'We were acting on the best advice' – Not true

Letter in today’s Irish Times

Ministers ignored Finance advice

Madam,

So it turns out that the much vilified Department of Finance was providing, better, clearer and higher quality advice than that provided by so-called external experts. This advice was routinely rejected by Cabinet (Breaking News, March 1st).

Is it not time for the media, across all platforms, to offer humble apologies to the many fine public servants, whose years of training and innate skills were so disgracefully thrashed by so-called journalists and pretentious minor celebrities posing as economists?

Maybe now, finally, the incoming government will begin reforming the system at the very top and clear out all advisers, experts, programme managers and gombeens who infest every Minister’s office in every department, soaking up salaries and expenses and believing they are minor deities.

Let the real experts do their job. The civil service has the training and the skills to provide expert advice to this government; they must be listened to. Their only mission, unlike many others, is to serve the State, which they have done unswervingly, in the face of opprobrium, pay cuts, pension levies and anything else a rotten administration has thrown at them over the years. Enough is enough. – Yours, etc,

JG Lacey,

Lough Atalia Grove,

Renmore,

Galway.

Law enforcement – Irish style

The Data Protection Commissioner has written to political parties to caution them about communicating with individuals using text, email or phone in the forthcoming election.

The Commissioner said that his office had received numerous complaints during previous election campaigns.

He said subsequent investigations revealed that contact details were obtained from sources such as sports clubs, friends, colleagues and schools.

Obtaining personal data in such circumstances constitutes a breach of the Data Protection Acts.

I rang the Data Protection Commissioner to find out how many politicians or political parties had been prosecuted as a result of these investigations.

Before ringing I made a mad guess that the answer would be zero and indeed that mad guess turned out to be, well, not so mad.

Here’s some of what I was told by a spokesperson.

If a company sends an email or text to a citizen without permission they can be immediately prosecuted, the law is crystal clear on the matter.

However, there is a special exemption written into the law for politicians and political parties.

In other words these people and organisations have full rights to bombard citizens with any amount of unsolicited material at any time of day or night.

Now we have to stop here and consider this special exemption.

Who made this decision? Was it a politician, a civil servant – or both? Why should politicians enjoy this special exemption?

Is it just another of those occasions where the law and state institutions are utilised (abused?) to provide politicians with an advantage at the expense of citizens?

But there’s good news.

Apparently politicians/political parties can be fined up to €3,000 (about five days expenses for the average TD?) if they illegally obtain contact details of citizens through such sources as sports clubs, friends, colleagues and schools.

In his warning the Commissioner revealed that he had indeed received and investigated numerous such complaints after recent elections so I put the obvious question to the Commissioner’s spokesperson.

Has your office ever taken action against a politician or political party for breaching the Data Protection Act?

No, it hasn’t arisen. You see our first action is never to serve an enforcement order in any of the complaints we deal with.

(Translation: Our first action is never to enforce the law?).

You’re confirming that you’ve never served an enforcement order against a politician or political party.

We investigated complaints in the local government and general elections but it hasn’t been necessary to actually serve an enforcement order because in each case, when we found out, they agreed to delete the details.

This is similar to the strategy adopted by the Financial Regulator when banks were found to be robbing their customers – just pay back the money and promise to be good in future.

This method of dealing with alleged law breakers is one of the principal reasons why our country is now facing total ruination.

The (Tammany Hall) system can be outlined as follows.

An activity is taking place that is damaging to the general public.

Laws are introduced and an organisation is set up to enforce those laws to protect the general public and the good of society.

If it is found that the laws are ‘inconvenient’ for some vested interests (politicians, bankers, property developers, solicitors etc.) a number of options can be considered.

Write an exemption into the law. This is usually buried deep within the legislation.

Ensure that the enforcement agency is provided with only minimum powers and is so understaffed and under funded that it will be impossible to carry out its remit.

The ODCE, presently investigating Anglo Irish Bank, is a good example of this kind of strategy.

Equip the so called regulator with Soviet style secrecy laws which debars any questions whatsoever. The Financial Regulator is a good example of this strategy.

Allow civil servants wide discretion regarding the implementation of the law. This particular case is a good example of this strategy.

The Data Protection Commissioner could have taken action against politicians/political parties for breach of the Act but chose instead to come to a mutual agreement

Ignore the law altogether. This is a very common strategy in Ireland. Ansbacher and DIRT are just two examples where so called regulatory agencies were aware of serious breaches of the law but failed to take action.

The failure to rigorously enforce laws by a wide range of state agencies over a prolonged number of years has led to the inevitable – political chaos, impoverishment and hardship for ordinary citizens and national shame in front of the world community.

Allow me to end by making another (mad) guess/prediction – not a single politician or political party will receive an enforcement order from the so called Data Protection Commissioner as a result of any breaches of the Act in the forthcoming election.

Copy to:

The Data Protection Commissioner

Power pay

Barack Obama, leader of the most powerful nation in the history of the world earns

$400,000 (€304,690, 25) per year.

Padraig McManus, CEO of the power company in a bankrupt, two bit banana republic on the edge of Europe, is handed

$985,000 (€750,000.00) per year.

Yet another quango, yet another incompetent assessment

On November 18th last (3rd report), John Thredowen, head of office at the Credit Review Office had the following to say in regard to the financial health of AIB.

Allied Irish Banks are now approaching the finalisation of their restructuring and they’re out with their staff and about to approach the market to say – ‘we’re open for business’.

A couple of days later AIB announced that investors had withdrawn €13 billion from the bank.

John Thredowen is head of just one of over 800 quangos that costs the taxpayer over €13 billion per annum.

Yet another scandal, yet another excuse, yet another rip off

Yet another scandal, spawned by a previous scandal, that’s going to be ‘scrutinised’, by yet another useless state ‘watchdog’ (Irish Independent).

This latest scandal concerns payments of €30 million to legal firms, over a nine month period, for advising the government on the banking bailout.

The so called watchdog is the Public Accounts Committee.

Like all government committees the PAC is nothing more than a talking shop, it has no power to act on its investigations and there’s not the slightest hint that our corrupt political system is about to bestow any such powers.

Politicians, (Pat Rabbitte in this instance) are, yet again, outraged at such waste and are demanding immediate action.

Is there anything we can do about these extraordinary fees or do these guys just think they can name any figure?

Well, yes Pat, they can and that will remain the case for so long as our political system remains a dysfunctional entity.

Yet again, we see a super highly paid civil servant coming out justifying the scandalous payments because the super highly paid government ministers who should be answering the questions have absconded in their super expensive Mercedes.

Department of Finance secretary general Kevin Cardiff admitted it was not possible to monitor how many hours were worked by the firms or how many staff were assigned to the task.

Having admitted his department’s total ignorance of the matter he then went on, bizarrely, to state.

I can tell you honestly that the money spent was well worth the money. The risk of not taking that legal support could have cost us a lot more.

Mr. Cardiff also admitted that the firms hired had a potential conflict of interest given that they also carried out work for banks and wealthy clients but, don’t worry, he assured destitute taxpayers, they all had Chinese Walls to avert any problems.

Phew, that’s a relief, for a moment there I thought destitute taxpayers were in danger of being ripped off.

Mr. Cardiff further assured impoverished taxpayers.

We haven’t come across instances where they felt compromised

I can just imagine Mr. Cardiff approaching a staff member at the legal firm Arthur Cox, which got more than €10 million for ‘advice’.

Eh, excuse me sir. Are feeling compromised?

No, oh that’s great, the taxpayer’s will be so relieved.

Official? – Gardai act according to political priorities

Unwittingly, Michael Noonan, the Fine Gael spokesperson on finance has let the cat out of the bag regarding the relationship between politicians and the Gardai (RTE News, 5th report).

Last Tuesday, after complaining about the slow pace of the so called Garda investigation into Anglo Irish Bank, Mr. Noonan was asked did he think there was some political foot dragging.

His reply was interesting and very revealing:

Public servants, including Gardai and senior civil servants, always try to act on what they regard as ministers and government priorities and they obviously feel that there isn’t an urgency because these matters are not priorities with government.

In real democracies the police act on crime and reports of crime. In Ireland, according to Mr. Noonan, they act according to political priorities.

This explains why white collar crime is virtually unknown in Ireland.

Idiots and the tragedy of Ireland

Apologies in advance for the use of strong language in response to an editorial in last Saturday’s Irish Independent.

The piece must surely qualify as the stupidest, most ill informed editorial penned in recent years.

The editorial, responding to the ‘sensational’ revelation that bankers tell lies, needs to be analysed line by line to expose the full ignorance of the idiot who penned it.

The level of ambiguity displayed by the banks in the lead-up to the €440bn bailout by those taxpayers was finally laid bare before the Dail Public Accounts committee.

Only now is it beginning to impinge on the brain of this idiot that Irish banks are ‘ambiguous’.

At this rate it will take him decades to realise that the Irish financial sector is infested with ruthless scumbags who are supported and protected by politicians and an incompetent ‘regularity’ system that does exactly as it’s told – to do whatever it takes to protect the interests of the scumbags.

It is these scumbags, in collusion with a corrupt political system, who are principally responsible for the destruction of our country and the strongest word the idiot can muster is ‘ambiguous’?

It smacked of an attitude and era which fostered recklessness and risk-taking beyond belief.

Obviously, the idiot believes that the ‘attitude’ and the ‘era’ are behind us.

He obviously believes the bullshit that spews from the mouths of Cowen and Lenihan about the country/economy turning corners.

He believes the bullshit that spews from the mouths of politicians and so called regulators that a new era of financial regulation has dawned, that Irish citizens are now safe from the thieving maws of the scumbags who infest the financial sector.

This is a typical, narrow brained, Irish reaction to unpleasant realities.

Brutal realities can be safely ignored if they’re consigned to the past. And because they’re in the past they don’t require any action so everybody can ‘go forward’ into the future full of light and happiness.

Never mind that the same ruthless bankers are still in place, never mind that the same corrupt political system is still in place, never mind that there is, in reality, no financial regulation whatsoever in this country, never mind all that.

The important thing to keep in mind is that, finally, bankers have been found to be ‘ambiguous’ – halleluiah.

We should not forget what was divulged this week. Banks bluffed in public about the state of their finances. They were, at the very least, disingenuous in the way they presented their financial health.

The idiot obviously believes that Irish bankers getting caught bluffing in public is an event of earthquake proportions, that nothing like it has ever happened before, that such a ‘crime’ must never be forgotten.

Clearly, the idiot has lived his entire life in a hole on the Skellig Islands

In doing so, they (the bankers) increased exponentially the amount of liability taxpayers have had to guarantee. They left our senior politicians and civil servants with few options.

The depth of ignorance displayed by this statement is deeply disturbing. The idiot seems to be totally unaware of the part played by incompetent and/or corrupt politicians and civil servants in the destruction of our country.

He believes, apparently, that all this came upon the politicians and civil servants suddenly, that they, like the idiot, were completely unaware, over many decades, of the rampant criminality common within the Irish financial sector.

It hasn’t yet occurred to the idiot that the total absence of effective financial regulation is no accident.

Perhaps he believes that the Soviet style secrecy laws that provide water tight protection for the scumbags just suddenly dropped out of the sky leaving our politicians and civil servants with few options.

Perhaps the idiot thinks that, despite decades of fraud and criminality within the financial sector, there’s nothing odd about the fact that not a single official or institution has ever faced a judge; that it was only in 2008, after beggaring the nation; that a financial institution came under investigation?

Perhaps the idiot even believes that the current investigation is an actual real investigation and not the standard Irish strategy of bluff, delay and obfuscation that will, ultimately, result in a non effective/irrelevant report years down the line.

What we have learned, and no doubt have yet to discover, about how some lending institutions behaved should never, ever be forgotten. Not this year, not next, never.

What we have learned has already been forgotten. Ansbacher, DIRT and dozens of other scams, costing Irish taxpayers countless millions, have all been forgotten.

How many times have we heard a politician/banker tell the nation – the past is another country, we must move forward, must make sure this never happens again – blah, blah, blah. Apparently, the idiot believes it all.

It is to our eternal credit as a nation that we have, despite a deep-seated anger, knuckled down and borne the inevitable.

The impression given here is that the people of Ireland, realising the seriousness of the situation, have united in a patriotic movement to save the nation.

This, of course, is total bullshit. Irish citizens, since independence, have sold their votes to the local chancer in return for small favours. The local chancer was more than happy to buy power so cheaply and use it to his own advantage.

This buying and selling of votes/democracy has corrupted the administration of the country and resulted in a politically ignorant electorate.

Irish citizens are incapable of voting, thinking or acting in the national interest, they act solely in self-interest or in the interest of a particular group of which they belong.

If Irish citizens were politically educated, if they were aware that it is they and not their corrupt leaders who hold power, the current government would have been thrown out of power in 2008 when disaster struck.

The greatest indictment of Irish democracy is that this government and in particular Fianna Fail are still in power, still working in their own interests at the expense of the nation and Irish citizens just lie down and take it.

Yet when we look in on ourselves, there is a source of great hope. And it is to ourselves we must look, because we are the ones carrying this country on our shoulders.

I don’t know what circles this idiot operates in but my sense of the country is not one of hope but despair.

Yes, ordinary citizens are carrying the country on their shoulders but it is not by choice. Citizens are being forced to suffer and pay for the corruption, incompetence, greed and arrogance of the ruling elite while that same ruling elite are busily insulating themselves against the disaster.

Bitter lessons have been learned.

What lessons? Could this idiot provide the nation with a single example of a lesson learned?

The tragedy of Ireland is that its people are oppressed by their political ignorance to the point of docility when, in this time of national crisis, the complete opposite is required.

The people of Ireland need to do what the people of Iceland did – eject from office all those responsible for betraying the nation.

They need to educate themselves on what real democracy is all about so that if a politician or banker ever threatens the national interest again they will quickly find themselves behind bars.

The very last thing the Irish people need is the self-indulgent; everything will be all right if we just ignore reality, kind of drivel contained in this editorial.

Copy to:
The idiot

HSE missing millions – Only one certainty

€2.35 million has gone missing in the HSE.

The Gardai are investigating.

The Comptroller and Auditor General is investigating.

The Department of Health is investigating.

The Department of Finance is investigating.

The HSE is investigating – for the second time.

Health Minister Mary Harney said that if any money had been misappropriated, it was a very serious matter.

No it’s not, the misappropriation of massive amounts of taxpayers money is a very common and fully accepted aspect of the administration of our banana republic, it’s part of what we are.

As with all such scandals in Ireland, there is only one certainty – nobody will be held accountable.

Union official ambushed by RTE/Pat Kenny

Pat Kenny was booed at the Civil Public and Services Union (CPSU) conference in Galway last week by delegates who felt they had been unfairly treated on his Frontline programme.

Kenny defended RTE on Today with Pat Kenny (Friday 1.12).saying that at all times each side in any given dispute is treated fairly. He dismissed the negative reaction from the delegates:

When you hear what you like you cheer, when you hear what you don’t like you boo.

Let’s do a quick analysis of that particular Frontline programme.

It began with a clip of a very angry woman outside the passport office giving staff a hard time.

(Government 1 – Workers nil).

Cut to the studio and Kenny is interviewing a woman who had obviously been carefully chosen because of the emotional impact of her story.

Her children had received tickets to Paris Disneyland as a Christmas gift from their grandmother and now they couldn’t go because of the workers/union action.

I would like somebody to tell my children why they can’t go,

the distraught mother demanded, glaring at Eoin Ronayne, deputy general secretary of the CPSU.

Kenny was enthusiastic in leading her on with emotionally charged questions such as: Do you think it was bloody-mindedness on their part (passport office staff) and, have you told the children yet?

(Government 2 – Workers nil).

With the audience (and viewers) suitably emotionalised Kenny proceeded to interview (attack) Eoin Ronayne who was on his own.

No (highly paid) government minister was present to be questioned about the part they played in destroying the country’s economy which sparked the industrial action. No representative from the extremely well paid higher civil servants who enforce government policy within the civil and public service.

(Government 3 – workers nil).

Kenny’s interview stance was angry, confrontational and accusatory. Ronayne was at all times courteous and calm. At one point when Kenny was running out of steam he called in the distraught mother for another dollop of emotionalism.

Maybe you could ring my children tonight, Peter 10, Christine 13 and explain to them why they’re devastated that you will not let them fly on Friday. What are you going to do for me and the other 40,000 people that are in my situation?

What price do you put on the disappointment of children demanded Kenny of Ronayne and later suggested that staff at the passport office had deliberately sabotaged passport machines to make things worse for ordinary people.

(Government 4 – workers nil)

With the exception of one person all comments from the audience were anti worker. The piece finished with the distraught mother being given yet another opportunity to make an emotional attack on Ronayne.

You took away my children’s chance of their Christmas to go and travel. They have no choice; you’ve made us suffer for your cause. I hope you’re happy.

(Government 5 – workers nil) (RTE/Pat Kenny – disgraced)

This disgraceful anti union, anti worker ambush by the national broadcaster was not an isolated incident.

All through the week on Liveline, Today with Pat Kenny and RTE News the trend (policy?) was the same – The general public were the victims of the evil Union/workers, the Government was an innocent party doing its best to help out.

It really is time somebody challenged the politicalisation of RTE.

Copy to:

The Frontline
Today with Pat Kenny