Category: The State

Irish – Politically stupid?

Consider the following email from Brendan Gleeson, read out on the Marian Finucane Show last Saturday.

I have witnessed my parents, both in their 80s, spend days and nights on trolleys in an overcrowded unit totally ill equipped to take care of them. The place is overrun and at times, filthy. This is not anecdotal, this is fact.

The staff are unable to cope, despite incredible commitment because the set up is stacked against them. Sick people are reduced to grabbing chairs, never mind beds from others who have gone to the toilet. My father spent six hours on a chair, afraid to vacate it, he’s 88. He paid VHI all his life along with the heavy taxation of the day which he viewed as a duty.

He spent four days and nights on a trolley having suffered a stroke and subsequent blindness. His dinner lay at the end of the trolley, untouched because they had forgotten he was blind and that he couldn’t see it.

My mother spent over two days and nights unable to use the solitary toilet in the unit when she needed to because she couldn’t get off the trolley unaided and by the time she reluctantly called a nurse, the toilet was occupied again. This was an unspeakable indignity to a woman of her generation and standards of personal hygiene. When she finally got to the toilet, it was covered in blood which incidentally she attempted to clean.

When my dad took ill again, he refused a doctors advice to go in – He couldn’t face it

Now consider the following: (Taken from a quick look at some files)

€9 billion: Over runs on road building – Gross incompetence by civil servants

€1.35 billion: Cost to taxpayer resulting from the deal done between Church and State over child abuse – Criminality, cruelty and incompetence by church and state

€1 billion: Illegal charging of the elderly in nursing homes – Criminality, cruelty and gross incompetence by civil servants.

€180 million: Amount spent on a computer system that was supposed to cost €9 million and doesn’t work – Gross incompetence

€20 million: Cost of tribunal into the taking of childrens organs without permission. – Gross incompetence and arrogance.

Hundreds of millions: Ansbacher, Dirt, Organised financial crime, etc. – Standard (and apparently acceptable) level of criminality in Irish financial community.

Only one question arises from the above – Why are the Irish people so docile and politically ignorant?

'Wild West' Planning

On January 26th, I wrote about the “cowboy culture’ that passes for good planning in modern Ireland. A report on RTEs News at One (Regional news) last Wednesday serves as a perfect example of how this sort of thing is done in ‘Wild West’ Ireland.

This little gem was actually reported on this blog way back in November. Apparently, a section of a public park in the middle of Limerick city, which was given to the people of Limerick in perpetuity by the Pery family, Earls of Limerick in 1877 was sold to a developer by Limerick City Council.

The People’s Park, which the Pery family intended to be used exclusively as a public amenity for the people of Limerick, now has 59 apartments, shops and a car park. According to the report, the development has ruined the people’s enjoyment and privacy in the park.

The obvious question is, of course, how could Limerick City Council, one of the trustees of the land, get away with this outrage? It’s not as if it could have been done in the dead of night when no one was watching. Have a look here at the requirements for a valid planning application.

So who benefited from this little bit of roguery? Well, the developers, of course but who else? How was it possible for the developer to get all this building done on publicly owned property without any questions being asked?

The Minister for the Environment, Dick Roche has been asked to look into the matter to see if any Dept of Finance or EU rules were broken.

To save readers the bother of tracking this particular piece of dodgy dealing, here’s what’s going to happen. If the minister actually bothers investigating the matter and concludes that the development was illegal, it is likely the developer will be asked if he wouldn’t mind applying for retrospective planning – and that will be the end of the matter.

'Patriotic' whistleblowers

Transparency International’s Global Corruption Report for 2006 was published today. Elaine Byrne, of the University of Limerick has an article in today’s Irish Times on the report. She is also the author of the Irish section of the report.

In her Irish Times article Ms. Byrne makes the point that Irish people are reluctant to become whistleblowers because of ‘a historically entrenched foreboding of informing”. This is pure unadulterated bullshit (Excuse the language but sometimes it is necessary to make a point). Anyone who still thinks this way is an idiot.

The real reason that whistleblowers are few and far between in this Banana Republic is fear and lack of Government/legal support. There is no civil servant, bank official or politician keeping quiet because of “tradition’, because he/she thinks that spilling the beans would be “unpatriotic’.

No, they know that if they are uncovered as whistleblowers their careers are over, they will never get a job again. They also know that the Government will not help them. It is six years now since promises were made to bring in legislation to facilitate whistleblowers. Nothing has happened.

This inaction suits certain elements in the political and business community. Powerful people and organizations do not want to find themselves at the mercy of whistleblowers. This Government is more than happy to make sure that their wishes are granted.

Dodgy dogs

As I have said before, every time the lid is lifted on any aspect of Irish life whether it is business, politics, Government administration the church or whatever, there is inevitably a very strong smell of something rotten.

The latest involves Bord na gCon, the Irish greyhound board. The chief executive, Aiden Tynan has been sacked, apparently because he disagreed with the board’s decision to keep instances of doping, secret.

The sports minister, John O’Donoghue has asked for a report from the chief executive of Bord na gCon, Mr. Paschal Taggart.

Asking the chief executive, the person who the allegations are against, to report on himself, has echos of AIB investigating itself and the thieving solicitors being allowed to police themselves without any interference from the State.
Watch this space…

Unused refugee centre cost taxpayer over €2m

So you thought property prices were increasing? Not, it seems, when it comes to State assets:

The Department of Justice bought Lynch’s Lodge Hotel in Macroom, Co Cork, in October 2000 to use as a refugee accommodation centre for over €3.5 million.

Five years later, with security and other costs at over €800,000, the property was sold for €2.3 million.

The information came from a parliamentary answer given by Minister of State with responsibility for the Office of Public Works Tom Parlon.

Cowboy planning culture

Last Friday, RTEs Five Seven Live programme reported on the “Cowboy culture’ that passes for good planning in Ireland.

Apparently, the vast majority of illegal developments are granted retrospective planning by local authorities. In the last four years Dublin City Council has given retrospective planning permission to 85% of those who couldn’t be bothered applying before they started building. The figures for Waterford and Galway are 83% and 82% respectively.

A significant number of offenders are developers, who are very familiar with planning laws, rampaging around the country, building hundreds of houses and then looking for, and getting, planning permission.

But then again, they are taking their example from our so-called leaders. In today’s Irish Times we read that former Fianna Fail minister of state, Ivor Calley is in breach of planning laws for converting a garage into a house next to his family’s holiday home which (hilariously) was also built without permission.

We can only guess what future generations will make of the massive damage done by this rampant gombeenism.

Attack on Freedom of Information – Reaction

The following is an editorial from yesterday’s Irish Examiner. I think it’s worthwhile reproducing here because it is strong and to the point, unusual for a mostly conservative Irish media.

Could it be that there is a growing realisation of the damage being done to our democracy by corrupt and arrogant politicians?

Freedom of Information – Government failing to live up to pledges

THE insidious erosion of the public’s basic right to information is one of the more cynical faces of the current administration.
Motivated by a culture of secrecy that would not be out of place in the Orwellian world of Big Brother, this Government ranks as the least accountable ever to hold sway in Ireland.

The Coalition’s blatant disregard for basic principles of openness and transparency is reflected in the increasing exclusion of public bodies from the remit of the Freedom of Information (FoI) Act.

As revealed in this newspaper yesterday, the latest example of its shoddy denial of people’s right to know involves the Health and Safety Authority (HSA) which until recently was open to FoI queries.

Inexplicably, the lid has been tightly clamped on its work, removing its investigative activities from the public gaze.

At a stroke, workers have been deprived the right of access to information about their accidents.

This means, for instance, that where documents relating to HSA investigations of workplace accidents are concerned, a worker seeking compensation for injury will in future be denied easy access to them.

Instead, the injured party faces the daunting prospect of having to go through a costly legal process in order to ascertain the relevant information.

Rightly or wrongly, a cynic could be forgiven for perceiving the hand of powerful elements with strong political associations behind this mysterious departure.

Rather than giving people greater access to what is going on behind the closed doors in the corridors of power, the shutters are coming down. Clearly, in the HSA case, the FoI process has been turned on its head.

The question is, who is being protected? Undoubtedly, the latest change militates against the rights of vulnerable individuals.
And, arguably, it is manifestly to the benefit of powerful factions with deep pockets.

Not before time, an Oireachtas committee will next month scrutinise the gradual strangling of the FoI process with a view to making recommendations to the Government about how the system should be improved.

But the committee members would be unwise to hold their breath, judging by the contemptuous attitude of faceless civil servants towards Ombudsman Emily O’Reilly.

When she contacted officials at the Department of Finance concerning the surreptitious HSA change, about which she had been kept in the dark, the Information Commissioner was told it was up to her to find out what was going on.

That speaks volumes about this Government’s arrogance towards the public.

Originally, when the FoI Act came into force in 1997, more than 100 bodies or sensitive divisions of Government departments were excluded from its remit. Since then, 50 more bodies and agencies have been brought into the exclusion zone.

An unflinching champion of people’s right to information, Emily O’Reilly has openly complained about the exclusion of from public scrutiny.

When greater restrictions and higher charges were attached to FoI queries, it was widely seen as a deliberate attempt to make it more difficult for the average person, and the media, to access information on decisions which influence people’s lives.

As predicted, there has since been a significant fall-off in the use of FoI channels. Not only is the culture of secrecy still operating, it is flourishing.

By any standard, the cynical denial of the public’s right to information makes a mockery of Coalition pledges to bring greater accountability and transparency to governance.

The growing exclusion of public bodies from the FoI spotlight is a matter of the gravest concern.

Predictable political waffle

“There will be some anger, especially from the parents of the children involved but they will be fobbed off and the usual Banana Republic excuses will be mouthed – Yes, it was terrible but it’s all in the past, things are different now, we must make sure that this never happens again, going forward, blah blah blah

The above quote is part of my reaction to Mary Harney’s decision last February to wind up the Dunne enquiry which was investigating the taking of children’s organs and selling them to pharmaceutical companies. Specifically, I was predicting how Mary Harney would respond to the Madden report which was published last Wednesday.

A law lecturer at UCC, Dr Deirdre Madden was asked to trawl through the material gathered by the Dunne enquiry and produce a quick report. The following is an edited version of Mary Harney’s reaction to the publication of that report. (Full reaction here, if you can stomach it)

Standards as applied today are very different from those applied in the past. We have all learned lessons, what happened was wrong, it was the culture of the time, must put in place legislation ensure this never happens again, blah blah blah

This is the standard response from arrogant, incompetent and uncaring politicians who are very happy to wallow in the comforts of a corrupt and unaccountable administration.

Prosecutors – real and imagined

I see the Japanese Stock Exchange went into crisis after prosecutors raided a company suspected of providing misleading information about an acquisition.

The Cologne Re fraud, hatched in Dublin’s IFSC, resulted in prosecutors in Australia and America raiding offices and bringing charges against the fraudsters.

It is quite common to read of prosecutors in any number of countries raiding, charging, jailing those who decide to take a gamble on making a quick buck through fraud.

Ansbacher, Dirt, Faldor, Tax evasion, Over charging, Direct and organised theft from accounts, Perjury – just some of the gambles taken by fraudsters in the Irish jurisdiction that have paid off handsomely in recent times.

A prize for anyone who can identify a real prosecutor in the Banana Republic.

Political stooge

The late Brian Lenihan Snr. was, by all accounts, a very intelligent man. Unfortunately, by allowing himself to be used as a public stooge by Fianna Fail he was better known, at best, as a loveable clown.

On every occasion when the indefensible needed to be defended, Brian was wheeled out to tell everybody that there was “no problem’.

It seems now that Brian’s son, Conor Lenihan is happy to maintain this legacy. On last Sunday’s Marian Finucane show (43rd min.) Conor defended the on-going emasculation of the Freedom of Information Act by claiming that the new restrictions would save taxpayers’ money.

Using this logic, Conor would, presumably, be in favour of disbanding the Gardai, thus saving the taxpayer millions.

Seems it’s a case of – like father, like son.