Interested in maladministration. Estd. 2005
Brian Cowen, speaking during a special economic debate in the Dail today said:
The country is entering a crucial period that would shape Ireland’s future and if it made the wrong decisions the repercussions would be critical.
This is equivalent to the captain of Titanic addressing the crew just after the wreck settled on the ocean floor.
The ship is entering a crucial area dotted with icebergs so if we make any wrong decisions the repercussions could be critical.
Letter in today’s Irish Examiner.
In 1992 Galileo was welcomed back into the fold of the Catholic Church by Pope John Paul II and last week Homer Simpson was ‘converted’ to the faith.
Surely now it’s time that Fr Ted was made an honorary bishop?
Anthony Sheridan
Neil Gibson of Oxford Economics was interviewed over the weekend about the Irish situation.
Here’s some of what he had to say:
People have accepted that they had a very good ten years enjoying the boom and have been willing to dip into their pockets to repay. I think that’s a fantastic achievement for the Irish economy and its people but we are approaching a tipping point where that may no longer be achievable.
Here’s what Gibson does not know:
He doesn’t know that the financial and social catastrophe which is enveloping Ireland began 31 years ago when the criminal politician Haughey came to power.
He doesn’t know that the corrupt political system spawned by the criminal Haughey is responsible for the disaster and that the Irish people, far from willingly dipping into their pockets to repay, are being forcibly fleeced of all they own in order to bail out the gangsters who are the chief supporters of the corrupt political system.
He doesn’t know that the tipping point he rightly claims is approaching will finally, finally, finally force the Irish people to get off their knees and destroy the corrupt political system that has brought total ruin upon the nation.
I don’t know that either – but I’m hopeful.
Feck it, I’ve just lost a small fortune after betting that the DPP would bring charges against Bishop Magee and that he would end up in jail.
Open and shut case thought I.
I should have learned my lesson after losing a similar sum on a bet that the DPP would bring charges against Fianna Fail TD, Willie O’Dea.
Open and shut case thought I.
Where am I going wrong?
Oh well, I’m hoping to recoup my losses with my bet that Sean Fitzpatrick will be charged, found guilty and be publicly hung, drawn and quartered.
Yet another scandal, spawned by a previous scandal, that’s going to be ‘scrutinised’, by yet another useless state ‘watchdog’ (Irish Independent).
This latest scandal concerns payments of €30 million to legal firms, over a nine month period, for advising the government on the banking bailout.
The so called watchdog is the Public Accounts Committee.
Like all government committees the PAC is nothing more than a talking shop, it has no power to act on its investigations and there’s not the slightest hint that our corrupt political system is about to bestow any such powers.
Politicians, (Pat Rabbitte in this instance) are, yet again, outraged at such waste and are demanding immediate action.
Is there anything we can do about these extraordinary fees or do these guys just think they can name any figure?
Well, yes Pat, they can and that will remain the case for so long as our political system remains a dysfunctional entity.
Yet again, we see a super highly paid civil servant coming out justifying the scandalous payments because the super highly paid government ministers who should be answering the questions have absconded in their super expensive Mercedes.
Department of Finance secretary general Kevin Cardiff admitted it was not possible to monitor how many hours were worked by the firms or how many staff were assigned to the task.
Having admitted his department’s total ignorance of the matter he then went on, bizarrely, to state.
I can tell you honestly that the money spent was well worth the money. The risk of not taking that legal support could have cost us a lot more.
Mr. Cardiff also admitted that the firms hired had a potential conflict of interest given that they also carried out work for banks and wealthy clients but, don’t worry, he assured destitute taxpayers, they all had Chinese Walls to avert any problems.
Phew, that’s a relief, for a moment there I thought destitute taxpayers were in danger of being ripped off.
Mr. Cardiff further assured impoverished taxpayers.
We haven’t come across instances where they felt compromised
I can just imagine Mr. Cardiff approaching a staff member at the legal firm Arthur Cox, which got more than €10 million for ‘advice’.
Eh, excuse me sir. Are feeling compromised?
No, oh that’s great, the taxpayer’s will be so relieved.
Pat Kenny is an experienced, well informed and articulate current affairs broadcaster.
It was therefore deeply depressing and indeed disturbing to witness his (unwitting) endorsement of our corrupt political system (Frontline, 18th October).
In response to a call from Niall Crowley of Claiming our Future for a more diverse participation in politics Kenny said:
We do have a very intimate relationship with our politicians, not like in Britain where you might not see your local MP from one end of the decade to the next.
Here, we can drop along on a Saturday or Sunday and meet all of our TDs. There is a real connection, whether they’ll do anything about what you say to them is another question, but we can meet them.
We can meet Bertie; we can meet Brian, go into a particular pub in Offaly on a Saturday night and meet Brian Cowen.
Crowley, rightly, responded that that’s not participation, it is clientelism and very dependent.
The brutal truth is that clientelism is the foundation on which our corrupt political system feeds and, in turn, infects every level of Irish society. It is the single biggest reason for the destruction of our country.
Clientelism has nothing to do with democracy, in fact, the practice destroys democracy. Citizens are forced into selling their vote in return for petty favours most of which they are already entitled to in any case.
Politicians, caught up in the corrupt, undemocratic circle, vie with each other in plundering state resources to pay for votes to maintain their power.
The buying and selling of votes/power then moves to other areas of public life. Bankers, businessmen, friends of the most powerful parties all pay their corrupt dues and are rewarded with grants, tax concessions and in very many cases allowed to openly operate outside the law.
To facilitate this widespread corruption and law breaking regulatory authorities are stripped of resources and/or ordered to desist from investigating friends of the powerful.
By destroying democracy clientelism reduces citizens to beggars, destroys national pride and national self esteem and results in a nation of politically ignorant citizens.
If Ireland had evolved into a real democracy the likes of Haughey, Ahern, Burke, Lawlor, Lowry et al would never have survived a single day. Most of them would have served time.
If Ireland had evolved into a real democracy bankers, developers and the many other so called professions would never have had the opportunity to indulge in their corrupt activities in pursuit of vast wealth.
All this activity, all this corruption, all this social and democratic destruction has one single origin – Clientelism.
The fact that somebody as influential as Pat Kenny sees this (corrupt and corrupting) system of clientelism as an integral and laudable part of our system of government is an indication of how far we have to go before the building of a new, and truly democratic, republic can begin.
Copy to:
Pat Kenny
It was revealed on RTE today that there is no legislation whatsoever regarding the possession of exotic animals in Ireland.
This means that the savage humans can do as they please when it comes to these vulnerable animals as witnessed by the barbaric treatment of a kangaroo in a Dublin hotel.
This situation is quite common in banana republics where ignorant and corrupt politicians are only interested in human animals from which they buy votes.
I have no doubt that stupid humans will eventually wipe themselves out. The only question is:
Will the rest of nature survive our brief but brutal presence on the planet?
Retired Fine Gael politician and former Minister Ivan Yates is a man without any moral standards.
He doesn’t believe in restraints or principles, he’s completely indifferent to questions of right or wrong. He is, according to himself, a totally amoral person (The Saturday Night Show).
During his interview with Brendan O’Connor Yates clearly and cynically demonstrated his amorality.
On politics
He left politics because it was too difficult. Funerals, clinics, public meetings – all too much hassle. TDs are nothing more than glorified County Councillors in a system that regularly throws up ill equipped people.
Politics is not about the country, it’s about getting re-elected, I wanted to change the world but I copped myself on, he cynically declared.
On the economy
Adjustments have to be made and we (the peasants, not Yates) have to be disciplined and do what’s necessary.
This should include; getting rid of quangos, reform the civil service, means test or get rid concessions to the elderly such as free travel, free electricity, free TV licence and free telephone.
Pensioners should also be made to pay more because they invariably have their houses paid for and the cost of living has come down.
On his own pensions (To my knowledge this greedy businessman is in receipt of two pensions from the taxpayer)
O’Connor: You get a fairly hefty pension?
Yates: I have a fairly hefty pension; I’ve collected it since the day I left the Dail.
O’Connor: That’s the kind of thing…you’re loaded. (Big cheer from the audience).
Yates: Can I answer that, can I answer that. Whatever the system is, I’m entitled to it.
O’Connor: You shouldn’t be getting a pension at all. By your own rationale would you not say the country is going down the toilet.
You’re a fairly wealthy businessman and we’re still paying you a pension even though you’re not of pensionable age?
Yates: To be honest with you, for me to do something on my own behalf would be a cosmetic stunt but I’m quite happy to reform the system.
This type of cynicism and rank hypocrisy is the predominant attitude within the Irish body politic.
Yates is only unique in so far as, as a self confessed amoralist, he wallows in and actually enjoys milking the system at the expense of pensioners, the elderly and ordinary citizens.
In contrast to the ecstatic welcome afforded to Mary O’Rourke the previous Saturday, Yates was subject to some challenges from the audience, especially with regard to his greedy and arrogant attitude to his pension.
Presenter O’Connor, in line with most RTE journalists, was having none of it.
Constantly apologising to Yates for asking (embarrassing?) questions he also acted as a buffer between the greedy ex politician and the angry audience.
O’Connor scolded one disrespectful peasant who angrily demanded that Yates give up his pension.
It’s not Prime Time and we’re not going to ambush Ivan Yates. I don’t think he’s the worst of them anyway.
The bizarrely ironic aspect surrounding the attitude of this greedy and amoral businessman is that he regularly preaches to the nation about what needs to be done to resolve our problems while remaining totally oblivious to the part he personally has, and continues to play, in the destruction of our democracy.
He is, in effect, Fine Gael’s Bertie Ahern
Copy to:
Ivan Yates
The Saturday Night Show
In a perfect but pathetic caricature of the nation Brendan O’Connor introduced Fianna Fail TD Mary O’Rourke onto his show last Saturday as – Mammy of the Nation.
Marie Antoinette of the Nation would, I think, be a more appropriate title but those who were there would be outraged at my suggestion.
The presenter, Brendan O’Connor is a great admirer of the scumbag, Bertie Ahern. When Ahern was lying his way through a whole series of excuses regarding his finances, O’Connor was taking the country, and in particular the media, to task for attacking such a great patriot.
O’Connor continues to rant on about the state of the country and those responsible for the disaster but, like his Sunday Independent colleague, Jody Corcoran, who is Ahern’s number one fan, his brain thinks that history only began after Cowen’s succession to the throne of power.
The politically ignorant audience would also be outraged at my description of O’Rourke as the Marie Antoinette of the Nation. They just couldn’t get enough of her. There was wild applause at her every utterance, no matter how stupid.
Let’s cover just two points this sub standard politician made.
When asked why she was calling for an election she explained that it would force the Opposition to reveal their plans to save the country.
Such (political) stupidity prevents her from understanding that even if the Opposition said they were going to hand over the country to the president of Zimbabwe, they would still win the next election. (Come to think of it, Mugabe would probably do a better job than our incompetent crowd).
When asked about Cowen she was very supportive, saying that he had turned a corner; (yet another corner turned) that he would lead Fianna Fail into the next election and there was every chance of victory.
Even O’Connor, an apparently strong Fianna Fail supporter, was stunned at O’Rourke’s political ignorance and naivety.
And still the audience applauded.
What we are witnessing here are two extremes of reality.
At one extreme we have a politician who seems to be completely unaware of the part her corruption infected party has played in the destruction of the country
O’Rourke is a senior member of the ruling elite in this country.
She operates comfortably within a largely corrupt political system that has destroyed any semblance of democracy and reduced our country to banana republic status.
She seems to have no problem whatsoever in forcing Irish citizens to pay the price for decades of political, state and business corruption.
She feels no guilt that the legacy of her corruption infected party will be the impoverishment of generations of Irish citizens.
O’Rourke, like the rest of her Fianna Fail colleagues, is a traitor to Ireland and its people.
On the other extreme we have members of the public, including O’Connor, who seem to have no ability whatsoever in identifying the enemy, of identifying those who have brought disaster upon the country.
O’Rourke, and the rest of our sub standard public representatives, is strutting around the media studios of the country being feted as if they were superstars.
If the people in that audience were politically educated they would see immediately that this so called Mammy of the Nation is actually a representative of the corrupt political system that has destroyed their lives and the lives of their children for generations to come.
They would have reacted to her presence with deep anger and thrown her out of the studio with O’Connor, fleeing for his life, close behind her.
It is this yawning gap between the arrogance and corruption of our body politic and the political ignorance of Irish citizens that needs to be bridged and this can only be achieved by a two pronged strategy.
Firstly, it must be instilled in the psyche of Irish citizens that it is they who hold power; that it is the politicians who work for them.
They must be made to realise that democracy is an everyday event and not just a case of voting for the local gangster every five years in return for petty favours.
Secondly, (and this will come about as a consequence if Irish citizens become politically educated) politicians must be made immediately accountable for all their actions.
Initially, this would mean jail sentences and other severe punishments until the disease of corruption was significantly cut out of public life. Only then could we claim to be a functional democracy and begin the long road to recovery.
In such a genuinely democratic environment it would be impossible for a criminal like Haughey to take power and plunder the nation’s resources.
It would be impossible for a scum bag like Bertie Ahern to become Taoiseach and disgrace the nation.
It would be impossible for sub standard politicians like O’Rourke to sit in a television studio doing impressions of Marie Antoinette without suffering the same fate as that aristocratic bitch.
Copy to:
Mary O’Rourke
Irish Independent journalist Fionnan Sheahan was angry as he described the stupidity of one of our politicians on Today with Pat Kenny (Friday, 1st item).
Sheahan: An elected senator asked – Who’s telling us we have to reduce the deficit by 3% by 2014 anyway, is it the bond markets?
So, an elected member of our national parliament doesn’t even know themselves that it’s the European Commission.
Pat Kenny: Which panel elected this particular person?
Sheahan: The education panel, I won’t name the individual concerned but it’s on the Dail transcript if anybody wants to check.
This exchange reveals how weak Irish journalism has become.
Neither Sheahan, a prominent journalist representing a national newspaper nor Pay Kenny representing the national broadcaster had the courage to reveal the name of this stupid politician.
What hope, therefore, can the Irish people have that journalists will root out and expose the many dangerously corrupt politicians?
For the record allow me to shout out the name of this moron – FINE GAEL SENATOR FIDELMA HEALY EAMES.
I only found out the name of this moronic politician by searching through the Dail transcript (with assistance from Gavin over at The Story) as Sheahan suggested; how many listeners to the Pat Kenny Show did the same?
In other words – How many Irish citizens were denied the right to know the name of this dangerously stupid politician because Sheahan and Kenny were afraid to name her?
In good times journalists have an obligation to name and shame politicians who are not up to the job.
At a time when we are witnessing the complete destruction of our country and the impoverishment of future generations as a result of our corrupt/incompetent political system journalists should be ruthlessly exposing moronic politicians like FINE GAEL SENATOR FIDELMA HEALY EAMES.
Copy to:
Senator Healy Eames
Fionnan Sheahan
Pat Kenny