Category: Uncategorized

Fianna Fail fools emerge from the bog

Our bumbling, dishonest and undemocratic Taoiseach was all over the airwaves in the last few days. Last Friday he was interviewed on RTE (1st report) and was asked should he have met more regularly with the Financial Regulator.

Absolutely not, there was a bill brought in 2003 which changed the arrangement between the Central Bank and established the Financial Regulator.

That arose after the National Irish Bank problem. The PAC and others met, Jim Mitchell did a very good job chairing a committee that looked at that.

Jim Mitchell died in 2002, our fool Taoiseach is getting the NIB scandal mixed up with the DIRT scandal.

The following exchange occurred when Cowen was asked about his refusal to hold the by-elections.

What’s your answer to those who say you’re running from the people by refusing to hold the by-elections?
The by-elections will be held in due course whenever the Dail decides to vote for it.
C’mon Taoiseach, that’s a non answer.
It’s not a non answer; I am not making the decision here in RTE studios.
I’m not asking you to do that.
You are asking me.
Will they be held this year?
I’m not giving you that answer.
When will you give it to the Dail?
Whenever we decide there will be…don’t worry about it. We will make sure that there’s by-elections held in due course but there’s no decision by government in that respect.

I’m not giving you that answer. That’s how this arrogant idiot dismisses the right of the Irish people to elect representatives. In my opinion this man and his government have no legitimate right to govern.

Martin Mansergh, another Fianna Fail fool, was asked about the by-elections on the Marian Finucane Show (Sunday) and said that the Government had allowed a by-election in Dublin South and within months the winner, George Lee, had resigned.

This idiot is making the suggesting that he and his government were not pleased with Lee’s behaviour or with the citizens who voted him into office and therefore everybody had to be taught a lesson.

But the biggest Fianna Fail fool to crawl out of the bog last week was Senator Terry Leyden who, under Oireachtas privilege, accused Irish Times columnist, Fintan O’Toole, of inciting a riot outside the Dail last Tuesday.

I strongly recommend that people listen to the exchange between Leyden and O’Toole on last Friday’s Liveline. It’s an excellent example of how a passionately angry but articulate citizen like O’Toole can force an ignorant Fianna Fail creep like Leyden into a humiliating climb down.

Lenihan: A heavily qualified, mealy mouthed apology.

According to a report by Irish Independent political editor Fionnan Sheahan the Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan has apologised for his part in the economic crisis.

I was a member of the party throughout that era and I’m certainly sorry for what happened, no question of that.

I might not have been in a position of lead responsibility, but in so far as even I was a member of the governing party, as a deputy supporting it or Minister of State supporting it, I have to take responsibility.

Sheahan’s report, however, only tells part of the story. Lenihan’s apology was heavily qualified. He only accepted part responsibility blaming the Opposition and everybody else for getting caught up in a degree of unreality.

When George Hook asked for permission to report that the Minister for Finance had apologised for the mess Lenihan replied:

I didn’t say that, I said I would apologise to the extent to which the government played a part in this but I don’t accept that the government was the only party responsible.

Tax cheat and liar Lowry can be dismissed as the hypocrite he is

Former Fine Gael minister Michael Lowry has been ranting again about what he calls the out of control judicial legal farce that is the Moriarty Tribunal.

Apparently, Lowry is not worried about himself; about what the tribunal may have to say concerning his activities while a minister.

No, it seems the good of the country and its citizens is his only concern. He’s worried about the lawyers who are ripping off the system, about the way civil servants are being treated, about social welfare recipients and about the economy.

But we know that Lowry is a liar and tax cheat so we can dismiss his so called concerns for the hypocrisy they really are.

The disgusting disease of religion

The disease of religion

Jawad Zeiniddine, a one-year-old Lebanese Shiite Muslim boy wearing a headband with the name of Prophet Mohammed’s grandson Imam Hussein, joins adults in a self-flagellation ritual during which they cut their scalps with blades to mark the religious mourning event of Ashura in the southern Lebanese town of Nabatiyeh.

Ashura commemorates the seventh century killing of Prophet Mohammed’s grandson Imam Hussein in Karbala, a holy shrine city in modern-time Iraq. Getty Images

We can safely assume that the tears running down the face of this one year old child are tears of fear and pain and not tears of mourning for some long dead relation of Mohammed.

This is the kind of thing that creates a soceity where the rape of children by priests is acceptable.

Roy Keane never forgets

Wasn’t Roy Keane’s reaction to the Thierry Henry handball incident hilarious? First he scolded the entire nation:

France are going to the World Cup Ireland is not, get over it.

He then proceeded to moan on (again) about his Saipan World Cup clash with the FAI – when was that – must be about 50 years ago now?

One more reason for bringing the entire rotten system down

Fine Gael senator Fidelma Healy Eames asked the leader of the Senate, Donnie Cassidy, a very simple question (Today with Pat Kenny, Thursday).

Has Ireland cancelled the bilateral agreement (on adoption) with Vietnam?

Cassidy refused to answer.

Senator Eames was forced to submit an FOI on the matter. She was informed by a civil servant that an answer to her (yes or no) question would cost her €1,247.

Such (legal) corruption is just one more reason for bringing the entire rotten system down.

Immoral to pay taxes?

Letter in today’s Irish Independent.

It’s immoral to pay taxes for this farce

IN REPLY to recent letters concerning taxation, I believe that if a dispassionate and totally objective observer were to look at what has been happening in this country recently, then that person might reasonably come to the conclusion that for the average citizen to continue to voluntarily pay taxes could be considered immoral.

I make the following points to support this argument.

1. The refusal by judges to take a voluntary pay cut seriously affects their moral authority to pass sentence on anyone, especially in relation to civil offences.

2. The failure of the entire Oireachtas to deal with the issue of their own grotesque expenses is corrupt, and I am not saying here that the expenses themselves were a corruption.

3. The extraordinary salaries of RTE’s top earners is little short of extortion. The licence fee needs to be substantially reduced and is, anyway, anachronistic.

4. The apparent inability of this Government to deal with incompetence at the highest levels in the public sector and, worse still, using taxpayers’ money to pay these people off, thereby saying, in effect, that gross mismanagement will always be rewarded with enormous pay-offs and pensions. This is vile.

5. The threats of industrial action by public sector union members, especially the so-called ‘frontline staff’, for an actual pay increase would be farcical if they weren’t serious — caring indeed! Their overpaid leaders should be ashamed.

6. The lenient treatment of tax exiles is plainly wrong.

7. Neither the reckless lending by bank directors nor the complete failure of the regulatory authorities to control this has resulted in a single prosecution.

To continue to voluntarily pay taxes under these circumstances could be considered to give tacit support to the above. These arguments are bolstered by the consideration that many people now paying higher taxes are seeing, or will see in the not too distant future, their own children’s lives ravaged by unemployment and emigration.

Finally, may I say that at a minimum, the first and fourth of these points could have been dealt with by constitutional amendment or referendum.

Dr Patrick Finn
Glasnevin, Dublin 9

A dishonest and cowardly betrayal of the Irish people

Sections two and three of the public meeting held by Transparency International Ireland demonstrated the divide between those serving within our corrupt political system and those who are the victims of that system.

When Senator Dan Boyle was asked if Ireland had a corrupt political system he responded exactly like all politicians who find themselves having to defend a corrupt system.

I think it’s corrupt in how you define corruption in its widest context. I think there are more corrupt systems, I think we’re less corrupt than we used to be but there is certainly corruption out there in our system.

When asked should John O’Donoghue resign he replied in like manner.

John O’Donoghue holds a constitutional position he’s meant to be the independent chairman of the Dail Eireann of which I’m not a member and I think the questions surrounding his use of expenses are ultimately a matter for the members of that house and I have no role or influence in that.

Senator Boyle was strongly challenged by a member of the audience, a challenge that made the Senator visibly uncomfortable.

Senator Boyle’s discomfort is understandable. He’s a member of a party that has always prided itself on its integrity, transparency and accountability.

Since entering government, however, these high standards have been largely abandoned in exchange for the opportunity to see environmental policies enacted.

Green Party Leader and Minister for the Environment, John Gormley, was clear when asked about being a watchdog in government:

We never assigned ourselves that role because it’s a role which you cannot fulfill properly and do your work as well. We’re not the moral watchdog of any political party…we look after our probity and our standards…we cannot be responsible for events that took place before our entry into government.

John Gormley is wrong; all political parties have a duty to be moral watchdogs, not just of themselves, but of all other political parties and government agencies.

No functional democracy would tolerate a political party entering government to pursue its own agenda while completely ignoring other serious matters that were damaging to the good of the nation and its people.

The Greens, like the Progressive Democrats before them, have decided by their actions and words that working within and supporting a corrupt political system is acceptable in order to see their policies enacted.

In reality their actions are a disgraceful betrayal of the Irish people.

Senator Boyle’s dishonest and cowardly words are just the latest example of that betrayal.

Copy to:
The Green Party
Senator Boyle