Category: Government

Freeza Meats: That meat was just resting in our storeroom?

One of the very funny running jokes in the Fr. Ted series refers to some dodgy accountancy by Fr. Ted in a previous parish.

Fr. Ted, whenever the matter is raised angrily retorts:

That money was just resting in my account.

The joke came to mind after hearing the explanation provided by Freeza Meats for the presence of 80% horsemeat in a product stored at their plant in Newry.

They claim they were approached last August by a meat trader who offered to sell them meat. They declined but, as a goodwill gesture to the meat trader, they agreed to store the meat at their plant.

They claim they never purchased the material, it was never their material, it was kept in a separate area, it had nothing to do with them.

Or, in other words – That meat was just resting in our storeroom.

Diplomatic passports: The privileged elite looking after their own

Yet again we witness how the rich and powerful bestow special privileges upon themselves and their cronies in this blighted banana republic.

A report in yesterday’s Sunday Independent tells us that there are 1,900 diplomatic and 7,400 official passports in circulation.

This massive number includes 48 TDs and nearly half the Senate.

I’m trying to find out what an official passport is so in the meantime let’s focus on diplomatic passports.

In functional democracies diplomatic passports are issued to people who have to travel internationally on official or state business.

So my first question is – why the fuck does Maureen Haughey, wife of the tratior and criminal politician possess such a passport?

Is she jetting around the world working her knickers off on behalf of the Irish people, like fuck she is.

This woman has been given this privilege for one simple but disgusting reason – she’s a senior member of the ruling elite of this blighted nation, a ruling elite that ultimately destroyed our country.

Among the privileged to receive these passports are Breda O’Kennedy and Annette Andrews, wives of former Ministers for Foreign Affairs Michael Kennedy and David Andrews.

Again, this is nothing more than the privileged looking after their own.

Apparently, the Minister for Foreign Affairs is going to write to these individuals and politely ask them to give up their privilege which entitles them to:

Certain enhanced priveleges while travelling abroad.

No question of being so ‘undiplomatic’ as to demand or simply cancel the privilege. No, a polite letter from Eamon asking the nice ladies if they wouldn’t mind handing them over.

The report tells us that the ‘revised criteria’ will mean applications will only be approved for those who can demonstrate they need a passport for travel to undertake official business on behalf of the State.

So, the obvioius question is – what criteria was in place prior to now?

Hello, I’m a member of the priveleged ruling elite, please have your man deliver my special passport forthwith and make sure he uses the tradesman entrance.

As usual with banana republics there’s an element of unintended humour in the ‘rules’ governing such perks for the privileged.

These passports may only be used for official and not for personal travel.

The passports are only valid for the period required to perform any particular official role.

Applicants must pledge that the passport will be returned for cancellation should their role change before the document expires.

Given that fact that corruption is endemic within the Irish body politic, that lying, cheating, stealing and gombeenism is the default position of the majority of our ‘representatives’ we may reasonably assume that these ‘rules’ were created as a joke on the long suffering citizens of our banjaxed nation.

Here’s a partial list of the ragbag of gombeens, traitors, imbeciles, and freeloaders who have been issued with a diplomatic passport?

Fianna Fail: Brian Cowen, Barry Cowen, Mary Coughlan, Tony Kileen, Dick Roche, Ned O’Keeffe, Martin Cullen, Ivor Callely.

Sinn Fein: Aengus O’Snodaigh, Padraig MacLochlainn, Trevor O Clochartaigh and Kathryn Reilly.

Fine Gael: Jim O’Keeffe.

Independents: Michael Lowry, Luke ‘Ming’ Flanagan, David Norris, Feargal Quinn, Prof. John Crown.

Green Party: Dan Boyle, Mary White.

Copy to:

All political parties and independents
Passport office
Department of Foreign Affairs

More power for James Reilly?

Independent TD Roisin Shortall was asked what will happen if the Health Service Executive (Governance) Bill 2012 is passed (This Week).

It will create a situation where there is no independent oversight of the biggest public body in this country with a budget of €13 billion.

It centralized controls over that body in the hands of a minister without the normal checks and balances to ensure probity.

Larry Goodman: Still putting the fear of god into broadcasters

George Lee in company with Barry O’Halloran of the Irish Times and Pat Burke a partner at Grant Thornton discussed the continuing fallout from the horsemeat in burgers scandal (The Business).

Tesco, Burger King, Asda and the Co-Op supermarket chain in the UK all dropped their contracts with Silvercrest Foods in Co. Monaghan. The Burger King and Tesco deals alone were worth €45 million.

What was interesting about the discussion was the fear shown by all when it came to talking about the owner of Silvercrest, the notorious Larry Goodman.

Initially the discussion centred on the possibility of litigation against Goodman.

When one of the guests said that Goodman could indeed face litigation George Lee quickly realised the danger of upsetting the great meat emperor.

Or at least Silvercrest Foods rather than Larry.

The panelist quickly fell into line.

Silvercrest Foods, the individual operator which is a small part of the Goodman Empire.

This ‘clarification’ was followed by a bout of nervous laughter from everybody.

Thereafter all reference to the great Larry and the word litigation was dropped.

As with most RTE broadcasters Lee was very gentle in his treatment of Goodman.

Larry Goodman is quite a survivor. He has been in the wars before. He’s a very media shy person; he would hate this, so this kind of thing is very damaging for him.

Lee, a public service broadcaster, didn’t see the need to provide his listeners with even a brief mention of the ‘wars’ in which Larry was involved.

So here’s some of what the Beef Tribunal Report had to say about Larry’s companies.

The Goodman Group is found guilty of flagrant fraud at Rathkeale. The Goodman meat plants are also found guilty of widespread tax evasion and of offering employees illegal under-the-counter payments (Irish Examiner, 19 July 2003).

I have to say, in case an angry Larry hunts me down, that the Tribunal also found that neither Larry nor any of his senior executives had any notion whatsoever that such nasty things were happening right under their collective noses.

The missing link in the Irish regulatory system

The Government has still not implemented the key recommendations of the Mahon Tribunal almost a year after its publication.

This refusal to respond to major corruption is normal in corrupt states.

In Ireland, such matters are dealt with as follows:

Corruption discovered followed by denial and/or blame. If the scandal continues to attract attention the matter is sidelined into a powerless tribunal or government committee.

When a report is published it’s ignored.

The key point is that no action is ever actually taken against anybody.

The whole idea, which is the norm in functional jurisdictions, of taking the evidence/facts and placing them before a court of law is skipped.

The Irish system ignores this vital step of bringing people to account and simply carries on as if nothing of note had been uncovered by the investigation.

We can see this in the response to the Mahon Tribunal.

The tribunal made some very serious findings including the fact that corruption affected every level of political life.

In other words, the tribunal effectively agrees with the core philosophy of this website – that Ireland is an intrinsically corrupt state.

This fact has been completely ignored. Instead of actually doing something to cure the disease of political corruption the politicians focus on some other matter.

In this case it’s the problems and difficulties surrounding the establishment of an independent planning regulator.

Planning Minister Jan O’Sullivan:

A number of key issues had to be resolved before such a regulator could be established.

Should the minister’s powers be fully transferred to an independent regulator or should the final forward planning decisions remain political in nature to be taken by the minister/ government/ Oireachtas with a regulator providing an independent advisory/supervisory role?

Decisions, decisions, decisions – but never the real decisions that need to be made.

After diverting attention away from the actual corruption the political system reverts to waffle mode.

Minister O’Sullivan again:

I am determined to see this recommendation is fully and comprehensively considered and appropriately acted on.

It is important not only that we address this crucial issue but that we do it right.

So there you have it. Serious and widespread corruption is uncovered, an investigation ensues, a report is published, the political/administrative system ignores its findings and simply skips over the vital step of bringing the guilty to account.

This missing link in the regulatory/justice system is one of the principal differences between a country like Ireland and functional democracies.

Copy to:
Minister O’Sullivan

Bruton: It wasn't Lehman Brothers wot done it, it wasn't the Germans wot done it, it was the whole world

First it was Lehman Brothers who were to blame for our economic downfall.

When that excuse started to wear a bit thin blame was switched to those nasty Germans for lending all that money to innocent Irish bankers who lent it to innocent property developers who were best friends with innocent politicians.

Now, according to one of our more arrogant (ex) politicians, John Bruton, the entire world is to blame for the catastrophe.

And the gombeen wasn’t pulling his punches as he spoke to CNBC, effectively claiming that the world needs to man up and help save brave Ireland for saving the planet.

It’s important to make the point that the then government did this in order to prevent a bank run in a particular bank which could have led to catagion all over Europe, here in Britain and in the United States as well.

So in a sense the Irish taxpayer put its resources on the line in order to protect the global economy. Therefore there is, we would contend in Ireland, a global and European responsibilty to help us resolve this issue.

The 24 million documents lie

I simply refuse to believe the claim by the State that 24 million documents have to be examined before the Anglo Irish Bank trial can proceed.

If the figure was 24,000 documents I would be surprised but 24 million is just not believeable.

The principal allegation against Mr. Fitzpatrick seems to be that he was in breach of Company law when he allowed the bank to provide financial assistance to Sean Quinn and loans to ten customers, known as the ‘Maple 10’, to buy Anglo shares to prevent a collapse in the share price.

This is not, despite what we’re told, a complex charge and neither are any of the other charges.

There is nothing unique about the alleged crimes, that’s why they are listed in the Company Law Act. They are well known and, with the exception of Ireland, regularly come before the courts in functional jurisdictions.

If I was told that 24 million documents were processed during the Nuremberg Trials I would be surprised.

If I was told that the entire block of white collar crimes cases in America over a ten year period came to 24 million documents I would be surprised.

When I’m told that the trial of three bankers in a two bit, backward banana republic has to be delayed so that 24 million documents can be processed I think – Lie.

Dan Boyle and responsible government

On a recent Frontline programme Green Party member Dan Boyle made the following comment regarding cynicism and responsible government.

The idea that you could be in government and not take responsibility for being in government adds to the cynicism that exists about politics.

In Ireland such statements are only made by politicians when in opposition. When they gain power their ideas of responsible government change to suit their own agendas.

When Bertie Ahern was lying through his teeth at the tribunal he received full support from Mr. Boyle’s party.

During that scandal the Green Party abdicated all responsibility effectively saying that the issue had nothing to do with them.

Green Party leader John Gormley:

We’re not the moral watchdog of any political party…we look after our probity and our standards.

This abdication of responsibility for good government added greatly to the cynicism of politics.