Thursday 9 December 2010

Comical Leni and the Irish Budget 2011. One quote sums up its integrity.

Well, the budget was much as we feared, with the slimy fingerprints of Fianna Fail all over it  -  and that party’s own unique spin on reality.  I'm sure you'll read a lot more on the subject, in a lot more detail, elsewhere in Blogland, so let's just take one point as an indicator of its overall integrity.

Namely, Comical Leni’s interpretation of Cowen’s 6% pay cut (€214,000, down from €228,000 = a drop of €14,000):

“This brings the overall reduction on the gross pay of the Taoiseach to over €90,000…”  Lenihan.

Yet another example of how Brian Lenihan simply seems incompatible with the truth. Whatever he says or predicts, you can be sure the opposite is true/will happen.   Just as when he and Cowen swore blind that the IMF was not on its way with the bailout money – even as its officials were already in Dublin.

Lenihan’s imagined €90,000 Cowen paycut was based on the fact that the  “Review Body on Higher Remuneration in the Public Service recommended in late 2007 that the salary of the Taoiseach be increased by €38,000 to €308,000, making the post the highest paid in the EU.  This increase was never implemented. Instead, Mr Cowen’s salary… rose to €285,000 but was reduced to €257,000 in October 2008 and then to €228,000 in January 2010”. (Harry McGee, Irish Times Budget Supplement).

So the €90,000 figure is a blatant fabrication. In isolation, you could take it as a simple mistake. But Lenihan’s inaccurate observations are far from isolated, they are legion – and always a pathetic attempt to put a positive spin on his Government’s imcompetence.  That means they are not inaccurate, they are wilfully untruthful.

Still.  Cowen's €214,000 is still a lot of money, particularly when you consider his British counterpart David Cameron gets a comparatively palty €172,000.

 I’m sure the lads in Fossetts would envy it.   They might even be on the new minimum wage.

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5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Review Body on Higher Remuneration in the Public Service recommended = € 308,000

Cowen's new salary = €214,000

€ 308,000 - € 94,000 = € 214,000

Am I missing something here?

When I last checked € 94,000 is indeed "..over €90,000"

The Gombeen Man said...

He never actually was paid €308,000 Max. It was a nonsense recommendation that was never implemented.

Anonymous said...

Ireland is a Disgrace to all Dignity (if I am off topic, I don’t care)!!

When one considers the power of Gombeen Nation and the good it could do to help redress the problems presently besetting Ireland. Yet the communication expressed, in the main, is no better than bar room repartee at closing time. It is sad that so much prominence is given to the inane and facile.

The Irish are a nation of simple minded superstitious, cunning rascals. They fought and died so that they would not have to be subservient to the Monarch of England. Yet in 1948 the coalition government sent the following message to Pius XII (Hitler‘s Pope): “ We the Irish people desire to repose at the feet of Your Holiness the assurance of our filial loyalty and our devotion to your August person, as well as our firm resolve to be guided in all our work by the teachings of Christ and to strive for the attainment of a social order in Ireland based on Christian principles”. ref. "Enough is Enough: How to Build a New Republic" Fintan O'Toole 2010 Faber and Faber. ISBN 978-0-571-27008-8.

These obsequious words to Pius XII are those of a pusillanimous ‘slíbhín’ people who let this catastrophe happen right under their noses. For this reason Ireland will never achieve anything as long as it is being controlled by The Bishop of Rome. Even now this very day : The Ambassador of the Holy See in Ireland is the head, of the diplomatic corps. Cardinal Leanza, the Papal Nuncio, is given more prominence than the ambassadors of US, UK France, Israel and all ambassadors from all other countries.

Read more: http://www.irishexaminer.com/opinion/columnists/fergus-finlay/the-vatican-has-shunned-us-so-why-not-downgrade-the-papal-nuncio-106783.html#ixzz17d3cG2Y8

Only this year, Jewish Irish TD, Alan Shatter, said it was ''not only deeply regrettable but incomprehensible'' that Cardinal Leanza would not explain the Vatican's lack of co-operation with Irish investigations, given ''it is acknowledged in Rome that members of the clergy in Ireland are guilty of abominable sexual abuse of children''. The cruelty perpetrated by the Irish Christian Brothers and nuns in The Catholic Industrial Schools were identical went were in the SS Stalag concentration camps. Ireland still refuses to acknowledge the malevolence of the Roman Catholic Church, and until it does, Ireland will be a people metaphorical serfdom. I wonder! Does Cardinal Leanza, the Papal Nuncio control Gombeen Nation too???

Even though there is compelling evidence of wholesale physical and sexual abuse and mass murder committed by the Roman Catholic Church over the years, no Irish Catholic politician or Newspaper Editor will seriously take up the cause of those murdered and tortured people. Ireland is a disgrace to all Human Dignity.

Indymedia Ireland: Saormheain Eireann

Pope summons issued to Papal Nuncio
Thursday October 14, 2010 12:44 by Kevin Flanagan
Religious Abuse Truth issued a summons to the Navan Rd residence of the Papal Nuncio on Monday . The summons requires that Pope Benedict and six accomplices attend the International Tribunal into Crimes of Church and State (ITCCS) being held in London next year.
http://www.hiddenfromhistory.org/Home/tabid/36/Default.aspx

David Aaron Ayalon LSE
Hoboken NJ.

The Gombeen Man said...

Gombeen Nation is just a blog, David. Nothing more. I wish it had the power you attribute it.

But for the record, the Papal Nuncio does not control it, nor Benny himself...

Anonymous said...

We have no reason to complain. We have our own Sarah Palin and T. Dan Quayle in the form of Mary Coughlan the current Tánaiste. She has lost three stone in weight and looks beautiful. It does not matter if she gets things mixed up a bit. -- "like Einstein explaining his theory of evolution".

She and pig-ignorant buffoon John O'Donoghue, the former Ceann Comhairle will be re-elected with an ever increasing majority. God Save Ireland!!or God Help Ireland!! God protect Ireland from the Irish!!