Stephen Donnelly: Nearly gets it right

Speaking on radio over the weekend independent TD Stephen Donnelly delivered an almost perfect analysis of Ireland 2012.

I say ‘almost’ because, with his final sentence, Donnelly demonstrated that he doesn’t really understand the reality of Ireland 2012.

The Oireachtas does not work, it’s a joke, it’s a farce. It’s a pretence of parliamentary democracy, this country is run by the Cabinet.

Fianna Fail became institutionally corrupt and that corruption spread right through the country. At the same time the civil service shut themselves off from internal oversight and from parliamentary oversight.

And so when the Tsunami came the country had become so unstable, so badly governed that we fell off a cliff. At the heart of it is institutional self-interest, weak politics because we kept voting along tribal grounds

Now that’s all gone.

It’s all gone…all the corruption is gone, all is reformed, democracy has returned…we don’t vote along tribal grounds anymore…Where…When…Who?

Feck, I must have blinked at some point.

Róisín Shortall: A glint of honesty in the political sewer

It really is refreshing to listen to an Irish politician speaking with absolute honesty.

Róisín Shortall did not mince her words in response to an Irish Times report that two locations in Minister for Health James Reilly’s constituency were added to a list of places chosen for primary care centres on the evening before they were announced by the Government.

Here’s some of what this principled politician had to say:

He started off by looking after some of his colleagues in some of those additions, all of the fifteen would have been added on that basis. At the last minute slipping in another four, two of which were in his constituency.

This documentation gives the lie to the many convoluted excuses and justifications that Minister Reilly and other ministers gave in the Dail and elsewhere where they tried to claim that there was other criteria used, that he had some basis other than pure political patronage.

Here’s one of the convoluted excuses that our moronic Minister for Health expects intelligent citizens to believe.

One and one makes two and two and two make four but four by four makes 16 and not four and four makes eight and so it is with this. It’s a logistical, logarithmic progression, so there is nothing; there is nothing simple about it.

Shortall again:

I think it’s a matter now for the Government to decide are they going to actually deliver the kind of new politics that they promised or is it going to be business as usual, stroke politics that has done so much damage to this country.

On the same programme we had a representative from that old gombeen/stroke politics regime that has destroyed our country, Fine Gael TD Regina Doherty.

Doherty sees nothing wrong with Reilly’s moronic excuses.

I’m quite satisfied that the explanation I was given is believable and plausible.

This gombeen response is a carbon copy of the cowardly excuses mouthed by Fianna Fail gombeens when defending the liar Bertie Ahern.

There is very little hope for Ireland and its people for so long as politicians like Doherty are in power.

According to her website Doherty’s favourite film is the Godfather.

Appropriate, I would say.

Her favourite saying is:

What goes around comes around.

Let’s hope that applies to her when she next stands for election.

Copy to:
Róisín Shortall
Regina Doherty

Please Mr. Halapanavar, respect our tradition of cover-up and political cowardice

The Taoiseach’s appeal to Praveen Halapanavar to meet with the chairman of the inquiry team can be translated as follows:

Please Mr. Halapanavar, please go along with the way we do things in Ireland. We don’t know how to do public inquiries, we’ve never done them.

Please do this for me Mr. Halapanavar. I promise you will receive justice, if it doesn’t threaten my career or the career of my colleagues. If it doesn’t expose our corrupt body politic and if the HSE can be brought under control.

Please respect our long established tradition of cover-up, secrecy and political cowardice.

Fine Gael politicians take to the cowardice bunker

Cover-up, denial, delay, secrecy, missing/destroyed files and moving blame.

These are the usual strategies employed by Irish authorities in response to state scandal.

Every one of them has been used in the last week in a desperate attempt by state authorites to avoid acting on or taking responsibility for the Halapanavar tragedy scandal.

None of them have worked so we’ve seen a strategy that is rarely necessary – public cowardice by elected representatives.

No Fine Gael politicians has been available in the last few days as each and every one of them took to the cowardice bunker.

And in a perverse way, who can blame them.

This scandal is different from all previous scandals because in this case the world is looking on as our corrupt political/administrative system struggles to cover-up the scandal while trying to maintain the fiction that Ireland is a functional democracy.

The first strategy to fail was the attempt to pack the original investigation team with consultants from Galway hospital.

If this was not an international incident those consultants would still be on that team, beavering away in secret to ‘resolve the problem’.

It has been said, and I have little reason to disagree, that these people are of the highest integrity.

I say ‘little reason’ because they did, after all, agree to participate in what the rest of the world clearly saw as an attempt to influence the outcome of the investigation in the state’s favour.

If these people are so wonderful they should have immediately recognised the implications of the situation and rejected the invitation to participate.

If this was not an international incident the people of Ireland would have been told by the ruling elite to take a run and jump if they objected to the form of the investigation team.

The HSE/State once again refuses to take responsibility

Cover up, denial, secrecy, bureaucracy, non-accountability, endangering life, corporate arrogance, corporate ruthlessness, political weakness, political cowardice.

This is the first paragraph of a piece I posted in May 2007 regarding the disgraceful treatment of Rebecca O’Malley by the Health Service Executive (HSE).

Mrs. O’Malley was told that a lump on her breast was benign but it turned out to be malignant.

The error cost her 14 months in wasted time. She had to have a mastectomy that probably would not have been necessary if that time had not been wasted.

It turned out that 300 other women had also been misdiagnosed but the HSE had decided not to inform them thus putting their lives in danger.

When Mrs. O’Malley expressed concern she was urged by the HSE not to go public.

She agreed on condition that an independent investigation be initiated. The HSE were lying, nothing was done.

The failure of the HSE to act forced Mrs. O’Malley to assume responsibility for the endangered women. She successfully forced the HSE to act by going public.

Five years on Praveen Halapanavar, husband of Savita Halapanavar, was asked why he had gone public after his wife died.

Because there was nothing happening after two weeks.

Mr. Halapanavar has assumed responsibility for dealing with this disgraceful scandal because the Irish State has effectively refused to do so.

Catholic militant Senator Mullen 'attacked' by culture of clapping

Want to make your skin crawl? Take a look at religious fanatic Senator Mullen on Frontline.

Like all the Catholic fanatics Mullen sees a conspiracy in every comment and action by all who disagree with his views.

After Mullen made a point about abortion in England Pat Kenny was applauded when he reminded the fanatic that thousands of Irish women go to England every year for abortions.

Mullen proceeded to attack the audience for daring to support Kenny’s comment.

Mullen: The clapping here tonight, I’m beginning to feel how Sean Gallagher felt actually.

Kenny: That’s a low blow, a low blow.

Mullen: No, this culture of clapping to beat down the side you disagree with is not going to do anything to reassure Irish men and women about the quality of health care.

More questions for the Office of Public Works

Sent the following email to the Office of Public Works (OPW) in my continuing efforts to get some answers regarding the missing art work from Leinster House.

Dear,

In your email of Thursday 8th November regarding the art work missing from Leinster House you state that the OPW is not in a position to confirm that items are missing.

I would be grateful if you could clarify the following statements and claims as reported in the Sunday Independent dated Sunday October 21st.

Thirty-seven pieces of state-owned art work are missing or “unaccounted for” from within Leinster House, it has been confirmed.

Is this statement true?

Did an OPW spokesperson confirm to the Sunday Independent that 37 pieces of state-owned art work are missing or unaccounted for?

Is the reference to ‘missing’ items incorrect?

Individual paintings, prints, statues and other pieces of state-owned art work assigned to the Leinster House complex, under the charge of the Office of Public Works (OPW), have been misplaced following the largest changeover of offices because of the general election last year.

Is this statement true?

An initial inventory of the State’s art collection has been completed and it found that 37 pieces of art work from within Leinster House are “unaccounted for”, the OPW has confirmed.

Is this statement true?

Did an OPW spokesperson confirm to the Sunday Independent that an initial inventory found that 37 pieces of art work were unaccounted for?

Often, when staff move offices, they take art work they like with them and this poses great difficulty to the OPW and management staff in Leinster House to keep a track on them, the spokesman said.

Is this statement true?

The OPW was not in a position to put a valuation on the collection, or the missing pieces, but said none of the pieces in question was of “critical importance”.

Is this statement true?

Is the reference to ‘missing’ pieces incorrect?

The OPW said that while a number of pieces are unaccounted for since the general election, others have been missing since before that.

Is this statement true?

Is the reference to ‘missing’ pieces incorrect?

Clearly there is some confusion between your statement that the OPW is not in a position to confirm that items are missing and the Sunday Independent report which clearly confirms an OPW spokesperson as saying that items are missing.

To help you in your reply I contacted the Sunday Independent and they have confirmed to me that they did speak at length with a spokesperson from the OPW.

The Sunday Independent stated that the OPW confirmed all the details of the story.

The Sunday Independent stated that the OPW at no time complained or objected to the story in terms of its accuracy.

The Sunday Independent stated that the OPW has made no request for the story to be withdrawn or amended as a result of inaccuracies.

Yours Sincerely

Anthony Sheridan

Office of Public Works arrogantly refuses to answer questions

For over two weeks now I’ve been attempting to extract some very simple answers from the Office of Publc Works (OPW) regarding the large number of art work that has gone missing from Leinster House.

I’ve been through all the usual hoops – several emails, numerous phone calls, moved from extension to extension, from office to office, sidelined into the Press Office, put it in writing Mr. Sheridan, listened to officials trying to sound professional as they tell me fairy tales until, finally, I hit the standard bureaucratic brick wall.

The brick wall arrived, at is usually does, when I insisted on knowing the precise legislative basis for refusing to answer my questions.

I would be grateful if you could confirm to me the precise rules/regulations/laws on which your office is refusing to answer my questions on this matter.

I received the following email which, without exception, is the most arrogant/dismissive response I have ever received from a public official.

A public official who, in theory, is supposed to be working in the best intersts of Ireland and its citizens.

The form of the email is exactly as I received it.

Mr. Sheridan,

I refer to previous emails and telephone conversations. Please see responses below.

What are the name, position and rank of the person/s responsible for the safe keeping of the missing items?

The OPW Art Management Office manages the State Art Collection.

What action has been taken in response to the missing items?

The OPW Art Management Office is not in a position to confirm that items are missing.

In particular, what action has been taken in respect of items that went missing prior to the last general election?

The OPW Art Management Office is not in a position to confirm that items went missing prior to the last general election.

What is the overall time period in which the items went missing?

The OPW is not in a position to confirm that items are missing.

Please supply a list of the estimated value of each missing item.

The OPW is not in a position to confirm that items are missing. Therefore it is not possible to supply such a list.

Please supply a list of the exact offices/locations from which items went missing.

The OPW is not in a position to confirm that items are missing. Therefore it is not possible to supply such a list.

Please supply a list of the officials/politicians who occupied offices from which items went missing.

The OPW is not in a position to confirm that items are missing. Therefore it is not possible to supply such a list.

Please confirm or otherwise if members of the public are entitled to speak directly to OPW officials regarding this matter.

I confirm that responses will issue to you from the OPW Press office.

I would be grateful if you could confirm to me the precise rules/regulations/laws on which your office is refusing to answer my questions on this matter.

As previously stated the OPW is currently not in a position to answer questions relating to the ongoing art inventory.

I trust the above clarifies the matter.

Regards

A freedom of information request is on the way.

This is what we have become: A dictatorship

This government spent €1.1 million of taxpayers’ money in promoting a ‘Yes’ vote in the Children’s referendum.

So what part of the following statement, issued in 1995, by Supreme Court judge Liam Hamilton did state officials/politicians not understand?

The use by the government of public funds to fund a campaign designed to influence the voters in favour of a Yes vote is an interference with the democratic process and the constitutional process.

In my opinion state officials and politicians were fully aware of judge Hamilton’s judgement, they knew very well that what they were doing was unconstitutional but went ahead and did it anyway.

Just like officials in the Department of Health continued (and are still continuing) to break the law even after they were challenged by the Ombudsman.

In a similar vein we have government after government arrogantly ignoring the will of the people by dismissing their votes in referendums and forcing them to vote again until the result tallies with the state’s agenda.

There are literally thousands of examples over the last number of decades where Irish governments/politicians/officials deliberately ignored or broke laws to suit their own political or personal interests.

Solicitor Malachy Steenson (a ‘No’ vote campaigner) is correct in his assertion that we have moved from being a democracy to being a dictatorship.

Most dictatorships, in an effort to look respectable, create a fig leaf of laws, constitution and democratic principles.

The ruling elite then proceeds, under this thin blanket of ‘respectability’, to act in their own interests at the expense of ordinary citizens.

This what we have become.

Minister for Justice, Alan Shatter, defends abuse of power by Government?

The Supreme Court has granted a declaration that the State acted wrongfully in spending public money on the website, information booklets and advertisements in relation to the children’s referendum.

The court found that the Government did not conform to the required principles laid down by the landmark McKenna judgement.

If you can stomach it I recommend listening to the truly obnoxious response to the judgement by Justice Minister, Alan Shatter (News at One, 3rd report).

This most arrogant of politicians steadfastly and repeatedly refused to apologise for this blatant abuse of Government power.

I find myself in the unusual position of actually agreeing with John Waters’ on an issue.

Public money has been used to distort the campaign and therefore contaminates the outcome of the referendum.

It is worth recalling that the McKenna judgement (1995) came about because of the high principles and courage of former Green Party member Patricia McKenna.

Although campaigning for a ‘yes’ vote in the 1995 divorce campaign McKenna challenged the State’s use of taxpayers’ money to back the ‘yes’ campaign and not the ‘no’ side.

Her successful challenge means that the State is not permitted to preferentially use taxpayers’ money to fund one side or the other in a referendum campaign.

Of course, such trivialities as obeying the law or respecting the Constitution has never prevented Irish politicians from doing exactly as they think fit.

Hence Minister Shatter’s arrogant dismissal of the Supreme Court’s ruling and the complaints from those on the ‘no’ side.