'Ireland is the most corrupt country in the Western world'

beefburrito

No where else in the western world is the car insurance as expensive.

It's nothing to do with claims, the systems fcked up.

Fck the insurance company, they should pay for their gamble too...

This no claims bonus is bull**** too...

They take the bonus, it's not deducted from the insurance price...

Corrupted to the core, and we're all letting them ride us bareback without a reacharound.....

biko

When the "journalist" heads his own article with his own name

Pat Flanagan: 'Ireland is the most corrupt country in the Western world'

instead of using an actual expert or source, then you know the rest will be the usual clickbait ****e.

Also his little sample of the Gardai hardly represents the country as a whole

He keeps saying "cops", like a feckin American. What a "douchebag".

chesterwoodman

I havent visited all the countries in the western world.
I havent lived in all the countries in the western world.
I have however visited the majority and lived in five of the countries in the western world.
I can assure you that in my experience this is the most corrupt country i have visited or lived in .

relax carry on

chesterwoodman wrote: »

I havent visited all the countries in the western world.
I havent lived in all the countries in the western world.
I have however visited the majority and lived in five of the countries in the western world.
I can assure you that in my experience this is the most corrupt country i have visited or lived in .

By what measure and in what (ways)?

gozunda

It's great we are 'good' at some thing anyway

See:
https://www.transparency.ie/news_events/corruption-perceptions-index-2017

Ireland remains in 19th place on Transparency International’s 2017 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI), which ranks 183 countries based on perceived levels of corruption.

Our latest trading party sits at no 77 ....

chesterwoodman

The same as everyones, mostly personal experiences , knowledge, education and travel.

lawred2

NIMAN wrote: »

So we are worse than :

The US
Russian
Italy
UK
Uganda
Haiti
Iraq ????????

The Western World?

Maybe the understood meaning of that has changed

badtoro

One of the biggest problems here is down to lack of genuine transparency & accountability which can be verified by independent actors.

Instead, society and the media is focused on "pay".

Until that changes, not much else will change.

Peregrinus

chesterwoodman wrote: »

I havent visited all the countries in the western world.
I havent lived in all the countries in the western world.
I have however visited the majority and lived in five of the countries in the western world.
I can assure you that in my experience this is the most corrupt country i have visited or lived in .

But not in the experience of others, it seems. On Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index, we are ranked 19th out of 180 countries, ahead of (among others) France, Portugal, Israel, the Czech Republic, Spain, Italy and Hungary. We are one point worse than Austria, Belgium and the US, one point better than Japan.

chesterwoodman

Peregrinus wrote: »

But not in the experience of others, it seems. On Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index, we are ranked 19th out of 180 countries, ahead of (among others) France, Portugal, Israel, the Czech Republic, Spain, Italy and Hungary. We are one point worse than Austria, Belgium and the US, one point better than Japan.

I am not corrupt .
I am not perceiving ireland to be corrupt.
I know its corrupt from personal experience.

Peregrinus

chesterwoodman wrote: »

I am not corrupt .
I am not perceiving ireland to be corrupt.
I know its corrupt from personal experience.

Your perceptions may be based on your experience, chester, but you certainly do perceive Ireland to be corrupt. (Either that, or you have been lying on the internet, and you'd never do that, would you?)

And other people's perceptions are likewise based on their experience.

Cordell

Western Europe: Italy and Greece and maybe Spain
Eastern Europe: holy sh*t
Western World: is has to be the US of A, no contest

Ireland? Just a little nepotism and cronyism and maybe the odd brown envelope. Cop on.

MayoSalmon

Except its not

https://www.transparency.org/news/feature/corruption_perceptions_index_2017

chesterwoodman

Perceiving for me is about receiving information , organising it and storing it.

I have done all that.

I know for a fact ireland is corrupt ..... Stored forever !

valoren

You know those scenes around election time where the elected TD is elated and carried on the shoulders of others? Every time I see that I think they aren't happy that now they've been elected they look forward to the prospect of serving their constituents and making a difference but rather they are now on the gravy train with guaranteed pension nest eggs.

Just look at Michael Lowry. Whispers of corruption followed him with Esat Digifone. Then the McCracken Tribunal concluded that by having Ben Dunne no less finance his house extension that Lowry had evaded tax on the sum of £395,000.

Unacceptable.

So something was done about it. He was to resign from the cabinet. He was then told by John Bruton that he wouldn't be allowed stand for FG at the 97 election.

So Lowry resigned from the party.

Then he ran as an independent in the 97 election anyway and what happened?

Lowry topped the fcking poll.

:rolleyes:

And he did it again in 2002 and he did it again in 2007.

Kotek Besar

I wouldn't use the term "corrupt", but having lived in the UK and in Ireland, I have experience of dealing with authorities on both sides of the Irish Sea..

In the UK, there are clearly published rules, in black and white, of what is and isn't so, what the criteria is and isn't, what is accepted and what isn't. Dealing with UK authorities is largely straightforward and transparent.

In Ireland, there may or may not be clearly published rules in black and white, but regardless, Irish officials tend to adopt a more "grey area" approach to matters. The attitude is more "ah sure, send it in and we'll have a look for you so". This is problematic as you never really know where you stand.

CrankyHaus

We don't have that much illegal corruption, like bribery demands from the police and public service.

Compared to peer countries we do have unusually high amounts of legal corruption, morally corrupt behaviour that falls just inside the law.

This is the 'who you know' culture that people who have moved here from abroad, say the UK, told me they find strange.

A lot of Irish people are beneficiaries of this system which is why so many shout down any criticism of it.

I found a thread here on Boards on the faked Garda breathalyser figures to be a fascinating insight into this mentality. Many people, who from their other posts appear to be well inside the Irish system, were passionately arguing that nothing could be done to discipline Gardai falsifying figures and that nothing should be done.

Kotek Besar

CrankyHaus wrote: »

Compared to peer countries we do have unusually high amounts of legal corruption, morally corrupt behaviour that falls just inside the law.

This is the 'who you know' culture that people who have moved here from abroad, say the UK, told me they find strange.

A lot of Irish people are beneficiaries of this system which is why so many shout down any criticism of it.

Exactly!

Another related quirk of Ireland is that a member of the Gardaí can countersign documents or application forms (such as, but not limited to, passport applications), to confirm the identity of a member of the public, who they may or may not know and, if you're not from the area, are new in town or are unknown to the Gardaí, this is somewhat a stumbling block!

twinytwo

NIMAN wrote: »

So we are worse than :

The US
Russian
Italy
UK
Uganda
Haiti
Iraq ????????

I think the issue with Ireland is if you get caught nothing happens.

In China for example..because the government has to look like they are clamping down on corruption if you get caught you will more than likely end up in front of a firing squad

EdgeCase

All I can tell you is that I worked in London in both finance and media and the old-school-tie clubs are a HUGE deal. Some of it is benign. Some of it most certainly is not.

Have a look at the great diversity in the last few British governments for example - they're all (or almost all) from the same 'public school' (expensive fee paying private schools to train people for public life) system type backgrounds and all went to the same two elite universities, where they studied very similar subjects.

Unfortunately, that kind of thing is everywhere and all you can really do is setup systems to try and remove it.

twinytwo wrote: »

I think the issue with Ireland is if you get caught nothing happens.

In China for example..because the government has to look like they are clamping down on corruption if you get caught you will more than likely end up in front of a firing squad

And if you're in the Government's golden circle, you can do whatever you like. If you criticise the Government - it's inexplicable house arrest without any due process, 'reeducation', disappearances etc etc.

China's a TERRIBLE example of how to deal with corruption.

EdgeCase

EdgeCase wrote: »

China's a TERRIBLE example of how to deal with corruption.

China's anti-corruption movement is a political scheme to remove the power against Xi. All of his opponents have gradually been removed within the last decade under corruption charges, and business owners are being brought into line with the new party mandate (or rather his mandate).

China's corruption is inherent to their culture. Students bribe teachers for better exam results. People looking for work will give gifts to prospective employers for jobs. Internal promotions are closely connected to your family connections and the bribes. Being charged by the police and the sentencing of crimes is extremely reliant on your ability to bribe someone. Police will stop foreigners as passport checks looking for bribes leading up to the main festivals, and have their own quotas of bribes to send back up to their superiors. The Chinese stock exchange was government regulated with "tips" given to their friends/family, resulting in huge profits for the rich and massive losses for the poor.

China is definitely not the place to highlight for anti-corruption. God, I love that country. Such a fascinating culture.

badtoro

Kotek Besar wrote: »

In Ireland, there may or may not be clearly published rules in black and white, but regardless, Irish officials tend to adopt a more "grey area" approach to matters. The attitude is more "ah sure, send it in and we'll have a look for you so". This is problematic as you never really know where you stand.

Interpretations.

This is where you take a rule, regulation, or law, and subtly slightly change it for effect.

brainfreeze

No it's not.

In the corruption index, from 0 to most corrupt and 100 least. Ireland scores 74.

The Western Europe average is 64, and Western Europe is the highest ranking area on the planet.

We are not even remotely close to being the most corrupt. Globally, Europe, Western Europe, or even "the western world".

Topgear on Dave

brainfreeze wrote: »

We are not even remotely close to being the most corrupt. Globally, Europe, Western Europe, or even "the western world".

I have through work, two colleagues, one from Greece and one from Venezuela

They can tell me hair raising stories of corruption on an absolutely epic scale if I ask. :pac:

CrankyHaus

brainfreeze wrote: »

No it's not.

In the corruption index, from 0 to most corrupt and 100 least. Ireland scores 74.

The Western Europe average is 64, and Western Europe is the highest ranking area on the planet.

We are not even remotely close to being the most corrupt. Globally, Europe, Western Europe, or even "the western world".

Have a look at how the Corruption index is calculated. It aggregates surveys by other bodies such as the Economist Intelligence Unit, which have biases of their own. So it's as much an accurate measure of corruption as a Rotten Tomatoes score is accurately a measure of how good a film is (so Get Out is the third best film of all time ¯\_(ツ)_/¯).

It also excludes private corruption, so Libor fiddling, the VW emissions fixing or the long record of dodgy dealings in Ireland's financial sector are ignored.

Overall it's a useful tool but it's far from the whole story and doesn't claim to be. It's particularly unsuitable for quantifying the type of legal corruption prevalent in Ireland.

brainfreeze

CrankyHaus wrote: »

Have a look at how the Corruption index is calculated. It aggregates surveys by other bodies such as the Economist Intelligence Unit, which have biases of their own. So it's as much an accurate measure of corruption as a Rotten Tomatoes score is accurately a measure of how good a film is (so Get Out is the third best film of all time ¯\_(ツ)_/¯).

It also excludes private corruption, so Libor fiddling, the VW emissions fixing or the long record of dodgy dealings in Ireland's financial sector are ignored.

Overall it's a useful tool but it's far from the whole story and doesn't claim to be. It's particularly unsuitable for quantifying the type of legal corruption prevalent in Ireland.

Still far more reliable than the headline of this thread.

EdgeCase

It's only a perception index.

ghostdancer

the only people who think this is a particularly corrupt country (see also: a sh1thole) are thick fcuks who get their opinions from facebook and the lad at the end of the bar, or tabloids which are aimed at morons incapable of thinking.

Ireland is by far one of the better countries in the world to live in, judged on most individual metrics, and is consistently near the top when all are combined.


unless of course you'd prefer to believe some d1ckhead in the Irish Mirror over people who actually know what they're talking about.

gozunda

CrankyHaus wrote: »

We don't have that much illegal corruption, like bribery demands from the police and public service.
Compared to peer countries we do have unusually high amounts of legal corruption, morally corrupt behaviour that falls just inside the law.
This is the 'who you know' culture that people who have moved here from abroad, say the UK, told me they find strange.
A lot of Irish people are beneficiaries of this system which is why so many shout down any criticism of it.
I found a thread here on Boards on the faked Garda breathalyser figures to be a fascinating insight into this mentality. Many people, who from their other posts appear to be well inside the Irish system, were passionately arguing that nothing could be done to discipline Gardai falsifying figures and that nothing should be done.

To make a complaint concerning many of the semi state and governent agencies requires that the complaint be forwarded to the same department who are subject of the complaint.

With regard to this lack of independence or transparancy of process - complaints are frequently dealt with by those who have more of a vested interest in making the complaints disappear than dealing with them fairly.

Making a complaint in Ireland remains largely pointless unless you have the resources to go down the legal route and seek redress

Not many do in my experience but those that do get vilified.

Clareside

Corruption is endemic in Ireland from the smallest corridors to the largest corridors. I grew up in an Irish pub so I knew that from a young age. I'm glad I didn't have a crystal ball back then to see how the time would come that that evil would visit my home and rip my family to shreds all because I wouldn't "play the game" as the solicitors quaintly refer to it.
I have been to every level of the Irish judicial system "in camera" to protect the state of course with no joy. Now i have submitted an application to the E.C.H.R.
If you haven t first hand experience of corruption and its consequences in this country then you are blessed but please don't deny its existence to those of us living through the hell of it every day.