It is practically impossible to challenge the power of state corruption

The following editorial in today’s Irish Examiner is worth reproducing in full.

The header asks: Why are we pathetically complacent?

I don’t’ think the Irish people are complacent. I think rather they have, over the decades, being rendered totally powerless by the sheer weight of corruption within the political/administrative system.

Irish citizens can see the corruption, they are extremely angry about it, particularly since September 2008, but because the governing system is so infected with the disease it is, short of a revolution, almost impossible to make any serious challenge to the power of state corruption.

Challenging corruption – Why are we pathetically complacent?

Friday, July 26, 2013

It is not an exaggeration to say that the country was convulsed in the run up to the passage of the Protection of Life During Pregnancy Bill through the Oireachtas.
Tens of thousands of people marched, every media platform was dominated by debate on the issue. Croziers were dusted off and swung like broadswords in a way that once commanded obedience. Taoiseach Enda Kenny showed an unexpected ruthlessness to get the legislation passed.

We had, in Irish terms at least, a spectacular and almost unheard of form of protest — politicians risking careers on a point of principle.

It was, whichever side of the debate you stood on, a matter of right or wrong. A position had to be taken, remaining neutral was not an option.

Yet, and though the ink is barely dry on the abortion legislation, another manifestation of this society’s justice system’s dysfunction and ongoing failures, our seeming indifference to allegations of corruption — or the innocence and good name of those accused of it — presents itself and there’s hardly a game-changing ripple across the public consciousness.

There is certainly no prospect of 40,000 people marching through the streets of our capital to protest at yet another Irish outcome to an Irish problem.

Is it that we don’t care? Is it that five years after our banking collapse and not a single conviction to show for society-breaking years of Wild West banking that we are a beaten, abject people who have come to accept that for some people accountability is as remote and unlikely a prospect as levitation?

The collapse of the planning and corruption trial earlier this week because a witness is too ill to give evidence has served nobody well, not even the businessman, the councillor and the two former councillors in the dock. Though the principle of innocent until proven otherwise must always apply, too many important questions remain unanswered.

This one case may put the issue into a sharp, if fleeting, focus but there are myriad examples of our failure to adequately deal with the whiff of corruption.

Speaking to the Dáil’s Public Accounts Committee, former financial regulator Matthew Elderfield put it in the gentlest terms when he chided that we do not have a system capable of holding individuals to account or tackling white-collar crime.

How could it be otherwise? A report from that committee suggests that fewer than 60 state employees are focussed on white-collar crime. This figure includes all relevant gardaí, Central Bank officials and the Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement staff assigned to the problem. We probably have more dog wardens.

It is surely, despite the occasional protest from cornered politicians, naive to imagine this is accidental. If it is, like our tribunals, it is profoundly under-whelming and utterly unequal to the challenge. More likely it is another example of our enthusiasm for rules but our fatal distaste for implementing them.

There is great, chest-filling talk about political reform, about a new political party even and changing the culture of how a citizen interacts with the state. Sadly, all of that will stand for nothing more than a cynical diversion unless we have a policing, regulatory and justice system capable of, and most importantly, enthusiastic about, investigating allegations of corruption.

It is said that a society gets the politicians it deserves and that may well be true, but it is absolutely certain that a society must suffer the consequences of the behaviours it tolerates. The evidence is all around us.

© Irish Examiner Ltd. All rights reserved

Colm McCarthy: Living in la la land

Economist Colm McCarthy was on Drivetime during the week (23rd) talking about the selling off of state assets.

According to McCarthy government ownership of Allied Irish Bank, Irish Permanent and part ownership of Bank of Ireland will eventually become the big privatisation issue.

McCarthy, like so many other so-called experts, actually believes that the banks are owned by the state.

This, of course, is not the case. There will be no ‘big privatisation issue’.

The banks are merely in the temporary care of the state until such time as all the billions lost during the casino property gambles are transferred onto to the shoulders of taxpayers’.

Once the banks are cleansed of all gambling debts they will be handed back, without any consequences whatsoever for the vermin bankers, to carry on as before – defrauding and screwing the taxpayers who were forced to bail them out.

It (fraud) will continue until you no longer give your consent

The following very strong, very revealing letter was published in the Irish Examiner last Saturday.

Beware third party rules on mortgage transfers

“In our view, the code could potentially slow the increase in mortgage arrears in Ireland, and may allow lenders to start repossession proceedings sooner.

“We view this as a credit positive for the senior notes in outstanding residential mortgage backed securities.”

Let’s translate this quote from the Standard & Poor’s ratings agency as they commented on the new Central Bank code on mortgage arrears.

The important line is the second one. Your mortgage was sold to third parties by your bank. These third parties are hedge funds, insurance companies, etc.

These are the senior note holders. Your bank was paid in full for your mortgage by these institutions. Your bank now acts as a debt collector for these third parties. Basically, they bought your promise to pay from the banks.

The Irish Central Bank rules clearly state that a debt cannot be sold on to third party investors without your consent. If it was then the debt is null and void.

The next question to ask yourself is was your mortgage sold on to investors? The answer to this question is the same as the one about the bear, the woods and toilet facilities he used.

So unless you received a letter stating your mortgage was no longer owned by your bank then your mortgage is null and void.

This is just another example of the multi-layered fraud that continues daily in this country, all perpetrated by the suited and booted ones.

It will continue until you no longer give your consent.

Barry Fitzgerald

Lissarda

Cork

Frank Dunlop: Sorry your lordship; my eidetic memory is fading

Former lobbyist Frank Dunlop has said he cannot remember getting over IR£1 million in payments from a developer in the 1990s.

He was asked by Michael O’Higgins SC how he can recall getting £25,000 from Mr Kennedy but not £1.2m.

Mr Dunlop said he had a vivid or eidetic memory about some things, but not about others

Now c’mon people, is that not a perfectly reasonable defence.

After all, we’ve witnessed dozens of politicians, bankers, civil servants and property developers claim that they too ‘suffered’ from a vivid or eidetic memory about some things, but not others.

And yes, I did have to Google ‘eidetic’ for its meaning.

The boardroom criminals could not have survived without the active support of a corrupt political system

Chief Justice Susan Denham’s call for businesses to put ethics back in their boardrooms is akin to asking criminals to stop breaking the law.

Not all businesses are ethical free zones so it is reasonable to assume, generally speaking, that Justice Denham is referring to the boardroom criminals of the Celtic Tiger.

The criminals who could not have committed their crimes without the full support and encouragement of our corrupt political system.

If our political system was not corrupt there would have been a proper regulatory system in place with the power and political support to root out the boardroom criminals.

Two particular sets of figures in the Courts Service annual report reveal much about the consequences and reaction to the collapse of the economy.

The number of restriction orders imposed on company directors grew by 50% last year while the number of directors disqualified increased by a massive 350%

In other words, the corrupt political system, for the time being at least, does not have the same influence over regulators.

There was an 82% rise in the number of people jailed for non-payment of debt, a 14% increase in tenant ejectments and 7% rise in orders to wind up companies.

These figures reflect the consequences of political corruption on ordinary citizens and businesses.

Martin Mansergh: I know nothing, I was in a building 500 metres away

Martin Mansergh is a long time loyal member of Fianna Fail, the most corrupt political party in the country. He’s also a great admirer and defender of the criminal politician Haughey.

In May 2008, just before our corrupt political/administrative system was exposed to the world, Mansergh was appointed as Minister of State at the Department of Finance.

On a recent Marian Finucane Show (June 30) he boasted about his involvement with the IMF and the World Bank as they grappled with the global financial crisis.

Yet, when asked about is involvement with the crisis in Ireland, Mansergh denied everything.

Marian Finucane: You were working in the Dept. and presumably in contact with the Minister for Finance throughout that period.

Mansergh: Well, I was in a separate building. My main job was the office of public works.

Finucane: Was there a sense around the place of the kind of pressue that was going on?

Mansergh: Well, as I say, I wasn’t in the building, I was in a separate building about 500 metres away. I was not in the loop. My job in Finance was basically to relieve the Minister of some of his parliamentary responsibilities.

So here was a Minister of State at the Department of Finance who claims he wasn’t even aware that there was political/financial tension in the air.

And his excuse; he was in a building 500 metres from his boss’s office.

So, either he was hiding away for months on end in his ‘safe’ office with no landline, mobile phone, computer, television, radio or newspapers.

Or

He posseses the same level of honesty and integrity as his criminal hero Haughey.

The Anglo Tapes: The Germans now know what we are as a nation

Few Germans, if any, have any notion of the damage done to Ireland over the decades by the disease of corruption.

Indeed, few Germans know anything of Ireland, period. Any why would they? Ireland barely registers on the global scale of importance.

Despite this, German politicians and media were able to make an immediate and 100% accurate assessment of what we are as a nation after just a few day of listening to the Anglo tapes.

Here’s just a few examples:

German Chancellor Angela Merkel:

The kind of banker talk like that on the Anglo tapes does real damage to democracy and makes it harder for politicians to convince people to get up, go to work, pay their taxes and show solidarity with people who are weaker. All of this is destroyed by that.

German Finance Minister:

These people came across as if they were supermen, above it all and had nothing but contempt for their fellow man.

A German publication interviewed some Irish commentators like Fintan O’Toole and Eddie Hobbs to get some idea of what was going on in Ireland.

The article concluded, using just the knowledge from these few people, that there was something seriously wrong with the Irish psyche, that there was something fundamentally wrong with the way the country was governed.

The above reactions were from citizens who live in a functional democracy where the rule of law applies to all citizens and not just to the peasants.

Now witness Marian Finucane’s response to the arrogance of David Drumm, keeping in mind that this is one of our most senior broadcasters who has witnessed and reported on an endless avalanche of corruption over the decades.

Drumm: Get into the fucking simple speak: We need the moolah, you have it, so you’re going to give it to us and when would that be?

And by the way, the game has changed because really the problem is now at their door.

Finucane: They actually do sound relaxed but they couldn’t have been relaxed, they must have been out of their minds.

And here’s Finucane’s reaction to the extremely insulting reference by the Anglo vermin to the German national anthem.

Finucane: (laughing) I think that’s hysteria breaking out somehow or other although I guess it wouldn’t have gone down terribly well in Germany.

The point to note here is that Finucane is making excuses for the vermin just as we’ve witnessed others make endless excuses for corrupt politicians, bankers,regulators and priests over the decades.

Unlike the German media and body politic, who immediately recognised vermn as vermin, Finucane did the typically Irish thing by ignoring the unpalatable truth.

Copy to:
Marian Finucane

Gavin Sheridan: Bishops should butt out of education

From the Attic Archives

Letter to (the then) Examiner (29 June, 1998).

Donal O’Driscoll calls for the return of Bishops to the governing body of UCC, a request I do not agree with (Bring Bishops back into UCC, The Examiner, June 24).

He goes on to make many points with which I would have difficulty.

Firstly, the involvement of Bishops in the University could not be considered crucial. Why should such people be automatically given the right to be a part of the governing body?

Are they somehow morally or intellectually superior, their knowledge of Church creed being beneficial?

Mr. O’Driscoll points out that the Church has made an “outstanding contribution to higher education”, this may be true, but today is it really necessary?

Secondly, Mr. O’Driscoll states that there is a “campaign to secularise our culture” and “dechristianise our laws”.

I would have to agree that Ireland is becoming more secular. I feel it is to the advantage of this country. The conclusion reached by Mr. O’Driscoll is that Ireland would be worse off, if the Church were not imposing its will, that we would be deprived of morality and spirituality in an increasingly secular state.

I see no connection between morality and the Church, and spirituality while less defined can be attained without the aid of this institution.

Laws should be made in the best interests of the entire population and not on the agenda of the Church based on faith, where faith is defined as belief without proof.

Education should be secular, in my opinion, with the doctrine of the Church being taught elsewhere, such as in Sunday school.

As the Church has most of its power in the primary education sector, children are brought up from an early age constantly in the shadow of the Church.

I believe in the right to religious belief, but I also consider that religion should remain at Mass or in the home, according to the wishes of the parents.

Perhaps there is a campaign to secularise Ireland. But I see no threat from this, as the influence of the Church decreases I do not think we shall see a spate of immoral actions with people becoming less moral once the Church has lost sway over the State.

This “blight of neo-liberalism” cannot be considered bad, but in the best interests of the State in which we live.

Gavin Sheridan
Carrigaline
Cork