Category: The State

Bitch nun

There was a bitch nun on Liveline (Thu, 21st).

Sr. Anne Murphy of the Sacred Heart of Mary Order was moaning about how tough things were for the nuns, that it wasn’t just the Magdalene women who suffered.

Her main complaint was that the now elderly cohort of nuns who ran the brutal Magdalene launderies shouldn’t be blamed for their crimes.

Blaming them would, according to this individual, make them the new Magdalene women.

So who is this bitch nun? Was she kidnapped, sold into slavery, abused or raped during her career? No. In fact the bitch had a great career as a nun and is still very happy in her freely chosen life.

Here’s a brief outline of her very happy career as she related it on Liveline.

She was educated by the Sacred Heart of Mary Order and had no complaints. She enjoyed every minute of her childhood/education and at age eleven decided to join the order.

She joined at 17 of her own freewill and with the full agreement of her father who assured her that if she ever decided to leave she would be welcomed home with open arms.

She knew exactly what she was getting into. She knew it would be tough, she knew her hair would be chopped off but didn’t mind because it was the life she wanted.

She didn’t mind giving up her name and loved her new name, Immanuel, which she chose from a list of three.

Although life was tough She was well treated in every way and had the best of medical attention.

After twelve years of happy service she decided, of her own free will, to leave and return home. There was no problem and her father welcomed her with open arms.

Two years later she decided, of her own free will, to return to the order and has been there, happily, ever since.

Now Sr. Murphy didn’t serve in a Magdelene laundry but she was prepared to come on live radio and defend those nuns who did serve in these institutions that were little more than slave camps.

So let’s compare the experience of a Magdalene laundry victim and Sr. Murphy’s happy experience.

The day before Sr. Murphy’s spoke with Joe Duffy a women called Geraldine related her story on Liveline (Wed, 20th).

In 1963, Geraldine and her sister, aged 13 and 14 were kidnapped by the Catholic Church, imprisoned and forced to work as slaves.

Geraldine’s parents paid a substantial amount of money to the nuns at Stanhope Street residential launtry to have their daughters educated.

The parents were told that the institution was a school, the best in Ireland, so their daughters would receive a good education.

The girls never received an education there. Their hair was brutally chopped off and they were immeditately put to work in the laundry. All letters to and from their parents were intercepted, even pocket money sent by their parents was robbed.

Unlike Sr. Murphy the girls were not offered the choice of selecting a new name, instead their names were robbed and replaced by a number.

The replacing of a name with a number is common practice in slave camps because it helps to destroy the self-worth of individuals reducing them to a virtual sub-human status. People in this mindset are much easier to control and exploit.

When holiday time came the nuns wrote to the parents saying the girls were behind in their studies and so had to be kept back.

On one occasion, and showing great courage, Geraldine challenged the matron asking her why she and her sister were not receiving an education. She was promptly told to get back down to the laundry where she belonged.

It was only when the girls mother became seriously ill that they managed to get home and tell their story of horror.

Most of the girls in the laundry were kidnapped and enslaved in the same manner.

So Stanhope Street was no flash in the pan. It was not a place of happiness and enlighment, it wasn’t even a place of charity.

It was a well organised, ruthlessly run slave camp where Catholic nuns, in full knowledge of what they were doing, committed crimes against humanity.

In common with her diseased church Sr. Murphy made many excuses for the crimes of her religion. In particular she peddled the most common lie, that it was only a minority who were guilty of such horrors.

We know this is a lie from the Murphy and Ryan reports which demonstrated beyond question that these crimes were endemic, well organised and known about at every level of the Catholic Church.

So not only is Sr. Murphy a bitch, she’s a lying bitch.

It may be argued by some that my language is too strong in this case, I would disagree.

I have never attacked any individual member of the Catholic Church just because they are members of that organisation.

But I have no problem challenging, in the strongest terms possible, any member or supporter of the Catholic Church who attempts to justify or lessen the crimes of that diseased organisation.

Sr. Murphy is deserving of the title ‘lying bitch’ because of her obnoxious attempt to equalise the relatively happy and voluntary entered life of a nun with the horrors suffered by the inmates of the Magdalene slave camps.

DPPs directive: Some citizens are more equal than others?

What should have been a routine engagement between the police and a citizen over a very minor traffic infringement is, apparently, evolving into a bizarre and disturbing case of state bullying.

Clare Daly TD made an illegal right-hand turn and the Gardai are now preparing a file for the DPP to decide whether she should be prosecuted or not.

This is very unusual behaviour even in a dysfunctional jurisdiction like Ireland.

We are told that this action has been taken because of a directive from the DPPs office some years ago that obliges Gardai to send a file outlining the facts in any case attracting public attention before a decision can be reached about prosecution.

The directive only applies to cases where the subject of the file is a person in the public eye.

If I’m reading this correctly and I accept that I know nothing about the background of this directive and could be wrong, this revelation is more disturbing than the police actions against Clare Daly.

Was the directive introduced to protect ‘persons in the public eye’?

Was it introduced to allow powerful state authorities bypass an over enthusiastic police officer who had intentions against a ‘person in the public eye’?

But even if there is a legitimate reason for the directive it’s still a very disturbing revelation.

Its very existence seems to confirm what ordinary citizens have long suspected – that some citizens are more equal than others.

An extremely dangerous government

Letter in today’s Irish Times.

Paying the property tax

Sir,

It was extraordinary reading the comments attributed to Minister for Finance Michael Noonan during the cropped property tax debate.
He claimed the tax was “fair and progressive”, yet a home owner in a €350,000 house earning €1,200 a week will pay the same as a State pensioner living on €230 a week or a person on €188 job seeker’s allowance living in a similar house. This is not “fair or progressive”.

When confronted on this, the Minster’s opinion was “everyone should make a small contribution”.

To those living on basic fixed incomes and those in negative equity, €5/6/7 a week would mean one less hot meal each week.

There is absolutely no regard for “ability to pay” other than to offer a “deferral” which carries a 4 per cent charge – which is nothing other than the poor being penalised for being poor. The last time we saw that in Ireland was under the Poor Laws.

This tax, with its absence of any “ability-to-pay” protection, is clearly a case of the well-off protecting the well-off at the expense of the money poor.

Only a Fine Gael/Labour government could arrive at the conclusion that this is a “fair and progressive” tax.

This Government is not only inept, it is also extremely dangerous.

Yours etc,

Jim O’Sullivan
Sligo.

Too late for reform: the rotten political system is already dead

In an article entitled ‘Let’s answer Ireland’s call: reform or die.’ Fine Gael TD Brendan Griffin calls for major reform of the political system.

His suggestions, unfortunately, are about forty years too late.

The corrupt political/administrative system that brought Ireland to ruin is not capable of being reformed.

It must be totally eradicated and replaced with a proper democratic system similar to that of all other functional democracies.

Even though we regularly hear from the likes of Kenny, Gilmore and Martin that the system is ‘broken’ and must be radically reformed there is not the slightest hint that real reform is actually going to happen.

And why would it, to do so would mean an end to the corrupt/gombeen/clientelist system that has served the exclusive interest of Irish politicians and their respective parties and friends since independence.

That corrupt system effectively destroyed the country and lost us our independence. It is far, far too late to talk of reforming such an irretrievably corrupt system.

In his article Mr. Griffin points out:

Only when we fully accept this reality, (that the system is ‘broken’) can we begin to properly rebuild our nation.

It’s good that some politicians like Mr. Griffin are, at last, beginning to accept the enormity of their betrayal of Ireland and its people.

However, he and his fellow politicians must go, or be forced to go, one step further and accept the reality that their rotten political system is history and can have no part whatsoever in building a new Ireland.

Reform or die?

Too late Mr. Griffin, what you represent is already dead.

Copy to:
Brendan Griffin
All political parties

Susie Long is remembered

Great to see Susie Long being appropriately remembered.

In one of her final interviews she was asked by Miriam O’Callaghan.

If you had one message for the Irish health service and those who run it what might it be?

The health service should be for everyone equally, and that’s it. Everyone is entitled to a good health service; it shouldn’t depend on where you live or how much money you have in your back pocket. The health service is paid for by our tax money and so therefore we’re entitled to every service available that we need.

The HSE/State once again refuses to take responsibility

Cover up, denial, secrecy, bureaucracy, non-accountability, endangering life, corporate arrogance, corporate ruthlessness, political weakness, political cowardice.

This is the first paragraph of a piece I posted in May 2007 regarding the disgraceful treatment of Rebecca O’Malley by the Health Service Executive (HSE).

Mrs. O’Malley was told that a lump on her breast was benign but it turned out to be malignant.

The error cost her 14 months in wasted time. She had to have a mastectomy that probably would not have been necessary if that time had not been wasted.

It turned out that 300 other women had also been misdiagnosed but the HSE had decided not to inform them thus putting their lives in danger.

When Mrs. O’Malley expressed concern she was urged by the HSE not to go public.

She agreed on condition that an independent investigation be initiated. The HSE were lying, nothing was done.

The failure of the HSE to act forced Mrs. O’Malley to assume responsibility for the endangered women. She successfully forced the HSE to act by going public.

Five years on Praveen Halapanavar, husband of Savita Halapanavar, was asked why he had gone public after his wife died.

Because there was nothing happening after two weeks.

Mr. Halapanavar has assumed responsibility for dealing with this disgraceful scandal because the Irish State has effectively refused to do so.

Minister for Justice, Alan Shatter, defends abuse of power by Government?

The Supreme Court has granted a declaration that the State acted wrongfully in spending public money on the website, information booklets and advertisements in relation to the children’s referendum.

The court found that the Government did not conform to the required principles laid down by the landmark McKenna judgement.

If you can stomach it I recommend listening to the truly obnoxious response to the judgement by Justice Minister, Alan Shatter (News at One, 3rd report).

This most arrogant of politicians steadfastly and repeatedly refused to apologise for this blatant abuse of Government power.

I find myself in the unusual position of actually agreeing with John Waters’ on an issue.

Public money has been used to distort the campaign and therefore contaminates the outcome of the referendum.

It is worth recalling that the McKenna judgement (1995) came about because of the high principles and courage of former Green Party member Patricia McKenna.

Although campaigning for a ‘yes’ vote in the 1995 divorce campaign McKenna challenged the State’s use of taxpayers’ money to back the ‘yes’ campaign and not the ‘no’ side.

Her successful challenge means that the State is not permitted to preferentially use taxpayers’ money to fund one side or the other in a referendum campaign.

Of course, such trivialities as obeying the law or respecting the Constitution has never prevented Irish politicians from doing exactly as they think fit.

Hence Minister Shatter’s arrogant dismissal of the Supreme Court’s ruling and the complaints from those on the ‘no’ side.

Lowry won't be investigated?

I wrote yesterday about being heartened by the unprecedented number of complaints (83) made to the Clerk of the Dail in response to the latest Lowry scandal.

Since then I’ve come across an excellent article by Elaine Byrne (Sunday Independent) which could explain the large number of complaints.

In her article Ms. Byrne calls on readers to make an official complaint to the Clerk of the Dail.

I am asking you, dear reader, to do something about that. If you believe that Michael Lowry — asserted to be “profoundly corrupt” by the Moriarty tribunal and a tax cheat by the Revenue Commissioners — is telling the God honest truth, then ignore the following.

This is how you complain. It must be in writing.

“Subject to section five of the Ethics Act, I wish to make a complaint about Michael Lowry’s registerable interests with respect to undisclosed lands near Wigan.”

Sign it and post it to Mr. Kieran Coughlan, Clerk of the Dail, Houses of the Oireachtas, Kildare Street, Dublin 2.

I spoke to an official in the Clerk of the Dail’s office yesterday, before I came across Ms. Byrne’s article, to ask if an investigation had been initiated as a result of the complaints.

No, because the complaints would have referred to the fact that he hadn’t declared land and yesterday he amended his register of interests and declared the land.

So your office is taking no action for the many years in which Mr. Lowry failed to register this land?

No.

This sort of twisted; arrogant logic by our so-called enforcement authorities is one of the principal reasons why Ireland has descended to the status of banana republic.

Are Irish citizens finally waking up?

It is reported in today’s Irish Examiner that an unprecedented 83 complaints were made to the Clerk of the Dail regarding the latest Michael Lowry scandal.

Personally, I’m heartened by this development. For years I have been making complaints and asking questions, both orally and in writing, in response to the corrupt activities of politicians and officials.

I have always been, and still am, treated by these people as nothing more than a crank.

Perhaps Irish citizens are finally waking up to the enormous damage being done to them and their children by this diseased state.

Irish expats: Still waiting for the vote

I was talking to an American friend who is living Germany the other day when the subject of expat voting came up.

When I mentioned that Irish citizens are not allowed to vote once they leave the country she laughed thinking I was joking.

When she realised I was serious she was astonished.

But…she said….how can that be? You’re still a citizen, with a passport, with full rights…surely?

No, I said. Once you leave, even for a day, you’re disenfranchised immediately.

Hold on, she said, still in disbelief. Most countries allow their expats to vote, well at least democratic, developed nations.

Not the Irish I assured her but we do debate the matter every couple of years.

Here’s some information on the issue.

Currently, there are around 115 countries and territories – including nearly all developed nations – that have systems in place to allow their emigrants to vote

A 2006 study of countries that allow their emigrants to vote included:

21 African nations
13 North and South American countries
15 Asian countries
6 Pacific countries