Category: Media coverage

Broken promises to a politically ignorant electorate

Fionnan Sheahan was writing about broken government promises in yesterday’s Irish Independent.

The average member of the public does prefer to get accurate accounts from their elected leaders and demands a high degree of honesty.

This is a ridiculous statement.

Irish politicians are very, very seldom honest. They operate within a deeply corrupt political system where lying, cheating, stealing and generally betraying the people is the norm.

Honesty within a system that runs on the fuel of corruption can quickly end a political career.

Such corruption flourishes because of the chronically low level of political intelligence among Irish citizens.

A few scraps from a politician’s table, even from criminal politicians like Haughey, is all that is required to ensure election time after time.

The credibility of the previous government was eroded because the public gradually couldn’t believe a word their ministers were saying.

This is also a ridiculous statement.

Irish ministers lie all the time. Political lying is a deeply ingrained part of our corrupt political culture and is fully accepted by a chronically politically ignorant electorate.

Irish citizens have no problem with political dishonesty/lying so long as it does not affect them personally.

They vote, overwhelmingly, on a selfish, personal basis – what’s good for me, not the wider community, not the country.

It was only when the previous government led the entire country over the cliff of destruction, affecting the individual interests of a great number of citizens; that they found themselves thrown out of power.

It’s not about honesty, it’s not about good government; it’s not about the country.

It’s about how well a corrupt political system based entirely on the buying and selling of votes through clientelism can deliver a few crumbs to a politically ignorant peasantry.

Comrade Madam sticks it to Varadkar

Question:

Did the following comments emanate from the Propaganda Minister of North Korea or the editor of the Irish Times?

A coalition of two parties in government should speak only with a united voice…The Government must articulate only one policy position, the collective view that Ministers have already agreed and accepted…the role of other Ministers is to reflect and defend government policy…It is not to make policy themselves or to misrepresent the Government view by failing to inform themselves properly.

Today’s Irish Times editorial also sees that organisation boarding the ‘Europe is to blame for all our troubles’ bandwagon.

As the euro zone debt crisis has unfolded, Ireland has lost credibility and sustained major reputational damage at various levels, government, public service, banking and business.

The party line here is clear: The destruction of our country has nothing whatsoever to do with our corrupt political/administrative systems, somebody else is to blame.

Oh well, at least Lehman Brothers are off the hook.

Historic (Twitter) events in Northern Ireland

When I listen to RTEs Northern Ireland editor, Tommy Gorman, I sometimes think he’s slowly going insane.

Without question, he must have the most frustrating, most boring job in the entire universe, and yet, when he reports, his excitement is always that of someone who has just won the lotto.

Last week, for example, he was breadth-takingly telling Drive Time presenter Mary Wilson the dramatic news that positions in the new NI Executive were going to be made on Twitter.

They’re about to make their decisions and they’re going to do so, wait for it Mary, they’re going to do so using Twitter.

This cosmos changing news was met with a deafening silence by a clearly under-whelmed Mary Wilson but Tommy carried on in his excitement.

They’re gathered at Stormont at the moment, they’re about to make their decision and as they do so they will Tweet details of their decision. You can follow the breaking story on…

They will be giving live updates over the next few minutes on the allocation of portfolio’s and I cannot remember this happening anywhere in the world before this Mary.

Live updates from Stormont? – on the allocation of portfolio’s? – on Twitter?

Well, I can tell you one thing, this earth shaking news has changed my life forever.

Cosmic events in Northern Ireland threatens global apocolypse

Were you ecstatic when you heard that Sinn Fein’s Barry McElduff topped the poll in the Northern Ireland Assembly elections?

What? – You never heard of McElduff? Shame on you, shame on your ignorance.

Surely you must have been riveted to your seat as commentators analysed the improvement in the UUP vote with Ross Hussey claiming 4,069 votes, outpolling his brother Derek?

What? – You never heard of Ross Hussey, you never heard of his brother Derek?

I’m shocked I tell you, shocked at your lack of interest and knowledge concerning the cosmic events taking place in Northern Ireland.

We can only be thankful that RTE, our national broadcaster is tracking, analysing, dissecting and reporting on these events in minute detail so that every citizen is kept fully informed on how McElduff, Hussey and his brother Derek are doing as our corrupt republic careers over the cliff to financial destruction.

It was agreed by all the commentators that this particular NI election was extremely boring, had a very low turnout and made no difference whatsoever to the political landscape.

But such trivial matters didn’t stop RTE extending its flagship current affairs programme, Saturday View, by a full hour to cover the earthshaking events up North.

Of the 120 minutes of news analysis a full 15 was set aside for a discussion on the financial/political catastrophe that continues to destroy the lives of almost every citizen in the republic.

But even this brief period was interrupted as events north of the border took a dramatic turn when unionist politician Jim McAllister agreed to speak to the people of Ireland on the strict condition that he would not be kept on hold while events in the republic were being discussed.

Economist Moore McDowell was in full flow discussing the latest article by Morgan Kelly outlining the ruinous state of the economy when he was dramatically cut off by RTE presenter Rachael English.

I’m so sorry to cut across you…we have another guest on the line and I’m told if we don’t go to that guest we’ll lose him and we wouldn’t like to lose Jim Allister the leader of the Traditional Unionist Voice.

There then followed an edge of the cliff discussion which began with a question of global importance – Have you been elected?

When McAllister replied in the affirmative, he was immediately faced with an even more challenging question – How significant is that development?

I have to admit I was on the edge of my seat, rooted to the spot, overwhelmed with expectation and excitement – what scintillating question was she going to ask next?

Obviously, RTE believes that the views of this extreme right wing politician, who is the sole elected member of his party and who once described Irish as a ‘Leprechaun language’, were of much greater relevance to Irish citizens than the latest warning from Morgan Kelly concerning the country’s ongoing slide into financial and political oblivion.

Recently, and obviously before RTE focused most of its resources on the NI elections, a woman sent a message to another RTE programme with a desperate plea for help.

My husband has lost his job; we’re €10,000 behind in our mortgage payments. Please, please, somebody help us.

Well, that’s all very well, RTE would say, but you’ll have to wait until we’ve analysed every possible angle arising from the infinitely more important events in Northern Ireland.

Copy to:

Saturday View

Marian Finucane: Stop telling me the truth

Marian Finucane (Saturday) began her interview with Pat Cox last Saturday in a very angry tone.

A lot of Irish people are feeling really, really angry with Europe at this stage, that Irish taxpayers have been forced by Europe not by the IMF to pay for loans that the Irish people didn’t take out, there seems a dreadful injustice at the heart of that.

Throughout the entire interview Finucane refused to accept that, as a nation, we were in any way to blame.

It’s the fault of the Europeans; they allowed the nasty European banks to take advantage of our gentle and innocent banks.

Cox tried his best to tell her the truth.

In fact, right throughout the interview he kept on saying – It’s our fault, we did it to ourselves but Finucane was having none of it.

We’re Irish she seemed to suggest, we can’t be expected to face reality, we don’t do reality.

Why, asked Cox, are other European countries both inside and outside the Euro much better off than Ireland, why did Ireland fail?

Yes, said Finucane we know all about bad regulation and the politics of it all but those nasty banks were taking a punt on our financial institutions and they’re getting away with it.

It’s our fault said Cox, we had no contingency plan, we made a mess of it.

But Finucane insisted the European banks were investing here because they figured that the Irish mug would have to pay for it through tax.

Cox was patient.

The unilateral decision made in 2008 to guarantee all the Irish banks was the single most reckless decision in the history of the Irish state.

The decision was made without telling our EU partners, it posed a serious danger to their interests. We put on the Green Jersey, the Germans didn’t make us do it, the French didn’t make us do it, we did it ourselves.

But Finucane was determined, at all costs, to avoid facing reality.

But we’ve made so many sacrifices, tax increases, pay cuts, there’s a lot of pain and the nasty investors who lent recklessly to our gentle innocent banks are getting away without any pain.

Cox is a saint.

We did it to ourselves he said. The EU and even the IMF stopped believing us; they don’t trust the Irish, that’s why they insisted on an external examiner to supervise the latest bank stress tests.

But, said the by now crazed Finucane, the people who put money into Anglo, for example, knew it was a basket case, it’s so unfair that we should have to take the pain.

I switched off, went for a walk.

Pat Kenny defeated by Martin waffle

Michael Martin, traitor and leader of the most corrupt political party in Ireland, a party that is principally responsible for the destruction of the country, a party that never, ever condemns its own corrupt members like, for example, the criminal Haughey.

So it should have been easy for even the most inexperienced greenhorn journalist to completely destroy the hypocritical arguments put forward by this low grade politician when he tries to occupy the high moral ground in respect of Michael Lowry and the Moriarty Tribunal Report.

On his radio show this morning Pat Kenny failed abjectly in this respect.

Martin easily waffled his way around the weak and mostly irrelevant challenges offered by Kenny, for example.

Kenny accused Martin of hypocrisy given that Fianna Fail, who are now condemning Lowry, were more than willing to do business with him while in government.

Martin responded by saying that those dealings took place before the publication of the Moriarty Tribunal Report:

Every person before any tribunal is accorded the right to have their case heard by the tribunal and one does not sit on judgement on that until the tribunal reports.

The delivery of this cynical and dishonest argument was the cue for any greenhorn journalist to close the trap by simply putting it to Martin that Lowry’s reputation had been utterly destroyed years ago after the publication of the McCracken Report.

Kenny, apparently completely unaware of Lowry’s shady past involving tax evasion, lying and planning irregularities, let Martin off the hook by accepting his ridiculous argument.

Copy to:
Pat Kenny

Sarah Carey: Safe to lie in the special realm?

In a mostly self-serving article Irish Times columnist Sarah Carey has admitted that she lied to the Moriarty Tribunal (more on the lie later).

In the article, Ms. Carey, who used to work for Denis O’Brien, says that corporate fundraising should be banned not because of any danger of corruption but because it would stop all the innuendo and accusation surrounding the practice.

It is disturbing that an opinion maker like Ms. Carey, writing for such a prestigious and influential newspaper like the Irish Times, is so naive as to suggest that corporate/political fundraising in Ireland is transparent and honest, that all the corrupt events of the last number of decades is based on nothing more than innuendo and (false?) accusations.

Clearly, Ms. Carey is ignorant of or chooses to ignore the avalanche of corruption that has blighted the people of Ireland over the last number of decades primarily due to the very cosy and to a large degree, corrupt relationship between business and politics.

Indeed, she appears to be blissfully unaware of the fact that it is this diseased relationship that is principally responsible for the destruction of our country and the impoverishment of generations of Irish citizens to come.

Ms. Carey’s admission that she lied to the Tribunal is interesting because, to my knowledge, she gave evidence under oath. If that is the case then surely she has committed perjury?

Or perhaps not because in Ireland perjury is not so much a general crime as a crime that seems to be strictly confined to ‘ordinary’ citizens.

Take the case of poor old Thomas Morey for example.

Morey was given a one year jail term for perjury for refusing to give evidence in a murder trial; he claimed he couldn’t remember the night in question (A common enough excuse, I’m sure you will agree).

But that wasn’t the end for poor old Morey. The Court of Criminal Appeal found that the sentence was too lenient and hauled Morey back to court with the intention of imposing a much stiffer sentence on this ‘ordinary’ citizen.

One of the judges said:

It was important for a functioning society that people required to give evidence in criminal proceedings should do so.

Granted, this is a criminal case involving murder but there are other less serious cases where ‘ordinary’ citizens have been severely punished for lying under oath.

To my knowledge, despite years and years of tribunals and other sworn investigations in which lying under oath was the order of the day, not a single person from the political, business or media world has been charged with perjury.

So even if Ms. Carey lied under oath and I stress, if, she has nothing to worry about because her lies were uttered within a special realm where politicians, businessmen, legal personnel, media people and even policemen can lie under oath with impunity.

Captured Irish media: They just don't get it

Our corrupt political system bears full responsibility for the destruction of our country.

Bankers could not have operated their Wild West business operations without the full cooperation of our corrupt political system.

Property developers could not have borrowed billions in unsecured loans without the full cooperation of our corrupt political system.

Regulators could not have ignored what was going on right before their eyes if our political system was not corrupt.

It is our corrupt political system that is directly responsible for the immense suffering and misery inflicted on the Irish people, for the return of mass immigration, for the imposition of severe poverty on this and many generations to come, for the shaming of the nation on the world stage and not least for the many, who in absolute despair, could not deal with the catastrophe and decided to end it all.

Listening to the largely captured Irish media, however, a stranger could be forgiven for thinking that the political system and in particular the Fianna Fail party played no part whatsoever in the destruction of our country and indeed deserves an equality of sympathy for the ‘mysterious’ disease that has been inflicted on the nation.

Veteran journalist Olivia O’Leary.

And there are individual stories, there’s going to be an awful lot of grief in an awful lot of homes today and I suppose you have to feel a bit sorry for that.

No, she’s not talking about the victims of our corrupt political system; she’s talking about the politicians who lost their seats in the election, the guys and girls heading off into happy retirenemt with big fat pensions.

Brendan O’Connor (Sunday Independent).

There is almost something pathetic about the end of the party (Fianna Fail) that was thought to be hardwired into our DNA. For some reason there seems to be little joy in it.

Wrong O’Connor, there’s immense joy in seeing these traitors suffer at least a minimum of inconvenience. If Ireland was a real democracy Fianna Fail would be banned as a political party and its leaders would be on trial for treason.

Terry Prone (Irish Examiner)

Toughest of all, of course, is the situation, today, of those who lost their seats, their livelihood, and in some cases, their self-respect. We have become so furious and cruel a society that the general reaction to their loss is “serves them right”.

It is deeply insulting to the millions of Irish people who are victims of our corrupt political system to witness self-righteous journalists like Prone accuse them of being cruel because they are furious and want justice.

Marian Finucane:

This must be a terrible personal tragedy for him (Brian Cowen’s fall). I mean to see the party he loves so much, to be at the head of Government of a party that you’re so proud of that brings in the IMF, I mean on a personal level that has to be very difficult.

Isn’t it amazing that a politician who has led a privileged life, who has never wanted for anything, who was among the best paid politicians in the world, who is retiring with a fortune at the expense of the people he betrayed can be described as a tragic figure?

Dr. Byrne; respect for politicians and political reform

Trinity lecturer and Irish Times columnist Dr. Elaine Byrne is obviously very passionate about the need for radical political reform in Ireland.

She may therefore be surprised to learn that she is part of the problem herself. No significant reform of the political system will occur until those in the media wake up to what is actually happening in Ireland.

That Dr. Byrne is unaware of the reality of the situation was evident last Wednesday on The Late Debate when she engaged in a comfortable, light-hearted discussion with Fianna Fail TD Mary O’Rourke.

Clearly, Dr. Byrne has great respect for O’Rourke saying at one point:

I think Mary O’Rourke has made a fantastic contribution (to politics) particularly on her Seanad reform report which was one of the better reform reports.

Here’s the reality that Dr. Byrne does not see.

Mary O’Rourke is a traitor to her county and people. In common with all Fianna Fail politicians O’Rourke believes strongly in loyalty; to herself, to her family dynasty, to her party, and most of all, loyalty to the rotten political system that sustains her in power and comfort.

O’Rourke is an admirer and supporter of the criminal Haughey and seems to have no problem with the fact that her party has been a hotbed of corruption for years.

As for that Seanad report – like all politicians, O’Rourke see such reports as nothing but a big joke on the Irish people.

If O’Rourke was a citizen of a functional/accountable democracy she would be treated with utter contempt whenever and wherever she showed her face. Neither she nor any of the cabal of chancers that makes up her party would last a week in public life.

In our corrupt state she is feted as the Mammy of Parliament and is treated with utmost respect by the media and academics like Dr. Byrne.

If Dr. Byrne was truly aware of what has happened to our country and who is responsible she would treat the likes of O’Rourke with the contempt she richly deserves and therefore greatly hasten the cause of real political reform.

People like O’Rourke are enemies of the state and a state that fails to act against its enemies is doomed to destruction.

Copy to:

Dr.Byrne
Mary O’Rourke