Category: Civil Service

Confirmed: The so called Financial Regulator is rotten to the core

Former AIB internal auditor Eugene McErlean confirmed today what we at Public Inquiry have been saying for years (as far back as 2005). He told the Committee on Economic Regulatory Affairs:

“It is my opinion that the Financial Regulator’s report published in December 2004 failed to tell the whole story about overcharging. The report gave the impression that the regulator had acted in the public interest. I think it is relevant to consider that if a whistleblower had not exposed the problem in 2004 then the overcharging practices may have carried on indefinitely.”

This statement makes the following points:

The so called Financial Regulator acted against the public interest by deliberately keeping secret, information that was vital for consumers.

By its actions the so called Financial Regulator was acting in the interest of a bank that was robbing consumers.

By failing to take action against this robbing bank the so called Financial Regulator exposed consumers to potentially great loss.

By failing in its duty to act against this robbing bank the so called Financial Regulator has helped to endanger the international reputation of Ireland.

The so called Financial Regulator has a putrid record of tolerance and facilitation of thieving financial institutions and as Mr. McErlean points out is quite prepared to tolerate theft indefinitely. There is no evidence whatsoever that this policy has changed, we are still waiting for even a single banker to be arrested.

Mary O’Dea, currently acting head of the Financial Regulator, should be sacked immediately. In recent weeks we have heard several so called informed commentators praising this woman because she questioned the mafia style actions of one bank at one meeting after the avalanche of filth had already engulfed and enraged the general public.

She has been a senior director of Ifsra since its establishment in 2003, she is and was fully aware of all its rotten policies that effectively protected corrupt financial institutions and exposed the general public to great loss and has seen the international reputation of Ireland in tatters.

And she’s not the only one who should be fired in disgrace. For years, I’ve had to listen to insulting, condescending, bullshit from a number of departments at Ifsra about so called financial complexity; about secrecy laws, about ‘who the hell do you think you are Mr. Sheridan calling us and asking impertinent questions.

The whole rotten edifice should be cleaned out once and for all and that should include all staff members who knew, by dint of their position, what was going on in this organisation that has betrayed the Irish people.

They will have to be sacked because, clearly, their long and close association with the rotten stench coming from the Irish financial sector has long ago destroyed their sense of morality, a sense of morality that would, in normal people, lead them to immediately resign in shame.

Copy to:
Financial Regulator (so called)

Political leadership: low quality, high cost

“Hans Joachim Fuchtel was amazed to find out that while he gets paid €92,000 to represent 280,000 people in Germany, our TDs get more than €100,000 each to represent 25,000 people, plus far more generous expenses.”

(Irish Independent).

Fuchtel would also be amazed at the low quality political leadership that we suffer at such high cost.

The inequality and high cost of a failed state

Letter in today’s Irish Independent.

Ordinary taxpayers pay price of failure

AT least 12 middle-income earners have to work for one full year to provide sufficient income tax just to pay for the pension of failed Financial Regulator Patrick Neary.Similarly, another 12 middle-income earners have to work one full year just to pay for the pension of Rody Molloy, former chief executive of FAS.

Approximately 44 middle-income workers had to toil for one full year to pay for Mr Neary’s golden handshake. Similarly, another 44 middle-income earners had to slave hard to provide for Molloy’s golden handshake.

Therefore, in their first year of “retirement”, it will require the total income tax of over 112 middle-income earners to provide for their golden handshakes and pensions. Assuming that both gentlemen survive for another 20 years (God willing), some 570 middle-income earners will have beavered away to keep them in the lap of luxury.

This simple calculation can be used to put other Government wastage into perspective.

For instance; more than 5,000 middle-income earners had to work one full year to cover the outrageous wastage of Martin Cullen’s infamous e-voting machines, not including on-going storage.

Ordinary working people see these — and the many other unjust and unsustainable payments/wastage — as the real barriers to achieving any consensus in the concept of “shared pain”.

Unless Cowen and co grasp the nettle, through emergency legislation if necessary — and address these issues immediately in a fair, sustainable and transparent way — we will certainly face social unrest and turmoil.

John Leahy
Wilton Road, Cork

Another hidden perk exposed

Letter in today’s Irish Independent.

Reading a recent taxation publication I came across the following regarding PRSI:

“The following are excluded for PRSI purposes: Payments received by a person in respect of the following offices: income related to a member of the Dail, An Seanad, or the European Parliament, the judiciary, public offices under the state such as Labour Court members, the Comptroller and Auditor General, Harbour Commissioners etc.”

Surely this is a scandal at any time, but particularly in the present climate. How do they justify this?

Joe Kennedy
DUBLIN 13

Politicians and bureaucrats – Over inflated sense of own importance

Letter in today’s Irish Examiner. (Incredible figures)

Central Bank chief paid far more than US equivalent.

WHEN the governor of the Central Bank, John Hurley, appeared before the Oireachtas Committee on Economic Regulatory Affairs on March 10 he explained that the public exhortations of the Central Bank that highlighted risks to financial stability from August 2007 were “not as effective as they might have been and they did not lead to a sufficient or timely change in behaviour”.

The committee was reminded that the governor is paid an annual salary of €348,000, a figure that reflects the voluntary reduction taken by him last October from the €368,000 that he had hitherto been paid.

It is interesting to compare the salary for this position with those whose influence on global economic affairs is absolutely pivotal and whose utterances and nuances hugely impact the world investment climate and the effectiveness of economic recovery initiatives.

The US Federal Reserve system consists of 12 federal reserve banks located in major cities throughout the US supported by the Federal Reserve Board based in Washington DC.

The system as a whole employs almost 20,000 people and the board employs 2,053. The annual salary of the chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, Ber Bernanke, is $191,300 (€150,000).

It was approved by the US Congress in February 2008.

The president of the European Central Bank, M Jean-Claude Trichet, oversees a staff of 1,499 and was paid €351,816 last year. He is also provided with a residence, in lieu of a residential allowance, but his salary is subject to EU tax, pension, medical and accident insurance deductions.

The Oireachtas committee observed that the Canadian banking system “had operated quite well with prudential supervision of a high standard”.

The Bank of Canada governor, David Dodge, whose seven-year term concluded on January 31, was paid a salary scale the maximum point of which was $407.900 (€250,000).

The Central Bank was founded in 1943 and Mr Hurley is the ninth governor. He and seven of his predecessors formerly held the position of secretary general of the Department of Finance. The exception was Maurice Moynihan, co-drafter of the 1937 constitution and formerly secretary of the Department of the Taoiseach.

The salary of the governor is therefore influenced by the salary of the secretary general of the Department of Finance. This was set at €303,000 in September 2007 by the Review Body on Higher Remuneration in the Public Sector, a figure that may have been reduced voluntarily by the current incumbent.

Myles Duffy
14 Bellevue Avenue
Glenageary
Co Dublin

It is the norm in corrupt jurisdictions for puffed up politicians to award themselves massive salaries, drive around in expensive cars and fly to ‘very important meetings’ in jets and helicopters. It is also inevitable that bureaucrats in such corrupt jurisdictions will also develop an over inflated sense of self importance.

The all powerful 'independent legal advice' defence

Before Patrick Neary completely disappears into his very rich sunset there’s one fact that needs to be put on the record.

The board of the Financial Regulator gave themselves the power to decide what they should be paid. In other words Patrick Neary himself decided that he was worth a lump sum of €428,000, a special sum of €202,000 for keeping his mouth shut and an annual pension of €142,670 (Irish Independent).

Some politicians ranted and raved when they discovered that civil servants had taken on such amazing powers but, to date, they’ve done nothing to bring these greedy and incompetent people down to size.

It seems that this reluctance to act is closely related to that most powerful and mysterious concept of Irish public life – Independent legal advice.

Once these holy words are uttered no more questions can be asked. Not even simple questions like; what, precisely was the advice offered and who gave it? No, once these most powerful of words are uttered the silence is total, complete, nothing more can be said on the matter.

It is even said that a member of this special club could get away with robbing a bank operating under the ‘independent legal advice’ concept. In fact, such robberies are quite common in Ireland.

It should be noted, however, that the ‘independent legal advice’ defence is only available to certain classes of people like senior civil servants, politicians and the higher echelons of the business sector. Peasants do not qualify as they are provided with their own special system commonly known as criminal law.

Cronyism: Alive and well in Ireland

Former Secretary General of the Department of Foreign Affairs, Dermot Gallagher, has been appointed the new chairman of the Garda Siochana Ombudsman Commission (GSOC).

On ‘retirement’ from Foreign Affairs, Mr. Gallagher received an estimated gratuity of €400,000 and a pension of €126,000.

During the controversy surrounding his nomination last month Mr. Gallagher said he could yet decide to do the job at no cost to the taxpayer. At the time he said:

“I think everybody has to make a serious contribution in the current climate, I certainly would be prepared to do not just my bit, but significantly more than that.” and “Quite seriously, I am not interested in the money.”

(Has this man been talking to Mark Duffy?).

On reflection, (and after the controversy has died down) Mr. Gallagher has forgotten all about ‘doing his bit for his country’ and opted to take a salary of €90,000, the maximum allowed to him under pension abatement rules (About three times the average industrial wage).

There was no open and transparent recruitment process and the Opposition was not consulted. Finance Minister, Brian Lenihan said

“There was no constitutional convention or legal obligation on the Government to consult the Opposition.”

Here’s what a recent Transparency International report on how things are done in Ireland had to say about such Government decisions.

“Significantly however, Ireland is regarded by domestic and international observers as suffering high levels of ‘legal corruption’. While no laws may be broken, personal relationships, patronage, political favours, and political donations are believed to influence political decisions and policy to a considerable degree. The situation is compounded by a lack of transparency in political funding and lobbying.”

I have no doubt that Mr. Gallagher is a man of the highest integrity and will carry out his duties in a very professional and honest manner.

He is, however, human and given the very sensitive nature of his new job there will always be a cloud hanging over his work particularly if he finds himself dealing with a case involving a member of Fianna Fail, the party that has been so generous to him.

In other words, Mr. Gallagher begins his job tainted by the manner in which he was appointed and that is not in the best interests of the country.

Copy to:
Dermot Gallagher
Brian Lenihan

Civil service surplus and grenades

“The most recent quarterly national household survey showed that, in 2008, while private sector employment fell by 110,000, public sector numbers were, amazingly, up by 10,000. As recently as Friday, one state agency was advertising jobs in the national newspapers.”

(Sunday Tribune).

Could this boost in numbers be a ploy by the civil service so that they will have a surplus to offer when the Government come calling for sacrifices in the national interest?

“It’s inconceivable,” says one TD, “that you could have €4bn in tax increases and cuts in spending without having some grenades in the mix.”

(Sunday Tribune).

Government website provides some light relief

Thanks to John McDermott for the link to this website which he rightly describes as a howl.

Set up in May last year the site is (allegedly) a cross-departmental approach by the Irish Government to raise awareness of bribery and corruption.

The first joke is the list of government departments involved in this campaign. All of them are, to some degree, responsible for creating the banana republic of Ireland.

Here are some other jokes to bring a smile.

The idea is to raise awareness. What Irish citizen is unaware of the widespread corruption that infects our land? What’s needed is an awareness of action. If the Government started jailing white collar criminals instead of television licence dodgers they might gain some credibility.

“Since the enactment of the Prevention of Corruption(Amendment) Act, 2001, the law on corruption in Ireland has been strengthened.”

Obviously, the banker’s are unaware of this.

“Ireland is very committed to ensuring that bribes to officials either at home or abroad are treated as criminal offences.”

White collar criminals are exempt.

“Since the enactment of the Prevention of Corruption(Amendment) Act, 2001, the law on corruption in Ireland has been strengthened.”

Note the year, 2001. To my knowledge nobody has been charged or jailed for corruption since.

“Accordingly, the relevant Irish Government Departments and bodies have initiated a comprehensive programme to ensure that implementation is being progressed.”

They have? Must be a State secret. ‘Being progressed’ are the magic words here, could be decades.

“The Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment (DETE) has compiled a brochure entitled OECD-Anti-Bribery Initiative’, which sets out the main elements and provisions of the OECD Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign officials.”

Wow, a brochure? I hope it’s as glossy and shiny as all those thousands of brochures churned out by the now totally discredited Financial Regulator.

“Plans are in place to circulate this publication to employees of the relevant sections of the Department of Enterprise.”

I don’t know about you but I’m beginning to feel faint from the excitement. I just know I’ll suffer a complete collapse if this plan is actually carried out, it would be too much.

“Prison sentences have been handed down in several countries and individuals and companies that committed foreign bribery have been penalised with fines of up to US$28 million.”

Great; action at last. Oh no, that’s US dollars, it’s another country. And in reality, as far as so called Irish regulatory agencies are concerned – another universe.

Copy to:
The Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Dermot Ahern TD