What does the Siteserv deal say about the standard of journalism in Ireland today?

SafeSurfer

But for Catherine Murphy the Siteserv scandal would never have come to light. Why is there no serious investigative journalism in Ireland? Page after page of drivel in all the main papers and no capacity or resources for real investigative journalism from most online sources.
Relatively petty crimes are sensationalised while possible corruption insider trading betting millions is ignored.
The elite in our society are never held to account by the media while the most disadvantaged are vilified.

joe swanson

Love it when people jump to conclusions. That's why there is going to b an investigation. Not his biggest fan but Alan dukes sounded quite convincing.

Maybe we should wait to see if anything unto ward actually happened. But id imagine the usual anti everything lobby will shout and shout once d ob is mentioned.

Mr. Incognito

Is it a scandal?

I dont see much in it myself.

kneemos

The whole thing is sensationalist. They got the best deal on offer.

qwerty1991

I saw something on thejournal.ie that it was very difficult for reporters to look at the list of names. I saw a picture and the computer software looks ancient..


Also on a side note can anyone briefly synopsis the siteserv saga... Still don't really understand

testicle

Where's the scandal? IBRC was set up from the ashes of Anglo to dump all the toxic loans in. Of course it was going to make a loss...

SafeSurfer

The huge spike in share dealing immediately prior to sale alone would be enough to warrant a stock exchange investigation in many jurisdictions. Throw in 5 million paid to shareholders and the whole thing stinks. Even the way the shareholder register is being released smacks of cover up. 30 minute supervised access by journalists and no copies or photos of the text allowed. That's not transparency. This is a massive scandal.

jhegarty

SafeSurfer wrote: »

The huge spike in share dealing immediately prior to sale alone would be enough to warrant a stock exchange investigation in many jurisdictions.

They announced that a deal to buy the company was at an advanced stage.

Why wouldn't you expect a spike in share dealing ?

porsche959

SafeSurfer wrote: »

But for Catherine Murphy the Siteserv scandal would never have come to light. Why is there no serious investigative journalism in Ireland? Page after page of drivel in all the main papers and no capacity or resources for real investigative journalism from most online sources.
Relatively petty crimes are sensationalised while possible corruption insider trading betting millions is ignored.
The elite in our society are never held to account by the media while the most disadvantaged are vilified.

To be honest, there never was a great tradition of investigative journalism in Ireland. The likes of Haughey was only exposed when a family row set off a sequence of events that ultimately led to the discovery of the Ansbacher accounts. And by this time, he had retired from politics.

Can someone explain the whole siteserv thing, but as if they were to a child?

BlaasForRafa

Denis O'Brien seems to get fairly advantageous deals whenever Fine Gael are in power it seems.

Fran1985

BlaasForRafa wrote: »

Denis O'Brien seems to get fairly advantageous deals whenever Fine Gael are in power it seems.

And as most are aware he owns a lot of media meaning most journalists would avoid him at all costs

BlaasForRafa

Fran1985 wrote: »

And as most are aware he owns a lot of media meaning most journalists would avoid him at all costs

Indeed. But I'm sure that's purely a coincidence :pac:

davycc

BlaasForRafa wrote: »

Indeed. But I'm sure that's purely a coincidence :pac:

pure coincidence

Banjo String

joe swanson wrote: »

Love it when people jump to conclusions. That's why there is going to b an investigation. Not his biggest fan but Alan dukes sounded quite convincing.

Maybe we should wait to see if anything unto ward actually happened. But id imagine the usual anti everything lobby will shout and shout once d ob is mentioned.

Yeah Joe, as can by seen by your numerous interactions in various threads about a certain political party, you're a real bastion of impartiality, and would never support accusations or insinuations in lieu of an actual court case.

Jesus H Christ.

NIMAN

I don't see what all this has to do with Kimye though, thats where the real news is!

joe swanson

Banjo String wrote: »

Yeah Joe, as can by seen by your numerous interactions in various threads about a certain political party, you're a real bastion of impartiality, and would never support accusations or insinuations in lieu of an actual court case.

Jesus H Christ.

I have also said since your so interested in previous posts that I support no party. This is true. I will criticise anyone if warranted. I just think that jumping to conclusions before the findings of this review which is to b headed by a high court judge is premature.

Don't see how my feelings about SF have do with this. Paranoid much?

Zamboni

SafeSurfer wrote: »

But for Catherine Murphy the Siteserv scandal would never have come to light. Why is there no serious investigative journalism in Ireland? Page after page of drivel in all the main papers and no capacity or resources for real investigative journalism from most online sources.
Relatively petty crimes are sensationalised while possible corruption insider trading betting millions is ignored.
The elite in our society are never held to account by the media while the most disadvantaged are vilified.

Future scandal
Just wait until it comes out in a few years time that management in AIB and other tax payer owned banks have been writing down all their politician and developer mates and families private debts without asset repossession.

kneemos

Zamboni wrote: »

Future scandal
Just wait until it comes out in a few years time that management in AIB and other tax payer owned banks have been writing down all their politician and developer mates and families private debts without asset repossession.

Lets pace ourselves.

renegademaster

joe swanson wrote: »

Love it when people jump to conclusions. That's why there is going to b an investigation. Not his biggest fan but Alan dukes sounded quite convincing.

Maybe we should wait to see if anything unto ward actually happened. But id imagine the usual anti everything lobby will shout and shout once d ob is mentioned.

Have you not noticed how the deeply morally corrupt are so convinced they've done nothing wrong, or can get away with anything will almost convincingly appear innocent, right up to the last second

renegademaster

joe swanson wrote: »

I have also said since your so interested in previous posts that I support no party. This is true. I will criticise anyone if warranted. I just think that jumping to conclusions before the findings of this review which is to b headed by a high court judge is premature.

Don't see how my feelings about SF have do with this. Paranoid much?

The levels of sheepish apathy in this country is one of the main enablers of corruption

mickdw

renegademaster wrote: »

The levels of sheepish apathy in this country is one of the main enablers of corruption

Even if Dennis o b offer can be shown to be the best offer for the tax payer, if still stinks because it would appear to me that he was only buying into this due to a promise of the water meter contract.
I think they can do all the investigations they wish and they will find little as everyone will have ached on advice available at the time etc. They can never find the phone call that assured Dennis that he was guaranteed the water meter install contract.

CucaFace

Yes it seems a bit strange that this wasn't investigated by some journalist when the deal went through initially, especially with Denis O'Brien involved in the deal.

Also something that bothers me is that nobody is looking into and reporting on the deals NAMA have been doing since they took over the sales of so many assets. Im sure when this happens there will be so many dodgy deals where basically the tax payers money has been transferred via below fair value purchases to the wealthy cash strapped friends of those involved in NAMA.

I know of one city centre hostel that sold last year for €500,000 which was actually worth more like €2million Euro's at the time of the sale and the for sale sign was up for about 2 weeks before it was taken down, so it was basically never properly put up for auction to the public where a far better price would have been achieved.

So the tax payer basically transferred €1.5M to whoever bought this property.

ScumLord

SafeSurfer wrote: »

Why is there no serious investigative journalism in Ireland?

News media is a business, they meet the demand and Irish people have more interest in celebrities and the possibility there's a peadophile waiting around the corner to steal their children, than they have in serious news.

walkingshadow

The Site Serv story is just one big yawnfest. Pointless and a dull-as-dishwasher 'story'.

SeamusFX

walkingshadow wrote: »

The Site Serv story is just one big yawnfest. Pointless and a dull-as-dishwasher 'story'.

I'm sorry, but maybe it's because of attitudes like this, people like Denis O'Brien are able to get away with swindling the tax payer!! People are more interested in the Kardashians and they just let sbags like DOB have the keys to the country! :mad:

kneemos

SeamusFX wrote: »

I'm sorry, but maybe it's because of attitudes like this, people like Denis O'Brien are able to get away with swindling the tax payer!! People are more interested in the Kardashians and they just let sbags like DOB have the keys to the country! :mad:

How did he swindle the tax payer?

walkingshadow

SeamusFX wrote: »

I'm sorry, but maybe it's because of attitudes like this, people like Denis O'Brien are able to get away with swindling the tax payer!! People are more interested in the Kardashians and they just let sbags like DOB have the keys to the country! :mad:

Well at least Kim Kardashian has big tits

SeamusFX

kneemos wrote: »

How did he swindle the tax payer?

The tax payer was swindle by O'Brien multiple times. It sad, but at the time of Esat Digifone won the mobile phone licence, it was quite obvious to me and many others that something was wrong, but it took years before all the dirt came out. O'Brien and Esat Digifone won the licence even though their offer wasn't the best and to this day with all the cover ups, we still don't know all the details, hence the Country got less than it could have and should have and when the government gets less money on a deal, who foots the bill? The taxpayer!!!!!!!! To top it off, he made millions on the back of Digifone and the Irish people and then moved his residence out of the state for tax avoidance reasons, this was despite the fact that at the time the large majority of his earnings were in Ireland.

Then for Siteserv he got another sweet deal. He bought Siteserv for 45.4 million euro after the Government and the tax payer took a hit for 150 million euro, despite the fact that Siteserv had revenues of 92.2 million Euro in the six months prior and Siteserv shareholders received a 5 million Euro payout, which was a 96% premium over the share price, despite the fact that Bank debt is supposed to come before shareholders. This is also despite the fact that The Altrad Group a French Company which owns several companies specialising in the same business area as Siteserv offered to pay more for Siteserv, but they were told it wasn't for sale and a few days later it was sold to O'Brien for less. Meanwhile Richard Woodhouse, the group head of specialised management at IBRC, just happens to be a close personal friend of O'Brien and in the meantime he has no problem pursuing other defaulting companies to the ends of the earth. Did the taxpayers get the best deal there?? If you say yes then you either you must have a very low IQ or you received a brown envelop from O'Brien. Then to put the icing on the cake, the State gives Siteserv the water meter installation contract.

Finally, do you think struggling mortgage holders and actual tax payers will get anything close to a sweet deal like this ever? Certainly not, in some cases the banks will be pursuing them and their children for years, but smug DOB is literally laughing all the way to the bank. It's just sad!

my friend

SafeSurfer wrote: »

But for Catherine Murphy the Siteserv scandal would never have come to light. Why is there no serious investigative journalism in Ireland? Page after page of drivel in all the main papers and no capacity or resources for real investigative journalism from most online sources.
Relatively petty crimes are sensationalised while possible corruption insider trading betting millions is ignored.
The elite in our society are never held to account by the media while the most disadvantaged are vilified.

What are you talking about?
Everything was reported at the time and when it's all washed out there won't be a smoking gun.
If there's a scandal in the story it's whom benefited from the group purchases prior to examinership and who signed off on the loans.

DoB ain't the bogey man

Streetwalker

Siteserv aside the standard of journalism in this nation is horrific. It doesn't help that we are such a small nation and there is a terrible culture of ladder climbing in that particular sector. There seems to be this view put forward by our media that anyone who questions authority or the status quo is a looney leftie or a SF supporter? Decent and balanced journalism should be the basis of any fair society.

On the question of siteserv alone there seems to be a desperation by the establishment to sweep it under the carpet as quick as possible. This in itself should be reason enough for journalists to redouble their efforts to uncover what's really going on and not hide behind a desk happy to "report" on the latest tweet form Kim Kardasin or some B list celeb nobody cares about.

kneemos

SeamusFX wrote: »

The tax payer was swindle by O'Brien multiple times. It sad, but at the time of Esat Digifone won the mobile phone licence, it was quite obvious to me and many others that something was wrong, but it took years before all the dirt came out. O'Brien and Esat Digifone won the licence even though their offer wasn't the best and to this day with all the cover ups, we still don't know all the details, hence the Country got less than it could have and should have and when the government gets less money on a deal, who foots the bill? The taxpayer!!!!!!!! To top it off, he made millions on the back of Digifone and the Irish people and then moved his residence out of the state for tax avoidance reasons, this was despite the fact that at the time the large majority of his earnings were in Ireland.

Then for Siteserv he got another sweet deal. He bought Siteserv for 45.4 million euro after the Government and the tax payer took a hit for 150 million euro, despite the fact that Siteserv had revenues of 92.2 million Euro in the six months prior and Siteserv shareholders received a 5 million Euro payout, which was a 96% premium over the share price, despite the fact that Bank debt is supposed to come before shareholders. This is also despite the fact that The Altrad Group a French Company which owns several companies specialising in the same business area as Siteserv offered to pay more for Siteserv, but they were told it wasn't for sale and a few days later it was sold to O'Brien for less. Meanwhile Richard Woodhouse, the group head of specialised management at IBRC, just happens to be a close personal friend of O'Brien and in the meantime he has no problem pursuing other defaulting companies to the ends of the earth. Did the taxpayers get the best deal there?? If you say yes then you either you must have a very low IQ or you received a brown envelop from O'Brien. Then to put the icing on the cake, the State gives Siteserv the water meter installation contract.

Finally, do you think struggling mortgage holders and actual tax payers will get anything close to a sweet deal like this ever? Certainly not, in some cases the banks will be pursuing them and their children for years, but smug DOB is literally laughing all the way to the bank. It's just sad!

The French bid had stipulations and delayed payments,plus it wasn't clear that the offer would go through. They went(rightly)with the solid offer.

Don't think anything underhand has been has been leveled at DOB regarding Digifone,he made an offer and it was accepted is all we know.
If you're suggesting a business is not going to avoid tax where possible you're crazy.

SeamusFX

kneemos wrote: »

The French bid had stipulations and delayed payments,plus it wasn't clear that the offer would go through. They went(rightly)with the solid offer.

Don't think anything underhand has been has been leveled at DOB regarding Digifone,he made an offer and it was accepted is all we know.
If you're suggesting a business is not going to avoid tax where possible you're crazy.

Do you actually believe that? If so, then you are the one that is clearly CRAZY! Just curious, are you a FG supporter? It's nice to be innocent, but lets face it, where there's smoke there's fire!!! There are too many smokey clouds and too many inconsistencies following O'Brien. Yes, in the case of Digifone "he made an offer and it was accepted", but it was accepted by Michael Lowry and he's as crooked as a barrel of fish hooks and it was "Sealed bids". How is this allowed!!!!! I know the brown envelope needs to be sealed, but the bids shouldn't be sealed. Is this a Banana Republic we are living in?????? Now with the Siteserv deal, too many lies, inconsistencies and dirty dealings, you have to be an idiot to believe it is on the level!!! "They went(rightly)with the solid offer.", yes it was the right offer if you are Denis O'Brien!!

everlast75

Its amazing how easily manipulated the press can be.

Here's a conspiracy for you.

Say there is another scandal in the background and FG want to detract from that, when it does break.

So they check out the Siteserve story and acknowledge that it does look suspect on the face of it, but are certain they are covered. Say they tip off this independent TD and she goes sniffing around, finds these papers and goes to the press. Cue outrage, calls for investigations and the like. It dominates the headlines for weeks and then ultimately an investigation holds that there is nothing untoward (hypothetically)

THEN FG leak info on the next scandal, and when there are suspicions raised, they refer to the previous "scandal" and say it is nothing and in all likelihood, the public's appetite for complicated investigations etc will not be there and it will pass by relatively smoothly.

The two morals of the story are
1) PR Companies should be fecking done away with in the context of political parties. Fancy name for propaganda.
2) No one person should hold that much sway in the press.

michael999999

walkingshadow wrote: »

Well at least Kim Kardashian has big tits

Denis owns two big tits as well.

They go by the name Noonan and Enda Kenny!

Skullface McGubbin

SafeSurfer wrote: »

Why is there no serious investigative journalism in Ireland? Page after page of drivel in all the main papers and no capacity or resources for real investigative journalism from most online sources.

Yellow journalism seems to be the norm these days. And as another user on this thread said, news media companies are businesses.
Plus, news outlets also serve as mouth pieces for ideologues to push their agendas. They'll only cover anything resembling investigative journalism if it fits their chosen narrative.

joe swanson

It seems if you would would rather wait and see the evidence and outcome of an investigation, your an fg troll and corruption enabler.

BoJack Horseman

joe swanson wrote: »

It seems if you would would rather wait and see the evidence and outcome of an investigation, your an fg troll and corruption enabler.

Seeking evidence eh?

The hallmark of the blueshirt fascist.

SeamusFX

joe swanson wrote: »

It seems if you would would rather wait and see the evidence and outcome of an investigation, your an fg troll and corruption enabler.

What kind of drugs are you on? This isn't a witch hunt, but to anyone with half a brain it's quite obvious that there were serious financial and auditing improprieties, disclosure failures and outright misrepresentations. I guess the FG trolls just want to wait to see if Denny and the boys can do a good cover up and whatever lies they spin, the suckers will buy it for whatever reason. Let's face it, if it looks like a pig, walks like a pig and squeals like a pig, then it's a PIG!!

michael999999

SeamusFX wrote: »

What kind of drugs are you on? This isn't a witch hunt, but to anyone with half a brain it's quite obvious that there were serious financial and auditing improprieties, disclosure failures and outright misrepresentations. I guess the FG trolls just want to wait to see if Denny and the boys can do a good cover up and whatever lies they spin, the suckers will buy it for whatever reason. Let's face it, if it looks like a pig, walks like a pig and squeals like a pig, then it's a PIG!!

And the FG pigs snout is firmly in the trough!

Fine Gael are certainly DOBs best ever purchase!

hatrickpatrick

joe swanson wrote: »

Love it when people jump to conclusions. That's why there is going to b an investigation. Not his biggest fan but Alan dukes sounded quite convincing.

Maybe we should wait to see if anything unto ward actually happened. But id imagine the usual anti everything lobby will shout and shout once d ob is mentioned.

I wouldn't call myself anti everything, but I'm definitely part of the crowd you mention. My belief is that if once you are found to have been involved in any sort of corrupt conspiracy (DOB has been found to have given money to Michael Lowry, Lowry has been found to have given information to DOB which helped him secure the contract) this should preclude you from getting any further state contracts or involvement whatsoever. We tolerate far too much bullsh!t in this country. So even if nothing untoward happened in this case, in my view people would still have the right to be pissed off, just as with his involvement with IW. We need to adopt a "an shenanigans, and you're out" approach to the political elite, or we'll never root out the cronyism we have to put up with at the moment.

Letree

It says that Irish journalists are scared stiff of the big DOB

Laois_Man

SafeSurfer wrote: »

But for Catherine Murphy the Siteserv scandal would never have come to light. Why is there no serious investigative journalism in Ireland? Page after page of drivel in all the main papers and no capacity or resources for real investigative journalism from most online sources.
Relatively petty crimes are sensationalised while possible corruption insider trading betting millions is ignored.
The elite in our society are never held to account by the media while the most disadvantaged are vilified.

I have no idea what you're on about. I have known about the Siteserv deal for ages. Catherine Murphy brought nothing new to light!

joe swanson

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

I wouldn't call myself anti everything, but I'm definitely part of the crowd you mention. My belief is that if once you are found to have been involved in any sort of corrupt conspiracy (DOB has been found to have given money to Michael Lowry, Lowry has been found to have given information to DOB which helped him secure the contract) this should preclude you from getting any further state contracts or involvement whatsoever. We tolerate far too much bullsh!t in this country. So even if nothing untoward happened in this case, in my view people would still have the right to be pissed off, just as with his involvement with IW. We need to adopt a "an shenanigans, and you're out" approach to the political elite, or we'll never root out the cronyism we have to put up with at the moment.

I actually agree with a lot you say in that post, but my point is everyone is entitled to due process from Denis o brien to thugs attacking Gardaí whilst shouting 'peaceful protest'.

If the EVIDENCE supports the accusations as findings of a proper investigation absolutely, face the consequences. But shouting the loudest and saying something again and again doesn't necessarily mean its true.

hatrickpatrick

joe swanson wrote: »

I actually agree with a lot you say in that post, but my point is everyone is entitled to due process from Denis o brien to thugs attacking Gardaí whilst shouting 'peaceful protest'.

If the EVIDENCE supports the accusations as findings of a proper investigation absolutely, face the consequences. But shouting the loudest and saying something again and again doesn't necessarily mean its true.

The evidence as per Moriarty supports the allegation that he gave money to Lowry and Lowry helped him get a state contract.

My point is, having found that, he should have been banned from having literally any more involvements with any more state or semi state contracts, or anything to do with exchequer money. We put up with too much bullsh!t in this country - the law should make it clear that you have one strike before you're kicked out of the elite. Permanently.

So in my view what happened with Siteserv isn't even all that relevant. DOB shouldn't have been allowed anywhere near it to begin with, based on his previous behaviour.

michael999999

Denis O Brien has now applied for a High Court injunction, trying to prevent RTE from transmitting an investigative programme about hes finances!

Flood

michael999999 wrote: »

Denis O Brien has now applied for a High Court injunction, trying to prevent RTE from transmitting an investigative programme about hes finances!

And he probably will get it.

hatrickpatrick

Flood wrote: »

And he probably will get it.

It doesn't matter if he does in my view, the fact that he's sought it will do as much damage to his reputation as the program itself would - possibly more, in fact. The program could well have had no credibility and left us all thinking "poor journalism, nothing to see here" but now that he's trying to block it, everyone's going to be thinking "Little f*cker has something to hide, sure we all knew it"

michael999999

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

It doesn't matter if he does in my view, the fact that he's sought it will do as much damage to his reputation as the program itself would - possibly more, in fact. The program could well have had no credibility and left us all thinking "poor journalism, nothing to see here" but now that he's trying to block it, everyone's going to be thinking "Little f*cker has something to hide, sure we all knew it"

Reputation?

I think that was lost after the findings of The Moriarty Tribunal!

steddyeddy

kneemos wrote: »

The French bid had stipulations and delayed payments,plus it wasn't clear that the offer would go through. They went(rightly)with the solid offer.

Don't think anything underhand has been has been leveled at DOB regarding Digifone,he made an offer and it was accepted is all we know.
If you're suggesting a business is not going to avoid tax where possible you're crazy.

A government contract issued to someone implicated as corrupt by a tribunal is far from solid.

Timberrrrrrrr

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

It doesn't matter if he does in my view, the fact that he's sought it will do as much damage to his reputation as the program itself would - possibly more, in fact. The program could well have had no credibility and left us all thinking "poor journalism, nothing to see here" but now that he's trying to block it, everyone's going to be thinking "Little f*cker has something to hide, sure we all knew it"

I wonder how many on here would be happy to have all of their financial and personal details broadcast without their permission.