Filthy to the very last

Fianna Fail - they just can't help themselves.

If there was another reason required for Enda Kenny to stop playing footsie and thrash out a deal with Labour immediately, it's that while they don't do so, the existing Fianna Fail ministers - mostly just de-selected by the people - will continue to get as much corruption achieved as possible before being removed from ministerial office forever.

Check this latest horror story -

Corrib permission granted subject to conditions

Mr. Pat Carey, Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, has announced that in response to applications received on 31 May 2010 from Shell E&P Ireland Limited (SEPIL), acting on behalf of the Corrib Gas Partners, that permission has been granted, subject to conditions:

• for consent to construct a gas pipeline from the Corrib gas field subsea facilities to the Corrib gas terminal at Bellanaboy, Co. Mayo; and
• for approval of an addendum to the Plan of Development for the Corrib gas field development.

Copies of the consent letters and supporting documentation are available on the Department’s website at this link http://www.dcenr.gov.ie/Natural/Petroleum+Affairs+Division/Corrib+Gas+Field+Development/.

Talk about taking your revenge out on the people. This is akin to Ben Ali absconding from Tunisia with the country's gold wealth. Carey, out of spite, has just endorsed the giveaway of our entire gas resources as a last act of evil. He shouldn't be permitted to do this. He just got voted out of office. All decisions made by such lame duck, unmandated ministers must be undone immediately by the incoming government.

A tale of two Irelands

Partition is a reality. We're a number of generations down the road from the creation of the border, and while the two sections of the island have grown closer in recent peacetime, there's no doubt that a cultural gap has grown in the intervening years.

I'm not talking about the presence of significant numbers of Protestants in the North. They've been there a long time. I'm talking about the difference in cultures that is demonstrated by these two stories of health service junketeering:

1. On Monday, the Irish News in Belfast had a story all over its front page about jet-setting NHS chiefs, swanning off to America on health service money.

2. Today, the Irish Times in Dublin has a story mentioned briefly on its front page about jet-setting Irish health service middle-manager, swanning off to America on health service money.

What's the difference? Well, in the Northern case, the top two guys (named and shamed in the article) in the ambulance service attended a legitimate training course in Boston this year that cost £6,000 but could have been cheaper by about £1,500 if they'd stayed in cheaper hotel rooms.

In the Southern case, an unnamed official went on SIXTEEN foreign junkets to places including Australia and New York, wracking up an unmentioned total bill on trips that were found to have little relevance or merit.

In the North, the culprits are named and the costs identified, and even though it was one trip and the figure relatively paltry, it made the front page. Because the culture in the North is to be disgusted at any waste in the health service when front line services are being cut.

In the South, we'll never know who the culprit was. We aren't told how big a bill he wracked up. He's already retired, so there will be no punishment, no comeback. And it's a tiny story, because we're so inured to this sort of corruption, from Government ministers, to Fas, to every arm of the state using the country's money like a holiday voucher, that sixteen pointless trips abroad, often suspiciously around St Patrick's Day, is just another drop in the ocean of corruption and greed.

£1500 quid too much spent on a legitimate training trip, and the North is up in arms. Many multiples of that squandered on pointless junkets in the South, and we don't find out who was responsible, or how much they wasted, and the story will pass into history without a second glance.

For me, this is the single biggest obstacle to uniting Ireland. I know plenty of Unionists and Loyalists. They're coming to terms with the rest of the island. Many of them can imagine a single state with them in it, as long as their identity was protected.

They're not fearful of 'Rome Rule' anymore. They're fearful of this - ending up in a basketcase economy, rife with corruption, where a blind eye is turned to cute hoors with their noses in the trough.

The cross-border bodies set up under the Good Friday Agreement have been enlightening in this regard. With the singular exception of the Ulster-Scots Agency, which was a junket fund for spoofers, bigots and paedophiles, the cross border bodies have been one long litany of Northern civil servants complaining, appalled, about how their Southern counterparts behave in regards to wasting funds and pulling fast ones.

This gombeen culture, and our collective tolerance of it, has to stop. The media can play its part. The Irish Times deserves some credit for reporting this at all. But until the day when these sort of stories of corruption are reported with the same appalled horror that a much more minor misdemeanour in the North attracts, there will forever be two Irelands on this island.

How corrupt is UEFA?

I'm now officially suspicious about UEFA.

Normally, when people refer to corruption in football, they mean attempts to fix matches by dodgy Far Eastern gangs. The discussions focus on whether players 'threw' games, whether they might have taken a 'bung', whether the betting patterns reveal a coup.

But I'm beginning to wonder about UEFA's role in a couple of very odd incidents.

The first relates to whether they have been rigging the draw for the Champions' League in order to manipulate the big box-office matches that they want. Last year, the quarter final draw was revealed to a Liverpool fans website two hours before it was made.

Now, that's either a 104-1 lucky guess, or else it is overt corruption. According to UEFA, it was just a lucky guess. They then refused to say anything further on the matter.

However, the original post which revealed the draw suggested that not only was the draw a pre-decided issue, but that the details had come from a disgusted UEFA employee and that bookies had ceased to take bets on the matter, which they indeed had.

But things got even stranger on Wednesday night. My sympathies go out to Chelsea, who were effectively robbed of a second successive Champions' League final appearance by the extremely erratic, if not downright bogus, behaviour of the referee, who is now in hiding after he denied Chelsea at least two legitimate penalties.

Feeling hard done by, one Chelsea player chased the ref about the pitch yelling in his face, while another roared his disgust at the TV cameras, and a third has since come out stating that he believes the ref was 'under orders.'

Sour grapes? Perhaps. Until, that is, you hear that the UEFA website posted the result of the game HOURS before it even kicked off!

The 'test' post was supposedly a dummy run. But it had the correct score and even named the players who were booked!

Chelsea's manager, one of the most respected and experienced names in football, has openly speculated that the referee was under orders not to allow Chelsea to proceed to a second final against Manchester United, because UEFA thought a second all-English final looked bad.

Of course, UEFA have dismissed suggestions of a fix. But they also ordered the match referee to go into hiding and not to talk to the press.

Books such as the excellent 'The Ball is Round' have examined the corporate corruption of UEFA, and its parent body FIFA, and revealed how football administration at the very top is run by some extremely dodgy people.

I'm now wondering just how dodgy they are. Dodgy enough to rig a draw? Dodgy enough to rig a game? Dodgy enough to pick and choose who should play in the world's biggest club football game - the Champions' League final?

Perhaps they are.

Bankrupt of ideas, bankrupt of money

Ireland is bankrupt financially and its government is bankrupt of ideas on how to solve the problem.

This is to be expected, disastrous though it may be. We are now reaping the property whirlwind that laughably went by the title of 'Celtic Tiger' for the past decade or so.

We were warned, repeatedly, but wouldn't listen. Specifically, we bought into the idea (metaphorically and literally) that there was a property 'ladder' we had to climb, even as prices went up indefinitely and spectacularly.

We bought into the idea that rent was dead money, and that we should all mortgage ourselves to the hilt in the hope of making ever greater returns as prices rose forever.

We know now that it was all a 'Ponzi scheme', a pyramid selling project designed to enrich the developers, who as we know from the tribunals, were backhanding a proportion of that cash to prominent members of Fianna Fail.

Now the credit crunch has happened, and there is a threat of the entire country going to the wall, as Iceland just did.

Our government's response? Raid the pension reserve fund to buy zombie banks that lent money to the developers. Plough hundreds of millions into 'affordable home' schemes, which would be better titled 'developer bailouts'. Then slash public services and public sector pensions (but not ministerial pensions or car entitlements, of course.)

So we're in a series of laughable positions after yesterday's mini-budget (the first of a series, I predict.)

We hand over nearly a billion euro in overseas development aid annually, even as we're expensively BORROWING the money that we then hand over to African despots for vanity projects that achieve little in sub-Saharan Africa.

And this on the same day that the latest exchequer figures came out indicating that we need to find 600 million euro MORE than we thought we needed back in October! (Which is why there will inevitably be more mini-budgets, since this government is incapable of working from up-to-date figures.)

We'd be better off sacking Irish Aid in its entirety and cutting a cheque to Oxfam or Goal, who are at least efficient and responsive to the needs of the communities they work in.

Or we could accept both the argument that we're skint and the argument that Africa does not benefit from the aid we send, and cut our borrowed losses.

But that's just one billion out of around 20 we have to find from somewhere. Sure, cuts are necessary, especially in the public sector. Actual staff cuts are needed, to weed out the Tetris-playing chaff. And pay cuts too, though that sort of happened yesterday.

What's most frightening about the position we find ourselves in is that clearly the government, such as it is - a village solicitor who inherited both his parliamentary seat and the Taoiseachship, a rural housewife as number two, a moustachioed gun-toting idiot in the jump seat and a collection of failures, ne'er-do-wells and shysters as supporting cast - haven't the foggiest notion what to do.

They should quit is what they should do. They should go to the country and seek a mandate to reverse the damage they have inflicted on this country over the past decade. They won't get that mandate, of course. Instead, they'll be slaughtered at the polls. But it would show good grace, respect for democracy and that rare thing in Irish politics, penitence for their mistakes.

But they won't quit. They won't even admit to doing wrong. Last night, Justice Minister Dermot Ahern told the nation that our current economic plight was no one's responsibility. Wrong, minister. It is YOUR responsibility, and that of your government.

Fianna Fail historically has always been a shallow organisation when it comes to principles, and they are beloved of playing government and opposition all at the same time. Instead of policies, they fly kites to guage public opinion, backing down if pensioners march on Leinster House, or pushing ahead if the public sigh heavily and accept another bitter pill.

But at this point in time not only are Fianna Fail bereft of ideas, they have also bankrupted the country quite spectacularly.

It's time for them to go. Those who created the problem cannot be trusted to resolve it. Especially since they are Fianna Fail, who can never be trusted with anything anyway.

Every day, every hour until they leave office is another day, another hour where the possibility of recovery is postponed or delayed further.

And while that continues, while they take 160K flights to America and swan about in 150K Mercs driven by Gardai on 70K euro a year, things will keep getting worse for us, up and until the point where the International Monetary Fund is called in.

We're really not too far from that vista right now, and if it comes about, the pain will be unimaginable - Russia in the late Yeltsin era, Argentina a few years back, that sort of national, hard to forget, deprivation.

We can't let it come to that. The bereft bunch of chancers on the government benches today looked guilty and sheepish and most of all tired. They should go, for their own dignity's sake, but primarily because every second they stay they hurt this country more.

Bertie the martyr's STILL laughing at us

If you were to listen to some of the hagiography being spouted about Ahern at the moment, you'd think he was a cross between Mother Teresa and Martin Luther King.

The blessed one, betrayed and cast out unfairly by those he selflessly served for so long. But still beatific in his sacrifice.

In other words, us sentimental Irish are getting carried away again, and are spouting a load of cobblers about a man who, let us not forget, was described by the ultimate Fianna Fail crook Charles Haughey as 'the most cunning and devious of them all.'

By his actions let him be known, I say. Thumbs up for the Northern peace process. Thumbs down for lying to the nation, via Brian Dobson, about his shady finances.

And a middle finger for bringing another liar, Beverly Cooper Flynn, back into the Fianna Fail fold as his latest act.

Hopefully Cowen, who kicked her out of Fianna Fail in the first place, will have enough sense to keep her at a long arm's length.

If Fianna Fail are ever to turn a corner away from the taint of corruption, which is about as much as they can hope to achieve by sacrificing their electoral trump card Bertie, then they need to keep venal Bev as far away from power as possible.

Previously: They're laughing at us now.

National Digout Day

Please go to the website of National Digout Day. Your leader needs you.

Why?

Because he's worth it, of course.

After all, he doesn't have a yacht or a personal jet. Poor deprived Diddums.

They're laughing at us now

All empires bear within them the seeds of their own destruction, history informs us.

Even as Rome was in it's Imperial pomp, with Caligula appointing his horse as consul, or Nero blowing the entire Imperial fortune on interminable poetry contests, a bit like John O'Donoghue used to, we can see with retrospect that the fall of the Caesar family was inevitable.

So it will be with Fianna Fail and it's rum cast of dynasties.

As their grip on Ireland, or at least the 26 counties of it they still claim is Ireland, copperfastens, we have seen the many various dissenters come scampering back into the fold for the third term.

The Donegal Blaneys, who'd make a Shinner feel Unionist, have now signed up to the whip. So have the Kerry publicans the Healy-Raes, their ongoing feud with the former minister for poetry readings now ended in their favour with his demotion to head boy of the Dail.

And so to the Flynns. Pee Flynn, as Senator David Norris was wont to call him, was classic Fianna Fail through and through. Viscerally clientelist, he first showed up as a TD in the Dail wearing a white suit, not unlike that worn by journalist Martin Bell when he ran against the corrupt Tories as an independent.

Of course, it was the Tories rather than Martin Bell that Flynn intended to emulate if not surpass.

He was an early exponent of fundamentalist Fianna Faildom. That's one way of describing those within the Soldiers of Destiny who believe it is their divine right to rule Ireland without interference from anyone, whether it be the Opposition, the electorate, or god forbid, a coalition government partner.

He opposed the coalition with the PDs, not because the PDs are an evil bunch of political degenerates, but because the coalition 'hit at Fianna Fail core values.' He opposed Mary Robinson as President, not for the sane reasons that she was another party's candidate and a lefty, but because she was 'a wife and mother.'

By 1993, he was such an embarrassment, that Fianna Fail parcelled him off to Europe where he became part of the EU Commission that had to resign en masse due to allegations of malpractice in 1999.

That same year, he went on the Late, Late Show and openly boasted about taking bungs from developers. He, poor diddums, actually complained about the hassles of his millionaire lifestyle, his houses, cars and housekeepers.

The public's collective jaw dropped to hear how the Fianna Fail inner circle actually lived, for this was in the days before the full extent of Haughey's corruption and ferrying of Charvet shirts via the diplomatic black box was known.

And so to Beverly, the offspring, the one proud daddy Pee Flynn called 'a class act.'

Beverly worked as an investments advisor for a bank, and advised her customers to salt money away in off-shore accounts to hide it from the taxman. So while the rest of us were paying taxes through our noses to Fianna Fail governments, Bev's 'high net worth' customers were not.

RTE kindly let the world know that Bev had been up to this. This was important, as she was now a TD in her daddy's old constituency. Bev took a libel case against the national broadcaster. Bev lost, because she had been guilty of all the things RTE had alleged.

Bev now owed an awful lot of money in legal fees. If she'd been made pay it all, she could have been declared bankrupt. Then again, if she'd married her millionaire boyfriend who used to belong to someone else incidentally, she could have avoided bankruptcy, but would have been left with many fewer millions than she was used to.

If she'd become bankrupt, she would have been removed as a TD, and a by-election would have ensued in Enda Kenny's own constituency. That would have cost Bertie twice over in relation to his dolly mixture majority, as he'd have lost a vote and FG most likely would have gained one.

So suddenly RTE decides to settle the action for the legal bills. All of a sudden, like. Straight after the formation of Bertie's latest government. Sheer coincidence, you know.

And then Bertie's on the telly, talking Bev up to the skies, how it'd be great to have her back in the party with her troubles behind her, and sure, couldn't she be a great Minister some day soon?

They're laughing at us now. Caligula has just announced he wants to make his horse consul, and all of us are tugging at our togas in embarrassment, nodding dumbly and muttering, 'Well, if you must...'

But let us set aside our shock at the venality of this series of events. It should surprise no one if swine seek to put their head in a trough. We've seen decades of tribunals, we're all numb to the shock of such things now.

Let's instead consider the cost. RTE, the national broadcaster, are down around two million euro. That's a hole in their budget that's going to come from the licence fee. The licence fee paid by normal viewers like you and me, including many people who can barely afford it.

Let's consider the cost to our democracy. The good people of Castlebar, and they are good people, have elected the noxious Pee Flynn repeatedly, elevating him to the point where Fianna Fail behemoths start thinking in terms of Imperial dynasties.

Pee promoted the 'class act', and the Castlebar electorate duly voted her in. And then did it again, even after she had been bravely revealed by RTE to be assisting tax evasion.

We the people must shoulder the responsibility for the culture of excess, corruption, entitlement and arrogance that seem to hang around the upper reaches of Fianna Fail like a miasmic haze of smog.

Like the Roman Senate, we have permitted these people power and permitted their excesses to develop and degenerate.

And the next time the TV Licence Fee inspector calls round, remember how your hundreds of hard earned euro are paying Bev Flynn's lawyers in defending a libel case she lost.

And seek the same percentile settlement as Bev. Offer to pay half the money asked for. Tell them you want the same deal they gave Bev. And then drop me an email from Mountjoy Prison, which is where they'll send you.

But at least they have telly in Mountjoy, so if you behave, you might even get to see Bev being appointed junior minister in the next government shake-up on RTE news.

She'll be smiling. She'll be laughing at you.

P.S. Watch Pee Flynn's staggering hubris on the Late, Late Show at Public Inquiry's blog.

We'd like the island and the big house back, thanks

First things first. Let's save trees. That's what the interweb is for. Download your copy of the Moriarty Report here. Now you have your Christmas reading material sorted.

Of course, Charlie Bird and numerous other breathless hacks have already spoiled the best gags in there, like how our evil hero Charlie Haughey stole three quarters of his best mate's liver transplant fund.

Or how he lived a mere 171 times beyond his means while telling the people of Ireland to tighten their belts and sell more of their children into emigration.

But really, we've all known for an awfully long time what a total scumbag and crook this venal little man was. Terry Keane, another venal little person, has repeatedly sold her story, so we already have it on eyewitness account that he was an adulterous man who splashed enormous cash because his bossy mistress made him feel like the uncultured shitehawk he actually was.

And as far back as the McCracken tribunal, we knew Charlie was dodgier than Gary Glitter running a kindergarten.

So really, the only outstanding issues that remain are as follows:

Why did it take so long to publish this report? Could some form of it not have emerged during the old thief's life, so that he knew exactly how disgraced and rumbled he was? Why was he permitted to bullshit the tribunal that he wasn't fit to attend for six years, during which he fecked off to regattas in the south of France and holidayed on his personal island?

Our current Taoiseach, now revealed as Charlie's cheque-signer, is allegedly a trained accountant. Since even children know that you don't sign blank cheques, how in the name of God does the Moriarty report whitewash Bertie? Either he should be stripped of both being Taoiseach and his accountancy qualifications for being a total moron, or else he should be facing corruption charges too. Saying he's a gobdaw is not sufficient.

Now we know Abbeville and Inishvickillaun are the products of corrupt behaviour. So why aren't they being turned over to the people? Why should Haughey's ugly brood benefit from this corruption? Apparently Haughey's €20 million in legal bills to the tribunal are to be paid by the state. Why should you and I have to pay that scumbag's legal bills, which he ran up while telling porkies to the tribunal to try to cover up his massively corrupt lifestyle? Sell the big house and the private island to pay the fucking bills.

Remember all of these questions come the next election, people. This report shouldn't go away. The people in power now were around then and knew what was going on.

When some candidate comes to the door crowing about Fianna Fail's success in the Irish economy or some such crap, demand that the Haughey family are made to pay their corrupt pappy's legal bills. Demand that the Criminal Assets Bureau seize the family estate and private island as products of corrupt behaviour and ill-gotten gain.

And via your votes, remove from power a man who considered it fine business practice to sign blank cheques for crooks.