Author: Anthony

The ultimate oxymoran

While browsing the website of the Law Society of Ireland this morning in search of some information I came across this little gem.

RULE OF LAW IN THE DEVELOPING WORLD
The objective of the Rule of Law Project is for the Law Society, through its members, to develop and enhance the Rule of Law in the developing world with the assistance of Irish Aid or otherwise, so that human rights, democracy, good governance and justice may be available to all people. This project is being run in cooperation with the Bar Council.

The Irish Law Society; is a quasi-secret society that both represents and allegedly regulates its members. An organisation whose members, mmm…let’s be charitable and say, are often involved in dodgy activities but yet, miraculously, never seem to find themselves made accountable under the same law as the rest of us mere mortals.

This crowd is now off to the developing world to enhance the rule of law. It’s the ultimate oxymoran.

The Party Departed

The shocked crowd gathered around the body. It was obvious that there was no hope, that there was no possibility of putting the parts together again.

The head lay at some distance from the body; it wasn’t even looking in the same direction. It seemed to be preoccupied with something else, some other mission. It seemed to have lost any interest in reconnecting to the main body.

The body itself had obviously suffered heavy damage; there was clear evidence of a recent beating and it had shrunk to an almost unrecognizable size, obviously starved of what had previously kept it healthy.

Various limbs lay scattered around looking lost and unattached, some desperately attempting to connect themselves to other bodies. Incredibly, one limb seemed to be having some success in attaching itself to a nearby putrid but amazingly healthy body.

There was a wide divergence of opinion as to the exact cause of death but everybody agreed that a complete lack of guts was a major contributory factor.

Clearly, a number of those present had had a close relationship with the recently departed. Some became hysterical, refusing to accept the awful reality. A Mr. Paul McKay repeatedly called on the body parts to reassemble, to continue as before; he was led away sobbing.

A Mr. Cannon made a desperate call for help in breathing new life into the corpse but his pleas fell on deaf ears as the ever diminishing crowd drifted away to make funeral arrangements.

It was clear that the Party Departed was permanently redundant.

HSE – Out of control and deadly

There are people in the Health Service Executive (HSE) who go to work everyday and make decisions that result in great suffering and sometimes even death for patients.

This diseased, out of control, bureaucratic monster was created by and is strongly defended by cowardly and incompetent politicians.

In the O’Malley cancer misdiagnosis case, for example, somebody within the HSE decided that it was better to risk the lives of women who may have been misdiagnosed rather than admit that a mistake had been made.

All last week on Liveline we listened to horror stories from patients suffering from Cystic Fibrosis who are dying at least ten years younger than suffers in Northern Ireland and elsewhere.

Their lives are put in danger because the HSE/Government refuses to provide isolation units. These units are absolutely vital for CF suffers in order to avoid picking up potentially fatal infections.

Promises going back many years are still being broken so patients continue to suffer and die before their time. Those who have the power to provide these units are well aware of what is needed, yet they consistently and consciously fail to take the necessary action.

The plight of the CF suffers drew a huge response from the general public and businesses, here are just some of the offers of help.

The Construction Workers Health Trust offered a ready to go state of the art modular unit consisting of 12 individual en-suite rooms. They have also promised €60,000 to fund the unit for one year.

Aqua Fire Prevention has offered to supply all fire safety equipment.

Taxi drivers have offered to transport CF patients wherever needed.

A private citizen has offered a five bed roomed en-suite house situated at the gates of Beaumont hospital.

Ordinary PAYE workers have offered to pay for the care of a CF patient for a year.

It is highly unlikely that any of these generous offers will be accepted by the HSE/Government.

To do so would be to admit that the system had failed, it would be to tacitly admit that all the politicians and bureaucrats involved are incompetent.

It would also mean admitting that our health system is in need of the same type of charity that we provide for Third World countries. The offer by the Construction Workers Health Trust to provide modular units could be seen in the same light as the Niall Mellon Township Initiative which builds brick houses for shack dwellers in South Africa.

On his visit to South Africa last week Bertie Ahern was puffed up with pride by the great work being done by Irish citizens to help these poor Africans. But it simply wouldn’t do to admit that a so called First World country like Ireland was accepting the same type of charity to prop up its health system.

There is already a precedent of the HSE refusing badly needed help. In May 2005, Ben Dunne donated €30,000 towards the cost of three portakabins after numerous callers to Liveline recounted stories of spending days on trolleys in the A & E section of Dublin’s Mater Hospital.

The HSE refused the offer on the grounds of patient safety. Janette Byrne of Patients Together was not amused;

“The refusal principally due to patient safety issues was farcical. There is no way they could make A & E any more unsafe than it is at the moment.”

The bottom line is that politicians and bureaucrats are more than willing to put patient’s lives at risk in order to cover up their own incompetence.

Is there any hope?

The first question on last weeks Questions and Answers was;

“Should the Taoiseach continue in office without a tax clearance certificate?”

Irish Times columnist John Waters answered as follows;

“I think he should. I think it’s all just a game and a fairly tedious one at that. The whole basis of all this tribunalism, all this palaver is the false idea that there is some clear line of demarcation between party political donations and personal donations to a politician.

If I’m a politician and running for public office I need money to get myself elected. So if you’re offering me ten grand it really doesn’t matter to me whether its for my party , for myself as a politician or into my own pocket because at the end of the day if you don’t give it to me I’m going to have to find it from somewhere, more than likely in my own pocket.

I think we have come from a culture in which there was no line and we should agree that that line didn’t exist until now and we should now make that line.”

John Bowman: “We have made that line.”

“Yes, but now declare a line under the past, declare an amnesty on all that, accept that there was all kinds of dodgy things going on, forget about it, wrap up the tribunals and get on with real life.”

If John Waters was editor in charge of the astrology column of the Ballymagash Herald, his stupid, uninformed and naïve opinions wouldn’t matter. Unfortunately, this man writes for the most prestigious paper in the country, regularly appears on a wide section of media outlets and is, apparently, accepted as a serious journalist by a great many people.

Is there any hope?

Call from Enda

Enda Kenny phoned me today in response to the post below.

The conversation was amiable but not very productive. He assured me that while I was entitled to my opinion Fine Gael was going to do things their way.

I explained my position and the core philosophy of this website – that Ireland as a country is a corrupt entity and that nothing much would change until the body politic recognised and acted on that fact.

I genuinely believe he didn’t really hear a word I said.

Fine Gael: Back to the depths of spineless opposition

The Fine Gael policy of attacking Taoiseach Bertie Ahern while he was out of the country is a perfectly legitimate and intelligent political strategy.

It is certainly more legitimate than the Government’s undemocratic attempt to enforce a news blackout on the continuing scandal surrounding Ahern’s fantasy finances.

In addition to putting Ahern under more pressure to tell the truth the strategy exposed our Prime Minister on the world stage for what he is, a man of low ethical standards.

As part of their strategy, Fine Gael had indicated that they intended lodging a complaint with the Standards in Public Office Commission concerning Ahern’s tax affairs.

Such a strategy, if courageously followed through, could have had the effect of getting rid of this low grade politician and thus make Ireland a better place.

Unfortunately, Fine Gael flunked it; they dropped the strategy like a hot potato when Fianna Fail made the hilarious charge that the strategy was treasonous. Here’s what Mary O’Rourke had to say on Newstalk 106 yesterday:

“Can I say about Enda Kenny, I cannot believe that a leader of a very proud party called Fine Gael committed such a disloyal treasonous act.”

(Attacking the Taoiseach while he was abroad).

So who is Mary O’Rourke?

She’s a long time servant of Fianna Fail, the most corrupt political party in Ireland; a party that Oliver Cromwell would have been proud to serve such is its record of damage to the interests of the Irish people.

She’s a loyal supporter of Charlie Haughey, the most corrupt and disloyal politician in Irish history, a man who dumped her brother, Brian Lenihan, out of office in an effort to keep himself in power and a man who robbed a fund collected to finance an operation to save her brother’s life

She’s the politician who recently, bored with proceedings in our national parliament, skived off to do a bit of shopping. On the way she was approached by eleven desperate women who told her of the trauma they were suffering because of our Third World health system. She probable told them to eat cake.

In other words, Mary O’Rourke is a typically arrogant, incompetent and unaccountable Irish politician.

There were some signs since the election in May that Fine Gael had finally got its act together, that at last it was going to perform like a real opposition. Uncompromising attacks on the low standards and incompetence of this government made by Leo Varadkar and James Reilly gave rise to some hope that things were about to change.

Depressingly, it is not to be.

Fine Gael TD Fergus O’Dowd was on Morning Ireland (2nd item) this morning leading a full scale retreat from the high ground of political accountability back down to the depths of spineless opposition.

He point blankly refused to discuss the party’s cowardly decision to defer the complaint to SIPO concerning Ahern’s tax affairs until the Taoiseach returns to the country next week.

Copy to:

Fianna Fail
Fine Gael
Mary O’Rourke
Fergus O’Dowd

Coillte: Profit or public service

The proposed sale of Moyode wood by Coillte (See below) was discussed on Today with Pat Kenny.

The item was light in that it concentrated on the environmental concerns of locals. It was left to Fine Gael senator Fidelma Healy-Eames to touch on the real problem at the heart of the matter – The status and ultimate commercial aims of Coillte.

The senator suggested that the Oireachtas should look at Coillte’s remit of making profit out of forests. She mentioned the recent sale of 40 acres of woodland at Derrydonnel to the Quinn Group. According to the senator, nobody knew about this deal in advance. She suggested that perhaps Coillte was preparing for privatisation.

The original letter sent to residents was clear; the forest was being put up for sale. Since the item became a news story, Coillte has backed off and now claims that nothing has yet been decided.

I suspect that this was a deliberate strategy by Coillte; put out the idea of selling the woods and see how the public/media reacted.

I wonder if Pat Kenny asked Coillte to participate in this morning’s show? In any case, it’s a pity there wasn’t a more robust questioning of Coillte’s activities and strategies.

Perhaps RTEs excellent Investigative Unit might do a special on the matter.

Copy to:
RTE

Stench from the woods

It was reported on Six One News (14th item) yesterday that the State owned forestry company Coillte is considering selling an historic 200 year old forest in Moyode Co Galway. The forest is to be felled so that the entire area of 175 acres can be turned into a giant limestone quarry.

Residents of the area are very upset at the plans but Coillte has stated that no decision has yet been made on the matter.

So why would a State owned company responsible for forestry, want to destroy such a valuable national asset?

The answer, I believe, lies in the actual status of Coillte. In effect Coillte is a private company owned by the State. Yes, I know what you’re thinking but please, keep in mind, this is Ireland.

Writing in 2006 (Sub req’d) about the farce that was the Millennium Tree Project, Irish Times journalist Fintan O’Toole had some interesting things to say about Coillte. Here’s some of his points (My emphasis):

“One of the reasons for the millennium forests debacle is the bizarre status of Coillte. When, in late 2000, environmental activist Tony Lowes wrote to Coillte seeking information of the environmental aspects of the millennium project, Coillte replied that it was a private limited company which operated on a commercial basis. It argued it had no public administration functions or responsibilities, and was not obliged to provide any information.”

“This is an astonishing position for a company whose only shareholders are the Ministers for Finance and Agriculture, and it has been repeatedly rejected by the European Court.”

“Coillte sees itself as a purely private, commercial operation, with no public responsibilities.”

Here are some important and interesting facts from the Coillte website.

In 1985/86 the Government set up a review body to advise on structures for the future management of State owned forests. Subsequently the Government decided to set up Coillte Teoranta as a private limited company to manage State owned forests commercially

Coillte was established in 1988 as a private limited company under the Forestry Act 1988.

When Coillte was established in 1989 it acquired ownership of the State’s forests in return for shares valued at IR£575 million (€730 million).

(No harm to remind ourselves that Haughey, the most corrupt politician in Irish history, was in power at this time).

The company is owned by the Minister for Finance and the Minister for Agriculture and Food. (Wrong; it belongs to the people of Ireland).

70% of all Irish forests today are owned by Coillte – 70%.

In 2005, Coillte had a turnover of €215.6 m, a profit of €19.6 m. All of these profits were re-invested in the business

Coillte owns approx. 7% of land cover in Ireland – just to repeat that – 7% of land cover.

I’m certainly no expert on high finance or legal matters but here’s what I believe is the situation.

The key fact is “acquired ownership of the State’s forests in return for shares valued at IR£575 million (€730 million).” This transfer of ownership under the Forestry Act of 1988 is the mechanism by which Coillte is, in theory, a State company but is in reality a private company. The Act and transfer of shares creates a clear divide between private and State ownership.

For the whole deal to work it only requires the acquiescence of co-operative politicians.

That’s why the company can tell Irish citizens to take a hike when they have the effrontery to question its motives. That’s why the company, which owns 7% of the land mass of our country, can buy and sell pretty much as it likes…

It’s yet another example of how things are done in Ireland. There’s absolutely nothing illegal about the deal, every angle is covered. But as with all these things the stench is overpowering.

Elephant in the room

The elephant in the room.

Ahern’s tax difficulties all originate from the early 1990s.

There was an election in 2002.

Within six months of that election Ahern, by law, was required to state whether or not he was tax compliant.

If he stated he was, he has serious questions to answer.

If he stated ‘to the best of my knowledge’ I’m tax compliant and Revenue did nothing, then Revenue and Ahern have serious questions to answer.