Archive for the ‘Corruption’ Category
Bertie Ahern – a former taoiseach “who accepted large donations from property developers” – seeks an honour from St. Columb’s School in Derry – Eamonn McCann dissents
Join Eamonn McCann and former St. Columb’s College pupils to say to Bertie Ahern : No thanks.
Eamonn McCann writes :
The source is Eamonn McCann’s facebook page ; https://www.facebook.com/search/top/?q=Eamonn%20Mccann
As former students of St. Columb’s College we are dismayed to learn that the college’s Past Pupils’ Union has invited Bertie Ahern to address its annual dinner.
The former Taoiseach was disgraced when it emerged a decade ago that he had played fast and loose with the truth when required to explain major aspects of his finances.
Read the rest of this entry »Thousands Support Ukraine in Dublin – Russian Troops Out Now! – February 24 2023
Thousands gathered in Dublin on February 24 2023 demanding an end to Russia’s Imperialist and Genocidal invasion of Ukraine. Here is a pictorial and Video Report
Speech of Ivana Bacik, Labour Party Leader (Video)
https://share.icloud.com/photos/0dcqZX7v3qekOf6Ut3Cin6X5g
Speech of MaryLou McDonald, President of Sinn Féin (Video)
https://share.icloud.com/photos/087CLtnYBxl7Q7Wpz-uzKetng
Both Bacik and McDonald clearly backed occupied Ukraine against the Russian imperialist and ethnic-cleansing invader.
Putin must immediately withdraw his army and end his criminal invasion
MaryLou McDonald, Sinn Fëin President
The only left-wing contingent on the demonstration was Irish Left With Ukraine (ILWU). The ILWU is affiliated to the European Network for Solidarity With Ukraine (ENSU). https://ukraine-solidarity.eu/24-feb-2022-global-day-of-action
All over the world ENSU supported protests against the Russian invasion of Ukraine are happening from February 21-26 2023.
John Meehan February 24 2023
The February 24 Pro Ukraine Dublin Demonstration – Demanding immediate withdrawal of the Russian imperialist and genocidal army – is on the front page of the Irish Times. The other front page story refers to former Fianna Fáil (FF) leader and Taoiseach Bertie Ahern. Ahern had to resign from his party in 2011, to avoid expulsion. The Irish state’s Mahon Tribunal found that Bertie’s finances were not squeaky clean. “After the publication of the final report, Fianna Fáil sought to expel any of its members that were found to have received corrupt payments. Bertie Ahern, Pádraig Flynn, G. V. Wright, Don Lydon, Finbarr Hanrahan and John Hannon all resigned from Fianna Fáil before they could be expelled.” Mr Ahern was recently re-admitted to the Fianna Fáil party, a decision the current party leader and Tánaiste Mícheál Martin may be regretting this morning. – JM February 25 2023.
Fine Gael Minister Paschal Donohoe TD in trouble – he must go says Councillor John Lyons
Michael Stone, a businessman and personal friend of Finance and Public Expenditure Minister Paschal Donohoe paid for a team to do the postering in two general election campaigns in a row – 2016 & 2020. Stone gave Donohoe an enormous advantage.
John Lyons, a Dublin City Councillor (Independent Left) argues that Donohoe must go.
Paschal Donohoe is in trouble. Not bothering to declare hugely significant donations you receive from a businessman who was heavily involved in the construction industry, whom Fine Gael appoint to the Land Development Agency in 2019, is rotten and revealing of how power operates in Ireland.
Read the rest of this entry »Prevent Vatican Control of Ireland’s New National Maternity Hospital
According to an Irish Times report (May 4 2022) the Dublin government is delaying implementation of a scheme to allow Vatican control over a new National Maternity Hospital in Ireland :
two members of the HSE board, Prof Deirdre Madden and Dr Sarah McLoughlin, dissented from a decision to approve the legal documents.
Green Party TDs Neasa Hourigan and Patrick Costello were among dozens of party members who wrote to the party’s Ministers to “implore” them to block the proposed moved.
Opposition politicians yesterday called on the Government to delay approval of the move before an Oireachtas debate on the matter.
Anne Conway reports : “The New Maternity Hospital Deal is rotten to the core. The new St Vincent’s Holdings Company that will run the new hospital being associated with The Panama Papers shows the immorality of it all. The economic brutality of the religious who were involved in instigating the new NMH handover is mirrored in their brutality to women and children in their care in industrial schools,Magdalen Laundries etc. Sexual abuse occured so paedophiles were among them. How can the Government proceed with handing over a 1 billion plus state of the art hospital to these people?”
Marie O’Connor’s detailed article (see below) gives readers the facts – a shady business deal is designed to prevent the new National Maternity Hospital being public and secular.
A public demonstration occurs on Saturday May 7 at 2.00pm outside the gates of Leinster House, Kildare Street – notice is below.
Read the rest of this entry »Fighting for Self-Determination – Yuliya Yurchenko explains “For Ukrainians it’s an existential fight. Our country’s identity, territorial boundaries, and our very existence is under attack right now”
Introduction
Ukraine is fighting a war of liberation against a Russian Ethnic Cleanser state led by a violent far-right imperialist Vladimir Putin. All related issues are discussed in the interview below.
Spectre‘s Ashley Smith talked to Yuliya Yurchenko, author of Ukraine and the Empire of Capital: From Marketization to Armed Conflict (Pluto, 2018). She is a Lecturer in International Business and Researcher at the Public Services International Research Unit, the Centre for Business Network Analysis, and the Political Research Centre at the University of Greenwich.
Material like this is urgently required reading for anti-war activists in Ireland and elsewhere who are in love with the word BUT. “Ukrainians have the right to wage armed struggle” BUT “Oppose Sending NATO Arms to the Ukrainian Resistance – and its right-wing government”. History Lessons are easily unlearned – leading up to the Irish Easter 1916 Rising James Connolly’s left-wing Irish Citizens’ Army proudly promoted a banner : “We Serve Neither King nor Kaiser but Ireland”. Many of the guns used in the 1916 Rising were supplied by German Imperialism.
The Butistas talk as much as possible about right-wing characteristics of the Zelensky Government, throwing in wild exaggerations – and say next to nothing about the far more powerful far-right government of Vladimir Putin : promoter of sinister politicians like French Presidential contender Marine Le Pen.
In Dáil Éireann recently Sinn Féin and Labour Leaders Mary-Lou McDonald and Ivana Bacik called for the expulsion from Ireland of Russian Ambassador Yuri Filatov. The right-wing NATO friendly Dublin government vigorously opposed this call. Radical socialist TD’s made no public comment on this proposal, which is gaining some left wing trade union support. John Meehan April 22 2022
What are conditions like for people in Ukraine now amidst this war? What is the state of the military and civilian resistance to Russia’s invasion?
Read the rest of this entry »“Some cause happiness wherever they go. Some cause happiness whenever they go” Is British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on the way out?
I asked an interested comrade living in England – how long will Boris Johnson last? The first reply :
He’s clearly in serious trouble, and the Tories are scouting around their stable of horrors for a replacement.
Oscar Wilde’s Verdict “Some cause happiness wherever they go. Some cause happiness whenever they go”
The drama is receiving continuing attention in the Irish mass media. The RTÉ Morning Show hosted by Claire Byrne covered the Downing Street Pantomime. First boxer on the stage was Mr Andrew Bridgen (MP for Hard Brexit) [Bridgen is a competent anti-Johnson backbencher who may ascend to ministerial ranks if Johnson resigns]. Sir Tony Blair’s ex handler, Alistair Campbell (Iraq Dodgy Dossier) was in the opposite corner. Campbell started OK, concentrating on Boris Johnson’s CV – saying partygate is predictable once you knew the CV. Campbell went all Roy Keane after that – take out the player, never mind the ball – once Bridgen mentioned Campbell’s Iraq War Deadly Dossier. Lies about Saddam Hussein’s “weapons of mass destruction” helped cause a hideous imperialist war – millions of innocent civilians dead and injured. Campbell’s behaviour contributed to the hounding of a courageous whistleblower, Doctor David Kelly, who died via suicide. Prime Minister Johnson lies about partying while the mother of a likely child abuse criminal (Queen Elizabeth and Prince Andrew) was grieving over the death of a dangerous driver husband (Prince Philip). Is this an episode in an ongoing drama – the strange death of Brexit Hard Right Britain?
Sources and Images :
Sir Jeffrey Donaldson’s Stormont-Westminster Double-Job Stroke Shot Down
Read the rest of this entry »Convicted Criminal Ghislaine Maxwell – Low Media Standards, an Irish Link, and a Prince of England
A lot of public commentary about the convicted criminal Ghislaine Maxwell, her late boss Jeffrey Epstein, and an alleged client, Britain’s Prince Andrew, suffers from low media standards. An interesting exception is the reporting of a former BBC correspondent John Sweeney.
It is a horrific story. Known credible allegations should be highlighted.
Lazy speculation and lurid gossip should be avoided.
John Sweeney – a Blogger-Journalist who carefully assesses hard evidence
John Sweeney carefully assesses real hard evidence. The author avoids sloppy tabloid-gossip methods. He explains the serious evidence very well. The scandal is far from over in the courts – especially in the case of the British state’s Prince called Andrew.
John Sweeney explains no evidence was presented at the Maxwell trial implicating Bill Clinton in either trafficking or criminal sexual intercourse with underage women. Evidence was presented proving that Clinton, ex US President Donald Trump and other wealthy powerful men accepted freebie flights given by Epstein and Maxwell. Sweeney sarcastically observes at one point that men such as Clinton and Trump enjoyed having sex with 23 year old women – the Epstein/Maxwell gang assisted them.
Sweeney also explores very interesting connections between the criminal behaviour of Ghislaine Maxwell and her late father Robert Maxwell : a corrupt billionaire who died after he fell off his private luxury yacht “Lady Ghislaine” in disputed circumstances.
“Eamon Ryan’s sleep-in 💤 wasn’t a mortal sin” – Gene Kerrigan returns us to the Dublin Government’s real world – First on the agenda : gut low-paid workers
Reviewing a week in the so-far short life of the Fianna Fáil/Fine Gael/Green/Gombeen (FFFGGG) government readers may have missed some interesting details. Twenty mini-ministers are behaving worse than piglets at a trough. RTÉ News did not notice a connection between human events at the Dáil (Leinster House and the Convention Centre) – and piglet events at a midlands farm.
The village of Moyne in Co Longford is celebrating the arrival of 20 piglets to a first-time mother. The bumper delivery is believed to be one of the highest ever recorded in the area. https://www.rte.ie/news/leinster/2020/0718/1154128-piglets-longford/
Only 16 of the Longford piglets out of 20 can feed from the mother. Special arrangements are needed for the remaining four.
In Leinster House three piglet mini-ministers out of 20 are demanding improved feeding facilities – even though they slurp from the same source as their colleagues.
One of the Government’s immediate priorities will be to rush through legislation to ensure that each of the super-juniors will be entitled to an extra €16,288 a year on top of the junior rate. This is not a joke.
– Gene Kerrigan
Eamon Ryan’s sleep-in 💤 wasn’t a mortal sin. In another life, I spent many an hour crouched on the Dáil press gallery. It can be difficult to listen to that stuff and stay awake. Ryan was one of at least two TDs seen sleeping during Thursday’s proceedings. – Gene Kerrigan
Gene Kerrigan’s complete article, July 20 2020 :
Read the rest of this entry »Gene Kerrigan Reports : FFFGGG coalition turns into a laughing stock – ministerial piglets swarm around stinking trough
Gene Kerrigan remains a pillar of good journalism in a very low quality newspaper, the Sunday Independent.
IT took months for Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Greens to cobble together a Government. It took days for them to turn it into a laughing stock.
When they haven’t been mugging one another, the politicians have been adding little extras to the goodies that these days go along with the job.
Hardly had the current Taoiseach appointed his Cabinet when the in-fighting began, and the backstabbing.
This went beyond the usual laments about which county, townland, village or street didn’t get its own minister.
It’s hard to believe that adults are involved — with some of them whinging openly about how the position they were given was not the one they wanted.
I’m almost convinced that these creeps see the jobs not as positions of public service but opportunities for career advancement.
Fianna Fáil seems to have entered one of its vicious periods, in which factions queue up to knife one another.
Since they have to share the goodies with Fine Gael and the Greens, there are fewer goodies for each party.
Most FFFGGG Ministers are Male – Would Extra Green Party Females at the top table Improve Things?
Green Party deputy leader Catherine Martin wants the job of current numero uno Eamon Ryan.
Her pitch looks blatant : do her quoted comments mean that, if elected Green Party leader, she will replace male Green Party Ministers and mini-Ministers with females? If so, Martin has a limited choice – the only available female Green TD who can be promoted is Dublin Central deputy Neasa Hourigan, who voted against coalition with FFFG. Martin could also give ministerial promotions to two female Green Party Senators.
This takes bribery and careerism in Irish politics to previously uncharted waters. The FFFGGG coalition is tainted because so many overpaid ministerial piggies are slurping at its trough, most of them male. The Green Party in coalition is careering downhill to the gutter inhabited by the likes of Willie O’Dea.
Green Party opponents of the anti-woman FFFGGG coalition should prepare an exit strategy.
https://tomasoflatharta.wordpress.com/2020/06/26/open-letter-to-left-greens-what-next/
Will a real problem of government misogyny be remedied if there are extra Green Party females at the top table? The answer is No.
“We should always seek to promote because young girls cannot aim to be what they cannot see. We should always be seeking to do that, to promote women.”
The Minister for Media, Tourism, Arts, Culture, Sport and the Gaeltacht said she congratulated all the male Ministers.
“They’re all able for the job, but I think there was a missed opportunity to promote women and from our side there was also a missed opportunity to unite the party as well, that nobody who voted no or advocated no to the programme for Government was promoted to ministerial position and I think that was a missed opportunity to unite.
“We are a party that respects and cherishes debate and challenge and having those voices inside and within government at the ministerial table would have been welcome.”
When asked about an accusation of misogyny within the party by Cork Green Party councillor Lorna Bogue, Ms Martin said: “I think we have to be seen to do more — as a party we talk the talk in relation to promoting diversity and inclusivity, but if we’re not acting on it I think that’s regrettable and that’s something I would like to see changed.”
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/eamon-ryan-missed-chance-to-promote-women-says-catherine-martin-1.4299071
Tomás Ó Flatharta 