Digest – July 4 2010

Usual Sunday round-up. Love it or leave it, love. Home is weak again,  I must be tuned out? Let me know.

HOME

Irish man in London has free burritos for a year. Decides to bring a random woman out for a free burrito each week then blog about it. Makes for a great blog.

Gerry Adams; ‘where you live and how it effects you‘.

Iain Nash on the Stag Hunting Bill and missed policy-and-politics-related points.

David Manning: The false reality of news journalism. Thought-provoker.

WORLD

Andrew Sullivan; ‘getting shit done‘. The uselessly short attention span of the media, and damage it causes. If I were to recommend one link to click in this post, it’d that’un…

ConservativeHome notes Tony Blair is to be given a medal for his support of ‘liberty’. Jesus.

Tech Interlude: Stephen Fry on the iPhone 4.

Sociological Images: the personification of nations;

Many personifications in Europe and areas once colonized by them connect the nation to noble ideas and values through the use of Latin-derived names and the use of robes, poses, and other elements of classic statues and paintings to adorn a female figure. For instance, the United Kingdom’s Britannia (an emblem that first emerged when Britain was still ruled by Rome) is a goddess-like figure wearing a Roman-style helmet who has, over time, come to represent the nation and the idea of liberty:

Glenn Greenwald on the manipulation of the word ‘terrorist’. One wo/man’s freedom fighter; Tzipi Lizni rails against palestinian terrorists in an interview with The New York Times, then says…

NYT: Your parents were among the country’s [Israel’s] founders.

Livni:  They were the first couple to marry in Israel, the very first. Both of them were in the Irgun. They were freedom fighters, and they met while boarding a British train. When the British Mandate was here, they robbed a train to get the money in order to buy weapons.

News report from the New York Times, December 30 1947…

IRGUN BOMB KILLS 11 ARABS, 2 BRITONS

A bomb thrown by the Jewish terrorist organization Irgun Zvai Leumi from a speeding taxi today killed eleven Arabs and two British policemen and wounded at least thirty-two Arabs by the Jerusalem Damascus Gate, the same place where a similar bombing took place sixteen days ago.

Again, Glenn Greenwald; on journalism the difference between serving and afflicting the powerful.

Greenslade; the amazing media story being the McChrystal interview.

Dilbert dude, Scott Adams; ‘self-programming‘.

Rob Crilly: whose agenda is it anyway? Media coverage of Pakistan. Links.

Remember the video that went viral of Oakland police shooting dead Oscar Grant on the BART line? The deliberations have begun after a three-week trial. Best coverage piece here.

Ezra Klein on the machinations of the Nevada senate race being dominated by ‘jobs job jobs’ (or lack thereof). Prehaps insightful to Irish boys and gurls.

OTHER

Lefties will love this one. Video; crisis of capital. Loving the animation.

Last minutes with Oden; beautiful, touching, short film about a man and his dying dog.

Last Minutes with ODEN from phos pictures on Vimeo.

Sunday Times piece on Fás

We’ve a story in today’s Sunday Times about an interesting building that Fás has been renting from a Mr Terry Oliver. It’s behind a paywall, so no link, unfortunately. It took several months to compile through a series of FOI requests which were funded from you lot, the people who do be readin’ this here blog.

The Sunday Times piece opens…

FAS, the state training agency, is renting a warehouse from the former tax partner of a consultancy firm which has been “consistently successful” in tendering for work from the agency.

Unit 9 at Tolka Valley business park in Finglas, north Dublin, has been rented since 2000 from Terry Oliver, formerly of OSK, an accounting and business consultancy.  Internal audits have concluded  that Greg Craig, the former head of corporate affairs at Fás, had a conflict of interest in awarding contracts to OSK because of his close personal relationship with Oliver.

I will post it in full on Monday.

For those of you who bought a copy of the paper and therefore have the context, here’s the documents…



—
1) November 2000 – Solicitors refer to finance and admin manager asking that the lease be concluded “as expeditiously as possible”, before the lease was signed off.

2) Fire safety compliance questioned if building altered. Work was later done on the building.

3) Mr Oliver disputes cancellation of lease in reply to letter from training centre.

4) March 2003 – Manager of training centre writes to Mr Oliver to confirm they will seek to cancel the lease.

5) Email from Richard Keegan who assessed the site and found it was not fire safety compliant; did not have a fundamental requirement for running applicable courses; had been closed in the past as it didn’t meet basic health and safety regulations; does not have ventilation for gas welding… “not to mention all the other regulations it has been in breach of in the past”.

6) June 2007 – Concerns raised about the effectiveness of running a plumbing course in a building with no gas facilities.

7) Manager of training centre says that sub-letting or amending the site would not be cost-effective, notes site would require significant work to make it suitable for a prospective tenant.

8) October 2009 – Letter from local manager tells of how they had attempted to get out of the lease recently once more, notes the lease was “watertight”.

9) Example cheque for monthly rent.

10) Example invoice.

Copy of inquiry sent to Fás Press office last Tuesday. Please note that most of the questions listed could be answered from the 300+ pages of documents we obtained under FOI for this story, we were looking to get useful quotes.

—

This type of work is utterly uneconomical for two freelance journalists to undertake. Even without including costs for our time spent working on the story, we’d still make a loss simply on expenses incurred. All money received from the Sunday Times goes back into the FOI fund.

I’ll post some additional information later in the week.

Knackered, until next time.

Dick Roche claimed €50k in mileage in two years

The Minister of State with special responsibility for European Affairs at the Department of Foreign Affairs, Dick Roche, claimed over €50,000 in “mileage costs” from his Department over two years – the highest total mileage claim of anyone at the Department over that period.

According to a database released under the Freedom of Information Act, Mr Roche ranks first for mileage claims for the entire department for both 2008 and 2009. In 2008 he claimed €28,466.97 in mileage costs, while in 2009 Mr Roche claimed €21,563.56 under the same heading – a total of €50,030.53.

In 2009 a total of €157,466.02 was claimed by Department of Foreign Affairs staff under the mileage cost heading, with Mr Roche’s claims accounting for over 13% of the cost of all mileage claims in that year. In 2008 Mr Roche claimed 11% of the €268,403.34 of all mileage costs at the Department. Mr Roche was appointed Minister of State at the Department after the 2002 general election and was reappointed in 2007.

Mr Roche’s senior at the Department, Foreign Affairs Minister Micheal Martin did not make any claims for mileage costs. His total claims for 2009 were €2,662.63, mostly for “subsistence costs”. Mr Martin has the use of a Ministerial car. The next highest claimant of mileage expenses after Mr Roche in 2008 was Patrick J Kelly, who claimed €10,025.40.

Under all expense headings, other staff at the Department include Ambassador to Turkey Thomas Russell, who claimed €16,784.28 in 2009. Ambassador to Australia Mairtin O’Fainin claimed €16,584.45 in 2009, Ambassador to Egypt Richard O’Brien claimed €15,559.16, Francis Rickard claimed €15,406.94 and Second Secretary at the Irish embassy in Abu Dhabi Robert O’Driscoll claimed €14,478.93 in 2009.

The Department press office said as far as it was aware Mr Roche does not employ the services of a driver and does not have a ministerial car at his disposal. Mr Roche is based in Bray, Co Wicklow, 20km from Dublin city centre. However Mr Roche was heavily involved in campaigning for the Lisbon Treaty in both 2008 and 2009. In 2007 his mileage claims totalled under €13,000. Mr Roche’s involvement in the campaign could have had a significant effect on his claims. According to SIPO “The use of Ministerial cars, including drivers, by Ministers (not Ministers of State) during the election period, is not an election expense as the cars and drivers are provided as a security measure and Ministers are required to use them at all times.”

As a TD, Mr Roche was paid a salary of €98,164.32 in 2008, and did not claim any travel or subsistence expenses from the Oireachtas. Mr Roche’s expenses claims at the Department of Foreign Affairs have continued into 2010, with the most recent single claim for €1,050.59 made for mileage costs on February 19, 2010. A Junior Minister could expect to earn €147,284 a year in 2007, on top of their average TD salary of €122,000.

Expenses data for all staff at the Department of Foreign Affairs for 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010 will be published here in the coming weeks.

Updated:

In 2007 it emerged that many junior ministers were claiming large amounts of mileage:

THE current system of paying junior ministers’ mileage has been described as a “farce” after it emerged a TD in Dublin claimed 100 times more in petrol expenses than a TD in Galway.

Figures seen by the Irish Independent show that Noel Ahern, who represents Dublin North West, ran up mileage expenses of €19,710 last year and €20,390 to date this year.

This is 100 times more than the €190 which was claimed last year by Noel Treacy, who represents the people of Galway East.

But last night, Mr Ahern claimed the figures supplied by the department about Mr Treacy were “ridiculous” and “wrong”. He said he is usually at the lower end of claims when a full list is compiled adding: “I don’t think that (€19,710) is necessarily that much.”

Figures show the Department of the Environment — which is headed up by the Green’s John Gormley — has covered the most road miles.

The biggest claim last year was lodged by Cork’s Minister of State for Environment, Batt O’Keeffe — who ran up a travel bill of €62,638 and has already run up expenses of €32,240 so far this year.

Junior ministers were allowed to claim expenses following a Government decision in 1983 barred ministers of State from using a state car. Junior ministers do receive a civilian driver — but in a bid to cut costs, the Government allowed them to claim travel costs on up to 60,000 miles.

As long as ministers can prove that they used their car for official State business they are covered — and can claim travel allowance like any public servant on official business.

Markets, austerity, CSO figures

Dan O’Brien has produced an inhuman amount of copy on the CSO figures released yesterday for today’s Times; frontpage, opinion page and business page analysis. To summarise “it looks aiight for now, if we don’t fuck up… but keep that 1866 Pino Grande Blanc in the cellar for two years yet, bruvh”… okay, Dan O’Brien would never say ‘bruvh’, but you know what I mean.

A former colleague of O’Brien’s asks on The Economist if our austerity is a ‘healing pain’.

Constantin Gurdgiev; ‘recovery or triple dip?’. He wants more cuts.

Also in the last 48 hours or so, Paul Krugman wonders if austerity reassures markets, P O’Neill expands on his arguments through the Spanish-Irish prism on A Fistful of Euros and Karl Whelan weaves it into an analysis of bond yield levels. Then to tie it all up, also on AFOE, Charlie Whitaker asks should we be looking to reassure markets?

Back soon.

WSJ on Ireland

From yesterday, via Ronan Lyons in the comments… I wasn’t aware of it simply because the Wall Street Journal has a paywall so I rarely visit.

The Emerald Isle has high unemployment and one of Europe’s deepest budget deficits, and is taking some of Europe’s harshest austerity medicine. Economists, however, are starting to feel less dismal about Ireland’s prospects because of the unique nature of its export economy.

Exports account for more than 50% of Ireland’s gross domestic product, ahead of even Germany. And while many euro-zone countries’ exports go to their European neighbors, Ireland sends much of its chemicals, business services, technology and food to the U.S. and U.K. That maximizes the benefit of the falling euro, which has lost approximately 15% against the U.S. dollar and 8% against the British pound since the beginning of the year.

As Ronan notes, it contrasts with the NYT feature, also yesterday.

NAMA status

Earlier this year I appealed to the Office of the Commissioner for Environmental Information, arguing that the National Asset Management Agency was a public authority for the purposes of the European Environmental Information Regulations. The OCEI has sent me their preliminary view, were they agree with NAMA, that it is not a “public authority”.

Here is the letter. If any of you eagle eyed readers (or legal eagles amongst you) want to comment on the preliminary view, then please contact me or leave a comment. I have four weeks in which to reply before a binding decision is made.

OCEI NAMA preliminary

Department of Foreign Affairs expenses data

Some time ago I sought from the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA):

1) A datadump (or copy) of the entire Sun database insofar as such data relates to claimed expenses.

The Department has released the data in question. Unfortunately it was released in PDF format (3,000+ pages), so it will take a little extra time to import into spreadsheets. The release contains three tranches, expenses of DFA staff (2005 to 2010), Irish Aid expense claims (2005 to 2010), and Honorary Consul expense claims. I will be publishing this data over the coming weeks.

For now here are the Honorary Consul claims, which are relatively minor. I again wish to emphasise that publishing this data is not an attempt to embarrass any one person, nor does it form the basis of any claim that somehow there was something unjustified about any expense claimed by civil servants. It is merely an attempt to publish large public datasets as an exercise in transparency.

Other database requests are also pending, or subject to appeals.

Honorary Consul expenses 2005 to 2010

The data is subject to correction (albeit minor) because of the OCR processes I have to run on PDFs. However these will be checked once they are complete.

NYT on Ireland's austerity

New York Times feature on the Irish economy and the impact of our economic policies…

Nearly two years ago, an economic collapse forced Ireland to cut public spending and raise taxes, the type of austerity measures that financial markets are now pressing on most advanced industrial nations…

[…] Rather than being rewarded for its actions, though, Ireland is being penalized. Its downturn has certainly been sharper than if the government had spent more to keep people working. Lacking stimulus money, the Irish economy shrank 7.1 percent last year and remains in recession.

It’ll probably be quiet around these parts until Saturday or so, we’re tying a things up on a story.

Although it seems everytime I say that Gav gets a big database doc FOI in the post and publishes it all an hour later. Anyway…

Digest – June 27 2010

Not much home stuff this week… entering silly-season early it seems. Or I missed something.

HOME

Sara Burke on the missing millions the HSE are pinning on Siptu.

Blog of Dominican Nuns in Ireland that I didn’t know existed.

Important ‘first’ pointed out by the Tombuktu on the CLR.

Karl Whelan, banking guarantee may have costly legacy.

I suspect that many people will have been surprised to hear the media report, time and again recently, that Central Bank governor Patrick Honohan, an international expert in banking matters, gave an almost complete endorsement to the bank guarantee, with his only quibble being the inclusion of subordinated debt.

In fact, this reporting has not been at all accurate. While the report does conclude that some kind of guarantee was required, it raises serious questions about the essential nature of the type of guarantee that was introduced.

WORLD

Cracking documentary by Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s Four Corners program (like Prime Time Investigates) in association with The Age newspaper into corruption in currency production. Finding have global repercussions. Podcast with reporters here too. There the on-camera journalist, Nick McKenzie, notes…

Corruption never happens without people knowing it’s happening, be it in a police force, a government department or Securrency, the company involved in this scandal. It needs more than one person to operate… it’s not going to be open, people aren’t going to be saying around the office “oh we bribed Mr X last night, but at the same time, people will notice things.

And some of the decent ones, he goes on to say, will feel compelled to speak.

The researcher, Richard Baker, also says something well worth quoting…

And the other [misnomer] about digging – and I think it’s complete falsity that’s given to journalism students – is you have to build up a big black contacts book that has [in it numbers for] all the top officials in secret services. That’s rubbish. The way you dig is you use some common sense and you hit the phones and you figure out that there’s forty people that worked in this company between these years… let’s call every one of them. It’s as simple as that. The best stories aren’t got from existing stories, they’re got from a sniff and you just call people and they tell you things.

Jay Rosen on in-the-camp political correspondents from Politico who outed themselves as the Rolling Stone/McChrystal story emerged.

Now this seemed to several observers—and I was one—a reveal. Think about what the Politico is saying: an experienced beat reporter is less of a risk for a powerful figure like McChrystal because an experienced beat reporter would probably not want to “burn bridges” with key sources by telling the world what happens when those sources let their guard down.

Let me enumerate why this is worth noting: (continued)

Article about an interesting artwork that reflects the inter-relationship between art and time by New Scientist.

Freakanomics podcast, ‘how is a bad radio station like the public school system?‘ Thought provoking suggestions on education reform.

New series for The Nether Regions, ‘Crap jobs for the work experience kid’. Entry #1 here; being the burglar in the fear-mongering stock shots. Subscribe there; craic.

Vidjoe: Prince Charles is down with the kids at Glastonbury. Kinda, in a ‘casual’ suit. Slugger comment here.

Yglesias on the demise of the Chatham House rules left-leaning DC email list, JournoList.

OTHER

In honour of silly season. Vidjoe; country hip-hop dancing. Via Piaras on The Facebuke.

Circumlimina; 'Labouring the point?'

Good post over on relatviely new – to me at least – lefty blog, Circumlimina, about Ruairi Quinn’s conflicts? declaration… of interests.

The most striking entry belonged to Ruairi Quinn, and is notably absent from the profile on his website. In the Dáil register, we find the following:…

Go have a goo to get the nah’ledge.

The post also contains a cracking catch about the interests of another member of the political class…

I’ll spare the blushes of the Dublin City councillor who, in declaring shares in Cadbury, listed Nature of Business as “Sweets” (ah, screw him, it was [clicky-click-click the link to find out, TheStory readers].)

Nice work, over there.