Greece and Ireland

On the streets of Greece, protestors shout: “This is Greece, not Ireland. We the workers will resist”. As Channel 4 reported:

You do wonder sometimes about Irish people. As one Greek woman said, I am not going to sit on my couch.

Constantin Gurdgiev has called out something important too. The narrative thus far internationally appears to be that the Government has radically cut public expenditure. But is this the case? Gurdgiev points to the Government’s own projections, as of December 2009.

In that projection: Ireland – Stability Programme Update it says:

Gross Current expenditure (m):

2009: €61,108
2010: €61,872
2011: €63,518
2012: €64,284

Notice the distinct lack of cuts. And these figures exclude any bank bailouts.

It appears as though all those cuts we talk about in the public sector is simply money being transferred to other spending – you could call it “smokes and daggers” for the international markets.

Health Minister diary 2009

As part of an ongoing process. Below is the appointments diary for Health Minister Mary Harney from January 1, 2009 to December 31, 2009.

It should also be noted that the Department of Health initially tried to charge me over €160 for this diary. It appears they mistakenly believed they could charge me for the time taken to redact entries – which they are not allowed to do under the FOI Act.



The redactions are mainly phone numbers and were exempted under Section 28 (1) Personal Information.

Bill Tormey is not for quiting

Comedic interlude courtesy of Bill “Still a Fine Gael Councillor” Tormey,

Open letter to George Lee – Bill Tormey

Highlights include the misspelling of An Taoiseach’s name, use of the word “prat”, and this trio eyebrow-twisting paragraphs:

I never regarded you as a heavy economic commentator because I never read you in the Irish Times or other broadsheet. I rarely watch TV news. I read newspapers by the tonne. Sad B……d amn’t I?

Fine Gael would be much better with you in the Lindon [sic] Johnson position inside the tent. I wish you all the best with RTE and challenge you to publish your prescriptions for Ireland in peer reviewed academic journals.

You could start your renewed career by chairing a tv series on how to save Ireland. Your point about export driven recovery is prescient. We must get services going but selling services at home as well as overseas is crucial.

Not forgetting this…

Well Mr Lee, like you I was drawn to politics to try to change society and make things fairer. John Kennedy, Supermac, Harold Wilson, Sean Lemass, John F Kennedy, Bobby Kennedy, Lindon Johnson, Martin Luther King, Jesse Jackson, Donogh O’Malley, Pierre Trudeau, Willy Brandt, Helmut Schmidt, Francois Mitterand, Pope John 23rd , Indira Ghandi, Jomo Kenyatta, Michael Okpara, Justin Keating, Brendan Corish, Declan Costello, Garrett Fitzgerald, Ruairi Quinn, Dick Spring, Peter Barry, Fergus Finlay, Pat Magner, Nelson Mandela, Michael Gorbachev, Anthony Wedgewood Benn, Ted Kennedy were all significant influences on me. James Reston, Dick Walsh, Olivia O’Leary and many other journalists also played key roles in my formation. However, I have never been a mere fan, more a critical admirer of each.

Supermac? Harold Mcmillan? Or the guy who does the chippers?

Anyway, enjoy. Don’t you go saying we never have no craic n’or nuttin’ on TheStory.

Would it be remiss of us not to mention…

… him?

Suppose it’s hard to ignore it, but I don’t want to give the George Lee (or ‘glee’, as it’s being refered to on Twitter) thing too much attention. It’s a big story politically, not so important nationally.

Unfortunately it has come on the same day Simon Carswell’s journalism put a dent in the Nama spin-machine. That story would have led the news agenda for a few days had it not been for Mr Lee. 

Props to Matt Cooper and The Last Word team on Today FM for staying focused, for the most part, on the really important story; they even managed to get Brian Lenihan on the show today. I think it might the first time since the week the finance minister announced/admitted (?) he had a serious health issue that he has spoken live on air. You can listen to the minister ducking and diving, spinning and weaving, at this link.

George Lee ending his political ‘career’ will be a blow to Fine Gael. However, with an election not likely for another two years it probably won’t seriously impact the lives of anyone other than political junkies and Fine Gael members (and RTÉ News managers) in any real terms. 

The political correspondents who’ve been selling the “Fianna Fáil is dead” line in post-mortem-ish pre-mortem articles since the local elections will begin revising their opinions.

Enda Kenny will come under more scrutiny.

We’ll see if Eamon Gilmore actually believes Labour can lead the next government from his reaction to the sniping at Kenny.

The Fine Gael communications strategists will look to roll Kenny out for a do-or-die big-stage interview in a few weeks or months time.

It’ll work or it won’t.

Kenny will lead the party into the next election, or he won’t.

Someone will win the election. Someone will be Taoiseach.

Either way, Nama will still be around in two years time, and for a while longer yet to come.

NAMA & the IMF

Simon Carswell had an excellent page one piece in the Irish Times this morning. He wrote:

THE INTERNATIONAL Monetary Fund (IMF) told Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan last April that the National Asset Management Agency (Nama) would not lead to a significant increase in lending by the banks.

The comments, which appear in internal Department of Finance documents released to The Irish Times under the Freedom of Information Act, were made by senior IMF official Steven Seelig who will join the board of Nama in May.

Minutes of a private meeting at the department between Mr Lenihan and IMF officials on April 29th last state that the “IMF (Mr Seelig) do not believe that Nama will result in significant increase in bank lending in Ireland”.

The meetings were held for the purposes of the IMF compiling its annual economic assessment on Ireland in the so-called Article IV report published last June.

The Government has maintained that Nama’s purchase of bad loans from the banks with State bonds would increase the flow of credit in the economy since the plan was unveiled last April.

Constantin Gurdgiev has an excellent followup:

But what is new is the fact that this IMF opinion was known to the Government and its advisers who, having buried it from public view, have gone out on a prolonged PR campaign, in effect liberally treating the truth about Nama. Ditto for NTMA and Nama officials. That public representatives and officials engaged in such an act is a betrayal of public trust. It is, simply put, a deception of public opinion.

I have sought a copy of the FOI, but only received a single page of what was apparently a voluminous FOI. I will seek a copy of that FOI in a future request. The information is contained below, which I received from the Department of Finance.



Digest – Feb 2 2010

You know how we roll on Sunday nights/Monday mornings…

– HOME

Constantin Gurdgiev asks is Anglo riskier than Nama?

If you have ten minutes, read this speech made to a near-empty Dáil chamber by Fergus O’Dowd.

Edward McGarr of McGarr Solicitors on the DCC/Flavin stuff.

Formal submissions by TCD students to Oireachtas Committee on Electoral Reform.

Dublin Opinion drew my attention to this quite interesting theory.

The new 30kph speed limit in Dublin city centre is causing quite a stir. This post by Ferdinand von Prondzynski is a good round-up, the comments reflect the public feeling. Gerard O’Neill also writes on the topic. I’m in agreement with those who want to limit lifted.

Fair play to John Gormley for sticking to his guns… on one thing at least.

– WORLD Continue reading “Digest – Feb 2 2010”

That Ottawa residence

Foreign Affairs Minister Micheal Martin was on This Week today, defending the spending of large sums of taxpayer money on the residence for the Irish ambassador to Canda. The story had been highlighted by the Canadian media:

But prudence was not a consideration in the 15-month gutting of a modest stone house to recreate an abode of unbridled luxury for Irish ambassador Declan Kelly.

Coming in at more than twice the floor space of the Prime Minister’s official residence at 24 Sussex Drive with a reconstruction tab exceeding $7-million, the 24,000-square-foot, four-storey house is now the accommodation envy of the diplomatic corps in Ottawa.

Ireland embassy staff did not return repeated calls requesting an interview with Mr. Kelly and a tour of the residence, but a worker on the site proudly showed me blueprints of a project packed with every conceivable luxury and ornate columns rising to the roof.

“All that’s missing is a throne for Caesar,” the worker grinned. “I’ve never worked on anything like this before.”

Sounds like a nice pad. But where is it? Google answers. Here is a Google Streetview of the house, which was clearly at the time underdoing the renovations:


View Larger Map

Here is location of said house at or around 282 Park Road, Ottowa.


View Larger Map

And here is a picture of the completed house. Lundy Construction appear to be the cont

The closure of one man's tax relief

Shane Coleman reports on the closing of a controversial tax relief in today’s Tribune.

Section 4 of the Finance Bill, published last week, ends the benefit-in-kind tax exemption on employer- provided art objects introduced by [Bertie] Ahern, as a late amendment to the 1994 Finance Act, despite opposition from the Department of Finance and the Revenue Commissioners.

This tax exemption became a major issue over a decade ago when the Sunday Tribune revealed the measure had benefited businessman Ken Rohan and that it was applied retrospectively for the previous 12 years, effectively neutralising any efforts to pursue Rohan for back taxes.

Ken Rohan, a multi-millionaire property developer, was tapped for donations to Fianna Fáil while Bertie Ahern was finance minister between 1992 and ’94. He owned a mansion in Wicklow known as Charville House. The mansion was built in 1797 and is described by the National Inventory of Architectural Heritage as “one of the most memorable country houses in Wicklow”. As you might imagine, it’s worth a few quid.

Over a number of years Rohan decorated the gaff with many pieces of period furniture, antiques and artworks using money from his company Airspace Investments. The items were therefore owned by Airspace but Rohan was benefiting personally from them. The Revenue Commissioners thus defined them as being a benefit-in-kind of Rohan’s employment by Airspace and sent him a tax bill for 12 percent of the items value and two years of their use. This amounted to €150,000 per annum. Rohan disputed the bill. He knew that Revenue knew if they got payment for two years they could seek payment for the other ten years which he had personally enjoyed and used items bought by Airspace. Continue reading “The closure of one man's tax relief”

Jekyll and Hyde

Our esteemed Senators have been at it again. Hold onto your hats. Senator Donie Cassidy kicked it off:

Donie Cassidy (Fianna Fail): Senators Fitzgerald, Coghlan, Quinn and Norris congratulated the Jekyll and Hyde foundation for the wonderful work it is doing. Senator Fitzgerald outlined the huge difference between the cost of the services being provided by the foundation and those provided by the HSE. It is something we must examine—–

Frances Fitzgerald (Fine Gael): It is the Jack and Jill Children’s Foundation.

Dominic Hannigan (Labour): Jekyll and Hyde is something different.

Donie Cassidy (Fianna Fail): My apologies. It is the Jack and Jill Children’s Foundation….

Your tax euros hard at work there.