Interested in maladministration. Estd. 2005
Letter in today’s Irish Examiner
A day in honour of Maeve
Maeve Binchy was not just a great writer, but also a “people person” who inspired, encouraged, and brought a smile to everybody.
We should designate Jul 30 “Maeve Binchy Day”, when the nation could have lunch and discuss her books, life philosophy, and magical character.
Anthony Sheridan
Cobh
Sean Quinn was on the airwaves again yesterday blaming everybody for his self-inflicted woes.
On the possibility of going jail.
With the current attitude of Anglo it’s very likely to happen, I’ve done everything in my power to purge my contempt.
Translation: It’s all the fault of Anglo.
On his deliberate hiding of assets from Anglo.
Yes, we clearly stated in front of Judge Dunne that we did everything in our power to take as many assets as we could from under their now because we knew they had a claim against us, €2.8 billion, we knew we only owed them €445 million.
We think it’s an absolute disgrace, it’s daylight robbery. So we made no apologies about trying to take as many assets from Anglo as we could and to make sure that we give them the minimum amount of information of where they were.
So, no room for misinterpretation there. They tried to move the money offshore because Anglo had robbed them.
On accepting responsibility for his part in the fall of Anglo and the subsequent massive damage done to the country.
Sean Quinn had absolutely nothing to do with the overall losses in the Irish banking system.
Odd how dodgy people like Quinn, Lawlor and Wallace tend to talk about themselves in the third person. It’s as if they’re psychologically separating themselves from their activities.
So there’s one Sean Quinn out there who placed a massive bet on Anglo in order to substantially increase his already massive wealth and lost billions and now demands that Irish taxpayers pick up the bill.
The other Sean Quinn sees himself as an innocent victim of Anglo’s evil activities and is appealing to the people, who are picking up his massive bill, for sympathy and support.
On the money owed to Anglo.
You must remember it’s the Quinn Group that owes this money, the Quinn family doesn’t owe this money, they never borrowed money. This money was all borrowed by the Quinn Group.
How some of those commentators can say that the family owe €2.8 billion when they should know the Group owes €2.8 billion if the debts were legitimate, which we believe they’re not.
Your contention is that you don’t own the Group anymore?
No, so how could the family pay back if they don’t own the Group?
This is the same tactic used by the fraudster Mick Wallace TD. I don’t owe Revenue any money; the company MJ Wallace owes it.
Quinn getting a bit befuddled as he tries to keep his stories from sounding like Bertie Ahern’s lies.
I would claim that the five children owned all of these companies, these companies were never owned by Anglo. Anglo never invested any money in these companies.
These companies were owned by the kids; paid for by the kids.
Sorry, they were owned by the kids; but the Group borrowed the money.
This level of delusion is up there with the liar Ahern’s claim that he won the money on the horses.
Do you feel a level of guilt for it all?
I think the interviewer meant; did he feel any guilt for the damage done to Ireland and its people.
Quinn: I do indeed, I built up something that made them all multimillionaires and then all of a sudden I made this one mistake.
Spent a pile of money on Anglo, we all know what happened, bang, bang, bang.
And then all of a sudden, I leave the kids no money, no jobs, no reputation.
Hunted by the media, hunted by surveillance companies. It’s just absolutely horrendous what they’re going through and I do feel guilty about that.
I feel very sorry for him (his son in jail), it’s totally unfair, a totally innocent man.
He’s a victim of something he’s totally innocent of and I feel very bad about that.
At this point I was in floods of tears.
Surely someone should set up a support group with the aim of restoring ‘the kids’ to their multimillionaire status?
The inhumanity of it all.
John Waters was recently described as having a Messiah Complex.
I had never heard of the term before but after checking out its meaning I can confirm Waters most certainly does fit the description.
Irish Times and Luddite John Waters was on a radio panel recently discussing the merits of Twitter.
Waters was challenged by a panelist.
How is it not a good thing that listeners to this show can communicate with us in real time?
Waters: Because they’re not listening properly, they’re already preoccupied.
A listener replied:
The media has a huge influence on my opinion. I listen to that gobshite Waters has to say and then take the opposite view.
RTE gave great coverage to the ‘good news’ that NAMA made an operating profit in 2010.
Unfortunately, the broadcaster seems to have no interest in covering the much more important story concerning the ongoing battle by journalist Gavin Sheridan in trying to extract information from NAMA.
Gavin spotted a chink in the almost impenetrable armour of NAMA’s secrecy laws when, instead of submitting a Freedom of Information request, he asked for information by way of an Environmental Information regulation request.
The Ombudsman and Information Commissioner, Emily O’Reilly ruled in favour of Gavin forcing NAMA to take the case to the High Court.
A caller to Liveline after the publication of the Mahon Tribunal Report.
Joe, if there was sworn testimony under oath and it was untruthful, what does that imply?
Joe Duffy: Ok, well the Tribunal doesn’t make the leap. They just say the evidence was untruthful, they don’t accept Mr. Ahern’s narrative of how he came by the money but they don’t offer an alternative narrative.
Phew, that was a close one, nearly forced to use the ‘P’ word.
Exchange between Minister for the Environment Phil Hogan and an RTE presenter after the publication of the Mahon Tribunal Report.
Phil Hogan: The Mahon Tribunal has not used the word ‘corrupt’ in relations to Mr. Ahern but it uses the word ‘lies’ on a number of occasions without using the exact words.
RTE presenter: Well hold on a second now. That’s a very specific word, it says it doesn’t believe him, it says it doesn’t accept his evidence, it says some things were untrue; it does not use the word ‘lies’.
In the real world untruths are lies. In real democracies media outlets accept this fact as normal and report accordingly.
In the Alice in Wonderland world of RTE current affairs, where a deep fear of litigation determines all decisions, an untruth is not necessarily a lie.
1997: Bertie Ahern speaking at the opening of the Fianna Fail Ard Fheis.
Delegates, Fianna Fail will enforce a new set of standards for all its members.
We will not tolerate any deviation from the benchmarks of honour at local level or Leinster House be it in the past, the present or the future.
No one, no one is welcome in this party if they betray the public trust. I say this and I mean this with every fibre of my being.
2006: Bertie Ahern speaking at the grave of Ireland’s most notorious criminal politician Charles Haughey.
If the definition of a patriot is someone who devotes all their energy to the betterment of their country, Charles Haughey was a patriot to his fingertips.
It may seem bizarre to many that Garret Fitzgerald could write in great detail about his long political career without mentioning, never mind actually analysing, the corruption of Charles Haughey.
But there is in fact a very simple reason.
The criminal Haughey was a member of the same ruling elite club as Garret Fitzgerald.
Members of this exclusive club instinctively know that they must stand by each other if they are to survive as the ruling elite.
So while it is perfectly acceptable to play the game of politics, slagging each off in the Dail, hotly debating issues through the media, it is totally unacceptable for club members to call into question the right to rule pedigree of any member by accusing them of criminal or corrupt practices.
In December 1979 when the criminal Haughey came to power Fitzgerald rightly referred to him as a flawed pedigree
Fitzgerald realised immediately that he had overstepped the mark, that he had offended the sensibilities of the ruling elite who were all present for the nomination of Haughey as Taoiseach (See here for my view of this incident).
Thereafter, and for the rest of his long career, Fitzgerald constantly apologised/explained this insult to a member of the ruling elite club.
In his book, Just Garret (page 288) he once again tries to explain away his (totally accurate) assessment of Haughey’s real character.
The phrase ‘flawed pedigree’, an oratorical embellishment that must have owed something to the hour of the night at which I had finally drafted my remarks, achieved lasting fame.
I should of course have recognised the danger of using a colourful phrase that could easily be distorted by being taken completely out of the specific context of a comparison between Charles Haughey’s and his predecessors’ repute among their peers (my emphasis).
Fitzgerald tells another story that confirms how the ruling elite support each other and gives us a hint of how some in the media are more than willing to cooperate with protecting the interests of the ruling elite.
In 1983 Labour leader and then Tánaiste Dick Spring had a bit of a row with Haughey at a meeting of the New Ireland Forum.
Haughey became so upset that he had to be escorted from the room.
It later transpired that earlier on the same day a biographical book, The Boss, had been published which greatly upset Haughey and his family.
Fitzgerald’s response to this incident is incredible and bizarre when we consider that he had already accurately described Haughey as a flawed pedigree.
In other words he knew that Haughey was nothing more than a political gangster.
The publication of The Boss which outlined in great detail the corrupt activities of Haughey in the short three-year period since becoming leader of Fianna Fail confirmed in black and white Fitzgerald’s flawed pedigree assessment of the criminal.
To avoid being accused of quoting Fitzgerald out of context I include his full response in his own words.
The Forum was immediately adjourned, and Dick Spring made his peace with Charles Haughey.
But following the afternoon session, I realised that I had earlier responded to a query from Vincent Browne, editor of the Sunday Tribune, about my Christmas reading, saying that The Boss was something that I would want to read during the break.
I then found that Dick Spring had also mentioned the book to Vincent in this way.
I rang Vincent, who I found already knew what had happened that morning, and he agreed not to publicise the traumatic event in the Forum and to substitute other works in place of The Boss on my list, and in Dick’s.
So here we had the Prime Minister and his deputy going to great lengths, with the willing cooperation of a journalist, to minimise the impact of an accurate account of Haughey’s corrupt activities.
The response by Fitzgerald and Spring is a perfect example of how members of the ruling class, first and foremost, look after each other.
That elitist political mindset is still the guiding force in the body politic today.
While mooching around my local library yesterday I came across a book, Just Garret, written by Garret Fitzgerald.
The book was published in 2010 and is an account of Fitzgerald’s life from early childhood right up to his retirement from politics and beyond to 2010.
I would have no interest in reading the entire book but I do have a habit of checking the Contents and Index of books by or about Irish politicians for the word ‘corruption’.
No mention of the ‘c’ word in the Contents and, amazingly, no mention in the Index.
So here we have an account of political events from one of the most prominent politicians in recent Irish history spanning a decades long career that almost exactly mirrors the career of the most corrupt politician in Irish history, the criminal Haughey, and the word ‘corruption’ is not once mentioned.
It’s like writing a history of World War Two without mentioning D Day or writing a history of Ireland with no reference to the year 1916.
It’s denial and revisionism on a grand scale.
It is an absolute impossibility for anyone to write a credible account of recent Irish political history without an extensive chapter on political corruption.
To write a book of 430 pages spanning the most corrupt years in Irish political history without even once mentioning the word ‘corruption’ is a farcical exercise of the most hilarious kind.
Fitzgerald’s delusional tome is subtitled:
Tales from the political front line.
Clearly, Fitzgerald spent his entire career deep within an Alice in Wonderland bunker well behind the front line of corruption.