Category: Body Politic

Captured Irish media: They just don't get it

Our corrupt political system bears full responsibility for the destruction of our country.

Bankers could not have operated their Wild West business operations without the full cooperation of our corrupt political system.

Property developers could not have borrowed billions in unsecured loans without the full cooperation of our corrupt political system.

Regulators could not have ignored what was going on right before their eyes if our political system was not corrupt.

It is our corrupt political system that is directly responsible for the immense suffering and misery inflicted on the Irish people, for the return of mass immigration, for the imposition of severe poverty on this and many generations to come, for the shaming of the nation on the world stage and not least for the many, who in absolute despair, could not deal with the catastrophe and decided to end it all.

Listening to the largely captured Irish media, however, a stranger could be forgiven for thinking that the political system and in particular the Fianna Fail party played no part whatsoever in the destruction of our country and indeed deserves an equality of sympathy for the ‘mysterious’ disease that has been inflicted on the nation.

Veteran journalist Olivia O’Leary.

And there are individual stories, there’s going to be an awful lot of grief in an awful lot of homes today and I suppose you have to feel a bit sorry for that.

No, she’s not talking about the victims of our corrupt political system; she’s talking about the politicians who lost their seats in the election, the guys and girls heading off into happy retirenemt with big fat pensions.

Brendan O’Connor (Sunday Independent).

There is almost something pathetic about the end of the party (Fianna Fail) that was thought to be hardwired into our DNA. For some reason there seems to be little joy in it.

Wrong O’Connor, there’s immense joy in seeing these traitors suffer at least a minimum of inconvenience. If Ireland was a real democracy Fianna Fail would be banned as a political party and its leaders would be on trial for treason.

Terry Prone (Irish Examiner)

Toughest of all, of course, is the situation, today, of those who lost their seats, their livelihood, and in some cases, their self-respect. We have become so furious and cruel a society that the general reaction to their loss is “serves them right”.

It is deeply insulting to the millions of Irish people who are victims of our corrupt political system to witness self-righteous journalists like Prone accuse them of being cruel because they are furious and want justice.

Marian Finucane:

This must be a terrible personal tragedy for him (Brian Cowen’s fall). I mean to see the party he loves so much, to be at the head of Government of a party that you’re so proud of that brings in the IMF, I mean on a personal level that has to be very difficult.

Isn’t it amazing that a politician who has led a privileged life, who has never wanted for anything, who was among the best paid politicians in the world, who is retiring with a fortune at the expense of the people he betrayed can be described as a tragic figure?

Savouring the fall of traitors

There will be much analysis and the fallout will continue for some time but just for the moment I’m savouring the elimination of some of the more notorious traitors.

Andrews Barry – Gone
Carey – Gone
Coughlan – Gone
Haughey – Gone
Lenihan Conor – Gone
Marsergh – Gone
O’Donoghue – Gone
O’Rourke – Gone

Ah yes, savouring for just a day or so – It’s such a rare event.

Debate shock for Brenda Power

Brenda Power was shocked at the underhand conduct of Enda Kenny and Eamon Gilmore on the election debate last night.

Speaking on The Late Debate she said she was sure that Enda Kenny and Eamon Gilmore had agreed a strategy to gang up on Michael Martin.

She was disgusted that Kenny and Gilmore kept on reminding Martin that he had been in government for the last 14 years and was thus responsible for the mess we’re in today.

Surely this couldn’t be true, surely politicians don’t do such horrible things; surely Fianna Fail would never engage in such underhand strategies.

Surely Ms. Power will learn all about the real world when she begins secondary school.

Reality has arrived in gombeen land

An article in yesterday’s Irish Independent outlines the stark reality facing the Irish people.

It’s worth reproducing the article in full with emphasis and some comment.

IMF-EU plan forces State to come clean on its loans

By Emmet Oliver Deputy Business Editor

Wednesday February 09 2011

AS part of the IMF-EU programme, all government departments and state agencies have been told to disclose all their outstanding borrowings by the weekend.

The agencies and departments must disclose all “current encumbrances” by close of business on Friday, a circular from the Department of Finance has made clear.

From now on any fresh borrowing done by a department, local authority or state agency can only happen with the express permission of the Department of Finance.

(The reality is that the Dept. of Finance is merely the whip master to the IMF/EU. Brian Lenihan is the messenger boy who informs the whip master how many lashes are to be applied to Irish citizens).

These changes have been demanded by the terms of December’s €85bn EU/IMF bailout programme. The Department of Finance’s central capital unit will now handle all requests for fresh borrowing.

Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan has written to secretary generals at all government departments informing them of the new system. ”

“This is required to comply with the loan agreements with both the EFSM and EFSF under the EU-IMF support programme,” the instruction from Mr Lenihan makes clear.

From now on the Department of Finance will maintain a register of debts at each department and state agency in an attempt to streamline and tighten up the management of the public finances. No previously unknown exposures are expected to emerge from the trawl, sources said.

The list of public bodies who must comply with the instruction is extensive, although in many cases the organisations don’t borrow any money. But in a significant number of cases state agencies borrow on a short-term basis to deal with funding shortfalls.

Monthly

The list does not include commercial semi-states, but does include companies like Irish Rail. It also includes the IDA, FAS, An Bord Pleanala and Enterprise Ireland.

(FAS? EU/IMF officials should brace themselves for a severe shock).

The IMF and EU must also be provided with monthly management accounts by the Department of Finance itself, showing how much revenue the State is collecting and how much it is spending.

The whole area of how the public finances are managed is due to change at the end of June when a Budget Advisory Council will come into operation. This will oversee the budget process and make sure the State sticks to its debt targets.

The stark reality is that the EU/IMF is in complete control of the economy and obviously the purse strings.

This fact is going to have a very serious impact on the most important, most corrupt, aspect of our dysfunctional state – Clientelism.

Up until the catastrophe Iish politicians obtained their power by plundering state coffers and using the funds to buy votes from politically ignorant citizens.

They have now lost that source of power forever.

Only time will tell how an Irish electorate, who have lived for decades under the blissful delusion that their gombeen representatives were giving them something for nothing, will react to this sudden dose of reality from the EU/IMF.

Irish politicians: No level too low to get at the loot

Even in what passes for normal times in Irish politics the payment of almost €90,000 as compensation for loss of ministerial salaries is grotesque in the extreme (Irish Independent)

In these times when the bulk of Irish people are suffering enormous difficulties as a direct result of the incompetence, greed, corruption and arrogance of the body politic such payments verge on the criminal and treasonous.

Here are some reactions from the political creeps who feel they’re worth it.

Fianna Fail leader Michael Martin:

The existing severance payments stand and that’s the way it will be.

Finance Minister Brian Lenihan:

They had been part of the pay arrangement for many years and had been accepted by former ministers of all parties.

Translation: You peasants out there will take any amount of cuts we, the ruling elite, impose on you even if your pay arrangements have been in place for many years and that’s the way it will be.

Green Party leader John Gormley: (Irish Independent).

These are things we aren’t thinking about at the moment. We’re just thinking about the election, but we will see obviously after the election.

Any bets that this alleged man of principle and accountability will loosen his greedy grip on taxpayer’s money? Let’s ask him after the election.

Former Communications Minister Eamon Ryan:

I would have to find out and look at it. Those are details when you’re working flat out in government and now on an election, it wasn’t the first thing on our mind.

Well I don’t think Mr. Ryan will be working flat out in the next government so, like Mr. Gormley, we’ll ask him again after the election.

Tanaiste Mary Coughlan, Mary Hanafin, Eamon O’Cuiv, Brendan Smith and Pat Carey also have their greedy heads in the trough because, apparently, they’re worth it.

Dr. Byrne; respect for politicians and political reform

Trinity lecturer and Irish Times columnist Dr. Elaine Byrne is obviously very passionate about the need for radical political reform in Ireland.

She may therefore be surprised to learn that she is part of the problem herself. No significant reform of the political system will occur until those in the media wake up to what is actually happening in Ireland.

That Dr. Byrne is unaware of the reality of the situation was evident last Wednesday on The Late Debate when she engaged in a comfortable, light-hearted discussion with Fianna Fail TD Mary O’Rourke.

Clearly, Dr. Byrne has great respect for O’Rourke saying at one point:

I think Mary O’Rourke has made a fantastic contribution (to politics) particularly on her Seanad reform report which was one of the better reform reports.

Here’s the reality that Dr. Byrne does not see.

Mary O’Rourke is a traitor to her county and people. In common with all Fianna Fail politicians O’Rourke believes strongly in loyalty; to herself, to her family dynasty, to her party, and most of all, loyalty to the rotten political system that sustains her in power and comfort.

O’Rourke is an admirer and supporter of the criminal Haughey and seems to have no problem with the fact that her party has been a hotbed of corruption for years.

As for that Seanad report – like all politicians, O’Rourke see such reports as nothing but a big joke on the Irish people.

If O’Rourke was a citizen of a functional/accountable democracy she would be treated with utter contempt whenever and wherever she showed her face. Neither she nor any of the cabal of chancers that makes up her party would last a week in public life.

In our corrupt state she is feted as the Mammy of Parliament and is treated with utmost respect by the media and academics like Dr. Byrne.

If Dr. Byrne was truly aware of what has happened to our country and who is responsible she would treat the likes of O’Rourke with the contempt she richly deserves and therefore greatly hasten the cause of real political reform.

People like O’Rourke are enemies of the state and a state that fails to act against its enemies is doomed to destruction.

Copy to:

Dr.Byrne
Mary O’Rourke

Shock/Horror: SIPO rejects Callely complaint

On 28th August last year I submitted a formal complaint to the Standards in Public Office Commission relating to expense claims made by Senator Ivor Callely (Complaint reproduced below).

I received a judgement last Friday informing me that the Commission found no basis on which to initiate an investigation.

My reply to the judgement.

Dear Mr…

Thank you for your efforts in this matter. I would have been truly astonished if the outcome had been otherwise.

Yours sincerely

Anthony Sheridan

The judgement is worth reading because it demonstrates just how slyly intelligent our politicians are when it comes to looking after their own interests.

I predict that this era of legal corruption is very close to an end.

(My emphasis throughout)

4 February 2010 (sic)

Dear Mr Sheridan,

I refer to previous correspondence to the Standards in Public Office Commission (Standards Commission) concerning a complaint about Senator Ivor Callely relating to expenses claims made by him while he was a Minister of State at the Department of Health and Children.

The Standards Commission sought and received copies of the expenses claims from the Secretary General of the Department, Mr Michael Scanlan.

It also asked the Secretary General to set out the relevant rules under which Ministers of State were allowed to claim mileage expenses at the time and to set out the steps taken by the then Secretary General at the time in his capacity as Accounting Officer to secure compliance with those rules.

The Secretary General replied stating that Government decisions of 16 September 1983 and of 7 February 1984 regulate the payment of mileage claims by Ministers of State.

He said that under those decisions the head of a department shall certify mileage claims for Ministers of State on being provided with a statement, certified by the Minister of State concerned, that the mileage travelled was for official purposes only.

The following are the relevant sections of the decisions:

16 September 1983

“3(a) that the new arrangements, in respect of Ministers of State,… should be made with effect from the 1st October, 1983,… that in all cases the arrangements under which they would provide their own cars in place of State cars, should be on the basis of a mileage allowance being paid in respect of mileage, other than that unrelated to their Office, and civilian drivers being provided by the state in lieu of Garda drivers”

“(b) that the mileage rates payable in respect of (a) above should be those applicable to members of the judiciary, subject to payment in respect of not more than 60,000 miles a year in each case,”

7 February 1984

“the Government following further consideration of the matter, agreed that paragraph 3(a) of that decision (of 16th September 1983) should be amended by the addition of

“such mileage allowances shall be payable and certified by the relevant accounting officer on the basis of a statement to be furnished from time to time by the office-holder certifying the total mileage travelled and related to the office in the car provided by the office holder in place of a state car, in the period covered by the claim.”

The Secretary General also stated that all payments were made on the basis of claims certified by the Minister of State concerned in accordance with those decisions. He said that on occasion some claims were queried by the (then) Secretary General but paid on the basis of certification by the Minister of State concerned.

Having considered your complaint in light of the documentary evidence provided, the rules under which the claims were dealt with and the observations of the Department’s Secretary General, the Standards Commission has decided that there is no basis on which to initiate an investigation under the Ethics in Public Office Acts 1995 and 2001.

Initial complaint

28th August 2010

To Whom It May Concern,

I wish to formally lodge a complaint under the Ethics in Public Office Acts 1995.

The complaint concerns an article in the Sunday Tribune newspaper on the 22nd August 2010 which outlined the following expense claims made by then junior minister, Ivor Callely.

Claimed 5,000 miles per month in expenses during his term as junior minister at the Department of Health even though he lived less than three miles from his office.

Claimed for the 5,000 miles (the maximum allowed) even when he had been out of the country on government business, including March 2003 when he was away for at least eight days on trips to France, England, Malta and Slovakia

Claimed the maximum allowed mileage for May 2003 even though he spent seven days in the US during that month.

Claimed for more than a dozen dining expenses at the Leinster House restaurant. These particular claims were questioned by the department but were eventually paid out.

I request that these claims be investigated to clarify what appear to be very serious inconsistencies.

I include below a full reproduction of the newspaper article

Yours sincerely

Anthony Sheridan

Bruton under investigation: No worries

I see former Taoiseach John Bruton is being investigated by the European Commission regarding his acceptance of his job at the IFSC (Irish Independent).

The Commission claims Mr. Bruton should have informed them of his new job since it is less than two years since he left his position as the EU’s ambassador to the US.

Mr. Bruton said he was completely unaware that he had an obligation to get prior approval from the EU.

Is it credible that a former Taoiseach with long experience dealing with EU politics and law and subsequent years of service with the EU as ambassador was unaware of such a fundamental EU regulation?

It would be a bit like an Irish politician being ‘completely unaware’ of his pension rights.

Mr. Bruton is, however, unlikely to suffer any pain as a result of his ‘error’. EU officials are still on a steep learning curve regarding the relationship between Irish politicians and accountability.