Category: Regulatory Agencies

Workers robbed while regulatory agency wrings its hands

The Pensions Board has just published its Annual Report predictably accompanied by the usual hand wringing (RTE, 3rd report, 1st item).

There are two principal aspects to the report – risky investment in shares and property that have resulted in serious losses and major theft which has been going on since the 1960s.

The media has focused almost entirely on the risky investment aspect; the ongoing theft is largely ignored.

By law, pension contributions must be deducted from workers salaries and paid into the Construction Workers’ Pension Scheme. Instead of paying into the scheme a great many employers are keeping the money for themselves.

Not only is this stealing from their employees but it also leaves employees and their families exposed should there be an accident or death.

In 2004 the Irish Examiner reported that up to 50,000 construction employees were being cheated of their pension and sickness benefits worth an estimated €35m annually.

In 2006 Socialist TD Joe Higgins estimated the theft from workers at €120 million per year.

Either way, we are talking about the theft of significant amounts of money. So what does the chief executive of the Pensions Board, Brendan Kennedy, have to say about the matter?

I see it as theft, we don’t prosecute under the Theft Act but there’s no question, it’s taking money that belongs to people.

And what are the consequences?

For the workers involved, as far as possible, it’s our top priority to make sure the employer pays up.

Unfortunately, for a large number of these employers given the state the construction industry the money may not be there.

This exchange is worth a closer look.

It’s theft but we don’t prosecute under the Theft Act.

The theft has been going on since the 1960s and, to my knowledge, not a single construction boss has been charged under the Theft Act.

If true, this failure to prosecute under the Theft Act, effectively acts as a protection for thieving construction bosses.

It’s our top priority to make sure the employer pays up.

This stance is very similar to that taken by the so called Financial Regulator. So long as the robbed money is returned no further action is thought necessary.

This, in effect, is an admission by a so called state regulatory agency that wholesale theft by employers is not really a serious matter.

Unfortunately, for a large number of these employers, given the state the construction industry, the money may not be there.

The suggestion here seems to be that nothing can be done to an employer who steals from his employees if that employer hits hard times – in other words theft from workers seems to be an acceptable money saving strategy.

Later on in the year the Pensions Ombudsman, Paul Kenny, will be publishing his annual report. Kenny is a parrot of the Pensions Board boss, he too knows workers are being robbed but just wrings his hands when it comes to making the thieves accountable.

Here’s what he had to say in 2006.

Employers have actually been deducting contributions from the wages of employees and not paying on to the scheme and that, quite frankly, is theft.

Copy to:
Pensions Board

Thieving banks – Past and present

Pat Kenny told the following story on Today with Pat Kenny (Wed. 12th May).

I was talking to a former banker last night, he’s out of banking now years and years, and he told me that when he worked for a particular bank before it became part of AIB it was common throughout all banks; to rob the customers regularly.

Now how did they do it? Well they rounded up what the customer owed and they rounded down what they owed the customer, so they were always at it.

Common throughout all banks to rob customers regularly – It’s not often we hear such a candid admission of criminality by a banker, even a retired banker.

We now know, of course, that widespread and systematic theft was, and probably still is, a common and fully accepted business option within the Irish financial sector.

I suspect that I was a victim of this Irish ‘tradition’ when, on 16th June 1992, a mysterious interest charge of £2.03 appeared on my current account.

When I rang the bank and politely asked for an explanation I was curtly told to put my request in writing, the official ended the conversation by sternly warning me to make sure the letter was properly signed.

Remember, this was a time when banks lorded it over the peasantry, before their criminality was exposed.

When the ‘put it in writing’ tactic failed the bank paid back the £2.03 to my account with the usual meaningless apology.

But I wasn’t happy, my suspicions were raised and I wanted to know why the deduction was made in the first place.

Over the following five months I engaged in psychological warfare with the bank by way of letters, phone calls and personal visits to the bank until eventually, in October 1992, the bank admitted that an error had occurred in their Electronic Money Transmission System.

The admission of error by the bank was important to me because up to that point they insisted that I was somehow at fault or an error had been made by my then employer (Dept. of Defence, Navy).

I have no doubt that my persistence wore them down but I found the whole experience very difficult especially when I made personal visits to the bank.

As I queued in line I could see the ‘Jesus, here comes the crank again’ look on the bank officials faces.

Before each visit I had to mentally psyche myself up, I had to mentally convince myself that I was in the right, that I was entitled to an answer to my simple question.

It had also occurred to me that AIB could be engaged in the systematic theft of small amounts of money from a large number of customers which accumulatively could amount to a significant sum of money every month.

We now know that this widespread theft was in fact going on but when I contacted every political party, the Dept. of Finance and the Central Bank to express my suspicions I was, without exception, patronisingly advised to switch my account to another bank.

In my innocence I was completely unaware that the main political parties and the so called regulatory authorities were fully aware of, and tolerated, such criminality within the banking sector.

In 1998, George Lee and Charlie Bird published their book ‘Breaking the Bank’ which detailed widespread theft and fraud by National Irish Bank.

I smiled when I read how bank staff went out of their way to target the accounts of ‘demanding or troublesome’ customers for special treatment.

Depressingly, there is no reason whatsoever to assume that large scale theft and fraud within the Irish financial sector is a thing of the past.

Despite the appointment of Matthew Elderfield as Financial Regulator there has been no change in the culture of secrecy that facilitates such criminality.

Neither is there any sign of the political leadership necessary to bring the thieves to heel.

Copy to:
Financial Regulator

A corrupt administration will never introduce an effective whistleblowers charter

In a hard hitting article in today’s Irish Times, John Devitt of Transparency International (Ireland); exposes the Government’s latest deceitful attempt at pretending that Ireland is serious about tackling white collar crime.

The Minister for Justice is pretending that the Prevention of Corruption (Amendment) Act

will provide protection to any person, in any sector, reporting suspicions of corruption in good faith.

Mr. Devitt says that the Act will only provide limited protection to those reporting the very narrowly defined offence of bribery.

He goes on to ask:

So why does the Government still think it inappropriate to introduce a universal whistleblowers’ charter that works for everyone?

The Government seems to have been swayed by three equally dubious argument writes Mr. Devitt.

I’m not going to waste my time analysing what are obviously ridiculous arguments by the Company Law Review Group, Ibec and the Government itself except to say that they are pathetic excuses put forward by a corrupt administration that will never act against its own interests by introducing effective anti-corruption laws.

Mr. Devitt also asks why the republic cannot introduce a universal whistleblowers charter similar to the very successful charter introduced in the UK in 1998.

The answer is simple but brutal; the State cannot introduce any effective anti-corruption legislation because to do so would immediately expose the appalling vista that Ireland is an intrinsically corrupt state.

All states suffer to some degree from the disease of corruption but most states have effective authorities in place, free of political interference, that fight the disease on an ongoing basis.

When corruption is uncovered in these states the relevant authorities act against the corrupt; police investigations, trials and jail sentences are a normal and accepted part of the culture of these countries.

Some states, mostly in the Third World, are so corrupt, the disease is so ingrained in the culture that effective action is practically impossible because those who wield power are completely dependent on the corrupt system for their survival – Ireland is such a country.

Anyone with even the slightest knowledge of what’s gone on in this country in the last few decades cannot deny this reality.

For example, it is a fact that the Financial Regulator and the Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement (ODCE) are nothing more than fake enforcement authorities. They have only one effective purpose – to create the illusion that Ireland is a normal, functional democracy.

These authorities do not and have never taken any effective action against the corrupt. I can say with absolute confidence that the cases which are presently being dealt by these authorities will not result in any substantial accountability.

It is obvious that Ireland needs a universal whistleblowers charter, it is obvious, from the example of other countries; that such measures are effective in combating corruption but it is also depressingly obvious that no effective action will be taken until the corrupt political system itself is taken down.

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?

Entertaining FÁS and friends

The following is a list of entertainments enjoyed by FÁS staff and others at taxpayer’s expense (Comptroller and Auditor General
Special Report).

Note that these luxuries were being availed of right up to 2008 when the economy was falling apart and there’s no reason to believe that anything has changed.

Expenditure on Events
3.52 Over the period 2002 to 2008, FÁS paid a net €35,000 for tickets to events including match and concert tickets and hospitality associated with some of the events. The details of the tickets purchased were as follows

€43,100 was paid for four ten-year match tickets. Two tickets were purchased in 2005 at a cost of €20,000 and two further tickets in 2007 at a cost of €23,100.

Following the appointment of a Director General on an interim basis in late 2008 a decision was taken to cancel the tickets.

In May 2009, FÁS received the sum of €33,800 as reimbursement for the unexpired terms of the tickets. The net cost of the tickets was €9,300.
€7,000 for tickets for the All Ireland hurling and football finals.

Ten tickets were purchased for each final for the years 2006 to 2008 inclusive while between four and eight tickets were purchased for each final for the years 2002 to 2005.

€4,640 for tickets for rugby internationals between 2006 and 2008.
€1,960 for tickets for soccer internationals in 2007 and 2008.
€3,724 for concert tickets in the period 2005 to 2008.
€8,299 for hospitality at events. This included €2,255 at the Robbie Williams concert in 2006 and amounts incurred at the All Ireland Finals (€2,244 in 2005, €2,300 in 2006 and €1,500 in 2007).

3.53 All but one of the payments were approved by the former Director General. The remaining payment was approved by the ADG who was Secretary to the Board.

There was no evidence on the FÁS files to indicate how the expenditure was relevant to FÁS’s business.

FÁS could not provide this information and wrote to the former Director General seeking information about the payments.

No response was provided before the finalisation of this report.

Once again we see a senior civil servant (perhaps that should be changed to self – servant) giving the two fingers to taxpayers.

In this case it seems former Director General of FÁS, Rody Molloy, is too busy spending his €900,000 to bother answering questions.

Lies, secrecy and arrogance is still the prevailing attitude

The latest report by the Comptroller & Auditor General (C&AG) into FÁS reveals some very questionable activities by its staff.

€200,000 on flights for people not working for the agency. Apparently, this gravy train, funded by the taxpayer, included journalists, politicians, spouses and friends.

There was also questionable expenditure on golfing events, sporting events and concerts, the majority approved by the incompetent, disgraced but well compensated Mr. Molloy.

Money was spent without authority, the FÁS board was effectively lied to and credit cards were thrown around like drunken sailors in a brothel.

But the most shocking and disgusting aspect of this scandal is the arrogance of the civil servants involved including the C&AG himself.

For example, it is reported that up to six top executives at FÁS were paid bigger bonuses than they were entitled to in 2008. These bonuses were approved by the incompetent Mr. Molloy and sanctioned by the Departments of Enterprise and Finance.

Incredibly, the executives have not been asked to pay back the money which FÁS says was paid in error.

If this was a social welfare ‘error’ the applicant would instantly find himself the subject of an investigation and the money would be deducted from his income forthwith.

A spokeswoman for the Department of Enterprise declined to comment. The incompetent Mr. Molloy also declined to comment.

These people are effectively telling the ripped off taxpayer – take a hike, we don’t have to account for how we spend your money.

Despite constant praise from the media the office of the C&AG also has questions to answer.

Former acting chairman of FÁS, Mr. Niall Saul, was told by Mr. Buckley that controls at FÁS were excellent, that there were no serious problems.

Mr. Saul rightly concluded that if the C&AG was a private company it would be lucky not to be fired.

This shouldn’t surprise ripped off taxpayers when we remember the infamous Bord na gCon investigation carried out by the C & AGs office.

Despite findings of at least one case of serious fraud and many other questionable activities the C&AG, who, bizarrely, is also the auditor of Bord na gCon, concluded that

in general the funds of Bord na gCon were properly applied.

As I write another scandal has broken involving the C&AG and the Central Bank. The media is focusing on an error made by the C&AG when he reported that 52 spouses of staff attended meetings on a single trip when in fact the meetings involved several trips.

The real scandal here was the refusal by the C&AG to disclose what organisation was responsible for this alleged abuse of taxpayer’s money.

Once again, Irish citizens had to rely on the media, RTE on this occasion, to provide them with information that should be immediately forthcoming from state agencies.

Just who does Mr. Buckley think he is in refusing this information to Irish citizens? What were his motives in putting the interests of Central Bank staff above the interests of the people he is allegedly representing?

And what does this affair tell us about the new and much praised Central Bank governor, Patrick Honohan?

On the first occasion he is asked to account for his office he tells us to take a hike. Even now he is refusing to disclose who went on the trips or how much they cost. Irish taxpayer’s have a right to know this information.

And what does all this say about the so called reform of the political and financial sectors? Well, it’s obvious;

There is no reform, secrecy is still the name of the game, ripping off the taxpayer is still rampant, lies, half truths and dissembling is still the favoured response and arrogance is still the predominant attitude.

The political, administrative and financial system that has run this country into the ground is beyond reform.

Nothing will change until the Irish people wake up and throw these people and their corrupt system out of office and out of power.

Copy to:
Central Bank
Comptroller & Auditor General
FÁS

The rotting carcass of Anglo Irish Bank

The following quote is taken from a report in today’s Irish Independent.

Nevertheless, Anglo faces a tough task demonstrating that it can repay taxpayers’ money after five years, as necessitated by EU state aid rules.

If Ireland was the most efficient and best regulated country in the world with a political and business leadership of vision and courage solely focused on what was best for Ireland and its people the above plan would be a near impossibility.

As a backwater banana republic led by a mafia type body politic and a regulatory regime that facilitates widespread criminality the above plan is a complete and utter impossibility.

Over the next few years the remaining good assets of Anglo Irish Bank will be stripped clean by friends of the political system after which the rotting carcass will be left to stench up the nostrils of Irish taxpayers for generations to come.

Ahern's tax perk

Interesting letter in today’s Irish Times.

Bertie Ahern’s tax perk

Madam,
When I wrote a biography of Brendan Bracken I was denied the artists’ tax exemption by the Revenue because a biography, being a recital of facts, did not rank as an original and creative work.

Are we to infer from their determination in relation to Mr Ahern’s memoirs that they are fiction? – Yours, etc,

CHARLES LYSAGHT,
Strand Road,
Merrion,
Dublin 4.

Mr. Lysaght is being humorous but it’s odd (or perhaps not) that Revenue allowed tax relief on Ahern’s book (which wasn’t even written by him) and refused Mr. Lysaght for what is, effectively, the same product.

Sean Fitzpatrick will never be charged

Brian Lenihan was asked on Prime Time why it was taking so long to see results from investigations into Anglo Irish Bank when the US authorities could charge, convict and send Bernie Madoff in six months.

He said he was frustrated that bankers haven’t been jailed yet, that there was a massive ongoing police investigation and he was confident that investigation would yield results.

The Minister is talking total, absolute, undiluted waffle. Let me repeat once again – nobody will be charged never mind face a jail sentence as a result of what went on at Anglo Irish Bank.

The so called ‘investigation’ is nothing more than the by now well established state strategy of delaying matters until the whole case can be quietly dropped.

The so called financial regulatory system that has long facilitated and protected the scumbags who infest the Irish banking sector is still in place.

The same attitudes, the same strategies, the same secrecy laws are still there and will be used to protect Fitzpatrick and his cronies.

Only a complete clean out of personnel and a revolutionary reform of the system will see standards come anywhere close to international norms. There is not the slightest indication that such reform is in the pipeline.

We can see that nothing has changed by simply analysing a recent report in the Sunday Independent on the Anglo Irish Bank investigation.

The many anonymous ‘sources’ quoted in the article are obviously government sources.

Sources (Garda) say they will not be in a position to make arrests and seek charges until next year at the earliest, because of the complexities of the case.

Sources say there’s a massive amount of paper and electronic documents to be examined so don’t expect any developments this side of Christmas.

So, very complex, mountains of documents to examine. The source didn’t specify which Christmas.

Gardai rejected comparisons with the Bernie Madoff case which saw him in jail after only six months. They point out that Madoff had been intermittently under investigation since the mid 1990s.

This is a pathetic attempt to convince that there’s nothing odd about Irish state and police investigations; that our standards are on a par with any country.

This is rubbish and the Madoff comparison is ridiculous. There had been a number of probes into the activities of Madoff which went nowhere but as soon as substantial evidence became available the police acted immediately and Madoff was put under immediate arrest.

There was immediate and clear evidence of wrong doing in the Anglo Irish case but instead of arrest Fitzpatrick was allowed to head off for a month on a golfing holiday in South Africa. Nearly a year later and we’re still waiting for the Gardai to bring him, or anybody, in for questioning.

The thrust of the Garda investigation is to gather sufficient proof to convince the Director of Public Prosecutions that there was “intent” on the part of Anglo Irish staff to commit offences and not, as they would argue, that there was simple incompetence.

Translation: It’s going to be extremely difficult to convince the Director of Public Prosecutions that anything illegal occurred. The DPP is answerable to nobody, his decisions cannot be questioned and he usually takes a number of years to decide in cases like this.

This is usually the point where all possibility of criminal charges is abandoned and the case is handed over to the safe house of Office of Corporate Enforcement where it will be allowed to harmlessly enter history.

With a total of only 65 investigators in the Fraud Bureau and the emphasis on the Anglo Irish investigation, sources say the bureau is under pressure to complete other high-profile fraud investigations.

They are also “completely snowed under” with credit card and other equally complex computer and internet frauds. The amount of fraud under investigation is so great that cases involving less than €200,000 have been temporarily sidelined, according to one source.

Translation: We would really love to press charges in the Anglo Irish case but unfortunately we just don’t have the resources.

A legal source told the Sunday Independent that the public’s expectation that those identified as being involved in alleged illegality in Anglo Irish should be arrested quickly was “unrealistic”.

He pointed out that fraud cases were notoriously complicated and the Gardai would only move to arrests when they had completed their case, proved intent and already had guidance from the Director of Public Prosecutions.

Translation: The public are stupid and don’t understand that fraud investigations can be very complicated. The public are asked to ignore the fact that most other jurisdictions regularly prosecute fraudsters quickly and efficiently.

There is also relatively little experience here in investigating large-scale share manipulation. The largest case involving alleged share fixing to come before the courts was that of the DCC disposal of shares in Fyffes in 2000.

In fact, there is no experience whatsoever of investigating large-scale or even small-scale share manipulation in Ireland. The Irish Stock Exchange has never in its entire history prosecuted anybody.

We don’t even know if the ISE has ever investigated anybody because, like the Financial Regulator, it operates under an iron curtain of secrecy laws.

The Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement never prosecuted, sources say, because the case would have had no certainty of success and would have “swallowed up all their resources” and would have faced a well-financed legal defence.

Prosecutions in the Fyffes/DCC case should have been taken by the Financial Regulator, the ISE and the Gardai – they did nothing. The case was left with the ODCE because his office has virtually no powers and operates on a pathetic budget of €5.5 million.

As I’ve said before the ODCE is nothing more than a safe house for dodgy people like Flavin where their cases are practically guaranteed to gather dust for years.

Gardai say they expect that well-resourced legal defences will be mounted in any cases arising from Anglo Irish.

Again, this is a standard marker that concern for taxpayer’s money may be used as an excuse for doing nothing.

Let me state once again – Neither Sean Fitzpatrick nor any of his cronies will ever be prosecuted; they will never be sent to jail.

Copy to:
Minister for Finance
Financial Regulator
ODCE
ISE