Category: Government

Time to bury the body of our diseased nation

I’m certainly not going to influence the regulator in any respect. I think that would be bad for the country and I think we really need to learn the lessons of the banking crisis.

The perception that the regulator can be subject to political interference or influence would be very bad for this country. (Brian Lenihan, Minister for Finance).

From 1922 until 2003 Ireland had no financial regulator whatsoever. As a result the Irish financial sector became infested with criminals who acted with impunity under the protection and connivance of a corruption political system.

From 2003 until the appointment of Matthew Elderfield last year we had a so called financial regulator that cooperated with and protected the same criminals under instruction from a corrupt and conniving political system.

Today we have a real financial regulator being subjected to massive pressure from the same corrupt and conniving political system because, for the first time in the history of the state, a financial regulator is making an honest attempt to clean up the mess.

Let me make something crystal clear – Mr. Elderfield will not succeed in his job. The corruption and rot is far too deep, far too widespread throughout Irish society for him to have any hope. We are a diseased nation, terminally infected with the disease of corruption, not even radical surgery can save us.

Lenihan’s words about perceptions and political interference in financial regulation are decades too late. He, his party and the entire political system is a dinosaur way past its extinction date.

We need to accept that as a nation we are a failed entity, a dead nation. We need to bury the diseased body of our corrupt political system and start again.

The brutal truth in numbers

Letter in today’s Irish Independent.

Our bank bailout bill just doesn’t add up.

The final cost of the US bank bailout is €65bn. The ESRI just announced our bank bailout will be €73bn.

America has a population of 350 million people. We have a population of four million people.

America allowed Lehman Brothers to go bankrupt, even though it was systemically important as the subsequent stock market crash proved.

We rescued Anglo Irish Bank, even though it was not systemically important. We now know it was purely a gambling medium for the country’s greediest people.

Per head of population, Americans now owe €185 and 71 cent each for the greed of its banking fraternity. By contrast, we now owe €18,250 per head of population.

In spite of these staggering numbers, the Government, which promoted this level of greed and which is now passing the colossal bill to the taxpayer, the public sector, the unemployed and poor, refuses to accept any responsibility or admit how badly it got it wrong.

They are still in power, still deciding the fate of a country they have broken.

To borrow a recent notable quote from a highly offended individual of delicate sensibilities: “I find this, more than anything, to be beyond the Pale.”

Jarlath Challoner
Portlaoise, co Laois

The ESRI fairy tale

What a beautiful morning? I had breakfast, took a short stroll and then read an amazing fairy tale written by somebody in the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI).

Well, not the actual document but media reports on the report. Here’s my translation of just some of the chapters of this amazing fairy tale.

The captain of RMS Titanic sits down with his (ESRI) advisors to discuss the condition of the ship (of state).

Chapter One:

Next year, the ESRI forecasts a return to growth of 2.75%, led by the export sector.

Translation:

Captain, although the ship is at a complete stop and water is flooding across the bow we expect to be underway at a speed of 2.75% very soon.

Chapter two:

The Institute also said the cost of saving the banking system was manageable and it warned that a rejection of the Croke Park agreement on pay and reform by public service unions could lead to higher borrowing costs for the Government.

Translation:

Don’t worry about that iceberg we struck about an hour ago captain. The damage caused to the hull is manageable and we’ve warned the dead bodies in the flooded compartments that they must agree to our new conditions on pay and reform.

Chapter Three:

The ESRI says the cost of NAMA and the bank recapitalisations is manageable, but should never have been incurred in the first place.

Translation:

But, asks a worried captain, shouldn’t we take a closer look at the damaged hull?

Captain, please, everything is under control. The collision with the iceberg is not part of the ship’s voyage plan therefore it never happened in the first place.

The contemptible lies of our traitorous politicians

Don Ryan, President of the Teachers Union of Ireland, pulled no punches while addressing the Minister for Education Mary Coughlan at the TUI Annual congress (Nine News).

We are outraged by your Government’s arrogance. This is totally and absolutely your fault.

Coughlan was not happy.

I must say I was disappointed with what the president had to say. It is clearly a case where the economic downturn of this world is not the responsibility of one individual or one government.

The impact of the economic recession all over the world has been harsh on the Irish economy on the basis of being a small open economy.

We can see that this stupid woman is parroting her moronic leader Brian Cowen who said recently that the crisis did not originate and wasn’t caused by any individual here.

I sometimes wonder do these low grade people really believe the tripe they mouth or is it perhaps that their arrogance has put them beyond caring one way or the other.

What really angers me but, apparently, doesn’t seem to bother the majority of Irish citizens, is the implicit assumption of these traitors that we’re stupid enough to believe their contemptible lies.

Cowen denies treason

Amazing isn’t it, the country has been destroyed by political and financial corruption and it doesn’t seem to bother Taoiseach Brian Cowen in the least but question his patriotism and he gets all angry and emotional (Six One News, 11.30).

Eamon Gilmore was asking him about the decision to extend the bank guarantee to Anglo Irish Bank:

I believe that that decision was made to save the skins of a number of individuals, some of who are connected to Fianna Fail. If my belief is correct, and I have not been convinced to the contrary, then that decision was an act of economic treason.

Cowen replied:

I will not be accused of seeking to cause treason to my country; I find that beyond the pale and I would never come into this house and accuse another Irishman of what you accused me.

Cowen is actually telling the truth here. In recent history the criminal Haughey and numerous other Fianna Fail politicians such as Ray Burke, Liam Lawlor and Bertie Ahern have all betrayed Ireland and Cowen never opened his mouth.

RTEs David Davin Power, while admitting that Cowen’s time as finance minister made him vulnerable, was nonetheless very supportive of the Taoiseach:

Eamon Gilmore’s barbs evoked a spirited response today and a glimpse of the Brian Cowen his backbenchers would love to see more of.

Banks recapitalisation: Good time to bury bad news?

It’s no accident that AIB raised its mortgage rates on the eve of the recapitalisation of the banks, the biggest fraud perpetrated against Irish citizens since the foundation of the state.

But it seems that AIB is not the only organisation taking advantage of this opportunity to minimise or hide the effects of bad news.

Just hours before the Irish people are to be officially screwed by the banks and the government the Financial Regulator has announced that two administrators are to be appointed to Quinn Insurance Ltd and that an investigation has commenced

into certain matters within Quinn Insurance Ltd that have very recently come to light.

I wonder would those certain matters have anything to do with the dodgy dealings that went on between Anglo Irish Bank and Quinn Insurance?

Another event that will be buried beneath the media storm surrounding the banking crisis will be a decision tomorrow by the Cabinet, based on the Farrell Grant Sparks report, on whether to initiate further investigations into the scandals involving the Dublin Docklands Development Authority.

This would be an ideal opportunity, from the government’s point of view, to quietly bury this potentially explosive matter.

How long before the scumbags are thrown in jail?

Dr. Mary Favier of the Irish College of General Practitioners had the following to say on Drivetime (Thursday) regarding the 57,000 x-rays that went unreported in Tallaght Hospital.

57,000 x rays went unreported and orthopedics, where there are waiting times of 600 days, are particularly profitable areas and nobody has answered my question in relation to how many of those 57,000 x- rays were public and how many were private.

The HSE say they don’t know which I find impossible to believe and the hospital is refusing to answer the question. Anybody locally is saying that the vast majority if not all, of those x- rays are public.

A quote from the book, The Bitter Pill, written anonymously three years ago by a doctor working within the health system may provide the answer.

Imagine a radiologist’s office. On his desk sit two stacks of x-rays. One stack, usually the bigger one, is that of public patients; the other is that of private patients.

For each private x-ray the radiologist will be paid upwards of €50. For the public x-ray he has already been paid, in his monthly salary.

Whether the public x-ray is reported on today, tomorrow or next week, the radiologist will still be paid the full amount of his salary, on time.

For private scans, on the other hand, he will be paid only after he has completed them. The upshot is that the private scans often take precedence over the public ones (The Bitter Pill, page 29).

The real question that needs to be answered is – How debased, corrupt and immoral does the administration of this country have to become before the people rise up and throw these contemptible scumbags in jail?

Senator Norris – Defending the corrupt status quo

I see Senator Davin Norris launched his campaign for President on the Marian Finucane Show last Saturday.

My respect for this politician has dropped considerably since his hypocritical defence of that very expensive but useless institution – Seanad Eireann.

Indeed, the Senate can be seen as a symbol for all that is corrupt about our body politic. Totally ineffective, very expensive and stuffed with self important politicians who have more in common with the aristocracy of pre-revolutionary France than with the duties of running a functional democracy.

Senator Norris tells us that he likes (the chancer) Bertie but that he damaged himself by applying for artist’s exemption for his book and by the way he handled his lotto win.

Apparently, Norris has no problems with Ahern’s very dodgy evidence to the tribunal or his low grade leadership which resulted in the destruction of the country.

In fact Senator Norris thinks that the political system in this country is just fine, that it’s the people who are wrong.

People are begrudgers…they want blood on a wall, a head on a plate and guts in the bucket.

Yes, Senator, that’s exactly what we want and the fact that you cannot understand the legitimacy and passion of that desire puts you in the camp of those who are defending the corrupt status quo.

Copy to:
Senator Norris

Idiotic defence of O'Dea

Inevitably, every time a political scandal occurs, some idiot journalist will write an article in defence of the errant politician.

The idiot in this case is Irish independent journalist Eamon Delaney. He makes the following points in defence of the liar O’Dea.

It’s terribly sad that a man of such tenacity, wit and energy should be caught out on such a little thing.

Making a false statement in a sworn affidavit is, according to Delaney, not a huge matter.

It was the fault of the media.

It was the fault of a tenacious opposition baying for blood of any kind.

None of us is pristine clean and (sad old) O’Dea is down there in Limerick bravely fighting the IRA and organised crime.

Delaney compares the ‘witch-hunting’ of O’Dea to that other ‘innocent’ politician, Michael Lowry. According to this journalist, Lowry, a tax cheat and liar, was forced to resign in ‘apparent’ disgrace.

It should have been enough that O’Dea changed his statement after he realised his ‘mistake’.

This ridiculous excuse, which (barrister) O’Dea also used, displays an abject ignorance of how the law operates. It is not possible to amend sworn affidavits as a case develops, to allow such a situation would make the entire legal system impossible.

The matter could have rested (been forgotten) if it wasn’t for Sinn Fein’s skillful spinning and Fine Gael’s robust opportunism.

The Greens are to blame; they needed a head on a plate to boost their image.

The public are not fooled though; they see that O’Dea is a man of integrity and passion, a man who has been cruelly caught out by certain (evil) ‘elements’.

Delaney ends his craven article with a standard, smear everybody, comment, a comment we have heard before regarding people like the criminal Haughey or the chancer Bertie Ahern.

But let’s remember, there’s something of Willie in all of us.

Well, Delaney may be the type of person who will make a false statement under oath, he may be the type of person who will endanger the reputation of a journalist and policeman in a cowardly attempt to avoid being found out but I think that such low grade people are, thankfully, a minority in this country.

Copy to:
Eamon Delaney

Green Party retreat into mental reservation

Green Party TD Paul Gogarty on the Willie O’Dea scandal.

The collective opinion is that while we’re not happy with the situation at this moment in time it is not a resigning matter and you cannot put pressure on someone to resign if you genuinely feel that they shouldn’t resign.

Have the Greens been taking advice from Cardinal Connell on the concept of mental reservation?