Mahon Tribunal Restriction

mountainyman

Anyone able to sum up the impact of the Supreme Court Decision on the Mahon Tribunal?

MM

Gobán Saor

Legally, the Tribunal has been found to be acting in contravention of its statutory powers and has been stopped from opening new modules. It can and will continue to inquire into matters covered by existing modules. No constitutional impediments were relied upon so it could be reimpowered by the Oireachtas to open up the areas now forbidden to it. In theory.

Politically, great sighs of relief all round. The interface between politics, business and money is still a murky and opaque parallel universe where ordinary citizens are deliberately kept in the dark. There has been a sustained, vicious campaign against the Tribunals in the media and the courts, egged on by politicians and supported enthusiastically by media interests which overlap with the business interests being probed by the Tribunals. You will notice that whenever a Tribunal gets too close to the bone for comfort, it is inevitably time for a front page story on, yes, that old chestnut, lawyers fees. You see, it's all the fault of those greedy lawyers who are on to a good thing in tribunalland. Well, no it's not. It's actually the fault of a generation of currupt politicians who trousered millions of pounds from corrupt businessmen in return for various political favours.

If blame can be levelled at the tribunals, it is that they have failed to uncover/prove the worst excesses of corruption in public life. It would be an entirly legitimate exercise to see what changes/alternatives could be put in place to make the investigation of corruption more efficient. Instead, I fear, they will simply be shut down. Despite the fact that the Revenue Commissioners have recovered far more in evaded taxes than the entire costs of all tribunals to date. The reality is that the Tribunals operate at a net profit to the State - they should continue, they should be beefed up and they should link with the CAB to recover the proceeds of crime - bribery is as much a crime as drug smuggling.
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Rebeller

Gob&#225 wrote: »

Legally, the Tribunal has been found to be acting in contravention of its statutory powers and has been stopped from opening new modules. It can and will continue to inquire into matters covered by existing modules. No constitutional impediments were relied upon so it could be reimpowered by the Oireachtas to open up the areas now forbidden to it. In theory.

Politically, great sighs of relief all round. The interface between politics, business and money is still a murky and opaque parallel universe where ordinary citizens are deliberately kept in the dark. There has been a sustained, vicious campaign against the Tribunals in the media and the courts, egged on by politicians and supported enthusiastically by media interests which overlap with the business interests being probed by the Tribunals. You will notice that whenever a Tribunal gets too close to the bone for comfort, it is inevitably time for a front page story on, yes, that old chestnut, lawyers fees. You see, it's all the fault of those greedy lawyers who are on to a good thing in tribunalland. Well, no it's not. It's actually the fault of a generation of currupt politicians who trousered millions of pounds from corrupt businessmen in return for various political favours.

If blame can be levelled at the tribunals, it is that they have failed to uncover/prove the worst excesses of corruption in public life. It would be an entirly legitimate exercise to see what changes/alternatives could be put in place to make the investigation of corruption more efficient. Instead, I fear, they will simply be shut down. Despite the fact that the Revenue Commissioners have recovered far more in evaded taxes than the entire costs of all tribunals to date. The reality is that the Tribunals operate at a net profit to the State - they should continue, they should be beefed up and they should link with the CAB to recover the proceeds of crime - bribery is as much a crime as drug smuggling.
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Hear hear! Couldn't have put it better myself expect I would not be so quick to confine the corrupt activities to the past as in

Gob&#225 wrote: »

It's actually the fault of a generation of currupt politicians who trousered millions of pounds from corrupt businessmen in return for various political favours

I strongly believe that such activities are endemic to the system and will not end unless we have prosecutions of senior business people and politicians and the imposition of severe penalties. Corruption and bribery=treason

Tom Young

I think your autosignature says it all.

We are surrounded by croneyism, nepotism and begrudgery.

This country needs some young blood, new life, and frankly more investigations into curruption. So I'd tend to agree with the prior poster(s). Problem is that the government of the day is unlikely to extend the powers more.

Media, media and more media. Lets wait till the rags have the lawyers bills in the press.

They are worth it.

PS: I don't think life with Bungle and Zippy in Government would be a whole lot better though, so its an endemic flaw of our time.