Iceland: political leaders to be charged for negligence. Should Ireland follow?

Dionysus

Over on The Irish Times this morning a story is coming in from Iceland that a state report has recommended that Iceland's government ministers should stand trial for negligence in the collapse of the economy.

"Iceland should bring negligence charges against former ministers over its banking collapse in 2008, a committee of the Althingi parliament has said, but was split on who should stand trial. Five of the nine members of the committee want charges brought against former prime minister Geir Haarde, ex-foreign and finance ministers Ingibjorg Solrun Gisladottir and Arni Mathiesen, and former business minister Bjorgvin Sigurdsson." More here.

If this is carried out it could open the floodgates on the Bertie Aherns of this country so my question is: Do you think Bertie Ahern, Charles McCreevy, Brian Cowen, Patrick Neary and [named] others should be charged with negligence for their role in the collapse (etc) of this economy?

AckwelFoley

No.

Unless they charge people for wreckless borrowing also

flutered

+ 1, it should happen regardless, bit it is wishfull thinking, who is going to do it, not fg as i think ek is still drawing part of his teachers salary,

Gary4279

No, we voted them in. Also, Iceland is in a much worse of state than Ireland.

That also sounds like a good political move from Iceland's current leaders. Hanging those at fault out to dry will win them a lot of support. Trouble is if they **** up in 5 years time they could be standing trial.

Biggins

We hired them but by god we should be able to fire them too - not just be forced to put up with them till their contract runs out!

PeterIanStaker

Ideally they should be strung up, but it wont happen, the smug c*nts will wash their hands of it, get away with it scot-free and keep their three pensions.

Yakult

Kill 'Em All.

R P McMurphy

Yes it should happen but not a chance. While I would agree that hindsight is a great thing, there were plenty of warnings about the stupidity of what was going on. The Swedish were quite vocal about our situation for a number of years, as they had experience of it. Added to this they made decisions which turned private debts into our debts. i don't want to pay for someone elses gambling debts but that is what one or two generations of people will have to do. While the initial situation was brought about by negligence, turning the private debt of a handfull of powerful individuals into state ownership is something else entirely. Not sure exactly what

stovelid

Our leaders didn't take power in a military coup. They were voted in by a load of thicks who didn't care about anything once tax cuts were on the cards.

The same thicks - by and large - reaching for the pitchforks now.

Dean820

I don't think so, they should be making a lot less money though. A person who doesn't do their job right should be docked in wages.

Jeboa Safari

No, some of the bankers should be though

Celly Smunt

they should be lynched,Fúck the legalities

No - the politicians should be fired for negligence, but the bankers are the ones who should be charged and jailed.

minidazzler

Inb4 Tried for Treason.

Biggins

I feel they should NOT be tried for negligence - they knew exactly what they were doing.
They should be tried for deliberate criminal damage and/or financially abusing state systems for their own/their friends persona gain.

To quote a post in the Independent:

Builder gets €2.5m a month from State

THE lucrative deal between the State and a company controlled by Johnny Ronan and Richard Barrett for the controversial National Convention Centre will mean the taxpayer will hand the developers €633,000 a week for the next five years -- even though their company Treasury Holdings is among the Nama top 10.
…

Treasury Holdings, through its development vehicle Real Estate Opportunities (REO), now has loans totalling €896m in Nama.

The €896m worth of loans originally secured from Allied Irish Bank, Anglo Irish Bank and Bank of Ireland are out of total borrowings by REO of €1.49bn.

The €380m convention centre was built as a public private partnership between the State and Spencer Dock Convention Centre Dublin Ltd (SDCCD), an off-shoot of Treasury Holdings.

Under the terms of the National Convention Centre deal, the company controlled by Mr Ronan and Mr Barrett will receive a once off payment of €27m. On top of that, they will receive €25m in each of the next five years (€125m).
It means that, between the unitary (once-off) and annual payments, the new convention centre is worth €2.5m a month for the next 60 months to the developers bailed out by the State's bad bank.

But the payments to the company controlled by Messrs Ronan and Barrett will not stop there.

After those five years are up, index-linked payments will continue to the developers for the following 20 years. After 25 years (2035) the convention centre reverts to State ownership.

http://www.independent.ie/national-news/nama-developer-bash-sparks-rage-2334614.html

---

To repeat what I stated in the politics section:

"Bertie Ahern and the Drumcondra Mafia"

See: http://www.whsmith.co.uk/CatalogAndSearch/ProductDetails.aspx?ProductID=9780340919040

...What made Bertie Ahern unique was not his enormous popularity or the revelations about his personal finances, but his dependence on a power base largely separate to Fianna Fail: 'the Drumcondra Mafia', a largely unknown, fiercely loyal, close-knit group of friends. When Ahern was Taoiseach the centre of power was arguably as much in St Luke's, the legendary constituency office bought by the Drumcondra Mafia, as in Government Buildings.

"Bertie Ahern and the Drumcondra Mafia" takes the reader inside the organisation and examines how they not only established the most efficient electoral machine in the country but put 'their man' in the most senior political office in the state. It also details how, in his rise to power, Ahern acquired substantial sums of money from person's unknown, while propagating the image of a man with no interest in money.

I cannot recommend the above book enough for people to read.

Our entrenched government scum are up to their eyeballs in suspicious activities to say the least and this god-damn country is asleep to the facts that are actually out there but are under exposed due to the goons and they rushing to court to protect themselves from exposure.

narwog81

Gary4279 wrote: »

Also, Iceland is in a much worse of state than Ireland.

is it really though? at least they took decisive action when the crisis occurred, have a look at paul somerville's article in the independent today if you want to see how our leader's paralysis is slowly killing off Ireland.

today's leadership may have a case to answer for negligence, never mind the ahern era!

oh and if we go down the Icelandic route then Patrick Neary has to get both barrells....

FreudianSlippers

The amount of yes votes shows a staggering ignorance of the political system and what got us in this mess in the first place. Certainly our leaders are not amazing at the moment, but were they negligent? Certainly not.

Biggins

narwog81 wrote: »

...today's leadership may have a case to answer for negligence, never mind the ahern era!

Ahern gone and Cowen in, nothing changed, FF and its backers are still there with vested interests.
All that has changed is the head face and he's been there since the start of previous fellow mates first sat around the tables in Fianna Fail HQ.

narwog81

Biggins wrote: »

Ahern gone and Cowen in, nothing changed, FF and its backers are still there with vested interests.
All that has changed is the head face and he's been there since the start of previous fellow mates first sat around the tables in Fianna Fail HQ.

i completely agree, sorry may not have been clear, absolutely certain people from the 2002-2007 era need to e held to account but i think that the the current crop, especially some of the decision-makers in Sept 2008 may not be viewed too kindly by history

Liam Byrne

Negligence at the very least.
Also "incitement to violence" (since Ahern suggested that realists should commit suicide; OK, it's violence against themselves, but it's still violence)
And fraud for every cent of wages and expenses that they were paid while supposedly "doing their jobs"

Finally, if the bank heads can get away with suing for "mental distress", then most of the country can surely sue those FF & Anglo scumbags for same!

RATM

snyper wrote: »

No.

Unless they charge people for wreckless borrowing also

In fairness it was the governments role to regulate the banks sufficiently so that wreckless borrowing wouldn't occur in the first place. In that they failed miserably.

In fact the culture was such that if Patrick Neary had of tried to clamp down on them then they would have put pressure on the government to get him removed. The likes of McCreevy, Ahern & Cowen swallowed the Thatcher-Reagan line of less government hook line and sinker and now we have to clear up after their mess because of their belief that unregulated capitalism could ever work.

Ulysses Gaze

OisinT wrote: »

The amount of yes votes shows a staggering ignorance of the political system and what got us in this mess in the first place. Certainly our leaders are not amazing at the moment, but were they negligent? Certainly not.

This has to be a wind-up.

Ok, even looking recently at events, what would you call commissioning a report into Anglo and then not reading it fully?

Wilful Negligence.

http://www.independent.ie/opinion/columnists/fionnan-sheahan/jaws-dropped-as-lenihan-admitted-he-had-seen-no-evil-1636883.html

Biggins

Ulysses Gaze wrote: »

This has to be a wind-up.

Ok, even looking recently at events, what would you call commissioning a report into Anglo and then not reading it fully?

Wilful Negligence.

http://www.independent.ie/opinion/columnists/fionnan-sheahan/jaws-dropped-as-lenihan-admitted-he-had-seen-no-evil-1636883.html

Indeed.
In not one but two reports that said similar!

Very damning of FF, Cowen, his mates which operate like a mafia gang and dumb sheep cronies.

See: http://www.irishcentral.com/business/Cowen-blamed-for-Irish-banking-crisis-in-two-devastating-reports-95949824.html

Cabaal

snyper wrote: »

No.

Unless they charge people for wreckless borrowing also

agreed, nobody held a gun to anyone's head and said "take out that car loan" or "get a mortgage" people need to take some responsibility themselves, stop just trying to blame others all the time

Liam Byrne

Cabaal wrote: »

agreed, nobody held a gun to anyone's head and said "take out that car loan" or "get a mortgage" people need to take some responsibility themselves, stop just trying to blame others all the time

This line sickens me.

Yes some people borrowed too much. Those people shouldn't blame the government.

But likewise government lackeys and yes-men shouldn't blame or punish the rest of us, either.

So until the government stops spouting this lie then of course people are going to say "ye're wrong - again".

Oh - and speaking of "guns to heads", that's EXACTLY what our former taoiseach suggested.