CORRUPTION IN IRISH POLITICS
Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern still has questions to answer
Corruption does have victims
Politicians getting handy money
TAKING MONEY FROM THE WEALTHY WASN'T WRONG
From a non-party observer.
Sep 2006:
I'm just an ordinary Joe Sixpack at the lower regions of the great Celtic Tiger...near the anus...on low wages, living in a council house, almost 60 years of age, not in the best of health and very concerned about the future.
I remember a time when this country was in dire economic straights and a huge number of people like myself, who were trying to raise families on peanuts, had to resort to working in the black economy...i.e. doing menial nixers for almost nothing while drawing unemployment as decent jobs were non-existant.
I remember our Prime Minister at the time Charles J Haughey telling us how it was necessary to tighten our belts as this would facilitate an improvement in the country's fortunes.
I vividly remember the 'Gestapo' from the Dept. of Social Welfare coming to my run-down council house accusing me of ripping off the state when it was obvious that I owned/had nothing.
I remember how they stopped my Unemployment Assistance and made me go 'cap in hand' to the well heeled and well dressed civil servants in the Dept. begging to be reinstated.
But, inspite all of this, my wife and I succeeded in bringing up four fabulous daughters who are now working, it seems, as 'cannon fodder' for today's version of the same regime...Namely, our anaemic politicians having their pockets lined with wads of cash and who are only the puppets of the wealthy and influencial.
Perhaps this was always the way the system worked, but there was an effort made to maintain a balance. Our present government seem to have lost track of this concept. There is no balance...all the spoils seem to go to the financial winners. Much of it goes into off-shore accounts where no tax is paid and no benefit accrues to the country as a whole. In fact some of the wealthiest people in the country pay no or very little tax one way or the other.
Yesterday our Prime Minister/Taoiseach Bertie Ahern stood up for two hours in the Dail and told lies like he was in a competition after someone found out the inevitable truth and published it in The Irish Times. See his brass neck performance
HERE.
You see, back in the 1990's, when Fianna Fail were discovered to be a nest of crooks headed by Charles J Haughey and included, Ray Burke, Liam Lawlor, Padraig Flynn (see Flynnasty
HERE) and lots of lesser crooks, Bertie 'Shifty' Ahern was the secretary of the Fianna Fail Party. In other words, our present leader was in the thick of it and told the
Mahon Tribunal that he didn't know what went on. Even though he was signing blank cheques for Chief crook Haughey to buy Charvet shirts and other hollow trinkets to impress galoots with money.
Questions: If he didn't know what was going on, how did this country elect a fool for a leader? And if he did know, why didn't he do his duty by standing up and exposing the whole debacle?
OK...back to real world...Here's what really happened:
Our Shifty was in on the fiddle with the rest back in the 1990's but, through good fortune and other means, managed to be less tainted than the rest and because of this was able to tie up nearly all the loose ends over a period of years...wonder how much it cost him? Unfortunately, there were a few loose ends that time caught up with and hence he was asked to explain.
He's first pathetic attempt was on the RTE News which can be seen
HERE
Just one of the lies that Shifty expected us to believe was that for a number of years because of his marrital breakup he had no bank account of his own.
Two things wrong here: Where did he keep the £50,000 that he said he had saved? And was it not a bit odd that he was the only Minister for Finance in the whole world who didn't have a bank account?
Don't forget, this man was the Irish Minister of Finance at the time on a salary that was many multiples of what people like me were getting and for some strange reason was deemed by his pals to be in dire straights...COME ON!!!
So far he hasn't given a credible explanation for this scenario.
Of course, his marriage problems, to a great extent, dovetailed nicely into the time frame of the height of the sculduggery...very convenient.
Right now this regime is presiding over a country where rampant crime is strengthening it's grip every day...people are afraid to walk the streets in some areas. But you will not see these problems in the upmarket areas like Dublin 4 e.g.
Our hospitals are third world standard as can be seen
HERE and, because of our government's preoccupation with covering up one scandal or another and pretending to be doing something about the situation by setting up tribunals which are merely shams to enable the pals of Fianna Fail...the legal profession...to enrich themselves beyond their dreams at the tax payers expense, our politicians are abdicating themselves from the responsibilities for which they were elected.
The blatent example of this is our great leaders propensity for watching galoot football games in Manchester and collecting a wad of cash on the way home when he should have been helping to provide a level playing pitch for the citizens of this country in the best economic climate that we ever had and not further enhancing the coffers of the privileged.
Someone once said that 'We get the politicians we deserve'...no country deserves the low standard that the Irish nation has to put up with.
Check out Ray Burke
HERE
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Developer's course plans kept off track by CJH story
(Charles J Haughey...This guy, the greatest crook of all, was given a state funeral which was attended by all the other Mafiosi brass necks...The people of Ireland are an easy touch!)
Initially, the intermediaries included the developer Jim Kennedy, the late TD Liam Lawlor and latterly lobbyist Frank Dunlop who was introduced to Mr Byrne by Mr Lawlor.
The tribunal heard that Mr Byrne was even prepared to give the "lion's share" to the intermediaries as he had become "heartily sick" of Baldoyle.
More...Irish Independent
Dunlop 'wrote rezoning letters on council paper'
Convent demolished illegally
(Again...Welcome to Ireand where the more crooked you are the greater your success.)
FRANK Dunlop used his own stash of Dublin Co Council-headed notepaper to write letters favouring his rezoning projects.
And on one occasion both he and the late Liam Lawlor wrote both a letter and its reply as they pursued their plan to get over 400 acres rezoned in Baldoyle - a plan which would have seen the value of the land soar to over €12.7m in 1993.
At the Mahon Tribunal yesterday, Mr Dunlop openly admitted that he controlled certain elements of Dublin Co Council in the 'halcyon days' of rezoning large tracts of lands in Co Dublin.
More...Irish Independent
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Convent-razing firm linked to record tax settlement
Convent demolished illegally
(Again...Welcome to Ireand where the more crooked you are the greater your success.)
THE developer behind the illegal demolition of a 19th century convent in south Dublin earlier this month was involved in a company which made a record tax settlement just four years ago.
Laurence Keegan of Parkmore House, Auburn Drive in Castleknock, was a director with Lido Construction until January 2002, nine months before it made a €7m settlement with the Revenue Commissioners for under-declaring corporation tax and VAT.
More...Irish Independent
Fitzwilton tries to block Burke hearing
THE Fitzwilton group has brought a High Court action to restrain the Mahon Tribunal from holding a public hearing into the payment of IR£30,000 to former Minister Ray Burke, writes Ann O'Loughlin. Fitzwilton claims the tribunal cannot proceed to a public hearing into the matter because this would be in breach of its terms of reference as amended in December 2004.
It contends that those terms required the tribunal to stipulate in writing by May 1, 2005, what matters would go to public hearing but that the Fitzwilton payment was not so stipulated.
The court was told the Fitzwilton group had, through a subsidiary company, made a payment to Mr Burke in 1989 in advance of that year's general election.
More...Irish Independent
Supreme Court to rule later on tribunal secrecy
AN ORDER restraining the media from publishing material circulated by the Mahon Tribunal could mean there might never be publication of matters which are clearly in the public interest, the Supreme Court was told yesterday.
Eoin McCullough SC said the planning tribunal should not be granted such an order unless it could prove the material in question was confidential and that it was against the public interest to publish it. The tribunal was not entitled to argue that all material circulated by it was confidential without proving that claim.
More...Irish Independent
Dunlop 'bribed councillors to push racecourse rezoning'
SEVEN county councillors were bribed by lobbyist Frank Dunlop in his attempt to get the former Baldoyle racecourse in north Dublin rezoned for development, it was claimed yesterday.
The bribes of €1,270 each were paid by Mr Dunlop, who allegedly was the owner of a development company with options to buy into the 400-acre site, the Mahon Tribunal heard.
More...Irish Independent
The 700 days that have cost the taxpayer a cool €60m
(Thanks very much to all our non-complaining taxpayers for keeping the greedy legal profession in the lifestyle to which they have become accustomed. Apart from the odd hole in the smokescreen, it was money well spent...Yours, Shifty Ahern, Irish Priminister.)
TODAY is the 700th day of public hearings of the Mahon Tribunal.
The meter is still running, but so far the planning probe has cost Irish taxpayers over €60m.
But the three tribunal judges, headed by Judge Alan Mahon have already saved taxpayers €10.5m by refusing to allow corrupt former Justice Minister Ray Burke his costs.
The late James Gogarty, the octogenarian whistleblower who revealed the €37,000 payment to Mr Burke by James Murphy Structural Engineers (JMSE) was granted his €3.5m costs.
More...Irish Independent
Rambo returns to relish his day in the limelight
FRANK Dunlop knew better than to show up at the Mahon Tribunal yesterday. Rambo was back in town for one more mission and Dunlop was in the crosshairs.
Okay, so Raphael Patrick Burke is no Sylvester Stallone. He wasn't "carrying", there were no military fatigues, and he didn't plead "They drew first blood, not me."
More...Irish Independent
'Nobody wanted to know about' council bribe suspicions
A FORMER FG councillor paid a co council official €6,350 to speed up a planning appeal before An Bord Pleanala, writes Lorna Reid.
Jim Fay told the Mahon Tribunal that he was so angry about certain anomalies in the county council and An Bord Pleanala that he went to very senior FG politicians and the gardai about his suspicions of bribery.
More...Irish Independent
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It was nice to see our Great Leader Shifty Ahern in Fermoy Sun Oct 8 '06 laying wreaths at a memorial for Irish soldiers who were killed in WW1.
Did they die so that a bunch of inept politicians and their cronies could take Ireland to the cleaners?
Saw in The Sun World that 'Paddy the plasterer' who gave Shifty a wad of money was done for tax issues a couple of years ago.
Shifty's ex girlfriend, Celia Larkin, to be investigated by the Mahon Tribunal ...More
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Tonight, when we're snug in bed, all those very bright people will still be working, sleeves rolled up, running on adrenaline, fine-tuning the strategy to convince us that black is white, up is down, gifts are loans, principles are optional and wrong is right.
Gene Kerrigan...Sunday Independent...Full article
Hundreds of millions of pounds were diverted from the Exchequer and into the creation of dynastic fortunes that exist to this day. Those frauds were known and tolerated at the highest levels of government (where Haughey himself was involved), at the highest levels of banking, and at the highest levels of business. Lawyers and accountants collaborated, for a cut of the action.
Read more
The Fianna Fail tent.Where the greedy and the favoured gather to celebrate the obscenity of tax exempt capitalism.
Bigger than half a dozen hay barns, it is one of the most impressive structures at the Ballybrit racecourse, in Galway,accounting for nearly a third of its sprawling marquee village. The Fianna Fail tent. This political mecca becomes,every year, a vehicle for making money for those who feel that Fianna Fáil is good for the Republic's, and their own, prosperity. For €350 a plate, guests got medallions of beef in a pepper cream sauce and "goodie bags" that included titanium golf balls billed as having "optimum spin for maximum control". Those who pay for the grub included some of the country's leading business people, notably big building contractors, property developers, auctioneers, estate agents and others with a stake in "development", Fianna Fail style.
This piece is from www.soldiersofdestiny.org
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CRIME OUT OF CONTROL WHILE OUR LEADERS TRY TO COVER UP ONE LIE WITH ANOTHER
Our own Baghdad in Limerick
"It was shocking. I thought they were going to come in on top of us and shoot myself and Sheila. We were terrified for our lives," she said. "We could hear them talking. There was two or three of them, but we couldn't hear exactly what they were saying.
...More
RECENT gangland murders in Limerick and Dublin reveal a country in the midst of a 'cops and robbers' battle where there remains only one winner under current sentencing practices - the offender.
Read more in Irish Independent
One more killing and Limerick is murder capital of western Europe
Gardai, again acting on good information, intercepted an attack on a house party in Moyross earlier this year. The intention was to throw a grenade into the house and open fire with automatic weapons, possibly machine guns. Multiple deaths could have ensued.
Read more in Irish Independent
More shootings in Limerick
Read more in Irish Independent
Social affordable housing suffers because of greedy developers
They buy their way out of commitments
Read more in Irish Independent
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