Category: Body Politic

Michael McDowell: The greatest party leader the world has ever known – Lol

Letter in today’s Irish Examiner

Can’t see why Finlay is still lauding McDowell

Columnist Fergus Finlay, without the slightest hint that his tongue was anywhere near his cheek, has announced to the world that former Progressive Democrats Party leader Michael McDowell was perhaps the greatest party leader the world has ever known (Irish Examiner Opinion, Jul 23).

The following is a brief outline of some of the ‘great’ man’s activities: He claimed ‘soft’ judges were partly to blame for his failure to stop gangland killings. One legal professional described McDowell’s statements as bordering on the impeachable

He insinuated that most asylum seekers were not entitled to stay in Ireland and regretted his inability to deport them forthwith because of due process;

He fully supported Bertie Ahern during his ‘money troubles’ and blindly followed the Fianna Fáil leader as the country headed towards financial ruin;

He effectively led the Progressive Democrats into oblivion and, after losing his seat in the 2007 election, fled the world of politics in panic without consulting his party colleagues.

Let’s be kind and assume Mr Finlay’s bizarre assessment of Mr McDowell was brought on by spending too much time out in the midday sun during the recent bout of good weather.

Anthony Sheridan
Cobh
Co Cork

Mary O'Rourke and the Lenihan's: A family of traitors

On 29 June last I published a post entitled ‘The O’Rourke’s: A family of traitors’.

I have received a number of comments that require clarification.

Madeleine Cleary pointed out that my headline was incorrect. It should have read ‘The Lenihan family’ rather than ‘The O’Rourke family’.

I completely agree. My error can, I think, be attributed to the fact that the post was prompted after listening to comments by Mary O’Rourke. The headline has been corrected.

Fergus O’Rourke makes the odd claim that the post insults his family. He then goes on to accept that I was not referring to his family.

The only O’Rourke mentioned is a Lenihan by birth, and it is clearly Lenihans whom you intend to smear.

So why is Fergus insulted if he knows I was not referring to his family?

My intention was not to smear the Lenihan/O’Rourke family but rather to state a fact.

The definition of traitor, in the context of the term as I use it, is:

A person who commits treason by betraying his or her country.

I have no doubt that the vast majority of Irish citizens are of the belief that their politicians have betrayed them.

I believe that our political system is hopelessly corrupt and totally incapable of reforming itself.

I believe that politicians who openly and shamelessly support that corrupt system are traitors.

Mary O’Rourke, Brian Lenihan Snr., Brian Lenihan Jnr., Haughey, Bertie Ahern, Brian Cowen, John Gormley, Mary Harney, Michael McDowell and all the rest of the same flawed pedigree are traitors to Ireland and its people.

We only have to look around at the financial damage and personal suffering inflicted on the Irish people to see the proof of their betrayal.

The boardroom criminals could not have survived without the active support of a corrupt political system

Chief Justice Susan Denham’s call for businesses to put ethics back in their boardrooms is akin to asking criminals to stop breaking the law.

Not all businesses are ethical free zones so it is reasonable to assume, generally speaking, that Justice Denham is referring to the boardroom criminals of the Celtic Tiger.

The criminals who could not have committed their crimes without the full support and encouragement of our corrupt political system.

If our political system was not corrupt there would have been a proper regulatory system in place with the power and political support to root out the boardroom criminals.

Two particular sets of figures in the Courts Service annual report reveal much about the consequences and reaction to the collapse of the economy.

The number of restriction orders imposed on company directors grew by 50% last year while the number of directors disqualified increased by a massive 350%

In other words, the corrupt political system, for the time being at least, does not have the same influence over regulators.

There was an 82% rise in the number of people jailed for non-payment of debt, a 14% increase in tenant ejectments and 7% rise in orders to wind up companies.

These figures reflect the consequences of political corruption on ordinary citizens and businesses.

The Anglo Tapes: The Germans now know what we are as a nation

Few Germans, if any, have any notion of the damage done to Ireland over the decades by the disease of corruption.

Indeed, few Germans know anything of Ireland, period. Any why would they? Ireland barely registers on the global scale of importance.

Despite this, German politicians and media were able to make an immediate and 100% accurate assessment of what we are as a nation after just a few day of listening to the Anglo tapes.

Here’s just a few examples:

German Chancellor Angela Merkel:

The kind of banker talk like that on the Anglo tapes does real damage to democracy and makes it harder for politicians to convince people to get up, go to work, pay their taxes and show solidarity with people who are weaker. All of this is destroyed by that.

German Finance Minister:

These people came across as if they were supermen, above it all and had nothing but contempt for their fellow man.

A German publication interviewed some Irish commentators like Fintan O’Toole and Eddie Hobbs to get some idea of what was going on in Ireland.

The article concluded, using just the knowledge from these few people, that there was something seriously wrong with the Irish psyche, that there was something fundamentally wrong with the way the country was governed.

The above reactions were from citizens who live in a functional democracy where the rule of law applies to all citizens and not just to the peasants.

Now witness Marian Finucane’s response to the arrogance of David Drumm, keeping in mind that this is one of our most senior broadcasters who has witnessed and reported on an endless avalanche of corruption over the decades.

Drumm: Get into the fucking simple speak: We need the moolah, you have it, so you’re going to give it to us and when would that be?

And by the way, the game has changed because really the problem is now at their door.

Finucane: They actually do sound relaxed but they couldn’t have been relaxed, they must have been out of their minds.

And here’s Finucane’s reaction to the extremely insulting reference by the Anglo vermin to the German national anthem.

Finucane: (laughing) I think that’s hysteria breaking out somehow or other although I guess it wouldn’t have gone down terribly well in Germany.

The point to note here is that Finucane is making excuses for the vermin just as we’ve witnessed others make endless excuses for corrupt politicians, bankers,regulators and priests over the decades.

Unlike the German media and body politic, who immediately recognised vermn as vermin, Finucane did the typically Irish thing by ignoring the unpalatable truth.

Copy to:
Marian Finucane

Anglo vermin will not be made accountable by our corrupt political/administrative system

The first thing to be said about the ongoing Anglo tapes revelations is that David Drumm, Peter Fitzgerald and John Bowe are nothing more than common vermin.

Vermin with big salaries, big cars, and big ego’s are still vermin and always will be vermin.

What Irish citizens need to keep in mind is that these vermin could not survive, never mind prosper, without the absolute protection afforded to them by our corrupt political/administrative system.

There is a growing consensus that the then government and financial regulator were duped into handing over billions to Anglo, that somehow it wasn’t the fault of the political/administrative system.

This is music to the ears of politicians and civil servants who will be delighted to see the blame shifting from them, the real culprits, to the greedy vermin bankers.

Here’s the truth of the matter:

As we here at Public Inquiry have been saying for years – Ireland is an intrinsically corrupt state.

The crucial difference between an intrinsically corrupt state and a properly functioning state is the response of the respective states when corruption is uncovered.

Functional democracies like the United Kingdom, United States, Germany and so on have lots of corruption but when corruption is uncovered there is a response.

There are independent authorities empowered to act against the corrupt.

There is a level of awareness among the political classes that there are certain lines that they simply cannot cross.

There is a high level of political intelligence/awareness among the electorate that manifests itself in anger if the political/administrative system is suspected of trying to cover up corruption.

There is a clear blue sea of separation between regulatory/law enforcement agencies and the political system.

In Ireland there is no authority independent of the corrupt political system with the power to act against the vermin in the financial sector or any other area where white-collar crime is rampant.

In Ireland politicians have a choice, go along with the corrupt political system or find yourself ejected from it.

Roisin Shortall and Nessa Childers are two recent examples of politicians who stood up to the rotten political system and as a result found themselves out in the cold.

Ms. Childers was right on the button in her comment after resigning:

I felt I was being corrupted by the system.

In Ireland most of the electorate are politically ignorant. That is, they don’t realise that power rests in their hands and not with the politicians.

In other words, most Irish citizens do not understand what real democracy is.

Over the decades Irish citizens have come to believe that they must sell their vote (power) to the local gangster/gombeen in return for petty favours.

If the local gangster/gombeen succeeds in buying enough votes (power) he travels to Dublin where he plunders state funds in order to pay off his constituents thus ensuring his re-election.

In functional democracies like America or France citizens are aware that power flows from them, that it is temporarily given to politicians and when a politician is found to have acted corruptly or otherwise acted against the interests of the state they are made to pay the price.

The opposite is the case in Ireland.

Citizens see power as flowing down to them from politicians. It is the politician who is seen as the power source and it is to that power source that the citizens go, cap in hand, to ask for favours.

It would never occur to most Irish citizens to actually challenge the local gangster/gombeen on a national issue unless the matter had some bearing on that citizen’s personal interests.

Let me finish by coming back to the Anglo tapes and who is effectively responsible for the protection and prosperity of the vermin within the financial sector.

The corrupt political/administrative system has been, effectively, protecting and facilitating major criminal activity within the Irish financial sector for decades.

This is not just my opinion.

For absolute proof we have only to look back at the hundreds of examples of barefaced fraud and criminality that have occurred in that sector without any effective response whatsoever from the so-called regulatory agencies.

It should therefore come as no surprise that when the Anglo vermin walked into the Central Bank and demanded billions of taxpayers’ money they were slavishly accommodated.

After decades of effectively facilitating/ignoring widespread criminality the so-called regulatory agencies had lost all credibility and respect.

After decades of effectively facilitating/ignoring widespread criminality the so-called regulatory agencies could hardly stand up to the vermin and demand that they act ethically/legally.

The bankers knew that, they knew they were dealing with a morally bankrupt political/administrative system and accordingly treated them with the contempt they richly deserved.

That contempt for the politicians and so-called regulators can be clearly heard vomiting from the mouths of the vermin bankers

And let me be clear, the situation has not changed.

The political/administrative system is still corrupt, still effectively protecting the criminals within the financial sector, still betraying Ireland and its people.

That’s why I can state the following with absolute confidence:

No banker will go to jail; there will be no proper inquiry.

There will be no accountability demanded from the corrupt political/administrative system that created and protects the cesspool where the vermin prosper.

There will be no justice/accountability until Irish citizens destroy the corrupt political/administrative system that has destroyed their country and their futures.

Copy to:

Central Bank
All political parities

Clare Daly/Michael Ring: Hypocrite and gombeen

Gombeenism and hypocrisy were very evident last week as Independent TD Clare Daly and Minister of State for Tourism and Sport Michael Ring discussed the recent visit to Ireland by the Obama family (Today with Pat Kenny, Thursday).

The issue under discussion was Daly’s strong reaction to the Obama’s visit.

Daly accused the Taoiseach of showcasing Ireland as a nation of pimps, prostituting ourselves in return for a pat on the head.

Minister Ring’s response provided a one hundred percent confirmation that we are indeed a nation of pimps when it comes to ‘slobbering all over the Americans’.

The American tourism market is very important for us.

There are many thousands of people working in American multinationals here.

Ring steadfastly refused to squawk even the smallest criticism of Obama’s government policy even when challenged about the hundreds of innocent people killed by American drones.

I’m not going to interfere in the American government’s policy in relation to what they do.

And then immediately back to the slobbering.

We had a great opportunity to showcase the country…blah, blah, blah…

Clearly, Minister Ring’s morality/compassion does not extend beyond the interests of himself and his government.

Those hundreds of innocent men, women and children can go to hell for all he cares. Tourism, jobs and money are easily more important than the unlawful killing of a bunch of foreigners.

While Minister Ring demonstrated that he was a gombeen par excellence Ms. Daly easily won on the hypocrisy stakes.

Asked to explain why she was so critical of Bono’s perfectly legitimate tax avoidance strategies while offering unwavering support for her colleague and tax fraudster Mick Wallace she said:

DALY: Well, it’s an entirely different matter. As far as I know deputy Wallace hasn’t organised to avoid tax by locating his business’s offshore.

Well he didn’t pay his VAT bill?

Daly: Well that’s a matter for him but I think it was to do with the fact that his business and his company’s business failed; it’s a different matter.

Indeed it is a different matter. Wallace committed a crime by knowingly submitting a fraudulent VAT return for the purpose of stealing €1.4 million from Irish citizens.

Bono committed no crime whatsoever.

And in case any of the legions of Irish citizens who have had their lives destroyed by rogue developers like Wallace were in any doubt about Daly’s contempt for their hardships she was even more specific in defence of her tax cheating colleague and friend.

Bono parades himself as being someone who assists people in the Third World, allegedly, but the activity that he has engaged in is exactly the same as what the multinationals have done depriving this country of taxation which he could pay.

He has the money to pay, it’s not that his business has failed, he has the money to pay that tax and he chooses to locate his business, as you say, legitimately, offshore in order to avoid it.

Note the inclusion of the words ‘allegedly’ and ‘legitimately’ to suggest that Daly doesn’t really believe that Bono’s tax affairs are legal.

With no evidence whatsoever she is prepared to condemn an innocent man while on the other hand stand steadfastly by a self-confessed tax-fraudster.

In Wallace’s case she is, in effect, saying that it’s ok to commit tax fraud if your business fails.

Wallace’s attempted theft of €1.4 million from hard-working Irish citizens is nobody’s business but his own, apparently, but the legitimate tax avoidance strategy of Bono must be condemned at every opportunity.

But the truth of it is that, in the murky, narrow-minded world of Irish politics, if your colleague and friend are of the same political outlook there is no such thing as tax fraud

What hope for Ireland and its people when such hypocrites and gombeens occupy positions of power and influence?

Copy to:
Minister Ring
Clare Daly

Begone; this nation is ours

Begone, this nation is ours.

This was the clear and angry anti-government demand by a protester protesting against a commercial development on a treasured Istanbul park.

The park protest has since evolved into a nationwide protest against the government itself.

It’s interesting to compare events in Turkey with how Irish citizens and in particular young Irish citizens respond to government abuse of power.

The protest in Turkey is being led by young people and powered by social media.

The underlying fear is that the government, led by conservative Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, is moving away from the secular Ataturk republic towards an Islamic state

It’s interesting to note that Turkish citizens have taken to the streets as a result of very minor changes made by the government.

For example, some restrictions on the sale of alcohol, restrictions on water-pipe smoking and plans to ban fortune tellers from reading coffee cups in café’s and, finally, the trigger, the attempt to destroy one of the last remaining green areas in Istanbul to make way for a shopping centre.

Clearly, Turkish citizens know they own their country and are prepared to take to the streets when that ownership is threatened as one protester made clear:

He has a big ego, he thinks of himself as the next Sultan. He needs to stop doing that, he’s just a Prime Minister, he needs to remember that the people elected him.

Meanwhile, here in Ireland the political abuse, arrogance and corruption, which has resulted in disaster for Ireland and its people, goes unchallenged.

No nationwide protests, no reaction from young people, no utilization of social media to organize the destruction of the corrupt system.

Why? Because Irish citizens do not know they own their country, they have no real sense of nationhood or democracy.

Politically, most Irish citizens look no further than electing the local gombeen gangster in return for petty favours paid for out of their own pockets.

Joan Burton abandons her political principles

The first and most important thing to be said about the ongoing penalty points controversey is that it is state corruption on a massive scale.

And because it is corruption on a massive scale the lies and hypocrisy surrounding the issue are also on a massive scale.

Take the dishonesty and hypocrisy of Minister for Social Protection Joan Burton for example. She was asked a very simple question on the Marian Finucane Show yesterday.

How did the Minister for Justice Alan Shatter come to have Garda information about a private citizen?

Burton refused to answer the question and instead robustly defended the Shatter/Garda report saying that is was a great example of government transparency and accountability.

She was asked again.

The report is being sent on to the Garda Inspectorate and the Dail Justice Committee…waffle…

She was asked again.

I’m not going to jump to conclusions based on what’s in the media…waffle…

She was asked again.

The key issue in this country is to get people back to work again…waffle…

The presenter finally gave up.

You don’t seem to want to focus on what the Minister actually said.

Burton went on to demonstrate a good degree of political stupidity by constantly returning to her dishonest waffle.

We have to look at this in the round. It’s an important issue for our democracy. First of all we have to look at the issue of road safety.

At this point her fellow panelists were openly laughing at her in contempt.

Burton’s despicable performance was similar to that of Fianna Fail politicians who lined up to defend the liar Ahern.

None of this, of course, is unusual or unexpected. Ireland is, after all, an intrinsically corrupt state. All politicians who come to power must decide whether to stand by their principles or defend the corrupt system.

Joan Burton, in common with the vast majority of her fellow politicians, has obviously abandoned her political principles in favour of remaining within the corrupt system.

A tiny minority of politicians like Roisin Shortall and Neasa Childers do stand by their principles and opt out of the rotten system but they pay the price of immediate ostracisation by their political colleagues.

Neasa Childers, I felt, accurately summed up how it feels when a politician is faced with the decision of defending or abandoning our corrupt political system.

I felt at that point my position was completely lacking in integrity and indeed a sort of corruption if I were to stay in that situation where I was feeling shame basically about what they were telling me.

I wonder if Joan Burton is feeling shame or is she still trying to convince herself that, on balance, she’s still a politician of principle.

Helen McEntee and hypocritical political guff

Helen McEntee, daughter of recently deceased Shane McEntee, was asked about online social media abuse during her election campaign (Marian Finucane Show, Saturday).

I don’t agree with anonymous abuse but it happens. It’s all part and parcel of putting yourself out there in the public eye. It’s just a matter of dealing with it.

A sensible and realistic attitude to media coverage unlike the many other politicians who were quick to exploit the death of Ms. McEntee’s father as an excuse to further restrict media freedom.

Ms. McEntee also effectively confirmed that all the hypocritical guff about online social media abuse being a factor in her father’s suicide was just that, hypocritical guff.

Was online abuse a huge pressure on your dad?

No, I don’t think so. My dad wasn’t very much into Facebook and twitter. He didn’t have a huge online presence. I don’t think he would have seen anything that would have been put up.

Senator Jimmy Harte, Minister Pat Rabbitte and others take note