Interested in maladministration. Estd. 2005
This letter in today’s Irish Independent hits the nail on the head regarding the Carroll farce.
Has no-one told ACC Bank that above the Supreme Court, we have the Very Supreme Court and possibly the Very Very Supreme Court ?
Gerry O’Donnell
Dublin 15
Now let’s be clear on this – The multi-national American giant Intel is funding a major campaign for a Yes vote in the upcoming Lisbon II referendum but it is not a political campaign.
According to Intel’s general manager, Jim O’Hara, the company is simply putting forward the business case. We don’t want to get into the political debate said Mr. O’Hara as his PR personnel blocked any awkward questions from the media (Irish Independent).
I wonder will the Standards in Public Office Commission (SIPO), on behalf of its political masters, be launching an aggressive investigation into the funding of this political campaign by Intel similar to its investigation into Declan Ganley and Libertas?
Apparently not; SIPO has assured Mr. O’Hara that they have absolutely no issue with foreign multi-nationals flexing their considerable financial muscle to influence domestic politics.
This assurance, we can assume, is strictly reserved for those who support the government point of view.
According to a report in today’s Irish Independent:
The days of first-class flights and extravagant stays in five-star hotels are over for globetrotting ministers and senior public servants.
The article goes on:
Under tough new rules, they will instead have to avoid using business and first-class flights and will have to stay in modest hotels instead of running up massive bills at taxpayers’ expense in some of the most salubrious establishments and enjoying champagne travel.
Taxpayers should not, however, get over excited by this alleged reform. The so called new ‘tough rules’ are nothing more than guidelines and corruption fatigued citizens will be only too well aware that politicians, who regularly break the law with impunity, will have no scruples about trampling over some meaningless guidelines.
The O’Donoghue expenses scandal was discussed recently on Today FM’s Sunday Supplement (9th August) where columnists Fiona Looney, Sarah Carey and Hugh Linehan of the Irish Times ‘enlightened’ the nation on the matter.
To his credit, Hugh Linehan, got it just about right when he said that the expenses were hugely excessive and such abuses were properly still going on.
Sarah Carey and Fiona Looney, however, thought it was all a bit of a joke.
According to Looney this all happened a long time ago – between 2005 and 2007. We can take from this that Looney would regard 1997 as ancient history when, effectively, the present regime, came to power and began the process that has brought the country to the brink of ruin.
Expressing sympathy for O’Donaghue, Looney said that different rules applied then. Sadly, she didn’t enlighten listeners as to what exactly the ‘rules’ were at the time or how they have changed in the last two years.
Sarah Carey thought the whole thing was a bit of a side show but did express puzzlement about the silence from the Opposition on the matter. She suggested that perhaps they too may have abused their expense accounts when they were last in power and were afraid that this might be exposed if they complained too much.
Here’s the reality.
The greed and arrogance of John O’Donoghue is exactly what can be expected in a corrupt state. The ignorant and mealy mouthed analysis by journalists is exactly what is to be expected from a media operating in a corrupt state.
The silence from the Opposition is exactly what is to be expected in a corrupt state. The entire political expenses system in Ireland is corrupt to the core.
Millions are robbed from taxpayers every year by ruthless and greedy politicians operating within a system designed by politicians for the sole benefit of politicians.
The Opposition is keeping quiet because they also benefit enormously from the same corrupt system, not just when they’re in power as Ms. Carey suggests, but every day, even while in opposition.
One of the principal reasons that allows greedy and ruthless politicians like O’Donoghue to abuse the system with absolute impunity is that Ireland is blighted by a lazy, uninformed and largely captured media.
This letter writer to the Irish Independent asks the question:
Do our politicians not understand the damage that is being done to our democracy by both this behaviour and, more importantly, by the lack of challenge from them, our elected leaders?
For example, why are they not demanding to know who within the banks is actually authorising these decisions; and why are the banks adopting this strategy of continuing to support a developer when the courts rejected his survival plan as “fanciful and lacking in reality”?
The answer is simple – It’s the bankers who are in charge, it was the bankers who called in the politicians last September and issued instructions on what was to be done. It is the bankers who are issuing instructions on the whole NAMA scam, the politicians are mere puppets.
NAMA letters in today’s Irish Examiner and Irish Independent.
NAMA is nothing short of economic treason.
THE column by Brian O’Mahony headlined ‘NAMA delays would be bad for the country’ (August 8) was, to quote Judge Peter Kelly, “trespassing on fantasy”.
NAMA must not be rushed. Had the Government properly managed evoting, PPARS, PULSE or decentralisation, we might have got some value from the millions it wasted on these projects.
With its latest project, its not millions but billions of taxpayers’ revenues that are being wasted on overvalued rubbish. Had the financial regulator (Government watchdog?) done its job properly and not just walked, our troubles would undoubtedly not be so great.
And we are giving the same Government the same power? Again? It’s legitimate to demand an unequivocal answer as to why the state, via the actions of the Government, favours de facto private interest over the citizens?
NAMA, in its current form, is nothing short of economic treason — banking legislation written by bankers for bankers and for the good of nobody except bankers and their property development debtors.
Currently it has got all the hallmarks and financial engineering brilliance of Enron. The old Celtic Tiger could afford previous levels of Government waste and incompetence but Ireland — European Capital of Incompetence 2009 — cannot afford to get NAMA wrong.
Don’t let the Government hoodwink the nation into accepting the flawed NAMA bill in its current form and please, please, don’t allow it to be rushed.
Paul Feeney
Botanic Hall
Glasnevin
Dublin 11
NAMA ‘death warrant’ hanging over us
The voice of reason has been spoken by the Supreme Court on the Liam Carroll appeal for enough time to stick the taxpayer, through NAMA, with paying bloated values for property assets which have no basis for assessing their true worth now or any time soon.
It is incredible how, within an hour of the ruling, that the Department of Finance could issue a statement to the effect that NAMA will proceed unaffected by the judgment. Clearly the disdain shown by the State to its citizens is set to continue unabated.
Three months ago, you published a letter from me calling for a referendum on NAMA. I believe that the dangers inherent in NAMA are staggering. I have no confidence in this Government to do anything other than facilitate an enormous over-payment of our money to the banks for property assets that have no prospect of recovering to even 50pc of the value ascribed to them when the irresponsible lending took place.
This will be a disaster for Ireland.
Regrettably there is but one solution to this problem and that is to nationalise the banks. NAMA can make sense after nationalisation. It cannot be the other way round as we will see our money paid out in exchange for grossly over-valued assets and we will have no control over those who are in charge of the banks.
If we do nothing then the NAMA legislation will be passed and sent to the President for her signature by the end of September. The enormity of this brings to mind the sadly prophetic words of Michael Collins on signing the treaty as “feeling I have just signed my own death warrant”.
Patrick Byrne
Dublin 14
The Irish taxpayer will be screwed left, right and centre when NAMA is up and running.
The Government will tax us more to repay the massive debt they will accrue on our behalf and the banks will hike rates so they can make the huge profits they need to justify their existence to shareholders.
It is about time we woke up and smelt the coffee. The only people who will benefit from NAMA are the banks, the private investment funds and the shareholders. And the home buyers are being hung out to dry.
Justice in this country is the preserve of the elite.
Martin Barnes
Carrick on Shannon
Co Leitrim
The critical question surrounding the National Assets Management Authority (NAMA) project is – What price is the Government, on behalf of the taxpayer, going to place on the assets of the various financial institutions?
Here’s how Finance Minister, Brian Lenihan answered the question (Morning Ireland, 1st report, 3rd item).
That is the absolutely fundamental question and we’re working on the valuation of these properties and I will announce on behalf of the Government the approximated, estimated figure for how much state bond will be required in the Dail debate in September…I haven’t finalised the figure yet and of course the announcement of that figure is one of considerable market sensitivity.
Here’s my translation:
I’m not going to answer that question now and if I’m forced to do so in September I will only give an ‘approximated, estimated figure’. I’ll refuse to answer any awkward questions at that time by simply saying that the exact figures are of ‘considerable market sensitivity’.
I agree with the Labour Party’s suggestion that the banks should be temporarily nationalised, a strategy that would cost about €5 billion. That would still leave the taxpayer responsible for billions of bad loans currently held by the banks but at least we would know the risks we are facing and have some degree of control over events.
And that’s exactly what the Government is working to avoid. The Government strategy is actually very simple. It wants to transfer the massive liabilities currently bringing down the financial institutions onto to the shoulders of the taxpayer while at the same time ensuring that those institutions remain, to the greatest extent possible, in private ownership.
Private ownership protects profits and ensures continued state protection, principally by the Financial Regulator, for the widespread criminality that has long infected the Irish financal sector.
The hope is that when the dust settles the banks can return to what they do best – squeezing massive profits out of unprotected consumers. The burden of cleaning up the mess created by the reckless and greedy bankers will be left to generations of future taxpayers.
There is, however, one potentially serious obstacle in the way of this cosy strategy between politicians and their banking masters. Ordinary Irish citizens might not wear it; they might, for the first time in modern history, actually rebel.
An editorial in yesterday’s Sunday Independent on the NAMA question refers to a poll in the same newspaper in which a clear majority were in favour of nationalising the banks. The editorial concluded:
The poll reveals a truly worrying level of cynicism about the beneficiaries of public policy, and that cynicism is poisonous to society.
The Government has a duty to rebuild public faith in the political system and it must start by debating its policy decisions openly and honestly. There cannot be the faintest hint of favouritism or cronyism in a decision that could impoverish a generation and it demands justification on a grand scale.
The Government is gambling the future: the people need to know why, and they need to know who benefits.
Public faith in the political system? Openness and honesty in debating public policy? An end to cronyism?
The present corrupt system of administration in this country will never allow such enlightened policies to emerge; only an actual rebellion will do that.
The chief executive officer of the EBS building society, Fergus Murphy, has said he hopes the Government’s National Assets Management Agency will consider taking up to €800 worth of development and related loans off its books.
He said the EBS would like an invitation to work with NAMA. On the question of mortgage interest rates he didn’t rule out an increase over the coming months.
Public Inquiry translation.
Dear (peasant) Taxpayer,
I have applied to the Government for permission to dip my hands into your pockets to replace €800 million that we gambled and lost through irresponsible and reckless lending which was triggered by our uncontrollable greed.
You will be aware, of course, that the application is nothing more than a formality, merely for the optics old chap. That we will get your money is an absolute certainty – We do, after all, own the body politic.
I must also inform you that we will be imposing a significant mortgage interest rate in October. You will have noted that (our) Brian has already given permission for this in his response to the recent TSB increase.
There’s no need for you to fret about the reasons for this increase, it’s all to do with complex economic mechanisms that you wouldn’t understand.
Yours sincerely
Fergus
PS: Suckers
Billionaire businessman, Denis O’Brien is in deep trouble and he knows it.
It seems that the Moriarty Tribunal has found that O’Brien’s Esat consortium was illegally issued with the state’s second mobile phone licence because he, O’Brien, had a corrupt relationship with former Fine Gael minister, Michael Lowry (Sunday Times).
Mr. O’Brien has adopted a two pronged strategy of defence. He has launched a strong attack on the Tribunal while at the same time appealing for public support by claiming that his campaign is in the public interest as well as his own.
His first action was to publish a series of advertisements in various newspapers attacking the alleged extravagant expenses indulged in by tribunal lawyers.
Last Sunday he ramped up his campaign by giving a series of interviews in the following newspapers. The Sunday Times, Sunday Independent (O’Brien holds a 26% stake in Independent News and Media), Sunday Tribune (O’Brien holds a major stake in this newspaper, by proxy, through INM’s stake in the Tribune) and the Sunday Business Post.
He accuses the Tribunal and others of the following:
He believes the tribunal is “out to get a scalp” in order to justify its costs, which are expected to reach 100m.
He claims there was no need to investigate the awarding of the licence because it had already been investigated four times by the European Union, by the senior counsel, investigated on behalf of the Department of Communications and investigated by the Attorney-General’s office.
He claims that this is a very dark period for justice, that it’s rough justice akin to the miscarriage’s of justice in the UK like the Guilford Four.
He asserts that articles written by journalists like Matt Cooper and Sam Smyth were off the wall, crazy theories fed to them by O’Brien’s competitors for the phone licence.
You may as well be reading the Beano as reading the Irish Times on matters relating to the Tribunal according to O’Brien. He further suggested that Irish Times journalist, Colm Keena, is incompetent and not up to the job of covering the tribunal.
On the night O’Brien received the preliminary findings he told a friend he was in shock.
They’ve damned us all, he said. They’ve damned the licence, they’ve destroyed the civil service, they’ve destroyed Lowry and they’ve destroyed me.
These people [the Moriarty lawyers] need to be made to look ridiculous.
O’Brien also alleged that former Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, made a political decision in 2002 to keep the Moriarty Tribunal going to embarrass Fine Gael.
According to O’Brien the Moriarty tribunal, which has cost him €12m in legal fees to date:
Is out of control and the procedures it is allowed to use are more akin to those found in a military dictatorship. It’s unheard of. I mean it’s Burma.
O’Brien also sees himself as a champion of the people and a patriot to his fingertips.
He’s fighting for the good name of civil servants who may be accused of corruption.
People who are halfway through their career would be impugned; I am taking a stand for the civil servants.
He’s fighting to save taxpayer’s money.
People say [I] did two judicial reviews, but they were mainly to stop the tribunal from running up costs.
He’s fighting for Ireland’s reputation.
Ireland’s reputation would be severely damaged if the Moriarty Tribunal’s final report concluded there was wrongdoing by civil servants in the granting of the state’s second mobile phone licence. If the final report concluded that the process of awarding the licence was corrupt, it would be devastating.
To borrow from Shakespeare – The billionaire doth protest too much, methinks.
O’Brien’s strategy of trying to save his own skin by crying crocodile tears for Mother Ireland is as old as the hills but it is very surprising to see Elaine Byrne of the Irish Times apparently adopt the same attitude.
Byrne seems to suggest that it might be better if the Moriarty Tribunal didn’t make any adverse findings against the State. She writes of embarrassment, perceptions on the international stage and suggests that the final findings will be practically irrelevant anyway.
She ends her article by asserting:
The challenge is to distinguish between systemic and individual corruption; petty and grand corruption; moral and legal corruption; and rumours and reality of corruption.
This is classic Irish denial of reality. Let’s get lost in a deep, long drawn out and totally irrelevant discussion on the different forms of corruption. That way we won’t have to face the brutal reality of any adverse findings from the Tribunal.
The real challenge is, for the first time in our pathetic history, to actually act on any adverse findings. To immediately prosecute and punish all those found guilty of corruption.
I won’t be holding my breath.
Vomit inducing is the immediate reaction on reading the extravagance of yet another of our low grade politicians who live in a parallel universe where they think they’re royalty (Sunday Tribune).
Former minister John O’Donoghue, his wife Kate Ann, and his private secretary Therese O’Connor ran up a travel bill of over €126,000 in the space of just two years. Among the expenditure were a series of €900-a-night hotels, €7,591 on airport pick-ups during a two-day trip to London, €120 for hat rental, €250 for water taxis and €80 to Indians for moving the luggage.
These people are so far up their own rectums that they are beyond redemption. It is not enough that we have an election to get rid of the current government. That will simply see the replacement of one swarm of parasites with another.
It is long past time that the people of this country brought the whole rotten system tumbling down.