Category: The State

Legal expert voices internet concerns

How will monitoring of communications be carried out in the future? TJ McIntye has legitimate concens:

…the chairman of Digital Rights Ireland, T J McIntyre, who has written to a number of Senators drawing attention to problems with the Criminal Justice (Mutual Assistance) Bill, currently before the Oireachtas.

Mr McIntyre said the Bill, which seeks to fit requests for assistance from other states into the existing Irish legal framework based on the 1993 Interception of Postal Packets and Telecommunications Messages (Regulation) Act, is not sufficient.

He said the Act deals with an interception regime rooted in an era when we only had Telecom Éireann. While other licensed operators were added following deregulation, not all are covered.

“Webmail [ such as Gmail or Hotmail], Voice-over IP [ such as Skype] and Instant Messaging Services [ such as AOL Instant Messenger] would appear to fall into this category,” he said.

Another problem with the 1993 Act was that it covered the message being transmitted – not when it reached its destination, he added.

Messages that had been opened, and remained in e-mail inboxes, or voicemail messages, would appear not to be protected.

This situation appeared to breach an EU directive which requires the interception of citizens’ personal communications to be regulated by legislative measures “necessary, appropriate and proportionate within a democratic society”, he said.

New privacy law will clarify existing rights

It’s an important part of the constitution, and clarifying existing rights will be a good thing. But will it take into account online rights?

Ideally, the Minister would have liked to publish his defamation legislation first and then act later to turn the Murray report into law, but he accepted that there was no point pushing the matter.

The Cabinet has now decided that the recommendations included in the Murray report should be turned into the heads of a Bill – the main points – in two, or three weeks.

The timetable is not without ambition, since drafting such a piece of legislation – even in its abbreviated form – may prove no easy task for parliamentary draughtsmen. Though some observers suspect a major rift between the Minister and Fianna Fáil Ministers, the reality is more prosaic, since both sides are agreed on the destination.

Though some in Fianna Fáil might believe that extra privacy rights are on the way, that is not the case, since the legislation to come will bring greater clarity to rights already in existence under the European Court of Human Rights and the Irish Constitution.

Though they exist, the public is entirely unaware of them. A better-informed public, backed by a clearly-written piece of Irish law – could yet occasionally put manners on misbehaving journalists, and, perhaps, in the future prevent the publication of something that would have been better unpublished.

€975 a day for payroll experts

The PPARS debacle rolls on:

Computer experts hired through a mystery offshore company to work on the failed PPARS payroll system for the health service were being paid up to €975 a day.

Documents obtained under the Freedom of Information act show that consultants supplied by Blackmore Group Assets (BGAL) were receiving monthly payments that in some cases amounted to €30,000 — the average annual industrial wage in Ireland.

Nine people were contracted through BGAL and worked on the PPARS project from 2002 to 2004.

The same story was reported in the Examiner last year, after a probe by Fine Gael into Blackmore Group Assets.

Centre for Public Inquiry has ceased its work

The Centre for Public Inquiry has decided to close. As reported in several papers on Monday, Fergus Flood said there was “no alternative”. There were also allegations that Treasury Holdings was threatening legal action against the CPI and its members if a report was published naming them, in relation to the Dublin Port Company (DPC) deal. The Sunday Times reported:

The CPI began an investigation into property transactions in Dublin’s docklands, including a deal involving the Dublin Port Company (DPC), and other developments including Treasury Holdings’ joint venture with CIE on Spencer Dock.

The government has already come under pressure to explain why the state-owned DPC, chaired by former councillor Joe Burke, a political associate of Bertie Ahern, the taoiseach, did not go through a tender procedure before entering into a joint venture with private operators to develop a 32-acre site.

An apparent source at the CPI also noted:

“Various interesting operations are in progress which will never see the light of day because people are afraid to be sued for libel.”

Callely got half total raised in donations in 2005

No suggestion of impropriety. It is in the paper for a reason though.

Almost half of the money raised in donations by Irish politicians last year was donated to the former junior minister, Ivor Callely, who resigned on Budget Day, according to figures released yesterday by the Standards in Public Office Commission.

The total disclosed by all politicians came to €147,526, with Mr Callely receiving €69,600. Fianna Fail politicians accounted for €136,962 of the total, with Fine Gael declaring €5,824, Labour €3,740 and one Independent TD getting €1,000.

The amount raised by Mr Callely in a non-election year is more than four times the amount he will be able to spend in the next general election. The spending limit for candidates in his three-seat constituency of Dublin North Central is €25,394.

Almost half of that allocation will be taken up by the Fianna Fail national campaign, so Mr Callely will be allowed to spend only in the region of €15,000.

The former junior minister disclosed more than 40 donations in 2005 worth between €750 and €2,500, the bulk of them being individual donations made at a golf classic.

By law, individual donations valued at more than €634.87 in terms of money, property, goods or services have to be disclosed to the commission.

DWL ordered to hand over aquatic centre

After all the controversy, Dublin Waterworld are being forced out of the National Aquatic Centre.

Dublin Waterworld Ltd must hand over possession of the €62 million National Aquatic Centre on April 28th next to the State company which owns it, the High Court has directed.

Mr Justice Paul Gilligan yesterday deferred to April 25th his decision on any application by DWL for a stay on the possession order. He also adjourned to the same date the issue of liability for the costs of the legal proceedings brought against DWL, which are expected to be more than €2 million.

Costs were sought by Campus and Stadium Ireland Development Ltd, the State company which owns the centre, against DWL, a shelf company with no assets and registered offices at Ballyvard, Tralee. DWL contends it is entitled to costs of various aspects of the proceedings.

Following an application yesterday by Denis McDonald SC, for CSID, DWL undertook to continue operating the centre to April 28th. It also undertook not to remove any equipment from the centre and to retain membership and other relevant records.

Still waiting for law enforcement

‘Former AIB chief is fined $15,000‘

For a millisecond after reading this headline I thought;

‘Could it be that IFSRA, the so-called Irish Financial Regulator, had finally decided to actually regulate?’

Then I realised, the article was reporting on the work of a real regulator, the American Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Since its establishment in May 2003, IFSRA has failed to bring a single person or organisation to account for fraudulent activity. And as many thousands of Irish citizens know to their cost; there’s no shortage of rip-offs out there.

Indeed, as far as I can ascertain, no financial regulator in the history of the State has ever taken effective action in response to the regular occurrences of criminal activity in the Irish financial sector.

Lori Addison, the AIB person fined by SEC, must be rueing the fact that she committed her fraud in a jurisdiction that actually enforces the law.

Court orders repossession of Aquatic centre

The High Court today ruled that Dublin Waterworld Ltd (DWL) deliberately breached the terms of its lease to operate the National Aquatic Centre. My question is what happens the €11 million due in rent?

Mr Justice Gilligan told the High Court that although the financial position of Dublin Waterworld had now been regularised, the court was making an order for Campus and Stadium Ireland Development (CSID) Ltd to repossess the €62 million centre.

CSID, the State company which owns the centre, awarded the lease in 2003. It had alleged that, unknown to it, DWL had transferred beneficial ownership of the lease to Limerick businessman Pat Mulcair on April 30th, 2003.

The court was told that Mr Mulcair then entered into an arrangement for DWML (Dublin Waterworld Management Ltd), a wholly owned subsidiary of DWL, to manage the aquatic centre.

The court found this constituted “wilful” breaches of the lease as did the failure to pay more than €11 million due in rent and VAT.

Mr Justice Paul Gilligan declared the 30-year lease must be forfeited.

Joan Burton has been seeking an explantion from Minister John O’Donoghue, good luck to her.

“The Minister must now clarify how Dublin Water World was enabled to enter into a lease and trust arrangement with regard to the Aquatic Centre, with business man Mr Pat Mulcair,” she said.

Ms Burton said she had already asked the Comptroller and Auditor General to conduct a review of the handling of the aquatic centre.

She said there have been a number of reports of structural problems with the complex including the fact that treated water consumption is far in excess of what was originally laid down in the design specifications, suggesting leakage problems.

Ms Burton said she had asked the Comptroller and Auditor General to conduct to conduct a review of the handling of this key piece of sports infrastructure.