Passport questions

I spoke at length today with Fine Gael TD, David Stanton regarding the ‘special’ passport service operated by TDs from Dail Eireann (See here). He has agreed to table a number of Dail questions on the issue such as;

Why does the scheme exist?

How many passports have been issued by TDs in the last 12 months/2 years?

How many civil servants are working in the Passport Office on the service?

Is there a cost associated with the service?

Has the Minister any intention of discontinuing the service?

State funded Tammany Hall

There has been much discussion over the past number of days about the help given by Bertie Ahern to businessman Norman Turner in obtaining an Irish passport.

What astonishes me about the matter is the revelation that there exists an independent passport service set up for the exclusive benefit of friends and favoured constituents of politicians – This is Tammany Hall at its most bizarre.

What further astonishes me is that nobody seems to think it’s the least bit odd. Moore McDowell, brother of the recently ousted and infamous Minister for Justice, is one of the privileged who has benefited from this exclusive service. Speaking on the Marian Finucane Show (Sun.3rd Feb) he said;

“I had a contact in politics…I lost my passport and had another provided within days…It’s actually a recognised procedure within Foreign Affairs that an emergency passport will be given out, effectively, if a TD goes in to bat for you.”

A spokesperson in the Dept. of Foreign Affairs told me that it’s a choice that people can make; that TDs are approached on a lot of issues. On her advice I have made a formal submission to the Minister requesting answers to a series of questions on the matter.

Curiously, there is no mention of this special service on the Passports Office website so I have also written to that office requesting information on how ‘ordinary’ citizens can access the service.

Irish Times columnist, Noel Whelan, explained how the system works (Today FM, Sunday Supplement, 3rd February).

Apparently, there’s a drop box at the Enquiries Desk in the Dail where TDs deposit passport documents which are then taken by courier across the road to the Passports Office where they are processed at a specially designated desk staffed by three civil servants.

These civil servants are on call to deal with any questions or problems that may arise in relation to the processing of these special passports.

When the passport is ready it is returned by courier to our national parliament where it is collected by the TD and delivered personally to the favoured citizen.

The system was introduced about 15 years ago because the Foreign Affairs office was being swamped by TDs trying to obtain passports for the favoured.

So, there are at least five highly paid civil servants employed in providing this service and the obvious question is – Why?

It’s certainly not because the Passports Office is inefficient. The office provides an extremely well run and efficient service. In addition to normal service there is a special express 10 working day return service for those who need a passport in a hurry. And in addition to that there is also an emergency service whereby citizens can obtain a passport in a couple of days. Only last month a friend of mine obtained a passport in two days.

Politicians themselves provide some of the answers. According to Fianna Fail TD, Eamon O’Cuiv all TDs are effectively postmen, personally delivering passports to constituents all over the country (The Late Debate, 31st Jan).

Insulting the intelligence of listeners O’Cuiv asserted that TDs have no influence whatsoever over the specially designated civil servants who process the special passports for special citizens.

I spoke with Fine Gael TD, David Stanton about the matter. He candidly admitted that there’s no major advantage for those availing of the service but if TDs refused people were going to get ‘pissed off’.

The bottom line is that this service is a resource provided by the State to politicians which they then use to effectively buy votes. In return for selling their vote the favoured receive privileges not available to most other citizens.

Dail record – In our opinion

Pat Rabbitte supplied a small but very important snippet of information that further confirms the low quality of Irish democracy. (Saturday View)

Apparently, he has been corresponding with Ceann Comhairles for years about the fact that Bertie Ahern’s English is not just polished up by civil servants who write up the Dail record but the actual meaning of his contributions is altered on occasions.

Rabbitte pointed out that he wasn’t making a political point; he just felt that such altering of the record was a pity for historians and archivists

Amazing, the record of our National Parliament is being substantially altered by those who should be recording what is actually said with what, in their opinion, the speaker meant to say and a senior opposition politician is only concerned that historians may be led astray.

Greens: Still on the road to destruction

Fianna Fail does not do ethics, they do not do integrity; they have no interest in accountability or honesty in politics – Pursuit of power is all.

Any politician or political party that agrees to share power with Fianna Fail must accept that reality and behave accordingly.

The PDs under Mary Harney had no problem in accepting the reality and quickly dumped their much vaunted political integrity. In return they were rewarded with all the trappings of power for many years.

The Greens are finding it much more difficult to reconcile their long standing and genuine reputation for political integrity with the strong stench emanating from their senior partner in Government.

Essentially what they are attempting to do is put the issue of political corruption to one side while they get on with implementing their policies. Such a bizarre strategy, even in a dysfunctional and corrupt democracy like Ireland, is doomed to failure.

Sooner rather than later the Greens will be forced to deal with political corruption or adopt the PD strategy of accepting the disease as a normal part of Irish public life.

On yesterday’s Today with Pat Kenny, Patricia McKenna desperately and unconvincingly tried to avoid the reality facing her party.

While accepting that Ahern had to go she was adamant that it was up to Fianna Fail to do the dirty work; that her party had too much to lose by getting involved.

They had sacrificed a lot of credibility by getting into bed with Fianna Fail and it was unfair that they should be made scapegoats for something that Fianna Fail is responsible for.

I wrote before that the Greens are on the road to destruction, McKenna’s performance has done nothing to change that view.

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Fianna Fail
Greens
Patricia McKenna

Hypocrisy of new Immigration Bill

The Minister for Justice, Brian Lenihan has published the Immigration, Residence & Protection Bill 2008. The bill is designed to combine all the current procedures into a single application to speed up and clarify immigration into Ireland.

Interviewed on News at One; (1st item) the Minister was enthusiastic about that part of the bill designed to quickly eject any illegal immigrants from the State. Here are some of his quotes.

“There are very strong procedures for the removal of those who are not lawfully resident.”

Quote from the bill –

“In future a person found unlawfully in the State will be liable to be removed without notice and they may be detained for the purpose of ensuring removal from the State.”

The Minister is confident that the legislation is watertight, leaving no loopholes for anybody tempted to break Irish immigration laws.

“There are very robust powers to remove those who are outside that path, and I think that this has to happen if you’re to generate public confidence in the migration system in Ireland.”

He was also keen on the need for quick action to get rid of these people. Legal and judicial procedures are too protracted.

“We have to stop that, we have to have a speedy determination of this issue.”

“The reality is that if a refugee stays here for a very long period of time it becomes very, very difficult to remove such a person from the State even though they may not have had a well founded refugee application in the first place.”

The Minister goes on to give yet another reason for effective and speedy procedures in getting rid of illegal immigrants.

“When it is protracted and delayed that becomes yet another pull factor encouraging large numbers of migrants to come here and claim that they are refugees.”

Meanwhile, Government Ministers, including the Taoiseach, continue to bring shame on the nation as they wear a path to America to moan and whine on behalf of the 50,000 or so Irish illegals in that country.

In recent times Minister for Foreign Affairs; Dermot Ahern made a fool of himself and by extension the country when he suggested to a gathering in America that somehow the Irish illegals weren’t actually illegal.

This kind of hypocritical denial of reality is common in Ireland, Bertie Ahern’s fantasy land being the latest example, but when uttered outside, in the real world, it simply confirms a certain view of the Irish as simpletons.

In October last year (sub req’d) Minister Ahern again made a fool of himself by insulting the intelligence of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice when he tried to convince her that the thousands of Irish citizens who were blatantly breaking the laws of her country should get special treatment because they were victims of the conflict in Northern Ireland.

I wonder what Lenihan and Ahern would have to say if, for example, the Nigerian Government sent political delegations to Ireland in an effort to gain special treatment for its citizens – They would probably be thrown in prison under the new legislation.

CF patients: Action at last?

This report in the Irish Times seems to indicate that the embarrassment level for politicians has reached a point where they might actually act or at least allow the Cystic Fibrosis Association of Ireland to act. (See previous posts here and here).

Eithne Donnellan

Wed, Jan 23, 2008

The possibility of placing a prefabricated structure with single rooms for cystic fibrosis patients on the site of Dublin’s St Vincent’s hospital is currently being discussed with Minister for Health Mary Harney.

Godfrey Fletcher, the chief executive of the Cystic Fibrosis Association of Ireland, said yesterday that he believed if the will was there such a structure with between 15 and 20 single rooms could be on the hospital site within months.

“If necessary we will pay for it,” he said.

It would be an interim solution to the current situation where a lack of single rooms at the hospital puts vulnerable CF patients at risk of picking up infections from other patients.

He said the association was unhappy that the current interim solution put forward by HSE chief executive Prof Brendan Drumm would take up to a year to be put in place.

It would involve vacating an existing ward in the hospital and converting it into about 11 single rooms for the use of CF patients.
“There are a lot of angry, desperate and frustrated CF patients and their families and we are not prepared to wait for an interim solution that will take another year,” he said.

© 2008 The Irish Times

Broken promises

Irish Independent journalist Sam Smyth spoke on Liveline last Monday (21st Jan) about his daughter who has Cystic Fibrosis. As I recall she is in her early twenties and so has entered the danger zone for CF suffers.

If she lived in Northern Ireland or any other country in Europe she wouldn’t enter the danger zone until she was in her thirties. This is because in those countries CF patients are provided with the basics necessary to keep them as safe as possible.

Irish politicians, by their consistent failure to provide even such basic facilities, have clearly demonstrated that they don’t care.

One very upset parent of a CF sufferer suggested that the Government/HSE don’t care because those with CF die young anyway so why waste resources. I agree with her.

The odd thing about Smyth’s interview was his complete lack of anger. He even praised Harney and Ahern for their ‘efforts’ and spoke as if he really believed the promise made by Prof. Drumm that proper facilities would be provided sometime next year. This promise has been made and broken for the last 14 years.

HSE – Out of control and deadly

There are people in the Health Service Executive (HSE) who go to work everyday and make decisions that result in great suffering and sometimes even death for patients.

This diseased, out of control, bureaucratic monster was created by and is strongly defended by cowardly and incompetent politicians.

In the O’Malley cancer misdiagnosis case, for example, somebody within the HSE decided that it was better to risk the lives of women who may have been misdiagnosed rather than admit that a mistake had been made.

All last week on Liveline we listened to horror stories from patients suffering from Cystic Fibrosis who are dying at least ten years younger than suffers in Northern Ireland and elsewhere.

Their lives are put in danger because the HSE/Government refuses to provide isolation units. These units are absolutely vital for CF suffers in order to avoid picking up potentially fatal infections.

Promises going back many years are still being broken so patients continue to suffer and die before their time. Those who have the power to provide these units are well aware of what is needed, yet they consistently and consciously fail to take the necessary action.

The plight of the CF suffers drew a huge response from the general public and businesses, here are just some of the offers of help.

The Construction Workers Health Trust offered a ready to go state of the art modular unit consisting of 12 individual en-suite rooms. They have also promised €60,000 to fund the unit for one year.

Aqua Fire Prevention has offered to supply all fire safety equipment.

Taxi drivers have offered to transport CF patients wherever needed.

A private citizen has offered a five bed roomed en-suite house situated at the gates of Beaumont hospital.

Ordinary PAYE workers have offered to pay for the care of a CF patient for a year.

It is highly unlikely that any of these generous offers will be accepted by the HSE/Government.

To do so would be to admit that the system had failed, it would be to tacitly admit that all the politicians and bureaucrats involved are incompetent.

It would also mean admitting that our health system is in need of the same type of charity that we provide for Third World countries. The offer by the Construction Workers Health Trust to provide modular units could be seen in the same light as the Niall Mellon Township Initiative which builds brick houses for shack dwellers in South Africa.

On his visit to South Africa last week Bertie Ahern was puffed up with pride by the great work being done by Irish citizens to help these poor Africans. But it simply wouldn’t do to admit that a so called First World country like Ireland was accepting the same type of charity to prop up its health system.

There is already a precedent of the HSE refusing badly needed help. In May 2005, Ben Dunne donated €30,000 towards the cost of three portakabins after numerous callers to Liveline recounted stories of spending days on trolleys in the A & E section of Dublin’s Mater Hospital.

The HSE refused the offer on the grounds of patient safety. Janette Byrne of Patients Together was not amused;

“The refusal principally due to patient safety issues was farcical. There is no way they could make A & E any more unsafe than it is at the moment.”

The bottom line is that politicians and bureaucrats are more than willing to put patient’s lives at risk in order to cover up their own incompetence.

Fine Gael: Back to the depths of spineless opposition

The Fine Gael policy of attacking Taoiseach Bertie Ahern while he was out of the country is a perfectly legitimate and intelligent political strategy.

It is certainly more legitimate than the Government’s undemocratic attempt to enforce a news blackout on the continuing scandal surrounding Ahern’s fantasy finances.

In addition to putting Ahern under more pressure to tell the truth the strategy exposed our Prime Minister on the world stage for what he is, a man of low ethical standards.

As part of their strategy, Fine Gael had indicated that they intended lodging a complaint with the Standards in Public Office Commission concerning Ahern’s tax affairs.

Such a strategy, if courageously followed through, could have had the effect of getting rid of this low grade politician and thus make Ireland a better place.

Unfortunately, Fine Gael flunked it; they dropped the strategy like a hot potato when Fianna Fail made the hilarious charge that the strategy was treasonous. Here’s what Mary O’Rourke had to say on Newstalk 106 yesterday:

“Can I say about Enda Kenny, I cannot believe that a leader of a very proud party called Fine Gael committed such a disloyal treasonous act.”

(Attacking the Taoiseach while he was abroad).

So who is Mary O’Rourke?

She’s a long time servant of Fianna Fail, the most corrupt political party in Ireland; a party that Oliver Cromwell would have been proud to serve such is its record of damage to the interests of the Irish people.

She’s a loyal supporter of Charlie Haughey, the most corrupt and disloyal politician in Irish history, a man who dumped her brother, Brian Lenihan, out of office in an effort to keep himself in power and a man who robbed a fund collected to finance an operation to save her brother’s life

She’s the politician who recently, bored with proceedings in our national parliament, skived off to do a bit of shopping. On the way she was approached by eleven desperate women who told her of the trauma they were suffering because of our Third World health system. She probable told them to eat cake.

In other words, Mary O’Rourke is a typically arrogant, incompetent and unaccountable Irish politician.

There were some signs since the election in May that Fine Gael had finally got its act together, that at last it was going to perform like a real opposition. Uncompromising attacks on the low standards and incompetence of this government made by Leo Varadkar and James Reilly gave rise to some hope that things were about to change.

Depressingly, it is not to be.

Fine Gael TD Fergus O’Dowd was on Morning Ireland (2nd item) this morning leading a full scale retreat from the high ground of political accountability back down to the depths of spineless opposition.

He point blankly refused to discuss the party’s cowardly decision to defer the complaint to SIPO concerning Ahern’s tax affairs until the Taoiseach returns to the country next week.

Copy to:

Fianna Fail
Fine Gael
Mary O’Rourke
Fergus O’Dowd

Coillte: Profit or public service

The proposed sale of Moyode wood by Coillte (See below) was discussed on Today with Pat Kenny.

The item was light in that it concentrated on the environmental concerns of locals. It was left to Fine Gael senator Fidelma Healy-Eames to touch on the real problem at the heart of the matter – The status and ultimate commercial aims of Coillte.

The senator suggested that the Oireachtas should look at Coillte’s remit of making profit out of forests. She mentioned the recent sale of 40 acres of woodland at Derrydonnel to the Quinn Group. According to the senator, nobody knew about this deal in advance. She suggested that perhaps Coillte was preparing for privatisation.

The original letter sent to residents was clear; the forest was being put up for sale. Since the item became a news story, Coillte has backed off and now claims that nothing has yet been decided.

I suspect that this was a deliberate strategy by Coillte; put out the idea of selling the woods and see how the public/media reacted.

I wonder if Pat Kenny asked Coillte to participate in this morning’s show? In any case, it’s a pity there wasn’t a more robust questioning of Coillte’s activities and strategies.

Perhaps RTEs excellent Investigative Unit might do a special on the matter.

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RTE