Bertie Ahern redefines friendship

Is there anything sadder than regarding people are your close personal friends when those sentiments are not reciprocated?

Taoiseach Bertie Ahern clearly regards Padraic O’Connor, Brian Cowan and Ned O’Keeffe as close personal friends.

From his tribunal testimony it’s clear that Padraic O’Connor regards Bertie as an acquaintance rather than a friend. (Could Bertie have confused him with the famous FFer FFer Pat O’Connor Pat O’Connor?)
All the poll corrs seem to agree that there is little “personal” relationship between Bertie and Brian Cowan and they expressed some surprise at the personal warmth of Bertie’s annointment of Brian as his nominated successor.
Now Bertie is claiming Ned as a close personal friend. Could the poll corrs all be wrong, as they seem to think that Ned hates Bertie’s guts?

However, this apparent disconnection may provide an explanation of Bertie’s “digouts from friends”.

For if you can categorise almost any living human being as a friend, without regard for their reciprocal feelings, then you can categorise any fund-raising operation as a dig-out from friends.
And if they’ve had the good grace to pass away in the interim then, truly, God alone knows how many such fund-raisers they may have actually contributed to. Or if the events actually took place at all.

7 dead in Omagh fire - father suspected of arson

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High Court rules against the Irish Times

Irish Times editor Geraldine Kennedy is quoted today in that paper as saying that “it is disappointing that the issue of public interest seemed to receive no weighting in the judgement”, following the decision of the High Court to order herself and Colm Keena to reveal the source of an article about payments to Bertie Ahern, gleaned from confidential documents produced by the Mahon Tribunal.

The High Court ruled that, in this case, journalistic privilege regarding confidentiality of sources was “overwhelmingly outweighed” by the need to maintain public confidence in the Mahon Tribunal itself.

I’m puzzled by the Irish Times claim that this was a publication “in the public interest”. The source was a document from the Mahon Tribunal, detailing information which would, in due course, be put into the public domain via the public hearings of the tribunal. What purpose was served by it’s premature publication in the Irish Times?

The obvious commercial answer is that it was a significant journalistic scoop, generating significant publicity and boosting the reputation of that paper, if not necessarily greatly increasing circulation. However, the downside is that leaks from the Tribunal damage public confidence, reduce political support and provide ammunition to those who are willing to go to the High & Supreme Courts in order to delay and/or stymie the workings of the Tribunal and/or the scope of its ultimate findings.

The problem is further compounded by the destruction by Messrs Kennedy & Keena of the documents received, allegedly from an anonymous source. This effectively rules out any possibility of identification of the original source of the leak to the Irish Times. The corollary of this is that neither Ms Kennedy nor Mr Keena can now provide any credible assurance that the Tribunal itself is not the source of the leak, thus leaving it open to the accusation of resorting to trial by media and depriving those who are under investigation of natural justice.

Judge Carney attacks media in Holohan case

Judge Carney hard-hitting address in Cork should not have confined criticism to "tabloid" media, unless his comments regarding Joe Duffy were intended to include RTE in that classification.

RTE & Pat Kenny were among the greatest offenders in this case. Kenny shamelessly and relentlessly retried Wayne O'Donoghue on both radio & TV following Majella Holohan's victim impact statement and the revelation of the finding of traces of semen on the body of her dead son.

Perhaps Judge Carney should also have queried who on the garda and/or prosecution teams revealed this information to Majella Holohan. If my recollection is correct, these turned out to be microscopic traces which might have been picked up from a bathroom mat and were subsequently shown not to be from Wayne O'Donoghue.

It’s hard not to sympathise with Majella Holohan - presumably if she had included those comments in her pre-prepared script, they would have been disallowed by the court? Her own response, reported this morning on RTE, to Judge Carney’s comments also suggest that she still believes there was some sexual background to the death of her son.

Time for some real bench-marking

Christian Pauls, the German Ambassador, was a guest on Marian Finucane’s RTE radio programme last Saturday to answer the charges arising from his briefing to a visiting German business delegation.

Some of his comments on public service pay levels in Germany were very interesting.

For example, he revealed that his own gross monthly salary is €7,330 (€87,600 pa) which, he said, equated to the salary of quite a senior civil servant in Germany.

He also said that his daughter is a paediatrician, the number 2 in the Paediatric Dept of a large Berlin Clinic, which suggests that she may well at “consultant“ level there. He said that she'd be delighted to earn €70k pa as doctors in Germany earn between €50k-€65k pa.

Herr Pauls said that salary levels for doctors and other professionals working in the public sector are linked to civil service pay levels +/- 10%-15%.

This was the background to his comments on the hospital consultants dismissal of a proposed salary of €200k+ as “mickey-mouse”.

This man is clearly an incorrigible trouble-maker. His comments suggest that we do need another round of bench-marking for the public services, but this time against their counterparts in the EU!

It also raises the following question: just as business now routinely out-sources support functions to other companies and countries (e.g. call centres in India), has the Govt considered outsourcing to other EU countries? It sounds like we could get things done a lot more cost-effectively if we wanted to.

Given that there are many state functions which would be similar in structure, it would probably only require modest systems tweaks and a translation service to handle matters e.g. why not a single “factory” to handle all motor registrations in the EU?

Revealed: Why there are so few women in Leinster House

Interesting B&A survey of women's attitudes in today's IT - the sample size was 1,003 women aged 18+.

Combining the scores given under “Very Important” and “Quite Important”, the survey throws up some very interesting conclusions:

Personal care (skin/hair) 93%
Financial Independence 91%
Leisure Time 90%
Female friends 90%
Keeping fit 81%
Equality of the sexes 78%
Husband/boyfriend 75%
Taking care of children 69%
Having children in the future 42%
Politics 38%

Good to see that their men made it into the top 10.
And are you still wondering why there aren’t more women in Leinster House?

Des O'Malley renounces core PD philosophy

On Friday (14th Sept) Des O’Malley had a letter published in the Irish Times calling for Government intervention in order to ensure retention of the Aer Lingus Shannon-Heathrow service.

The current situation, and the Government’s decision not to intervene, is an obvious outworking of the free-market philosophy so strongly espoused by the Progressive Democrats during their last decade in Government.

O’Malley‘s plea might be more compelling if he was not the man most responsible for the creation of that party and its “let the market decide” philosophy.

If he’s still a member of the PDs he should resign immediately in protest at the Govt‘s action. If not, he should be expelled. What a laugh that would be!

It just goes to prove the old Tip O’Neill adage that “all politics are local”. O’Malley is from Limerick and his daughter may well try for a Dail seat there at the next general election. She lost her seat in Dun Laoghaire last May, and there’s a strong chance that Dun Laoghaire will be reduced from five to four seats next time around.


O'Malley's Letter
Madam, - I spent a good part of my political career seeking to encourage inward manufacturing investment. I had some success.

I realise, therefore, the vital importance of a frequent schedule of air services between the west of Ireland and Heathrow. That overcrowded and unpopular airport is nonetheless Ireland's best point of contact with the rest of the world because of its onward connections.

The termination of services from Shannon to Heathrow will have its greatest effect in making it much more difficult to attract that kind of investment in the future. Apart from the loss of existing jobs, thousands of jobs that might have been created will not materialise. It will be impossible to quantify what might have happened. As a result, those who cause this situation will claim that they are not to blame.

The Shannon region was, and is, one of the few successes in real decentralisation we have. Will it now remain so? Spending hundreds of millions moving junior civil servants down the country is no substitute for real economic activity.

The Minister for Transport, among others, is espousing a version of company law with which I am not familiar. He seems to think that management is supreme, to the exclusion of all others. The Companies Acts envisage the board of directors as responsible for the actions of a company. The board in turn is answerable to the shareholders. The shareholders have the ultimate sanction of dismissing the board if they disagree with the company's policy.

Why retain a blocking minority if it is not going to be used to stop the very sort of thing that we were told it was kept for in the first place? President Sarkozy retained for the French state a blocking minority of shares in the recent merger of Suez and Gaz de France. Does anyone think he would refuse to use it in a similar situation to this? - Yours, etc,

DESMOND O'MALLEY, Merrion Road, Dublin 4.

BoE should have let Northern hit the Rocks

The Bank of England should not have bailed out Northern Rock .

Fiscal Prudence may seem boring but it’s an essential prerequisite for any serious financial institution and its customers.

Prudence doesn’t come free. It limits management’s capacity to “take a punt” and thus they may seem to miss out of profit opportunities in rising markets. It also means that prudent institutions are contributors to industry-wide insurance schemes such as FSCS, even though they will never need to call on such insurance.

The Northern Rocks, on the other hand, are the “wide boys” of the financial services business, claiming to be innovators, mould-breakers, more customer-focused than their fuddy-duddy competitors. Often lauded by the media who take their every press release at face value.

Northern Rock has been operating a dangerously unbalanced business model, the dangers of which have been recognised by banks for generations: using short-term deposits and interbank loans, repayable on demand or within a relatively short period, to fund 20-year mortgages leaves you seriously exposed if confidence in your bank is in any way damaged, and/or market conditions change.

The sub-prime credit crunch was unforeseen, but it’s only one of many events which might have precipitated Northern Rock’s current liquidity problems.

The Bank of England should not have bailed Northern Rock out. The business is solvent and depositors funds should not be in any real danger, even if depositors were alarmed and temporarily discommoded by a closure. In such a scenario, Northern Rock would have been bought by a competitor within weeks, if not days. However, the message to the other “wide-boys”, and the public who do business with them, would have been stark. The management team and board of directors would be immediately unemployed and their professional reputations in the industry would be destroyed. The shareholders would be looking at even greater losses, making the likelihood of investment in similar enterprises unlikely for some time to come.

By bailing Northern Rock out, the Bank of England instead sends the signal to Wide-Boy management that it’s OK to keep sailing close to the wind - and they will keep doing just that. Meantime, the prudent serious players will continue to fund insurance schemes to protect their competitors customers.

Northern Rock - Irish Govt intervention?

Northern Rock depositors in the Republic are covered by the UK’s Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS).

However, compensation under the FSCS scheme is limited: 100% for the first £2,000 in savings and 90% for the next £33,000.

On savings above £35,000 you get nothing.

In other words, the FSCS pays out a maximum of £31,700 per person. Yet we’re told that the average Northern Rock deposit in the Republic is €100k, which is approximately double the amount covered by the FSCS.

In those circumstances, should Finance Minister Brian Cowen be offering such reassurance to Irish depositors?

Eddie Hobbs & Brendan Investments

Eddie Hobbs has already had wide media coverage for his new property investment vehicle, Brendan Investments Pan European Property PLC and he’ll be a guest on the Late Late Show tomorrow to put the icing on his PR cake.

The aim of the Company is to raise €50m in capital and borrow a further €150m to create a property investment portfolio worth €200m. The prospectus says that “the company will work with current and future bank lenders to secure bank finance AT A MINIMUM LEVEL OF 75% of the value of the property.”

Page 12 of the prospectus covers the fees payable by investors:

The fees will be as follows:
= No entry fees.
= 1% of the gross asset value of the company is payable to Brendan Investments Property Management Limited for the management of the property and development portfolio.

Assuming that the company succeeds in raising €50m and investing it with 75% gearing, the gross asset value of the company would be €200m. At this level the 1% fee payable to the management company would be €2m annually.

The prospectus advises that the expected life of the company is 7-10 years, at the end of which period the assets will be liquidated and distributed to the company.
This suggests that, even if there is no capital appreciation from the property assets purchased, the management company will receive €14m-20m in fees. If the value of the underlying assets increase, the annual fee will also increase pro-rata.

Assuming the company makes only the initial call on investors, one would assume that they will try to invest the funds raised fairly quickly, within the first 12-18 months? Some development projects may take longer but the company strategy is to invest 75% of funds in existing rent-producing commercial properties.

An annual fee of €2m may be reasonable in the initial couple of years when management activity will be at its maximum, but in the later years of the scheme, when little new investment is being undertaken, it seems like a tidy little earner for the promoters.

An annual charge 1% of Gross Assets, rather than 1% of the investors capital, is a way of disguising the real annual 4% charge being levied by promoters. This approach is not unique to Brendan Investments.

Fintan O'Toole wants Nothing!

In his Irish Times column (Tues 28th Aug) , Fintan O’Toole tells us that “the choice is simple: all or nothing” when it comes to religious symbolism and influence in public life and public services. He comes down firmly on the side of the “nothing option”.

That same day I heard him interviewed on radio about his column, where he extolled the virtues of the USA system where that same “nothing option” operates.

That’s the same USA which lacks universal healthcare or social welfare, whose draconian legal system keeps record numbers in jail, mainly blacks, and executes large numbers each year, and where the Christian right constantly and publicly seeks to exercise political influence with some success, notably in the case of President Bush.

Contrast that with the Ireland of today, seemingly crippled under the weight of Catholicism in O’Toole’s view. Some of his concerns are valid e.g. the over-reliance of the state on the churches for education and hospital care, but some are simply prime examples of political correctness .

The Dail’s opening prayer, Bertie’s ashes and RTE’s Angelus are long-established custom and practice which may offend the super-liberals and the bigots, but they oppress no-one and that is the most important consideration.

From the perspective of societal outcomes, I’d suggest to Fintan that USA theory looks somewhat better than USA practice with, hopefully, the reverse situation pertaining in Ireland.

Festival of World Cultures.

I’m not a great fan of my local authority DLRCoCo, but top marks to them for the Festival of World Cultures.
It’s a great reminder that culture & craic are not synonymous with wealth - great music and dance from some of the poorest countries on the planet.
Respect!

Pat Rabbitte - the next leader of Fine Gael.

This may seem like an outside bet, but “what-if”…

Following the precedent set by Michael O’Leary in 1982 - Pat Rabbitte resigns from the Labour Party and joins Fine Gael.

FG & the country would benefit greatly from a revivial of the “just society” ethos in one of the major parties and a Rabbitte-led FG could be just the ticket. A combination of “left-wing” social policies funded by “right-wing” economic policies could well be a winning combination.

In 5 years time we could have a Labour Party which has moved to the Left and is scaring the middle classes with socialist economics, a Green Party which is mortally wounded by the embrace of FF and no PDs to contend with. FF may still be mired in the fallout from the various tribunals (which hasn’t seemed to deter voters to date).

In such an electoral scenario, a “Just Society” FG could clean up. Unfortunately, there’s not enough liberalism within the existing FG to achieve that change of direction without an injection of external talent. Enter Pat Rabbitte.

Fintan O'Toole calls for Willie O'Dea's head.

In today’s Irish Times, Fintan O’Toole calls for the political head of Defence Minister Willie O’Dea on the grounds that O’Dea has opposed agreed Government policy on the Aer Lingus Shannon-Heathrow decision and that he is breach of collective cabinet responsibility. But are either of these serious charges valid?

O’Toole quotes Article 28.4.2 of the Constitution: "The Government shall meet and act as a collective authority, and shall be collectively responsible for the Departments of State administered by the members of the Government."

O’Toole then outlines the basis for his charges: “Last week, in a statement issued through the Department of the Taoiseach - implying that she was in effect acting Taoiseach at the time - and explicitly "speaking on behalf of the Government", Mary Hanafin issued a strong statement of its policy on the Aer Lingus decision to end its Shannon to Heathrow service.
She could not have been clearer about Government policy on the matter: "As a listed plc, Aer Lingus has to take its own decisions. It is inappropriate for the Government to intervene in the decision making of a private company. To do so would ultimately be damaging to the company and its customers."“
And later in his article he says that “a Government decision not to interfere with the Aer Lingus move was taken last week - otherwise Mary Hanafin could not have issued her statement.”

Surely Article 28.4.2 of the Constitution implies that a some sort of meeting of Government is required to determine Government policy and, as far as I’m aware, no such meeting has taken place. How can a statement issued by the Minister for Education, on a topic that is totally unrelated to her brief, assume the weight of a policy position formally agreed at a cabinet meeting? Does Fintan O’Toole believe that this is how the constitution envisaged that cabinet decisions would be taken and communicated to cabinet members?

In addition, the assertion in Minister Hannifin’s statement that “it is inappropriate for the Government to intervene in the decision making of a private company” is somewhat misleading, particularly in light of the fact that many cabinet members have indicated that they are unhappy with the Aer Lingus decision. It's quite common for minority shareholders to vote their shareholding in whatever way suits their broader business objectives and not necessarily the interests of the company in question e.g. Ryanair’s holding in Aer Lingus!

From Major to Minor.

After 2 rounds of the USPGA, the final Major of the season, normal service has been resumed with Tiger Woods on -6, leading the field by 2 strokes.

One of the interesting practices of the USPGA is to put the winners of the previous three majors of that season into the same three-ball, so Padraig Harrington (British Open), Zach Johnson (Masters) and Angel Cabrera (US Open) played together for the first two rounds.

After the first two rounds, the cut came at +5, the only survivor of the trio is Harrington (+2), with Johnson (+10) and Cabrera (+11) both eliminated.

Among the other former Major winners to miss the cut were Ben Curtis, Jim Furyk, Vijay Singh, Justin Leonard, Michael Campbell and Jose Maria Olazabal.

Small consolation perhaps to Colin Montgomerie, (once described as the best golfer never to win a major, but no longer playing well enough for that title) who just made the +5 score and survives to compete in the final two rounds.

But wouldn’t you think that two men who’ve actually won majors in the current season could at least make the cut? Sort of confirms that this “winning a Major” lark is actually a bit of a lottery, particularly when looking at those players who’ve only done it once.

Greens mean spin.

In today’s Irish Times (Opinion & Analysis) Mary Raftery, under the heading “Greens mean business”, sings the praises of our new Green party ministers, citing specifically Environment Minister John Gormley’s reversal of rezoning decisions made by Monaghan Co Co and a supposed hardening of Ireland’s position on GMOs.

However, Minister Gormley’s predecessor Dick Roche had taken the same action against Laois Co Co in October 2006, while her statement that “at the EU Standing Committee on Food Chain and Animal Health, Trevor Sargent abstained in a vote on a GM animal feed ingredient called Herculex which continues to be banned“ hardly suggests a new or radical stance.

An article could just as easily be written under the alternative heading “Greens mean spin”? In the past month we’ve had Trevor Sargent’s big photo opportunity buying a Toyota Prius, Eamon Ryan paying (with our money) for his carbon footprint and taking a subway with a camera crew in tow, while John Gormley got tough with the litter bugs. The decision to increase the on-the-spot fine for littering from €125 to €150 is supposed to send a stern message to offenders, but it’s laughable. If non-enforcement of the current fine isn’t working, non-enforcement of an increased fine is unlikely to do the trick.

It’s time for Green ministers to stop these petty PR stunts and start to show us some substance, other than simply replicating what their FF predecessors would have done anyway.

Green Ministers adopt 3 wise monkeys approach to Govt

To date, the Greens have brought a us new form a laid-back Government and on RTE's Morning Ireland we’ve just had another instalment from Minister John Gormley.

When asked about Finian McGrath’s deal re Dublin Port - he responded with a question: has RTE asked Finian about it?

Gormley claims to know nothing about whatever arrangement was agreed between the Taoiseach and McGrath on this important topic. It doesn’t seem to strike him as odd that he doesn’t know, and it clearly hasn’t occurred to him that he should ask anyone, especially the Taoiseach, to put him in the picture. Surely the Taoiseach should have briefed the cabinet on any material matters he agreed in his deals with the independent TDs, items which clearly will impact on the work of various Departments?

Given that
(a) part of Dublin Port is in the minister’s own constituency
(b) there’s a proposal to extend the port by reclaiming about 50 acres of sea
(c) it’s PD policy (a partner in Govt) to move Dublin Post altogether to Bremore.
(d) either of the above proposals have potentially major consequences for the “environment” of Dublin City
you'd imagine that Minister Gormley might wish to keep himself informed about port-related developments.

So far, the Green ministers seem to be keeping their heads down and their mouths shut in Cabinet/ Government. This 3 wise monkeys approach may well keep their cabinet colleagues happy for the moment, but I doubt it’s impressing the electorate.

Who killed who in the NI "Troubles"?

In the run-up to the election, I heard someone on radio extolling the virtues of a forum called www.politics.ie so I started to engage there. However,the forum has a large number of contributors there who are unreconstructed republicans who don’t accept the Good Friday agreement and hijack almost any topic thread to vent their rabid anti-Brit feelings. These are dressed up as being anti-war, anti-imperialism etc., but you don’t have to scratch hard to find the Northern Ireland gorilla perched firmly on their backs.

Many of the anti-Brit contributors on politics.ie routinely present the British as the army from hell, marching through civilian settlements, killing, raping, burning, looting etc.. We’re left with the impression that this is what happened in Northern Ireland during the “troubles”.

Am I alone in having difficulty reconciling this picture with some of the actual facts which emerge from that conflict? (without in any way seeking to excuse the British army for Bloody Sunday or other atrocities).

During the “troubles” in Northern Ireland, the British army presence peaked at 30k+ in the 1970’s, supplemented by c. 20k combined RUC & UDR. That’s a total of about 50k armed personnel on the government side of the conflict. In addition, the British army were equipped with armoured vehicles, helicopters and had ready access to a vast array of weaponry of all types.

Facing this large and well-armed force, republican paramilitaries had a much more limited arsenal of weaponry and their active service volunteers never numbered more than a small fraction of their “crown forces” adversaries.

So, logically, the ruthless, jack-booted British killing machine should have been responsible for the vast majority of deaths in the troubles. And that this number killed by the crown forces should greatly outnumber their own casualties.

Yet the tables below, from the CAIN website, http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/sutton/ , which analyses all troubles-related deaths from 1969 to 2001, shows that Republicans were actually responsible for the majority (58%) of such deaths.
In fact, British Security Force deaths outnumbered Republican deaths by a ratio of almost 3 to 1!

Even allowing that some portion of the Loyalist killings were proxy killings on behalf of British Forces, the Republicans still win the killing race hands down.
One conclusion that can clearly be drawn from these statistics is that republicans were far more ruthless killers than their British opponents.

The data below includes deaths caused by military vehicles and heart attacks caused by explosions etc.. 1581 (45%) deaths occurred in the 5-year period 1972-1976. It also covers all relevant jurisdictions , in NI (3268), Britain (125), RoI (113) & Europe (18),

Killed by
Republican Paramilitary = 2056 (58%)
Loyalist Paramilitary =1020 (29%)
British Security Forces*= 362 (10%)
Irish Security Forces = 5 (0.1%)
Not known = 81 (2%)
TOTAL = 3524

Victim Status
Civilian = 1857 (53%)
British Security =1112 (32%)
Republican Paramilitary = 394 (11%)
Loyalist Paramilitary = 151 (4%)
Irish Security = 10 (0.3%)
Total = 3524

Michael Moore - new book reviewed

There’s a new book “Citizen Moore: The Making of an American Iconoclast” by Roger Rapoport, reviewed a couple of weeks back in the Sunday Times - on the attached link.

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/biography/article1936972.ece

It doesn’t seem to be a particularly flattering account of the man and his methods.

His first big hit “Roger & Me” supposedly portrayed Moore’s futile efforts to get to meet the General Motors CEO, Roger Smith. While the film claims that Moore never succeeded in getting to meet Smith, the book reveals that he actually met him three times, with the interview filmed on two occasions. This fact was completely suppressed in the final production.

According to reviewer Rod Liddle, the picture of Moore that emerges “is of an at times unscrupulous, overambitious, often incompetent and always arrogant hybrid of journalist and comedian, with a monstrous ego. His former manager, who also seems to hate him, describes him contemptuously as a “vaudevillian”. Rapoport marshals a parade of disgruntled former associates and employees to fling the ordure”.

A new international role for Bertie Ahern?

RTE are reporting that the Government is to set up a new Conflict Resolution Centre, based in the Dept of Foreign Affairs, with an annual budget of €25m.

Foreign Affairs Minister Dermot Ahern said that while the conflict in the North was a local one, it had global resonance and, using the experience gained in the peace process, the new centre will seek to assist in bringing peaceful solutions to international trouble spots.

Could this be Bertie Ahern’s next stop - a state-funded role as an international peace-maker to rival good friend Tony Blair’s recent appointment as representative of The Quartet in the Israel/Palestine conflict?

And when will he be taking up that position? Anything to do with his appearance at the Mahon Tribunal later this month? Probably just wishful thinking on my part.