Ireland votes "Yes" to corruption!

JacquesPompidou

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Ireland votes Yes to corruption!


Now have I got this right?

Ned O'Keefe is back! He done his best to give people BSE and feed the animals Illegal bonemeal?


Beverley Cooper-Flynn TD, member of the Irish Parliament, proven in court as having helped clients to evade tax by hiding stolen Tax money in Gibraltar.


Michael Lowry is back! Having appeared before the Flood and Moriarty Tribunals over millions of Euros gone missing!



How about seizing Liam Lawlor's "consultancy fees" and handing them over to Concern? How about moving a homeless family into Michael Lowry's extension? How about giving Denis Foley's offshore cash to one of the drug treatment programmes?



The Banks run Ireland:

The Echo newspaper on 11th March 1999. A young woman who paid a bus fare of £1.00 instead of £2.25 was fined £105 and sentenced to 14 days in prison. Meanwhile Allied Irish Banks - then making £2.2million profit every single day - got away with paying just £14million of the £100 million it owed in Deposit Interest Retention Tax due to a fraud involving non-resident accounts. If AIB were to be prosecuted for this crime on equal terms with the bus fare dodger, they would have had to pay a fine of £7.224 billion and whoever was chiefly responsible for the fraud would be sentenced to 26,473 years in prison.

Edit

JacquesPompidou

Anyone know about the other corruptions in Ireland?

Victor

Originally posted by JacquesPompidou
Meanwhile Allied Irish Banks - then making £2.2million profit every single day - got away with paying just £14million of the £100 million it owed in Deposit Interest Retention Tax due to a fraud involving non-resident accounts.

I think the figure was £114m.

sceptre

Ned O'Keeffe being reelected shocked me to be honest. I'm originally from Cork East remember. Votes piling in from Michelstown I suppose - apart from the SF cansisate there was no-one from the north-east.

I was once very insulting about Ned at a UL debate. Turned out his daughter was in the audience. When I was told I just kept going. Still have a video of it around here somewhere, beings happy tears to my eyes.

Part of the reason I was so shocked about Ned wasn't due to the alleged dorruption or to the confirmed misstatements to the Public Accounts committee and ethics committees. It was due to the man being a complete idiot. While I'm not a traditional FF supporter, I've nothing against Michael Ahern (the other FF TD from Cork East) - he doesn't do anything to annoy me. Ned on the other hand is a liability for FF on the PR front (though he's a safe seat every time it would seem).

The angel dust rumour is unconfirmed btw so be careful where you say it. The BSE item is confirmed (and let's not forget the man's attempt to have "Babe" banned in Irish cinemas on the grounds it might affect the pig industry. He forgot to mention he owns one of the biggest piggeries in county Cork when making that statement in the Dail)

JacquesPompidou

"I think the figure was £114m."

114 million


You've missed the point again, which was corruption in Irish politics.

mike65

The ppl of Ireland didnt vote yes for corruption they are'nt even thinking about corruption.

Mike.

JacquesPompidou

Then What were people thinking when they voted for Michael Lowry, Bev Cooper-Flynn, bla bla.......

Corruption?

Free Money?

or Tax Evasion?

sceptre

Mike has a point - and I believe him to be correct. The people didn't vote for corruption really.

At best, they didn't think about it.

At worst, some don't care about it as long as they think they'll have more money themselves - effectively leaving everyone to carry the financial can eqaually for this corruption.

Whatever about Cooper-Flynn (who almost certainly didn't profit from the corruption she was accused of), the case of Michael Lowry is an odd one. People I know from Tipperary can't explain how the guy is getting elected. Does he do a lot of constituency work or something?

Either way, as long as people like Michael Lowry can get elected to public office, there's something wrong with the way we look at things. As long as people like Charles Haughey can get away with years of theft and corruption (his tax bill is irrelevant, the man should be tried in court) and Ray Burke can stay out of jail after both tax evasion and theft, there's something inherently wrong with the way this country is governed. On all sides.

Originally posted by JacquesPompidou
Then What were people thinking when they voted for Michael Lowry, Bev Cooper-Flynn, bla bla.......

Corruption?

Free Money?

or Tax Evasion?

Not everybody voted for these people.
Only a minority of politicians have been elected, who have been found or accused of being "corrupt".
Total their votes and work out the percentages and not a lot of people voted even at constituency level for "corruption".
Actually you would probably find the percentage that voted Green or Sinn Féin or PD was greater
mm

JustHalf

Ireland votes "No" to spanners!

Spanner shipments were down this week, which many blame on the impending Fina Fael government. A dock worker claimed: "You just can't get import good spanners lately. I blame eff-eff, you know what I'm talking about." At this point the worker tapped his nose and stroked his chins.

daveirl

This post has been deleted.

Kim Tae-Woo

daveirl,
you don't happen to be a Cork Pig farmer by any Chance?

sceptre

Originally posted by daveirl
Why the man did nothing wrong and is very popular still.

I'll agree with your point on his popularity - he got re-elected so that's not an issue (no-one said he wasn't popular)
However, wrt "the man did nothing wrong"...
http://www.rte.ie/news/2002/0307/okeeffen.html
http://www.rte.ie/news/2002/0228/bse.html
http://www.rte.ie/news/2001/1123/bse.html
http://www.rte.ie/news/2001/0217/bse.html
http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/ireland/2001/0219/ned2.htm

and my favourite, given that my father works for the EPA and told me of the incident before it hit the news:
http://www.unison.ie/irish_independent/stories.php3?ca=9&si=356923&issue_id=3866

I could add more, but why bother.

Well that's pretty sad isn't it. That you get enjoyment out of causing people hurt.

Normally I don't "get enjoyment out of causing people hurt." If you read any of the comments I've posted here you'd see that was not the case. Best evidence I can give, given that you don't know me. On the other hand, Ned is an elected official. More to the point, at the time he was an elected official in my constituency and hence was effectively representing me in our national parliament.

I never attacked the guy on anything but his political record - I even steered clear of the Una Claffey incident (which would have been relevant to the debate).

Ned is free to take a platform at any time and attack my political views, my economic views and any other opinions I may have. I'll be happy to do likewise.

The film was found to have infulenced pig sales in the US. Ned therefore believed that it was in the agriculture interests of the country to try to ban the film. Agriculture is big business why not try and protect it. Would you prefer people to lose their jobs.

Nope. But the whole point is that Ned owns a piggery. Any sane individual would also see it as a conflict of interest. At the time people just thought he was being silly (lucky for him or he'd have been resigning again)

As I've said elsewhere, I have no problem with FF or any other party. I do have serious problems with a lack of ethics in government (national and local), Dail mis-statements, anything tantamount to insider dealing and the sometime-present idiocy of some of our elected officials.

sceptre

Originally posted by JacquesPompidou
The Echo newspaper on 11th March 1999. A young woman who paid a bus fare of £1.00 instead of £2.25 was fined £105 and sentenced to 14 days in prison. Meanwhile Allied Irish Banks - then making £2.2million profit every single day - got away with paying just £14million of the £100 million it owed in Deposit Interest Retention Tax due to a fraud involving non-resident accounts. If AIB were to be prosecuted for this crime on equal terms with the bus fare dodger, they would have had to pay a fine of £7.224 billion and whoever was chiefly responsible for the fraud would be sentenced to 26,473 years in prison.

Did you get that by email or from the July 2000 issue of Anarchist News(http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/a_news/an23.html)? I'm not doubting the veracity of the letter (it was a letter to the Echo, not an article) - I'm just being nosey.

Bah - the Workers Solidarity Movement aren't real anarchists anyway. They're organised enough to have a PO box number:D

(no, I'm not an anarchist, before the mud-slinging starts)

gandalf

Daveirl I am not editing this thread for the moment. I recommend that JacquesPompidou edit out the Angel Dust reference and replace it with "illegal bonemeal" which is even more damning considering he continued to feed his livestock this when it was known there were health implications in doing this and even worst economic implications for his beloved farmers if our export markets found out.

IMHO opinion in any other country that man would have done the right thing and not run again.

Gandalf.

Originally posted by Kim Tae-Woo
daveirl,
you don't happen to be a Cork Pig farmer by any Chance?

That daughter of Ned's Boyfriend perhaps:D

I'm curious about this bonemeal thing.
Can anyone tell me if the farm in question was owned by Ned himself or by his son at the time;ie: is it declared in the Dáil register of his interests??

If he didn't own the thing, and it was being run by his family,I would allow him a little slack for not being entirely aware/involved in the breach of regulations.
Being a T.D and minister of state would soak up too much time perhaps to be totally o-fay with what might be going on at the family farm??
Highly embarassing though.
mm

JacquesPompidou

Edit done,

my mistake, I seem to have quoted a paper that withdrew its original story.

it was bone meal not Angel Dust.

Gambler

How did Victors post warant an insult for a reply, that's all I wanna know??

Victor

Originally posted by madman
Can anyone tell me if the farm in question was owned by Ned himself or by his son at the time;ie: is it declared in the Dáil register of his interests?? If he didn't own the thing, and it was being run by his family,I would allow him a little slack for not being entirely aware/involved in the breach of regulations. Being a T.D and minister of state would soak up too much time perhaps to be totally o-fay with what might be going on at the family farm??

I think he owned the farmed, but as a Minister of State he is not entitled to run a business, so his family were running it, *as best I know*.

MrJacque

Yes,
I apologise for my reply to Victor.

JacquesPompidou

Sceptre

I got that by email I get a ton of newsletter ever week I had a look for it but haven't found it yet!

The Corinthian

Social welfare abuse in Ireland was not invented by foreign nationals; we have a healthy Irish sub-culture of professionally unemployed doing nixers in the background for a very long time - just no one's had the balls to address it.

sceptre

Originally posted by madman

That daughter of Ned's Boyfriend perhaps:D

Other way around surely:D

I'm curious about this bonemeal thing.
Can anyone tell me if the farm in question was owned by Ned himself or by his son at the time;ie: is it declared in the Dáil register of his interests??

Members Interests:
Occupational Income: Farmer.
Shares: Dairygold, Irish Permanent, Greencore, Ballylough Milling, Golden Vale, AIB, Beecham/Glaxo.
Land: 195 acres farmland.

If he didn't own the thing, and it was being run by his family,I would allow him a little slack for not being entirely aware/involved in the breach of regulations.

Being a T.D and minister of state would soak up too much time perhaps to be totally o-fay with what might be going on at the family farm??

Highly embarassing though.

Agreed (but see above), somewhat agreed & agreed.

daveirl

This post has been deleted.

JacquesPompidou

So Ireland produces 5 times more Chicken and Beef than it needs to feed the people.

But Supermarkets and Hotels insist on buying stuff from Holland, Brazil....

6-one news tonight:

Chicken fillets from Holland have been inspected tonight,
by the food safety Authority.
Chicken has been injected with both Pig/Bovine Proteins
Fillets are only 55% meat, as they were also pumped with liquids so they would retain more water and more weight.

Originally posted by JacquesPompidou
So Ireland produces 5 times more Chicken and Beef than it needs to feed the people.

But Supermarkets and Hotels insist on buying stuff from Holland, Brazil....

6-one news tonight:

Chicken fillets from Holland have been inspected tonight,
by the food safety Authority.
Chicken has been injected with both Pig/Bovine Proteins
Fillets are only 55% meat, as they were also pumped with liquids so they would retain more water and more weight.

Indeed this is very bad, all the more reason for trace-ability.
One should only eat in a restuarant that serves Irish or EU Beef as this can be traced back to the farm of origin.
Not sure what the position is in regard to chicken and pigmeat.
mm

gandalf

Originally posted by daveirl




Again this is wrong. Bonemeal was not illegal at the time.
Secondly Ned doesn't own the farm, doesn't work on the farm. His son does.
Bonemeal has been fed to pigs here and abroad since agriculture began so it would be no shock to the export markets.

Dave they were feeding their pigs bonemeal after it was banned. Also his son may own the farm now but you can be damn sure if he lost his seat it would revert to him tomorrow.

Big deal about it been done in the past IT IS BANNED NOW !!! That is the basic fact your not grasping here. A governmnet minister should be showing a good example for all other citizens, he should make sure that anything he is associated with is 100% legal and Mr. O'Keeffe didn't do this. In my opinion he should have resigned from his post and not stood for re-election. But as standards in public life don't exist in this country that didn't happen.

Gandalf.

The Corinthian

Originally posted by JacquesPompidou
So Ireland produces 5 times more Chicken and Beef than it needs to feed the people.

But Supermarkets and Hotels insist on buying stuff from Holland, Brazil....

6-one news tonight:

Chicken fillets from Holland have been inspected tonight,
by the food safety Authority.
Chicken has been injected with both Pig/Bovine Proteins
Fillets are only 55% meat, as they were also pumped with liquids so they would retain more water and more weight.

Irish meat production is not unknown to employ similar means (i.e. Beef tribunals of a few years back). As for supermarkets and hotels buying foreign produce, that's a question of supply and demand. If they know they are buing substandard goods then that's an ethical question that should be posed to them, rather than playing the xenophobic card.

I still don't see your point. You post this stuff, then when it's easily shot down you ignore the rebuttal and move on to your next snippet. I can only surmise at this point that you're just trolling...

gandalf

Actually JacquesPompidou, Corinthian has a very valid point, either keep the thread on topic or don't bother posting. This thread is suppost to be about corruption in politics and your firing up something that should be in another thread.

GET BACK ON TOPIC PLEASE.

Gandalf.

daveirl

This post has been deleted.

Victor

Originally posted by daveirl
They never fed the animals bonemeal while it was banned. During the period when they fed it they were licenced to feed the animals as was necessary.

I don't know the exact circumstances of what went on on the farm, but he still filled to raise his conflict of interest in the Dáil debate.