawfully in the State will be liable to be removed without notice and they may be detained for the purpose of ensuring removal from the State.”

The Minister is confident that the legislation is watertight, leaving no loopholes for anybody tempted to break Irish immigration laws.

“There are very robust powers to remove those who are outside that path, and I think that this has to happen if you’re to generate public confidence in the migration system in Ireland.”

He was also keen on the need for quick action to get rid of these people. Legal and judicial procedures are too protracted.

“We have to stop that, we have to have a speedy determination of this issue.”

“The reality is that if a refugee stays here for a very long period of time it becomes very, very difficult to remove such a person from the State even though they may not have had a well founded refugee application in the first place.”

The Minister goes on to give yet another reason for effective and speedy procedures in getting rid of illegal immigrants.

“When it is protracted and delayed that becomes yet another pull factor encouraging large numbers of migrants to come here and claim that they are refugees.”

Meanwhile, Government Ministers, including the Taoiseach, continue to bring shame on the nation as they wear a path to America to moan and whine on behalf of the 50,000 or so Irish illegals in that country.

In recent times Minister for Foreign Affairs; Dermot Ahern made a fool of himself and by extension the country when he suggested to a gathering in America that somehow the Irish illegals weren’t actually illegal.

This kind of hypocritical denial of reality is common in Ireland, Bertie Ahern’s fantasy land being the latest example, but when uttered outside, in the real world, it simply confirms a certain view of the Irish as simpletons.

In October last year (sub req’d) Minister Ahern again made a fool of himself by insulting the intelligence of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice when he tried to convince her that the thousands of Irish citizens who were blatantly breaking the laws of her country should get special treatment because they were victims of the conflict in Northern Ireland.

I wonder what Lenihan and Ahern would have to say if, for example, the Nigerian Government sent political delegations to Ireland in an effort to gain special treatment for its citizens – They would probably be thrown in prison under the new legislation.

Groundhog Day in the West

Six One News report (8th item) Thursday 24th January.

A report by the Environmental Protection Agency has stated that nobody is to be prosecuted as a result of the recent (very serious and dangerous) water pollution problems in Galway.

The report says:

“Rather than hauling people through the courts it’s going to work to ensure that nothing like this ever happens again.”

Later, in the same report Dr. Diarmuid O’Donovan, Director of Public Health, HSE West stated:

“The report confirms that there are water supplies around the country that are at high risk, that people could be exposed to contaminated water. We could have more seriously ill people; we could even have deaths due to contaminated water.”

Let’s hear that again – The EPA couldn’t be bothered prosecuting those responsible for allowing water to become contaminated even though people are being put at risk of serious illness or even death.

Instead they’re going to work to ensure that nothing like this ever happens again.

Six One News report (15th item) Friday 25th January.

More than 30,000 people living in two West of Ireland towns have to boil their water as a result of new water contamination problems…

Copy to:
EPA

CF patients: Action at last?

This report in the Irish Times seems to indicate that the embarrassment level for politicians has reached a point where they might actually act or at least allow the Cystic Fibrosis Association of Ireland to act. (See previous posts here and here).

Eithne Donnellan

Wed, Jan 23, 2008

The possibility of placing a prefabricated structure with single rooms for cystic fibrosis patients on the site of Dublin’s St Vincent’s hospital is currently being discussed with Minister for Health Mary Harney.

Godfrey Fletcher, the chief executive of the Cystic Fibrosis Association of Ireland, said yesterday that he believed if the will was there such a structure with between 15 and 20 single rooms could be on the hospital site within months.

“If necessary we will pay for it,” he said.

It would be an interim solution to the current situation where a lack of single rooms at the hospital puts vulnerable CF patients at risk of picking up infections from other patients.

He said the association was unhappy that the current interim solution put forward by HSE chief executive Prof Brendan Drumm would take up to a year to be put in place.

It would involve vacating an existing ward in the hospital and converting it into about 11 single rooms for the use of CF patients.
“There are a lot of angry, desperate and frustrated CF patients and their families and we are not prepared to wait for an interim solution that will take another year,” he said.

© 2008 The Irish Times

Broken promises

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

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

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

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

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

From a distant fantasy land

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In summary:

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

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

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

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