Category: The State

Haughey's demise

I think it is worth analysing the comments of President McAleese during an interview with Sean O’Rourke on RTE’s News at One yesterday.

Speaking of Haughey’s illness, she said that

“he had borne his long illness with great dignity and considerable grace”.

She had nothing to say about the many thousands of Irish citizens who continue to suffer great indignity, pain and humiliation on hospital trolleys because of the savage cuts in health spending that Haughey initiated in the 1980’s.

She mentioned the International Financial Service’s Centre (IFSC) as one of his great achievements. The IFSC stands at the centre of Irish financial culture, a culture that the New York Times recently described as the ‘Wild West of European finance”.

She claimed that Haughey was “a man who wanted to see Ireland flourish”, but as we know his top priority was to see himself flourish first, usually at the expense of those he claimed to represent.

The President rounded on O’Rourke when he questioned the appropriateness of providing a state funeral for a man like Haughey. In an angry tone she emphasized to O’Rourke and the Irish people how much she admires the criminal Haughey

“I’ll be home for Mr. Haughey’s state funeral on Friday. I would have thought there’s a fairly strong view in that, wouldn’t you?”

Enough said.

Haughey dies

Charles Haughey is dead – let the frenzy of denial begin. The campaign to rehabilitate Haughey, the most ruthless, hypocritical, corrupt politician in Irish history has been underway for some time now.

Recently, Ahern described Haughey as a ‘wonderful man’. His former assistant, Catherine Butler, called him a cultured, intelligent, dedicated and patriotic man. And just now I am listening, with almost sickening disgust, to our President, Mary McAleese, who, in theory is supposed to represent all the people of this corrupt Republic, waffling on about the great Haughey.

She has actually announced that she is cutting short her visit to Africa to return for the funeral of this criminal. She is a disgrace to all the Irish citizens who have suffered and continue to suffer from the actions of this greedy and ruthless politician.

Ireland – The Wild West of European finance

The on-going criminal action in the US against those involved in the General Re Reinsurance fraud case continues to throw some light on the ‘Wild West’ activities of the Irish financial sector.

In Monday’s Irish Times, it was reported that General Re’s Irish subsidiary Cologne Re, was seen as an ideal location for the fraud because

Dublin “did not report to anyone” and so avoided the “North American problem” of financial regulation.”

That Ireland does not ‘suffer from the problem’ of financial regulation is becoming more obvious every day.

The reason for this is simple – The so called Irish Financial Regulator is more of a facilitator than a regulator.

For example in 2004, over two hundred cases of overcharging (theft) by financial institutions were identified. Not one of these institutions was punished in any way; they were simply asked to hand back the €60.9 million ‘overcharged’.

Incredibly, the regulator insists that it is in the public interest that the identities of these institutions remain a State secret.

In recent times, the New York Times reported that Dublin was fast becoming the “Wild West of European finance”. It’s a well deserved tag.

Political crisis

There was widespread panic today among politicians when it was learned that a child rapist had being released from prison on foot of last week’s Supreme Court decision striking down the law on statutory rape.

The panic was not caused by the potential danger to the children of the nation but rather by Bertie Ahern’s threat to recall the Dail next week in order to pass legislation to plug this gaping hole in the law.

A spokesman for the body politic said it was outrageous that such drastic action would be considered to resolve a problem that was only brought to the attention of politicians a mere sixteen years ago.

He went on to say that recalling the Dail could have major consequences for TDs and their families. Holidays had been booked, sun tan lotion purchased and civil servants briefed on keeping constituents happy until the long, long, long weekend was over.

In any case, recalling the Dail should only be considered when something really important needs afixin. Like for example when Fianna Fail’s friend, Larry Goodman, needed help some years back to prevent his business going down the tubes.

Meanwhile, that great defender of Irish democracy, Michael (I know what I know) McDowell was busy denying any knowledge of all this unsavory business.

I know nothing, my staff knows nothing, the Attorney General knows nothing, his staff may know something but you’ll have to wait until we come back from our well deserved holidays to find out. Byeeeee

HSE contractor carried out work on senior officer’s home

No suggestion of conflict of interest, I guess it is a small country.

A Dublin building company that has won lucrative contracts from the Health Service Executive (HSE) carried out work on the house of a senior HSE officer who is involved in the tendering process.

Owenbee Services, based in Donabate, Co Dublin, carried out building work on the house of Pat Gamble, an engineering services manager with the Dublin North East division of the HSE. Gamble approved a number of health centre maintenance contracts awarded to Owenbee and Mallerwood, a firm with which Owenbee has worked on several projects.

Eamonn Ryan, a director of Owenbee, confirmed to The Sunday Business Post that his company had carried out work on Gamble’s house near Naas, Co Kildare. Gamble, speaking through a HSE spokeswoman, and Ryan both said that the full market rate was paid.

Usual idiot talk

“If the legislature here are discussing the possibility of changes in order to legalise and regularise their position, well, you know, they’re entitled to be here from that point of view. But in a strict sense, I suppose, they’re illegal,”

This is part of what the Minister for Foreign Affairs Dermot Ahern said in the US recently in defence of illegal Irish immigrants in that country.
Hypocritical Irish politicians are of the opinion that the illegal Irish in America suffer more because they are unable to come home to attend Uncle Pat’s funeral or little Mary’s First Holy Communion than the average Afghan being sent back to one of the poorest and most violent countries in the world.
Speaking such idiot talk outside Ireland is not easy for Irish politicians. They are used to operating in a corrupt state where any old guff passes for intelligent analysis.

Here’s a letter from Friday’s Irish Times that gives a good idea of the respect our politicians have earned for their profession

Madam, – Dermot Ahern is beginning to speak the same incomprehensible garbage as his namesake. How can “illegal Irish immigrants” be “entitled to be in America”?

That elected representatives of this country can spout this kind of rubbish is shameful. – Yours, etc,

DERMOT SWEENEY, Viking Harbour, Dublin 8.

Cosgrave avoids jail over undeclared donation

It’s community service for Cosgrave:

A former leas-chathaoirleach of Seanad Éireann has been ordered by Judge Katherine Delahunt to perform 75 hours community service in lieu of a six months’ sentence for not declaring a £2,500 donation he received from lobbyist Frank Dunlop.

Liam Cosgrave (49), of Merrion Park, Blackrock pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to knowingly furnishing a falsified statement where he failed to declare that he had received any donation exceeding £500 between May 15th and December 31st, 1997.

Camera phones for gardai suggested

In the just off-the-wall-enough-to-be-implemented category, the idea from McDowell is that Gardai should be able to take photos of public order/offence suspects as a matter of course. And the rationale? In case people give false name and addresses. It sounds more like a national database for the Gardai by the backdoor to me. Let’s read the meat:

Mr McDowell told TDs he envisaged “the day, now that we are in the era that most of us carry a camera in our phone, that gardaí on duty dealing with a disorder situation, where they ask someone for their name and address, would also take a photograph of them so they know who they were dealing with afterwards, and that somehow this would be digitally sendable back to some record somewhere so that it is kept.

“I don’t see that this is a huge civil liberties issue,” he said. “It does seem to me that we will soon get to the point that every squad car has a mobile computer attached to it and will be in a position to communicate back.”

Mr McDowell also said he would like to see closed circuit television monitoring installed throughout every Garda station, which would be in addition to recording interviews.

The Garda is planning to introduce a new €6 million computer and camera system for Garda traffic corps vehicles which will be able to read car registrations and which will be linked to the Garda pulse system.

It means any vehicles which are not taxed or insured or which have been reported stolen will trigger a warning notice on an in-car computer screen.

Would anyone else have a problem being photographed as a matter of course for even being suspected for such a minor offence?

Audit critical of PPARS contract

More interesting PPARS stuff:

The internal audit report was sought by the HSE several months ago in the wake of strong criticism from Fine Gael about some of these consultancy contracts.

Fine Gael revealed that €2 million had been paid to Blackmore Group Assets Ltd, which it maintained was a shelf company based in the British Virgin Islands and administered from Guernsey in the Channel Islands.

The Irish Times understands that an investigation over recent months carried out in Ireland and in Bermuda by legal advisers to the HSE has been unable to determine the beneficial owners of the company.

However, it is understood that Blackmore Group Assets Ltd informed the HSE legal advisers in early February that no persons or corporate entities resident or incorporated in the Republic of Ireland had any shareholding in the company either directly or indirectly through nominees.

It also maintained that no person connected with the HSE had any beneficial interest in the company.

The HSE investigation confirmed that Blackmore Group Assets Ltd was registered in the British Virgin Islands but that it did not have a physical presence there.

Legal advisers commissioned by the HSE in Bermuda reported that the company had been incorporated in the British Virgin Islands on February 25th, 2002.

The Bermuda law firm told the HSE that it was not required in the British Virgin Islands for the register of directors and members to be made public or to be filed at the corporate registry.

The law firm said that no such filing had been made and that it was not possible, from publicly available details in the British Virgin Islands, to discover who held shares in the company.

It emerged last December that the Revenue Commissioners had contacted the HSE’s office in Manorhamilton, Co Leitrim, seeking information and documentation about Blackmore Group Assets Ltd. However, it is understood that the HSE has received no further contact from the Revenue Commissioners.

A spokesman for Fine Gael said last night that a series of questions set out by party leader Enda Kenny last December remained unanswered. These included how a shelf company was awarded a €2 million contract.

Minister hasn't registered interest in $1m US property

Apparently the rules on declaring interests mean you don’t have to declare things like this…

Junior Minister Frank Fahey has not declared an interest in a $1m-valued US property on the Dail register of interests.

The property (equivalent to €0.83m) is held by a US company in which he is a shareholder.

Mr Fahey has declared interests in other properties held by the same company.

An Irish Independent inquiry has found the Junior Justice Minister has amassed a multi-million euro property empire across the globe in either his own name or in partnership with relatives or business associates.

Many of his 20-plus properties were purchased in the US, Europe and Ireland with his wife and a company called Sage Developments.

But the former teacher-turned-politician has not declared his interest in a €1m six-bedroom house in Massachusetts on the Dail register of interests.