Sean Quinn Cavan rally gets the gobshites out in force

Once again we must ask ourselves an oft-asked question... 
Where else would you get it?


A businessman runs up massive debts during the bubble by speculating on Anglo Irish Bank shares and property, and thus goes bankrupt.

Because Fianna Fail and the Greens made the bank's debts sovereign, Quinn now owes the Irish taxpayer for the debts he ran up.  


The State attempts to secure Quinn's money and assets on behalf of the taxpayer through the Irish Bank Resolution Corporation, and Quinn attempts to put those assets and money beyond its jurisdiction and out of reach.


This means, of course, that the taxpayer will have to pay even more of Quinn's debts if he brazens it out, while he will remain rich while being nominally bankrupt.


Fintan O'Toole puts it well in today's Irish Times:

"TAKE ALL the money raised this year by the cuts in child benefit. And from cutting the school clothing and footwear allowance. And all the cuts to jobseekers’ benefit, rent supplement and fuel allowances for the elderly.

Throw in the restriction of one-parent family allowance to children under seven. Pile on all the cuts in back-to-education allowances and community employment schemes. Take all of that money from the pockets of the poorest people in Ireland this year and you still haven’t reached the amount Seán Quinn agrees he owes the Irish taxpayer.

This is nothing to do with the €2.3 billion he borrowed from Anglo Irish Bank to buy its shares. This is the €455 million he borrowed to buy property – using that property as security. In all the noise and distraction, this much is undisputed: Quinn borrowed the money and put up the property assets as collateral. The State, however idiotically, took over that loan. Since Quinn can’t pay it back, the Irish people now own those properties."

Instead of expressing outrage at Quinn's attempts to evade paying at least part of his debts to the taxpayer, over four thousand thick gobshites crowded the streets of Ballyconnell, Cavan, last weekend to express their support for him.


Several figures including a priest, Father Brian D'Arcy, and some "stars" from the GAA - whose names I can't recall - took the podium to defend Quinn, pledge their undying support, and bolster his sense of psychopathic victimhood.

Cue lots of hysterical whoops and cheers of support from the assembled masses of half-wits.

Not only is Ireland a nation riddled with gombeens, it is one riddled with utter gobshites of the highest order.  

It is embarrassing, as well as infuriating, to behold.  

It really is. 


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Special Irish interest at London's 2012 Olympics

There is a special Irish interest at this year's London Olympics.   Not just Katie Taylor and the rest, but your very own Gombeen Man,  who lived in Stratford for 7 of his 9 years in London back in the late Eighties/early Nineties. 


It's a bit strange for yours truly to see the reporters standing outside Stratford Shopping Centre, which he trudged through on a daily basis while travelling into Old Street tube station for the daily grind on many a morning, before landing a  job in nearby Limehouse which was a bit more convenient.   


Back then Stratford tube station was a bit shabby, as was the shopping centre - though not anything as shabby as Crisp Street near the Limehouse workplace.  Newham, the borough where Stratford resides, was one of the poorest local authority areas in England back then... it might  still be. 


I have fond memories of the place though, and our octogenarian neighbours who were a bit Alf Garnett...

They were sound once they got over the idea of a couple of young Irish people moving in beside them during the height of the IRA bombing campaign, which killed many in London and elsewhere.  (And yes, I am also aware of the murderous activities of the UDA/UVF scumbags back then too). 

Once Alf and the other 'alf  (Bob and Anne, actually) twigged we didn't have a stash of Semtex in the shed, and a couple of balaclavas under the mattress, they couldn't do enough for us.  Or any blow-ins who might move in, I should imagine.  Stratford was like that - at least in our experience. 


One other fellow-Irishman might have noticed it too... Stratford staged a couple of Brendan Behan's plays at its Theatre Royal as long ago as 1954, under the guidance of Joan Littlewood.  And if you have seen any of Behan's plays, you will recognise that was the very epitome of tolerance. 


Good luck to Stratford.  I hope it benefits from its status as the venue for the 2012 Olympics. 


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"Racial" map of Europe might have confounded Dev and the nation builders

I came across this map from Source Records of the Great War [National Alumni, 1923] recently.  Described as such:



"This map is a relic of the mania for national self-determination that followed World War I. Simply stated, the idea was that, wherever two or more people of one ethnic group are gathered together, they should have their own nation state. Or something close to that. It was a stupid idea then, and it has not improved with age.


When the creators of this map used the term "race" they meant "speech or culture group". "Ethnic Group" would be the modern term. In modern usage, "race" tends to connote a biological classification, though the term is seldom defined precisely, if at all, by those who use it. Recent research has shown that genetic differences between European ethnic groups are trivial. See L. Luca Cavalli-Sforza et al., The History and Geography of Human Genes [Princeton: The Princeton University Press, 1994]."

Given that recent DNA research has rubbished the notion that we are a Celtic/Gaelic people - one of the cornerstones of Irish cultural nationalism - you might wonder what Dev and the rest of the nation-builders, who gave political expression to the ambitions of the rising Irish ruling class, might have thought of such cartography?  Not to mention the Boundary Commission, who seem to have put the border in the wrong place entirely...



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Bankrupt? Ireland or Belgium?

Ten years ago I had a discussion with an Irish "free-marketeer" type - you know, the ones who are all socialists now?  He predicted that Belgium would soon be bankrupt.


This, I might add, was the sort of person who thought Michael McDowell and Charlie McCreevy were economic geniuses. 


He wasn't alone back then of course, with media commentators from all Irish outlets eulogising the pair and their decades-late brand of Reaganomics-for-beginners. 


Back then, of course,  the Irish - or at least a disproportionate number of them, from postpeople to the likes of the Quinn family  - were movers-and-shakers, cut-and-thrusters, and go-getting property investors. 


You know, the kind of people who made Ireland bankrupt?


A recent visit to Belgium prompted me to think of this... and whatever Belgium's economic difficulties, it certainly seemed to be functioning and wasn't joining the ranks of the EU's  bailout nations.  Its capital's transport system consists of bus, tram and an underground network.  Its healthcare is truly excellent.  Its roads are pretty good.


Downsides?  Well, the bi-lingual nature of the country is a bureaucratic and administrative nightmare (it is officially tri-lingual, including German-speaking parts close to the eastern border) but at least that is real and genuine rather than imagined and engineered as in Ireland... more on that next week.  


Then there are the Madame PeePees.   Even if you spend a couple of hundred euro in a Belgian department store, and three pairs of jeans will see to that, you'll have to part with another 50c to the lady that minds the toilet if your bladder demands it.   Madame PeePees are as much a part of Belgium as Riverdance and failed would-be property tycoons are in Ireland.


I suppose every country has its piss-takers.


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Aer Lingus and Dublin taxi experiences. Welcome... you're home once more.

Air travel is the new steerage.  It is one of the most humiliating experiences out there, fifty shades short of an S&M (as opposed to M&S) encounter.


Yesterday, I arrived at Brussels Airport a good three hours before the 4.20pm flight was due to leave for Dublin.   All was looking good as the bottle-green Airbus, "Ciara" I think it was called, pulled up to the apron.   Cue hours of agony, frustration and indecision.  


Owing to "technical reasons", the flight was cancelled and we were told - after several hours -     that we would have to scramble for tickets to unlock a one-night stay in the Holiday Inn, which was to tide us over until the replacement flight at 10.30am the following day.  I wouldn't be a prolific flyer, but I've endured it often enough to realise that this was very unusual.   


Anyway.  We then had a planeload of people vying, cursing and fighting their way onto a shuttle which only held a busload of people - great planning here, you see.  It was a bit like the Titanic in reverse, with the most unseemly, every-person-for-themselves scramble to get onto the coach, which arrived after a half-hour wait.   The unfortunate/civilised people who were left foundering at the stop - and to my shame I was not one - would have to wait for the next shuttle bus.  And this after several hours of hanging around Brussels Airport (Bottle of water €4.  Can of Stella €5.10). 


Then, at last, it was back to Ireland.  That was just the warm-up.  


Arrival at Dublin Airport prompted a false sense of relief when the baggage came out within about ten minutes.  A record!  Then it was out to the taxi-rank, and the most stupid, most ignorant taxi driver in the world. 


Your friendly Gombeen Man's "How's it goin'?" greeting was met with complete silence, as his travelling companion's decision to take her hand luggage into the cab rather than place it in the boot - it contained the fare - was met with an admonishment not to place it on the seats.


"Not the greatest conversationalist then" were my thoughts as we headed around the M50, "but grand, sometimes not having to partake in small talk is no bad thing if you're not in the humour".  And being knackered, I wasn't.


It was a bit odd, however, that the driver was constantly twitching around in his seat and managed to miss the N3 turn-off for Castleknock despite being told twice it was coming up.  I mean, aren't some of our rather-too-proudly-indigenous taxi drivers very fond of trumpeting their "knowledge" of Dublin to all and sundry?


Don't get me wrong, anyone can make a mistake, but this little bollocks seemed to think he was in the right - even when he had to be directed back from the N4, past Palmerstown and up by Chapilizod in order to rectify his own cock-up.  


"Why didn't you tell me to go by Palmerstown earlier????" he had the cheek to ask.
"Hold on, we shouldn't even f***king be here!", was  the reply.  Not that it made any impression, as I'm sure yer man wasn't the full florin.  


You see, it does not take long to get back into things once you set foot back in the place.


Welcome back to Ireland.  Welcome back to Dublin.


Maybe Aer Lingus was trying to tell us something?


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Sorry it's been quiet...

Sorry it's been so quiet lately... sometimes life gets in the way of blogging and that's what happened over the past 10 days or so. 

Hopefully we'll be back up-and-running this week.

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Justice for Magdalene survivors

"It is not easy to stand outside the mainstream and to continue to press for the truth, but we know this is the way in which human rights defenders undertake their work in every country around the world."

— Dr. Maurice Manning, President, Irish Human Rights Commission (9 Nov. 2010)

A comment on the last post suggested the blog give a permanent link to the campaign seeking justice for the Irish State's Magdalene laundries survivors.  

 It is incredible that these people are still in the position of  having to fight for justice. 

It shows that those who think the bad old days are in the truly in the past should not be quite so smug...



Justice for Magdalenes

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Little Skeletons - unpalatable truths about Irish child abuse scandals

Sometimes running a blog like Gombeen Nation can be a bit like ploughing a lonely furrow.  Given the blog's constant criticism of Irish orthodoxy, it's never going to be a hit with "de people" as such.

"De people", you see, are not given to questioning the conjured-up, mythical definition of Irishness used by our ruling class to establish their nation state's borders back in 1922.  They are not used to questioning anything –  that is the trouble.

"De people" are a bit thick, to be honest – dulled and cowed by a rote education system that sends half-literate, semi-numerate gobshites to under-achieving universities to be processed as pillars, and perpetuators, of the establishment themselves. 

The country's founders such as Dev were reactionary cultural nationalists, they founded their infant - some might say errant -  state on a platform of  neo-gaelicism, steeped with conservative Catholicism.   And natural forces help anyone who lay beyond the field of this narrow vision, such as it was.  

They founded a state where a docile, unthinking, unquestioning public kow-towed to their betters, and acquiesced in the torture, abuse or outright murder of thousands of children in its  education system, in its industrial schools, and in its Magdalene Laundries. 

"De people" blame the Church now, as the state considers that to be acceptable nowadays.  This gets the polticians and the Irish people off the hook quite nicely, they think.  But the Irish state and the Irish people were ultimately responsible for all of the atrocities cited above.  

A journalist going by the nom-de-guerre of Tomás Mac Glasáin has written a comprehensive, and highly readable, proposal for an uncompromising book tackling the issues above.    He is in the process of finding a publisher at the moment, which I sincerely hope he does. 

There is a fair bit of reading in this, so I suggest you print out each chapter and peruse them at your leisure.  

You will find it worthwhile.

Little Skeletons  by Tomás Mac Glasáin

• 01. Little Skeletons
• 02. Liberation or Something Like It
• 03. Internal Cleansing
• 04. Fear and Darkness
• 05. Calvin’s Island
• 06. Inventing the Irishman
• 07. Unholy Matrimony
• 08. The Tribal Elders
• 09. A Belt of the Crosier
• 10. Green Beer and Penny Whistles
• 11. A Day in the Life
• 12. Depraved Indifference

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Eamon Dunphy on Spanish national anthem... no words to describe it.

RTE football pundit and professional gobshite controversist, Eamon Dunphy, has excelled himself this time. 

Commenting on the Spanish footballers' silence as their national anthem was being played prior to their European Championship showdown with Italy, he made this prize observation:


"There is a unity between the Catalans and the Spaniards which is very important… Traditionally Spain have underachieved because the players of Barcelona, and the Basque country indeed, and the Castilians don’t get on. But that rift has been healed by this generation of players. And notably, when the Spanish national anthem was being played no Spanish player sang it. I think that was a recognition that [the players] say nothing… keep quiet. For the purposes of football, they have left a culture and their politics in the dressing room and played for their nation."


Talk about supplementing verbal diarrhoea with a strong dose of laxatives  -  unlike Eamon, the Spanish national anthem contains no words..




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Declining Dublin tourist figures and closed car parks

Earlier on Morning Ireland  - state broadcaster RTE's take on what's happening in the country  -  they were waffling on about the decline of tourism numbers in Dublin, and how the Irish Tourist Industry Confederation suggested the capital could be marketed differently in order to attract new victims, sorry - visitors.  


It seems that 4.5 billion gullible  mugs visited the capital in 2007, with only 4 million expected this year.   That's still a lot of mugs.


The ITIC suggested promoting Dublin's rich literary heritage  -  no bad thing, considering the huge contribution Dublin's authors have made to English literature.   Something lost on the  gobshites at Dublin City Council who recently relegated the vernacular on tourist signage by making Gaelic more prominent - a language with little real historical or literal connection to the city for most people... and none at all for tourists.  That's Irish alright.


The ITIC have also suggested that Dublin's outdoor amenities be promoted more vigorously- the Dublin mountains on its southern borders, for instance.  


Funny that.  I was out that way for a spin yesterday  and took the pics you see here.  They feature the closed car park at Tibradden Forest where people are forced to park around the mouth of a shut gate and at the sides or a narrow country road if they want to savour the area's rustic attractions.


I have driven past here on other weekdays and have seen  far more cars clustered in this haphazard fashion, what you see in the pic is mild.   My car, by the way, is not in shot - it's at the side of the road behind me.


The car park only opens during weekends, and even at then it closes at "5pm sharp".  If you don't complete your circuit of the woods in time you will find yourself forking out €75 for your jalopy's release.  


If you want to park on a weekday - and there are plenty of tourists around on such days - you have to take your chances as above.  What do tourists think of this, I wonder? 


Whatever about the Voluntary Rangers cited on the warning sign, the semi-state forestry body, Coillte, employed 1,021 staff as of 2009.  Surely enough to open and close a few gates during a weekday in areas with sufficient demand for parking?


Apparently not. 


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Dublin Bus parody tee-shirt provokes legal response

The tee-shirt on the left emanantes from a website in the US which specialises in adorning its apparel with amusing takes on various corporate logos.  Some of them are quite clever - I like this one poking a bit of  fun at Twitter - and some are so-so.  See  Teevault here.

Here's another example (right)  -  this time from a website in the UK called Zazzle.  It uses elements of You Tube's logo to say something else.    It is hard to imagine Twitter or You Tube getting to hot and bothered about either.  

Not so Dublin Bus.  Artist Niall de Buitlear recently used the semi-state's logo (a semi-state we all subsidise through our taxes) on a parody tee shirt he hoped to sell on a website of his own called Tshock.

Niall simply inverted and slightly tweaked the logo to give it the appearance of a skull / Lucha Libre Mask.  For his trouble he was contacted by lawyers from Dublin Bus, who demanded he remove the images from his website and stop selling the tee shirts. 

We won't invert the Dublin Bus logo here, for fear of bringing the wrath of the company's legal eagles down on us, but you can stand on your head while viewing the screen or simply print it and turn it upside down to see its Totenkopf similarities:

Things have come to a sad pass when a young artist cannot supplement his income by flogging a few tee-shirts, designed on the same lines as those created by silk-screeners elsewhere,  without being threatened by one of our semi-state monoliths.  


Another example of the  "freedom" the boys and girls of the 1916 putsch died for, I suppose.


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Nearly 200 young people die in "care" of Irish State

Yesterday's Irish Times described how 196  young people died while in the "care" of the State between 2000 and 2010, according to a report by the Independent Child Death Review Group.


112 were said to have died of "non natural" causes; though it  is not clear how the remaining 84 deaths  -  given the age cohort  -  could be described as "natural".  But Ireland is a strange place.  



Given this country's sorry history with regard to the protection of children and young people, we shouldn't be overly surprised.  Remember the industrial schools?  The Magdalene laundries?  Remember the state schools, overwhelmingly run by the Catholic Church, where sexual abuse of children was rampant?


Our rotten  "republic", whose founders were perhaps the most conservative revolutionaries ever,  has failed the majority of its citizens since its sorry foundation...  though most of those citiziens might not be aware of the fact:  cowed, clueless, stupid and unquestioning as they are.


Those whom the state has failed most however, are the the most voiceless, disadvantaged and marginalised.  They have been more or less been left to their own devices since 1922... until, of course, the time comes for the authorities to place them in "care" or in prison.


They constitute a grim reality that Official Ireland, and its many vocal and self-interested lobby groups championing their own various rackets, refuses to recognise.





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McCreevy's role in the euro crisis. Ireland's contribution runs deep.

"Eeeeeeeggghhhh, I've got a sure-fire economic plan to make ye all rich and happy as pigs in shite!!!!."

 

Charlie McCreevy was Ireland's finance minister between 1997 and 2004.  After setting the Irish economy on a steady course towards bankruptcy, McCreevy was  rewarded with an appointment as Europe's Commissioner for Internal Markets and Services. 


The rest is history - and present economic reality - as this article in yesterday's Sindo contends.

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McCreevy's role in Spain's crash

By Brendan O'Connor
Sunday June 17 2012

YOU'LL never beat the Irish. We always prided ourselves on our inordinate influence in Europe and it turns out that this is true. It transpires that we didn't just ruin our own country, but now one of us is in the frame for helping to ruin the whole of Europe.

As Spain teeters on the edge of needing a full sovereign bailout, one of the factors that could bring down the whole eurozone, Bloomberg has been pointing one of the fingers of blame for the current crisis in the Spanish banks firmly at our own Charlie McCreevy.

Until recently, he was effectively the EU's financial regulator, the guy who should have been enforcing its rules on banking and markets, from 2004 to 2010, when he was Commissioner for Internal Markets and Services. And all this time, Spain's banks were cooking the books, storing up their recent trouble, and apparently the bould Charlie was "one of the more candid advocates of Spain's approach".

A few years ago it was generally thought that Spain's banks had somehow dodged the financial crisis. This is because Spain's banks had been massaging the numbers to make it look as if they were doing okay when in fact they were making huge losses.

Dynamic provisioning was a way of using past profits to hide current losses. It was encouraged in Spain but was against EU rules and Charlie should have stopped it. But Charlie was quite the fan of this form of cooking the books.

Bloomberg's Jonathan Weil has dug up some great exchanges from a meeting of the International Accountancy Standards Board in 2009, where Charlie admits that he didn't pursue the banks for their dodgy accounting, though he should have.

He points out that Spain's banks "have survived the crisis better than anyone else to date". Charlie goes on to say that "I, strictly speaking, should have taken action against them for doing this" (the dynamic provisioning).

Describing some of the rules on banking as "ludicrous", he says of the Spanish approach: "It's worked pretty well for them."

McCreevy dates his support for cooking the books back to his youth in Ireland. "I'm old enough to remember when I was a young student . . . in my country that I know best, banks weren't allowed to publish their results in detail. Why? Because we felt if everyone saw the reserves etc, it would create a run on the banks."

Of course, this is the same Charlie who blamed the Northern Rock crisis on excessive transparency and regulation, while he was the EU regulator.

It's classic stuff. They put an Irish guy in charge of regulating the banks, thinking: "How bad can it be?" He brings his homespun wisdom to bear and supports the Spanish banks in hiding their losses so they keep going, triumphant as far as he is concerned. And now it could contribute to bringing down the whole continent.

Talk about exporting our problems.

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Seals beheaded at Dingle reserve - says it all

Sometimes, you really do despair for this place and some of the people in it.  

Perhaps a cull of the more brutalised/ignorant of Ireland's population might be unacceptable to many?  A bit right wing?


But maybe it is necessary for the survival of our species? 

The following recent Indo article was sent in by a reader.

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Sick vandals mount heads of two seals on Dingle reserve

By Sarah Stack
Thursday June 07 2012

THE heads of two young seals have been mounted and stuck to the sign of a seal sanctuary.
The grim discovery was made by staff at Dingle Wildlife and Seal Sanctuary in Co Kerry shortly before 9am this morning.
Ally McMillan, animal manager, said the freshly cut seal heads had been nailed to a piece of wood, which was drilled to the sanctuary's sign.
Red paint, which resembled blood, was used to scrawl the words: "RIP Cull."
"It was sickening," said Ms McMillan.
"I wanted to be sick when I saw them.
"We were very worried because we have two seals here at the moment that are about ready to be released, but it wasn't them."
Gardai in the fishing port town have removed the seal heads and signs as part of their investigation.
It is feared they were targeted by people who want the sanctuary to close and who believe seals are destroying the local fishing waters.
Dingle Bay is also famous for its eco tours and cruises to spot seals, whales and the country's most famous dolphin Fungie.
The two dead common harbour seals are believed to be about six months old.
The alarm the raised by a man from the area passing the site who called the volunteers and said there was something on the sign.
Ms McMillan believes the seals were shot, but added there were no wounds on their heads besides the nails.
She said she is not opposed to the culling of seals when carried out humanly.
"I am from Australia and we cull kangaroos if there are too many, but there's research done first," she added.
"If they did that here and did proper research and counted seals in the Irish waters and found the population too high they could be a humane cull".
"For people just to take it in to their own hands and club or shot a seal is sickening."

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Ireland 1, Croatia 3. 87% collide with reality.

Bloody hell.  That was excruciating.


A 1-3 defeat by Croatia...  the side that many thought we would have our best chance against.   So much for that, then.


Indeed, before the match kicked off yesterday evening, RTE's Bill O'Herlihy announced that 87% of respondents to an RTE poll thought Ireland would beat Croatia (ranked 8th best team in the world by UEFA).


How could so many Irish people get it so wrong, eh?   I'm shocked.


It's just damage limitation from now on folks, unless we wheel Ray Houghton out  for the Italy match...





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Mick Wallace VAT underpayment results in 2.1 million euro settlement

I had reason to be in Wexford the other week and was party to a conversation in which a taxi driver declared his staunch support and admiration for independent TD Mick Wallace - not the only person in the locality to do so. 


This was before Wallace settled - or his company settled - a sum of €2.1 million with Revenue after he had  deliberately under-declared VAT payments made by the firm.  A sum which Revenue is unlikely to get as the company is now in receivership.


I've always thought Ireland a strange place, even as a kid growing up in it.  Where else - seriously - would you get an ex property developer socialist?


Mind you, we also have socialists who are against property taxes.  We have patriotic, investor-supporting anarchists.  We have (strangest of all) self-professed "socialist" teachers.  Socialist in the deformed Stalinist-state sense I suppose, insofar as they would  swear two-plus-two was five in order to maintain their privileges, like the most Stakhanovian apparatchik, and keep the whole rotten edifice in existence. 


I do think Wallace is genuine, however.   And I'd say he's an alright sort.  And at least he is not that gobshite Ming Flanagan with his hick twenty-years-too-late "I smoke pot, you know" posturing.  The prat who stood out in supported of a failed compulsory Irish policy when Enda Kenny talked about scrapping it.   Kenny subsequently caved into the lobbyists, of course.


Wallace seems OK though.  For instance, he has single-handedly provided football facilities for kids in his part of the country, where few - if any - existed previously.  I mean "football" as it is understood throughout the whole world apart from the USA,  where they require armour to play rugby.  


"Soccer", some call it.  Wallace has done a lot for the world's greatest game in that particular corner of a country cursed with the Irish establishment sports of Bogball and Stickfighting. 


Several of Wallace's former employees called radio stations to support him today, and it seems he was a good bloke to work for.  And I must say I found it funny to watch the feigned indignation of TDs getting all worked up about tax-compliance and morality, in a shysters'  parliament that deliberately encouraged tax avoidance during the bubble, and possesses all the morality of a paedophile priest set loose in a Kindergarten. 


It's difficult to see, however, how Wallace has not left himself open to easy comebacks by his political opponents should he ever speak on subjects such as public services, social welfare or the rest... all funded, of course, by taxation.  


What might be interesting, I believe, would be a thorough investigation of every single Dail TDs finances.  Property investments, business links,  tax returns and the rest of it - even as they are serving TDs.  I'm sure you would find quite a few forced to exchange sham indignation for  prudent silence.


Wallace's under-payments at least date to before his election to the Irish parliament, but it's hard to see how his political career can continue - and it is finished for a fact if bankruptcy concludes his business affairs.




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It's political correctness gone mad...

Quirky public notice/artwork spotted in Wexford General Hospital.   


The message is, seemingly:  "don't hit the nice policeman".  


A sentiment that produces little empathy in these quarters, given the nature of the previous post.




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Garda speed camera van Navan Road

Spotted on the Navan Road, pic taken by your very own intrepid Gombeen Man.


For the record, the van is parked just after the Esso fuel station, on the Dublin-bound side of a perfectly good dual carriageway.   The speed limit is 60 km/h (try keeping to such a speed on this stretch - narrow rural boreens in Ireland have an 80 km/h limit) and the van is situated just a couple of metres before the 80 km/h sign.  


Draw your own conclusions


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The Fiscal Treaty - vote "yes" or "no"?

"If we vote 'no' to this treaty, we're fucked.  Or even more fucked than we already are".

My local tyre dealer.

I suppose some people might say "what do you expect such a capitalist pig to say anyway?",  but when you see someone operating a viable business in a cut-throat industry for many years, you wonder if he hasn't got a very good reason for keeping his eye on the ball. 

What bothers me about the "no" side is their dishonesty.  A couple of examples:

"DEMAND A BETTER DEAL"

Excuse me for asking, but who the hell are we to "demand" anything?  The country was bankrupted by the previous government, in cahoots with the Central Bank and an eager new Irish landlord class who swarmed like flies around ordure at every apartment launch in the country.

After we joined the eurozone McCreevy - who was hailed as a genius by the likes of Kevin Myers, then writing in The Irish Times - slashed capital gains tax from 40% to 20%.   The Irish Government continued to use property tax incentives to enable the building of apartment blocks that nobody would ever want to live in, in godforsaken kips all over the country.

"VOTE NO TO AUSTERITY"

Will voting "no" to the treaty end austerity?  No.  We will not be able to access European Stability Mechanism funds if we do so.  That means we will be reliant on the IMF.  The result can only be increased taxes or public service cuts.   And don't mind the Shinners saying we can default - they are only looking to get into coalition with FF in the next election, and will say anything to get a vote.  Until they get into power, of course.

So where is the blog on the Fiscal Treaty? 

Well, I can see why people want to give the government a bloody nose.  Then I can see the other cliche about dismembered noses and spited faces.  It would be nice to see the bollocks we all know and intensely dislike, Phil Hogan, reined back with his raft of not-so-stealthy stealth taxes for fear of upsetting the electorate until he can get a "yes" vote in a second, tweaked election, but will that happen?   Kenny has said it won't, but that means nothing, I suppose. 

But let's get back to the issue. Don't kid yourselves.  This is not about septic tanks, household charges and all the rest.  It is about making legal the fiscal parameters (which have been agreed) which eurozone countries must observe in order to preserve the currency in our pockets

The problem is it does not go far enough.  What is needed is closer fiscal and political union across the eurozone.   We need a proper eurozone, with tax harmonisation (no VRT, no allowing multinationals - and U2 - to dodge taxes) and the same conditions and rules for every member state.  Then we can have eurobonds, and stop the speculators targeting peripheral eurozone states on the markets.

That needs to happen.  Whether voting "yes" or "no" will hinder or help, I do not know with 100% certainty.  But it would be nice if people did actually vote on the issue in question, rather than heeding those who are being the  most disingenuous.

Will it be a "yes" or a "no" vote? 

It will be a  "no", I can see it.  

Let's see where that leaves us, and remember when the next election comes around.


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Sinn Fein cynicism promises more problems For Future

Sing along now: "Tommorrow belongs to us..."

Believe it or not, some tired old bloggers do have lives.  Even this one.   In fact, there has been so much going on lately, between one thing and another, that the blog has been greatly neglected the past few days.  

Plus, I am out of the Big Shmoke with my laptop, which features Internet Explorer.  Normally not such a problem, until Blogger decided to make its updated interface incompatible with IE with regard to some features.    It has taken me the past hour to make this type roman, rather than bold italic, for instance.  Yes, I know... you've told me a million times not to exaggerate.

But enough of all that.  I have to get a blog post up so here's something I meant to bring attention to ages ago. Namely, an Irish Times editorial on the opportunistic nature of Sinn Fein and the many, ever more evident, qualities they share with their future (junior) partners in coalition, Fianna Fail.  I think it makes some very good points about the cynical populism of this lot who promise less taxes, untouched public services, no bank debts, full employment and a reborn, Gaelic Ireland for everyone in the audience.

Sad thing is, they have many people suckered, as in times like these people are more likely to throw their lot in with a party that spouts populist shite louder than any other.  With a touch of anti-EU, Irish "patriotism" thrown in.  Especially bad news when you incorporate the most gullible upcoming generation since, since... the last one, I suppose.

Oh Jasus.  Do you remember that "Tomorrow Belongs To Me" scene at the end of Cabaret?    Imagine it with the pic above.

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Shallow, cynical and wrong

IN THESE recessionary times, Sinn Féin has specialised in the blame game. In Northern Ireland, where the party shares ministerial power with the DUP, it blames a Tory-led British government for reducing the block grant and making life difficult. In this State, it blames the EU for the terms attached to Ireland’s bailout programme while, at the same time, fiercely opposing Government measures to grow the tax base. It operates as a quintessential opposition party, ignoring or misrepresenting economic and political realities in its quest for votes. And it is gaining support.


Fianna Fáil operated a similar tooth-and-claw regime during the economic downturn of the 1980s, before the realities of government and Fine Gael’s Tallaght strategy brought change to its fiscal approach. This time, Micheál Martin has offered constructive opposition to a struggling Government and, as a consequence, has created space for Sinn Féin and for politicians from the United Left Alliance. His support for the EU fiscal treaty has sharpened that divide, allowing Sinn Féin to lead the charge for a No vote in the referendum campaign.
There are major differences on this occasion. Rejection of the treaty could undermine the stability of the euro, while threatening greater austerity here and a flight of capital. Such negative outcomes are not recognised by Sinn Féin. Being prepared to dissemble brazenly, when the occasion demands, has become a feature of the party’s transition to mainstream politics.


Party leader Gerry Adams blithely insists that, in the event of a No vote, Ireland will be given vital funding by those countries that support the fiscal discipline of the treaty. The proposition is as flawed and disingenuous as his party’s selective use of comments made by prominent economists during the referendum campaign. Encouraging Irish voters to follow the example of Greece threatens economic and political chaos.


Defeating the treaty appears to be Sinn Féin’s sole objective, but it also seeks to cause terminal damage to Fianna Fáil. The prospect of a growth pact being added to the treaty at a later stage is dismissed as irrelevant. Mr Adams not only advocates a rejection of the agreed EU-IMF bailout terms but favours a default on Ireland’s debt. As for the €30 billion owed by the Government on Anglo promissory notes, it should not be paid. Fiscal fantasies of that nature, dismissing any nasty consequences and ignoring national commitments, were successfully peddled to the Greek people by the left-wing Syriza party. The outcome may yet be catastrophic.


In the 1980s, Irish people learned the hard way there is no such thing as a free lunch. Following years of political prevarication, painful but necessary fiscal adjustments were made. The economy recovered and living standards rose. German finance minister Wolfgang Schäuble remarked, in relation to Greece, that people who offered a discipline-free recovery were “spouting nonsense”. Ireland learned that lesson 30 years ago. Have we forgotten?

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