Leo Varadkar story in The Village??? - Mod Notes and banned Users in OP updated 16/05

McMurphy wrote: »

Let's look at Leo's apology again so.

Specifically these two lines.

He didn't apologise for sending it via taxi/courier/hot air balloon.

He apologised "for not bringing zero Craic in" and "going through the agreement with him line by line"

in the way I went about it. I should have done it differently

McMurphy wrote: »

official capacity

Muahahaha wrote: »

Well Leo wasnt Hogans boss, but he got Hogan thrown under the bus with his boss Ursula von der Leyen. The boss of Leo here now is Michael Martin as Taoiseach.

Leo himself engineered the sacking of Phil Hogan who wasnt even under any Garda investigation for his tour of Ireland. Yet when Leo himself is under Garda investigation he wont even step aside, he seems to hold one standard for himself and another for others



I was just wondering that if Zero Craic was lobbying both Harris and Varadkar did he register himself as a lobbyist on the Lobbyists Register? Not only that but as a lobbyist he is legally obliged to make a submission to the register every 3 months stating what activities he has been up to when lobbying Ministers, it must give details of all phone calls, emails, meetings, etc.

The whole idea of the Lobbyists Register is to bring transparency to lobbying between vested interests and the government of the day and to put to bed the idea of crony politics and politicians doing favours for their friends. It was set up by Fine Gael themselves.

The most recent entry by the NAGP was in April 2019, it was a meeting between Chris Goodley of the NAGP. Its purpose was to "Intended results-
To Gain support from Fine Gael members to allow the National Association of GPs to enter into official negotiations with regard to a new GP contract".
https://www.lobbying.ie/return/45927/national-association-general-practitioners
On that occasion Chris Goodley met with four members of Fine Gael.

Ive gone through all the recent submissions by the NAGP to the Lobbyists Register and nowhere does Dr Maithu oTuathill show up as a lobbyist. Yet we now know he was lobbying both Simon Harris and Leo Varadkar for this GP contract.

Which would beg the questions as to why Leo was facilitating a lobbyist who he would have known is not a registered lobbyist in accordance with the Register of Lobbyists Act. All the information is public and if he wasnt sure well he could have just asked O'Toole himself.

Pretty remarkable that the Taoiseach at the time was complicit at running a chariot and horses over legislation that his very own party had brought into law. Just another example of Fine Gael seeing the law as not applying to themselves.

blanch152 wrote: »

This is what Francie said:

"The facts seem to be that no 'material gain or advantage needs to be proven' according to the legislation."

Francie's point was that it was in the legislation. What is very strange about this is that the part in quotes gives the impression it is taken from legislation and no search turns that up.

Anyway, this discussion can go no further until someone finds the mysterious piece of legislation this phrase is in.

Before 2001 the anti-corruption laws in Ireland were very weak. Prior to that, the mere
proof that a payment was made to a public official was not sufficient to establish the
offence of bribery. It was necessary also to establish that the purpose of the payment was
so that the official would do an act or refrain from doing an act in the course of his duty
which conferred a benefit on the person making the payment. For this reason, the mere
proof of a payment to a politician was insufficient to establish the offence of bribery
since the politician would invariably state that the payment was made as a political
donation because the donor admired the particular work of that politician, which, of
course, in a sense was true.
The Prevention of Corruption (Amendment) Act, 2001, introduced a presumption of
corruption. In the case of criminal proceedings against public officials, if it is proved that
any gift, consideration or on advantage has been given to the official and that the person
who gave the gift or whose behalf the gift was given had an interest in the discharge by
the official of certain functions, the gift is deemed to have been given and received
corruptly unless the contrary is proved.

blanch152 wrote: »

This is a completely nonsensical attempt to throw mud.

There is no responsibility on the person being lobbied to do any checking. The onus on O'Tuathail to report lobbying is post-event, so even if Varadkar had checked, that would have told him nothing.

O'Tuathail should be prosecuted if he didn't record the lobbying, but it has absolutely nothing to do with Varadkar.

Having filled out the register myself, it isn't particularly onerous, so O'Tuathail is lax in that regard. Interestingly, speaking recently to a senior person in IBEC, they told me that they aim to be the top lobbyists because that shows their members they are active on their behalf.

Muahahaha wrote: »

Youve missed the point, Leo knew he was being lobbied by O'Tuathill to try to get the GP contract. All Leo had to do was look up the Lobbyists Register and he would have seen that O'Tuathill was not a registered lobbyist, therefore he couldnt legally lobby him as per legislation. I would have thought that the Taoiseach of the day would be smart enough to ensure he wasnt being lobbied by someone who was breaking the law, if only for the purposes of avoiding political scandal further down the road. Its pretty simple due diligence for a politician not to be getting involved in something that could later blow back on them.

But of course we all know that o'Tuathill was seen as Varadkar as a friend rather than a lobbyist. He wasnt even bothered to make sure that anyone lobbying him was legally permitted to do so. He's got six special advisors on massive salaries and not one of them thought to do this most basic of due diligence either. It really speaks to the culture at play here, they all knew that the legislation for lobbyists exists but they couldnt care less about it.

Trade union negotiations: Communications forming part of, or directly related to, negotiations on terms and conditions of employment undertaken by representatives of a trade union on behalf of its members. It should be noted that this particular exemption applies to a trade union as defined in the Act. The definition of a trade union set out in the Act, and consequently the exemption, may not apply to all employee representative bodies.

James Brown wrote: »

Seems to relate to negotiations. Neither Leo nor his pal were involved in the negotiation.

The award of any grant, loan or other financial support, contract or other agreement, or of any licence or other authorisation involving public funds (for example, the criteria for the award of housing grants for people with disabilities, the purchase or sale of a property or other assets by the government.)

James Brown wrote: »

No GP was a negotiator by default. The IMO had representatives taking part. Aside from the government's team, nobody else was a negotiator. Varadkar and Zero Craic were not involved in the negotiations. They had no official involvement.

Fann Linn wrote: »

It seems more like 'clutching at straws'.

RandomName2 wrote: »

It does indeed.

I know that's not what you mean, but this is another tangent, and when the actual law is brought up and it doesn't suit the narrative, it's just ignored.

The law clearly states that trade unions discussing trade union matters that affect its members do not have to be registered as a lobbying motion. That makes most of Muahahaha's point above, junk.

And yes, NAGP was registered as a trade union.

I don't know what specific benefits there might be to registering a lobbying motion, but the law seems to suggest, in no uncertain terms, that registering a motion when having communications that relate to the employment/working conditions of a trade union's members, is entirely optional.

I see that SIPTU has had 92 lobbying motions recorded in the last 5 years.

I'm going to guess they contacted and received information from the government and state representatives a bit more than 92 times in 5 years however. And that's fine. That's protected under the law.