Wolf of Wall Street: Getting it wrong about Ireland

The real Wolf of Wall Street, Jordan Belfort, is advising Irish citizens to quit the blame game.

Here’s some of his advice:

One of the messages I want to say to the Irish people is that you can’t blame yourselves.

You’ve got to say it’s okay, we made a mistake and we are going to learn from that and grow stronger from that.

Yeah, people screwed up but they screwed up all over the world so you owe it to your children and your grandchildren to not dwell on that.

And remember it wasn’t Ireland where people overspent. You are no different from the United States and Spain and England.

The problem with Mr. Belfort’s advice is that it’s based on ignorance about what’s really going on in Ireland.

Here’s the minimum Mr. Belfort needs to learn.

All our problems were caused by our corrupt political/administrative system.

Yes, the global financial crisis had a massive impact but it could have been contained and managed if we had a functional democracy.

Mr. Belfort is completely unaware that our corrupt system is not into learning lessons from the disastrous consequences of its actions. To do so would not be in its interests.

The corrupt system did wobble a bit when the global financial crisis hit but it is now firmly back in the saddle of power and ruthlessly doing what it does best – screwing Irish citizens into the ground.

Unwittingly, while describing his own descent into a life of debauchery and fraud, Mr. Belfort pinpoints exactly how our political/administrative system evolved into a corrupt monster.

You don’t lose your moral compass overnight. You take tiny steps where you become desensitised.

This has been happening in Ireland since the corrupt/criminal politician Haughey came to power in 1979. Tiny step after tiny step until eventually the country fell over the cliff in 2008.

The first time you step over the line you feel bad and try to make things right again but then the next time you take that step further and further and before you know it you are doing things you never thought you would do.

This accurately describes the reaction/attitude of our politicians/administrators. Politicians and officials are now at a stage where they don’t even bother to make up excuses anymore.

They are supremely confident that accountability/transparency is a joke. They know they can do pretty much as they please, even break the law, which they do now on a regular basis.

I know myself now if you create wealth without ethics or integrity its not going to last.

The disaster for Irish citizens is that while the political sector is an ethics and integrity free zone it is, apparently, going to last well into the foreseeable future.

Leo Varadkar storms into the mid 1980s

Congratulations to Leo Varadkar.

Riding on his trusty steed the young buck has stormed into the mid 1980s, looked around and immediately summed up the dire situation – I quote.

The Department of Justice is not fit for purpose, it is clear that big changes are required.

We need cultural change. You know, too much in Ireland, and it’s not just a Garda issue, we still have the culture of doing favours, the nod and the wink, the use of discretion and those types of things.

Oh Jesus, save me. I’m going weak at the knees to witness such incisive analysis, such vision, and such cutting edge assessment of what’s happening in our country.

Why, I ask, why did we have to wait so long for the chosen one, for our saviour?

And of course, it brings me back to the mid 1980s too.

The time I realised that the banking sector was robbing customers and the State with total impunity, they still are, bless them.

It was the time I realised that the criminal Haughey was corrupt and the principal carrier of the disease that would eventually infect every level of Irish society but in particular the political, administrative and financial sectors.

I wonder how long it will be before Leo arrives in the 21st century?

Who know, but when he does he’ll see, I’m sure, with equal clarity, that every government department is unfit for purpose, that civil servants and particularly senior civil servants no longer serve Ireland and its people but are loyal to the anti principles of arrogance, incompetence and corruption.

But most of all he will see that the disease of corruption that has infected our law enforcement and other regulatory agencies is carried deep within the system in which he lives – the body politic.

Michael Martin and the steel in his spine

Some quotes from Pat Kenny’s show last Friday.

Paddy Duffy on how he judges politicians.

I really judge politicians on how clear they are on issues and how they deal with them.

What? Surely this is not the man who worked for the bumbling, grossly inarticulate, chronically incompetent Bertie Ahern?

Terry Prone on Michael Martin

This is a man who writes history, this is a man who care about history and the history of his party. He will go down in flames if he’s forced to go down, he’ll fight to the last. And he’s quite a gentle man but his spine is steel.

It’s difficult to believe that Prone has spent her entire working life mixing with incompetent, cowardly and self-serving politicians like Martin and still cannot see what’s right in front of her face.

Susan O'Keeffe: Haughey would be proud

When the suggestion was put to Labour senator Susan O’Keeffe (Late Debate) that Shatter and the Government may have been involved in a cover-up, she responded:

If you’re trying to cover up you don’t generally try to organise and appoint senior counsel to….

Oh dear, O’Keeffe seems to have forgotten that a cover-up was the principal aim of setting up the Beef Tribunal by the criminal Haughey.

And, in fact, that cover-up worked very well as O’Keeffe, as a journalist, apart from some minor players, was the only person brought before the courts as a result of its findings.

In those days she was on the other side of the fence, the side that spoke with clarity and honesty, the side that challenged the state when it was clearly involved in shady activities, the side that did not indulge in political waffle.

If the criminal Haughey was around today he would be proud of her skills of political waffle.

Why Ireland is a banana republic

Letter in today’s Irish Times

EU and financial transactions tax

Sir,

A total of 11 EU member states have announced plans to introduce a financial transactions tax.

The Government has failed to opt into this process.

Some 25 leading civil society organisations have joined Claiming Our Future to call for the introduction of a financial transactions tax in Ireland.

These include the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, Mandate, Impact and Siptu; Trócaire, Christian Aid and Oxfam; Feasta and Cultivate; and the European Anti Poverty Network, the Irish National Organisation of the Unemployed, Social Justice Ireland, and the National Women’s Council of Ireland.

The 11 member states involved in bringing forward this financial transactions tax include Germany, France, Greece and Spain. The tax would raise 0.1 per cent on trading in bonds and 0.01 per cent on trading in derivatives.

The proposal has been advanced through an “enhanced cooperation procedure”.

The Government chose not to opt into this procedure and has played no role in the development of this initiative. It could have raised between €300 million and €500 million for the Irish exchequer.

We are disappointed the Government did not take the opportunity to make the financial services sector contribute to the recovery of Irish society and economy.

It is extraordinary that the financial services lobby has been able to persuade the Government to opt out of this tax.

A financial transactions tax would raise much-needed revenue for the exchequer, reduce harmful economic activity by short-term speculators and high-frequency financial traders, and make resources available to invest in public services, address climate change, eliminate poverty and support development aid.

Yours, etc,
Niall Crowley
Nina Sachau
Claiming Our Future,
2/3 Parnell Square East,
Dublin 1.

Senator Landy snubs Seanad inquiry

I was delighted that the Sunday Times reported on my continuing efforts to bring Labour senator Denis Landy to account over his refusal to act on bribery allegations he made in July of last year.

Here’s the article in full. I’ll be coming back later with more comment.

By Mark Tighe

A Labour senator who claimed he was offered a bribe to miss a vote has refused to co-operate with a Seanad inquiry into the matter.

Last July, Denis Landy, a Tipperary based senator, told the Sunday Independent he had been offered flights and three night’s accommodation in New York if he missed a vote, and that the offer was made “in seriousness rather than jest.”

The senator said he turned down the offer, which he believed was an effort to defeat the Government on the abolition of the Seanad.

Landy has refused to elaborate on the identity of the ‘shadowy political figure’ who made the offer.

Anthony Sheridan, who runs the publicinquiry.eu blog, subsequently made a comlaint to the Gardai and the Seanad Committee on Members’ Interests about the bribe claim.

He complained Landy had failed to report the incident to the authorites or reveal who allegedly offered the bribe.

The Seanad Committee sent Mr. Sheridan the results of the investigation last month.

Deirdre Clune, the Fine Gael chair of the Committtee, said it had written to Landy last November and he responded on January 15 through a firm of solicitors asking for documentation about the complaint.

The Committee then asked Landy to attend but his solicitor replied that he did not wish to. After taking legal advice the Comittee decided to discontinue its investigation. It noted a complaint had also been filed with the Gardai.

Clune’s letter to Sheridan asked him to be aware of Section 35 of the Ethics in Public Office Act, which says disclosing information obtained under the Act is an offence.

“I interpret this as a not very subtle warning to me to make sure the Committee’s findings are not passed on to the media.” Sheridan said.

“Senator Landy’s refusal to co-operate with the Committee is contemptible. In a functional democracy he would be answering questions in a court of law.”

He said it was “risible” that the Committee could conclude “without any apparent embarrassment, that it does not have the power to investigate an alleged breach of its code by one of its members.

He said the Labour Party’s response to the incident was astonishing.

The party has previously said the incident is a matter for the senator himself. Last week its spokesman did not return calls. Landy said he had “no comment.”

After he made the bribe claim, four senators called on Landy to explain himself.

David Norris told the Seanad he wanted the truth.

“The corruption must be exposed and if it was the last thing the House did, it would be a service to the people of Ireland,” the independent senator said.

Maurice Cummins, the Fine Gael leader in the Seanad, also called for Landy to report the matter to the Gardai.

“ I hope this matter, if not already reported, will be reported immediately by senator Landy.”

Fluffy, wobbly god argument demolished

A really excellent letter in today’s Irish Times which demolishes the ‘fluffy’ and ‘wobbly’ arguments made by Joe Humphreys’ in his recent article.

Sir,

Joe Humphreys, in his column of May 1st, insists that, based on the writings of Richard Kearney, atheists can still believe in God.

Of course people can believe in anything they wish, if they share Kearney’s view that words are fluffy bits of cotton wool to comfort the troubled mind rather than tools for examining reality.

God, it seems, is not an omnipotent being who created the universe, so far as this latest incarnation of Father Trendy is concerned. On the contrary, God is a weak, wobbly substance that can be used as an all-purpose wild card that serves to mean anything the listener wants to hear, and to chime in with whatever is the current fashion in delusions and fantasy. God is the cosy reassurance that all their nighttime terrors are real and all their most fantastic dreams will come true, just as soon as their hearts stop beating.

Such people always dismiss Richard Dawkins as dogmatic, because of his irritating habit of insisting that some things are fact and some are fiction, and that some theories can withstand scientific testing and some cannot. It is perfectly reasonable for people to lament the death of God. I miss my late parents but my regret cannot breathe life back into their remains.

What is unreasonable is for people who describe themselves as philosophers to deal with their regret by ceaselessly shifting the ground of their argument on to the treacherous bog of sentimentality and fairy tales.

Joe and Richard can believe in their fashionably elusive deity if they want, but they should allow atheists in turn their right to prefer knowledge to faith and reason to waffle.

God save us all from people who encourage us to believe in lies. Oh, wait. No. He can’t do that. Can he? Apparently not.

Yours, etc,
Arthur Deeny,
Blackrock
Co Dublin

Information Ombudsman: Getting ever more bizarre

My complaint to the Information Ombudsman regarding the refusal of the Department of Justice to answer a question becomes ever more bizarre.

I wrote recently about correspondence I received from the Ombudsman which effectively stated that the office had no power to investigate the Dept. of Justice.

Here’s the relevant and bizarre comment.

This Office is precluded from examining the issues you have raised in your online complaint. This exclusion includes complaints about the failure of the Department to reply to your correspondence.

This, of course, is ridiculous. If the Ombudsman cannot investigate a refusal by a Government department to answer a simple question then it has no power to do anything.

My reply:

Dear…

I would be greateful if you could answer the following questions.

What precise piece of legislation precludes your office from examining my complaint?

What precise piece of legislation precludes your office from investigating the refusal of the Department to reply to my correspondence?

Your sincerely
Anthony Sheridan

I received no reply to this correspondence so I phoned the Ombudsman’s office yesterday and spoke with the official dealing with my complaint.

The official claimed that she thought I was asking the Ombudsman to deal with the content of my question to the Dept. of Justice rather than the refusal of the Dept. to answer the question.

I pointed out to her that this explanation was contrary to her previous correspondence in which she clearly stated that the Ombudsman does not have the power to examine the Dept’s refusal to answer my question.

She promised to get back to me soonest.

And so, on it goes.

The truth about politicians, regulators and bankers

Letter in today’s Irish Times.

Sir,

There is now no doubt that in the past we got the kind of regulation that our governments and increasingly powerful business lobbyists wanted.

The Government appointed the regulator and, no doubt, outlined the job specifications, which seem to have been roughly: “A regulator is just a civil servant, he never gets high-falutin’ notions and doesn’t get in the way of big business. ”

Despite the appalling consequences of our lack of effective regulation and legislation in the past, John Bruton, the former taoiseach of a Fine Gael-led coalition, in his capacity as chairman of the IFSC, told the European Insurance Forum Conference in May 2013 that we needed to put a rein on financial regulation.

Some banks, he claimed, had handed back their licences because of oppressive regulation, regulation which was risk-averse. ome weeks later an American businessman, interviewed on an RTÉ radio news programme, candidly stated that one of the factors that attracted US investors to Ireland was our “low regulatory hurdles”.

Matthew Elderfield, while acknowledging the greatly improved staffing levels in the regulator’s office, has severely criticised the present government’s failure to implement recommendations he made before his departure from his position as financial regulator.

No doubt, as soon as the Dáil committee of inquiry has completed its work we will be promised effective legislation and a robust regulatory regime. However, powerful forces will be working openly and behind the scenes to dilute or hinder these measures.

Yours, etc,
Denis O’Donoghue,
Co Kerry