Modern Ireland Politics and Corruption

Government…’has no problem sending Cystic Fibrosis patients into shit-stained wards where they live in fear of infection while they struggle for the breath of life’.
From a piece by Gene Kerrigan in today’s Sunday Independent. (No link available)


Conditions where Cystic Fibrosis patients have to be treated.

Ah yes. As usual, when the elite are hindered in their progress of further enriching themselves, the less fortunate in Irish society are left to suffer and die because the money which should have been there to provide a decent Health Service has been invested in villas in Spain and other ‘desirable’ parts of the world.
About 18 months ago RTE’s Liveline Radio Program highlighted the plight of Cystic Fibrosis sufferers in ‘Celtic Tiger’ Ireland. Over a number of days we were treated to harrowing stories of young people who, if they lived in other developed countries, would have their life spans extended by getting the most up-to-date treatment.
Instead, when they need urgent treatment they are placed in unclean hospital wards where they are exposed to unnecessary risks.
As a result of the furore the HSE promised to provide a special unit in St. Vincent’s Hospital which would be more sterile. We now know that this will not happen because the money to run the facility will not be available.
There is no doubt that this state of affairs will directly lead to some of these lovely young people dying when they could have gotten a few more years of life.
So, when the ‘Celtic Tiger Looters’ are sunning themselves at the pool are golfing on manicured greens, they might spare a thought for the ‘Death Sentences’ that they left behind.

€27.6m pension…What planet are we on at all?

Michel Fingleton’s pension of €27.6m is nothing but an insult to ordinary decent people.
This is not a pension as such. This is the blatant looting of his own ‘firm’ for his own personal greed.
The supposed handing back of the 1 million bonus is nothing but a sham facilitated by our crazy government because they don’t have the backbone to call a halt to the farce immediately.
As usual, banking, Fianna Fail, developers etc. are all tangled together in a seedy web of corruption while those who are eventually going to pay the ‘bill’ whinge and complain but, DO NOTHING.

A good piece on the whole scam by Medb Ruane in today’s Indo

So say’s Marge in the Paddy’s Day episode of The Simpsons. It appears that the program makes a bit of a skit of Irish culture.
Could it be that the producers of the show saw how WE celebrate the ‘festive occasion’ on the streets of our cities and towns when the parades are finished?
Ah yes, about this time tomorrow night a visitor to this country who really want’s to see Irish Culture will only have to walk down our streets, if they are brave enough, or take a peek into our A&E departments.
Of course, a nice little photo of the main street of any town taken early the next morning would be a nice holiday memento. A close-up of the vomit would be nice.
Judge says ‘Simpsons’ shows why people should stay in on St Patrick’s Day

St Patrick’s joy descends into unholy chaos
Some more ‘Irish Culture’ from some ethnic Irish:

Our Fianna Fail led government will never get the message.

An article in today’s Sunday Business Post informs us that some of our biggest bookies are running a tax avoidance operation in the Isle of Man…what a surprise!
Make no mistake folks, this is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to tax scams. Does anyone seriously think that the fiddling that went on, such as that exposed by the Mahon Tribunal , has stopped?
You can bet that the greedy elite of this country have found other ‘legal’ ways of not having to pay tax because that’s the culture of the Friends of Fianna Fail.
But, next week you and me will be asked to ‘put our shoulder to the wheel’ in order to pay what the well off have gotten away with.
Yes, the people of Ireland are about to be screwed by their own government…again.

Bankers and Wankers lost OUR money in the Celtic Tiger Casino and now they want more so that they can play away as if nothing happened.

Below is an extract from Gene Kerrigan’s piece in today’s Sunday Independent and put’s the corruption that we are going to be asked to pay for in the coming budget of April 7 into perspective.
It’s entitled: Government playing a dangerous game

Here’s the game. The bankers made fortunes borrowing billions abroad, to lend to builders. The builders made fortunes selling houses to people anxious not to be excluded forever from the property ladder. The banks made another fortune inflating loans to sell to the anxious house-buyers. The builders and estate agents inflated house prices and increased their fortunes.

The politicians encouraged all this, with reckless tax policies and deliberately lax regulation.

This on its own would be bad enough, but the game got wilder. An enormous service industry grew up around the property boom — architects, lawyers, insurers, lobbyists, PR and image maintenance. The pay of senior bankers and top executives throughout the business world rocketed in sympathy. Soon, in those circles, a salary of half a million was the sign of a loser. A wage for the job wasn’t enough, there had to be bonuses. And massive pensions.

This was all separate from the financial partying of bankers like dear old Seanie Fitz, busily getting creative with figures.

An enormous culture of entitlement grew up around this nonsense. To rise into the top layers of many businesses was not to get a job, with appropriate pay — it was to be handed a winning lottery ticket. You were set for life.

This culture of entitlement — in truth, a culture of looting — spread through the professions, through private and public sectors, into the top layers of the civil service. Politicians joined in. Executive and professional pay began to relate not to the earnings of those at the coal-front, but to the inflated salaries, bonuses

and pensions of the absurdly overpaid top layers. Money breeds money — and the elite speculated on property here and abroad, running up huge profits while it lasted.

Still I look to find a reason to believe…Tim Harding.

Cliff T Ward puts ‘oneupmanship’ into perspective. He died a few years ago in his early 50’s but, unlike politicians, his concepts will live on and will always be relevant.

Dole money running out. What next?

Every other day there is more bad news on the economic front. This time we are told that the Social Welfare Fund is facing a deficit of €2bn in 2010 . The way things are moving right now, there won’t be a ‘bob’ in the country by year’s end. We simply don’t have a big enough population to sustain the the numbers of unemployed through the amount of people in work.
The drip feeding of bad news by our inept government is an ominous sign that the bombshell is about to be dropped. I would love to be wrong in my assumptions but, it’s only a fool who would believe anything that our government or the lackeys in the media tell us. We’re going to have to go, ’sweaty cap in hand’, looking for a DIGOUT.
Any world financial institution who lends money to a country with ‘no arse in it’s trousers’ has to be in the ‘loan shark’ business and the IMF fits the bill.
If we have to depend on this outfit (IMF) to sustain us into the future we might as well fuck off to some poor country where we we would stand a better chance of making a living and where we could tell the natives what a great country Ireland is. It would be just like the ‘good ol’ days’.

Remember this face because, some of your working day will go to bailing out Sean Fitzpatrick and his Fianna Fail friends. Every time he makes a ‘deal’ on his mobile…YOU PAY! FOUR!!!
The sooner Joe Gobshite stops looking up to those who have robbed him… the better.

Not being wealthy myself, and no desire for same, I have great difficulty understanding how someone who finds themselves worth 2 or 3 million will continue to work night and day in order to become even richer. The explanation can only be greed and a stupid urge to fit in with other greedy bastards.
Bernard Madoff understood greed and had no difficulty in getting other ‘greeds’ to invest in his financial scams. Madoff had these greedy fuckers drooling at the mouth in anticipation of the returns that they were going to get on their investments…never thinking that they were going to be conned.
I realize that there were some ‘ordinary’ people who lost their life’s savings to the Ponzi scam but, most of his customers were just plain greedy and I can only say that it’s poetic justice.
Of course, the most serious aspect of it all is the fact that he was the one who was caught and will have to pay a price while, right now, there are bigger scams taking place right under our noses that we don’t know about and will never know about but. Us ordinary Joe’s will end up ‘paying it all back’…no matter what country you live in.
What time are up at in the morning…5am, 5.30am, 6am?
How many hours will you have to work each day to reimburse your government who have allowed your country to be looted by the greedy?
Of course, if you had friends who were in the ‘circle’ and who could put you on to a ‘winner’, YOU could be playing golf with Sean Fitzpatrick instead of queuing at Newlands Cross.

Patrick O’Donoghue, the Mayor of Killarney, has pleaded guilty to a breach of ethics in the Circuit Criminal Court.
Unfortunately, O’Donoghue is far from the exception when it comes to corruption by Councillors in County and Town Councils all over Ireland and it demonstrates how easy it is for slimey, conniving charlatans to put themselves up for election even though they have no real interest in promoting the ’cause’ of the local people.
This boy had only one aim in mind when he went around canvassing in his local community and that was to promote his family’s business interests by promoting planning scams, whereby, the town center of Killarney was to be moved to lands which were owned by his ‘firm’.
O’Donohue is also a Director of Fáilte Ireland and Tourism Ireland. This, along with the influence he would have as a Councillor, would mean that he had his whole hand in the pie while others had to settle for a finger.
It’s very often the case in this country that the public representatives in whom the people put their trust have very little interest in the welfare of the local community and use their time and influence in the pursuit of graft.

The sick joke: Code of conduct for Councillors

The Pressure Zone Prime Time program on Councillors looking after their own interests at the expense of ‘the people’.
or see it on Youtube below.