Showing posts with label Frances Fitzgerald. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Frances Fitzgerald. Show all posts

Friday, January 8, 2021

My Submission to The Independent "Future of Media" Commission

 

Professor Brian MacCraith

Professor Brian MacCraith, Chair of the Independent Future of Media Commission


A newly-established Future of Media Commission intends to “chart a pathway” for public service broadcasting and independent media in Ireland. [My emphasis]

In September 2020, the Irish government announced the new Future of Media Commission, which will examine how “public service objectives” can be funded in a sustainable way, with independent editorial oversight and value for money. The Commission will then make a recommendation on its findings to the government.

As an initial step, the Commission is conducting a public consultation by inviting the views of the public on the key questions to be addressed in its work. The closing date for receipt of public submissions was today Friday 8 January 2020 so (as is my habit) I got mine in at the last minute and here it is.

.Question 1. How should Government develop and support the concept and role of public service media and what should its role in relation to public service content in the wider media be?


You ask  "What can be learned from the evolution of public service media over the last decade?"

In 2004 I made an official complaint to Broadcasting Complaints Commission (I think it was then) re RTE's broadcast of the 2002 film "Song for a Raggy Boy" AND  RTE notice afterwards inviting people who had been affected by the film to ring a dedicated phone number to voice their pain. 

I cannot locate my submission now BUT I referred to it in my Blog article 'Recovered Memory' in Ireland and Allegations of Child Abuse
specifically in the last sections "Patrick Galvin, 'Song for a Raggy Boy' and 'Recovered Memory' " and the Conclusion. The culminating scene in the FILM features a boy being kicked to death by a "Brother in Christ" (Christian Brother backwards). There is no such scene in the 1991 autobiographical BOOK by Patrick Galvin on which the film is  supposed to be based, nor of sex abuse either. The murder and sex abuse scenes were added to spice up the film!  

When this sort of thing is done to Jews - in the Nazi film Jew Suss that I referred to in my complaint to BCC - it is called Blood Libel. (The 1925 BOOK "Jew Suss"  did not include  Suss raping or killing anyone.)

The Christian Brothers had to issue a statement saying that Patrick Galvin was never in any institution run by them. However BCC rejected my complaint saying "RTE point out that the film is a work of fiction based on a memoir of actual events. Allowing for dramatic licence therefore, everything depicted in the film does not have to be fully accurate." Indeed you could say the same about the Nazi version of Jew Suss compared to the original! WHY did RTE provide a phone number for members of the public who were inspired by events in the film?

This was OVER 10 years ago but RTE continued in the same vein over the last decade. In 2011 they libelled Fr Kevin Reynolds on Prime Time's "Mission to Prey" as having father a child by raping an underage girl. Instead of a normal investigation of the grotesque claim, they door-stopped him after a First Communion service. They then ignored his offer to take a DNA test and broadcast the libel anyway. A NORMAL conman - motivated by desire for money or fame - would have drawn back at the priest's offer of a DNA test but RTE were blinded by an anti-Clerical hatred no better than the anti-Semite variety! 

In 2014 RTE libelled John Waters, Breda O'Brien and other members of the Iona Institute by describing them as Homophobes. It doesn't compare to their previous child rape and murder lies but it stands out because the RTE presenter INVITED "Miss Panti Bliss" to make the comment. To that extent it was well up to RTE's standard! I should also point out that following the libel settlement the then Minister for Communications Pat Rabbitte expressed his desire to change the law in order to make it more difficult to sue RTE. If one of his own ideological allies had been libelled, Minister Rabbitte would have said the opposite! I have written about this in "The Role of Pat Rabbitte

In 2017 RTE libelled Kevin Myers - well known strong supporter of Israel - as a Holocaust-denier following similar libels by Taoiseach Leo Varadkar and Tanaiste Frances Fitzgerald. It took RTE 2 years to apologise even after the Broadcasting Authority had ruled the claim was false. Kevin Myers said he had feared having to sell his house if he lost the libel case - but of course RTE faced no risk at all. I wrote about this in "Kevin Myers and the Age of de Valera and McQuaid"

It is no co-incidence that Kevin Myers is the ONLY journalist to have defended former Sister of Mercy Nora Wall when she was wrongly convicted of rape in 1999. RTE will NEVER libel a "progressive" journalist!

Given THAT background, there's nothing strange about RTE's recent skit featuring God raping Mary and  broadcasting it during the Christmas season on the eve of the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God on 1st January. There is NO way they would broadcast a skit featuring Muhammed raping a 9 year old girl and do so during Ramadan on the eve of Eid. Just as  they wouldn't libel a Muslim cleric with an accusation of fathering a child by raping a girl. I referred above to RTE being motivated by anti-Clerical Hatred BUT Muslims have clerics as well so anti-Catholic hatred is a better description of their attitude!  

Question 2. How should public service media be financed sustainably?


You ask "What is the best model for future funding of public service media in Ireland? What approach best supports independent editorial oversight while achieving value for money and delivering on public service aims?

RTE should be defunded. I read that it receives €180 million from the taxpayer each year. I also see that "public service aims" includes "to ensure that the public has access to high quality, impartial, independent journalism, reporting .. in a balanced way and which contributes to democratic discourse". 

In the interests of "balance" would RTE consider broadcasting the  film "Jew Suss"? It may be as vile as "Song for a Raggy Boy" and includes scenes not depicted in the (somewhat) more realistic BOOK but at least RTE could say "we're not favouring one side over another".  

I was told by a member of Nora Wall's defence team that she was convicted in a climate of hysteria created by the media and SPECIFICALLY by Mary Raftery's States of Fear series, broadcast by RTE just before the trial in 1999! In 2005 I corresponded with then editor of the Irish Times Geraldine Kennedy regarding this issue (among other) and published the exchange on my Blog here: "Mary Raftery and Blood Libel"

This kind of thing has been going on for over 20 years now and I don't believe there is ANY possibility of RTE reforming themselves and delivering "impartial, independent journalism" that "contributes to democratic discourse". In other words, they cannot act as a Public Service Broadcaster and should NOT receive public funds! 

Question 3. How should media be governed and regulated?


You ask "Are current legislative and regulatory controls for public service media adequate?" 

In my answer to Question 1, I pointed out that, following RTE's libel settlement with John Waters and others in 2014, the then Minister for Communications Pat Rabbitte expressed his desire to change the law in order to make it more difficult to sue RTE!

Even before being appointed Minister, Pat Rabbitte had a well-earned reputation as an anti-Catholic bigot especially due to his role in bringing down the Reynolds Government in 1994. In relation to THAT episode, historian Diarmaid Ferriter wrote "Some became angry that when Harry Whelehan was questioned and denied the existence of a Catholic conspiracy within the Attorney-General's office, he felt the need to defend his right to be a practicing Catholic."  

If someone like Pat Rabbitte can be appointed Minister for Communications then NO conceivable "legislative and regulatory controls" will force RTE to carry out their duty to act as a Public Service Broadcaster. They should be denied public funding and obliged to to fund themselves by advertisements and subscriptions like other media!    
  
Thank you. Your submission has been received!






Tuesday, December 29, 2020

EU Commissioner Phil Hogan Forced to Resign re "Golfgate", as Supreme Court Judge Seamus Woulfe Refuses

 

Phil Hogan and Supreme Court Judge Seamus Woulfe
Justice Seamus Woulfe (right) pictured with Phil Hogan, who resigned from his role as EU Commissioner for Trade after Golfgate


We have  a corrupt media and political establishment that goes into hysterics over  a minor issue like Golfgate . Meanwhile people who have done great wrong have been promoted to high office and then demoted for ludicrous reasons - as Phil Hogan became Minister and then EU Commissioner after libelling Nora Wall in 2002 and then loses his job over nonsense about attending a gathering of the Oireachtas Golf Society the day after Government health regulations changed! 

Phil Hogan was Chair of the Fine Gael Parliamentary Party in April 2002 when he used Parliamentary Privilege to libel former nun Nora Wall and an unnamed senior official in Department of Education whose offence was to give a good report to the Sister of Mercy Home that Nora managed. The official "is the golden thread weaving through a number of centres where children were in some cases tortured and forced to have sex with animals" said Phil. Our anti-clerical media reported what he had said -  see section (B) below - but there was no follow-up i.e. they knew he was talking nonsense! 

In 2009 - following  publication of the Ryan Report that denounced the Religious Orders - Fine Gael Justice spokesman Charlie Flanagan again used Parliamentary Privilege to repeat Hogan's libels against Nora Wall and the still-unnamed Dept. of Education official and added one against the Cistercian monks of Mount Melleray (but for some reason, did not include the bit about nuns forcing children to have sex with animals). Again the media just reported the allegations but without demanding that such grotesque claims be investigated - see section (C). I understand that media reports of Parliamentary proceedings are also privileged but taking them seriously - e.g. by naming the Dept of Education official and demanding he be prosecuted - would leave them open to a libel suit. 

Charlie Flanagan was lucky not to be forced to resign as Minister for Justice  during the Maurice McCabe scandal. His two predecessors Frances Fitzgerald and Alan Shatter both had to resign on bogus grounds in the midst of media hysteria and even our out-of-control media may have balked at forcing the resignation of a third Minister for Justice! Phil Hogan was not so lucky but both of them had sowed the wind that created the whirlwind!

(A) "Golfgate", Covid and Public Hysteria 

On 13 December 2020 there was a story in Sunday Independent by Eilis O'Hanlon 'Covidiots' Are Being Eaten by a Monster They Created . The immediate story concerns Labour leader Alan Kelly going maskless on public transport and Sky broadcaster Kay Burnley bringing friends back to her house after her birthday party thus breaking Covid regulations. Both escaped rather lightly. She mentions others who did not: . 
Former Agriculture Minister Dara Calleary was left with no choice but to resign after attending a dinner for 80 in Galway organised by the Oireachtas Golf Society. Jerry Buttimer, who was deputy chair of the Seanad, also stood down, as did Ireland's EU Commissioner Phil Hogan.
Phil Hogan's fall was the greatest of all. EU Commission for Trade when he was forced to resign on 20 August 2020 due to media hysteria regarding "Golfgate", he had previously been Minister for the Environment in the Irish Government and  before that Chairman of the Fine Gael Parliamentary Party. Curiously enough he achieved his first (Junior) Ministerial post in the Rainbow Coalition formed in December 1994 - after Pat Rabbitte brought down the Fianna Fail government with his bogus claims concerning Fr Brendan Smyth. Phil Hogan's Ministerial career was launched with a bogus media/political scandal targeting the Catholic Church and - in all likelihood - has ended  with an out of control media whipping up hysteria against male authority figures in general! 

Eilis O'Hanlon continues 
A culture of public shaming has been forged in which wrongdoers are put in the stocks for the righteous to pelt with rotten fruit  and she concludes: If Alan Kelly and Kay Burley have fallen foul of a ravenous beast of public censoriousness, it's one they helped to create. Monsters always eat their own children.
BUT this "culture of public shaming" commenced long before the Covid crisis and Phil Hogan himself did a great deal to create it!

(B) 2002: Phil Hogan Libels Nora Wall and Senior Dept of Education Official

In April 2002 he used Dail (Parliamentary) Privilege to libel Nora Wall and a senior official in Department of Education.

This is the text of the Irish Times article dated 25 April 2002 entitled
Details were given in the Dáil last night about a retired senior official in the Department of Education who is alleged to have been involved in a Dublin-based child sex ring. At the time he was supposed to be investigating alleged child sex abuse.

Fine Gael chairman Mr Phil Hogan gave details last night about the official, who retired some years ago and who "has been implicated by a victim in a rent-a-boy sex ring with convicted killer Malcolm McArthur". He referred to "astonishing revelations of a perceived and systematic cover-up of rape, gross indecency and abuse of children from 1978 to 1990". The official "is the golden thread weaving through a number of centres where children were in some cases tortured and forced to have sex with animals".

Mr Hogan condemned the Department for its failure to take action about the official and said it was not good enough to say it was voluntarily disclosing documents to the Laffoy commission on child abuse. "This man has never come to the attention of gardaí," he said, but "his name keeps coming up with journalists speaking to health board officials". Mr Hogan asked, "Does anyone really care within the Department about what happened to these poor youngsters who were put in the care of the State and then abused?

The [Fianna Fail] Minister for Education, Dr Woods, said: "I care very much, the secretary-general of my Department cares". He added that they would give any information they could, and would co-operate fully. He said, however, that his Department had no information on any cases which compared to newspaper reports.

Mr Hogan said the official was linked to investigations into sexual abuse in residential centres in Kilkenny city, Cappoquin, Co Waterford, and Clonmel. He was named by a male abuse victim who said he had sex with the man. The victim said he was 17 years old and working as a prostitute at the time.

The official was alleged to have been with convicted murderer Malcolm McArthur when the two picked up the rent boy on the Quays in Dublin. Malcolm McArthur has served 20 years for the murder of a nurse in the Phoenix Park and another man, and was later found in the home of the then Attorney-General.

The prostitute recognised the Department official. He had met him while a resident of St Joseph's school in Clonmel, when the man was a Department inspector. Mr Hogan, referring to the story which appeared in the Ireland on Sunday newspaper last week, said the official also investigated sex abuse by convicted paedophiles and "gave one of the worst offenders a clean bill of health".

He said it was alleged that all of the abuse took place at the time the centre was managed by Nora Wall, a former Sister of Mercy nun whose conviction for rape of a 10-year-old child was quashed by the court of criminal appeal in 1999.

The official was guilty of "gross incompetency at the very least and at very worst there was something very dark and dirty behind him hidden from public view", Mr Hogan added.

(C) 2009: Charlie Flanagan Libels Nora Wall, Cistercian Monks AND Dept of Education Official

This is the text of the Irish Times article by Marie O'Halloran dated 9 July 2009 entitled "Fine Gael Deputy seeks New Investigation into Former Nun"
  
A CALL has been made for the reopening of an investigation into former nun Nora Wall, resident manager in the 1980s of St Michael’s Child Care Centre in Cappoquin, Co Waterford.

Fine Gael justice spokesman Charlie Flanagan said she “exposed the children in her care to unacceptable risks by allowing male outsiders to stay overnight at the Cappoquin care home centre in Waterford”. He said: “It has been suggested that there were frequent visits to the Cappoquin home by some clergy from Mount Melleray Abbey. Access to children may have been a key motivation for these visits. We must bear in mind that that very abbey, Mount Melleray, was selected by the notorious paedophile Fr Brendan Smyth as a holiday destination or a haven to escape when he was on the run from the authorities in Northern Ireland. This issue needs to be revisited.”

Mr Flanagan was speaking during the second night of the Dáil debate on the Labour party Private Members’ Institutional Child Abuse Bill which provides that no abuse victim should be denied justice through the redress board. The Bill also removes any record for children incarcerated in reformatory schools by criminal conviction. It was rejected by the Government but the Labour Party did not call a vote last night on the Bill.

[Fianna Fail] Minister of State [for Children] Barry Andrews said the Bill contained a number of good measures and there was some valid criticism of the speed with which the indemnity deal was concluded. 

The Fine Gael spokesman also said “there are issues in relation to the charging and release of Nora Wall that need to be revisited by way of investigation. And it is a matter of some concern that reports about interference with witnesses and attempts to buy their silence have been made,” he added. “I believe this particular aspect needs to be fully investigated because any secret payments made by religious institutions to individuals need to be fully probed and examined.”

Deputy Flanagan also called for the Education Finance Board, which has a budget of €12.7 million, to appear before the Public Accounts Committee. “The board administers a very large budget. Concerns have been brought to my attention in respect of what some considered to be rather ad hoc and casual approach to awarding money.”

Ms Wall had a conviction in 1999 for the rape of a 12-year-old girl in her care declared a miscarriage of justice. Mr Flanagan said the Ryan commission report into child abuse described her management of children in her care as “alarming”, “disastrous” “inappropriate and dangerous”.

He said: “One particularly worrying aspect of the Ryan report refers to an incident where a resident of the home with an intellectual disability was sexually assaulted by a colleague in a hotel where he worked part-time. The parents of the boy went to the gardaí. They confronted the abuser, who admitted the abuse. The boy later told the house parent that he did not want to pursue the matter. It was later noted that the boy had a new radio. He told her that Nora Wall had given him a new radio and a new bicycle. This is quite a sinister revelation that needs to be probed further.”

Mr Flanagan referred to the alleged involvement of a senior departmental official in a Dublin-based child sex ring “at a time he was supposed to have been investigating child abuse. That individual had investigated the home run by Nora Wall and given it a clean bill of health at a time when there were serious problems at the home as now identified in the Ryan report,” Mr Flanagan said.

The Irish Times doesn't mention it, but Charlie Flanagan was referring explicitly to Phil Hogan's previous allegations. According to the Dail Eireann Debates record for 8 July 2009:  My colleague, Deputy Phil Hogan, highlighted in this House in April 2002 the alleged involvement of a senior departmental official in a Dublin-based child sex ring at a time he was supposed to have been investigating child abuse. That individual had investigated the home run by Nora Wall and gave it a clean bill of health at a time when there were serious problems at the home, as identified by the Ryan report.

Did Charlie Flanagan seriously believe that the Gardai had ignored this claim for the previous 7 years? WHY didn't he repeat Hogan's 2002 allegation that "The official "is the golden thread weaving through a number of centres where children were in some cases tortured and forced to have sex with animals" ?

(D) Libelling the Laity (and non-Catholics) to Get the Church!

Matt Russell (and Harry Whelehan and Albert Reynolds)
It is clear that both Phil Hogan and Charlie Flanagan libelled the Department of Education official because he had given a good report to the Sister of Mercy Home that Nora Wall managed. This wasn't the first time that politicians trashed the reputation of innocent laymen in their desire to demonise the Catholic Church. In my article "Sex Scandals Rock the Catholic Church - and the Role of Pat Rabbitte" I describe how in 1994 the then Democratic Left TD, invented a conspiracy between Cardinal Cahal Daly and Catholic Attorney General Harry Whelehan to protect Fr Brendan Smyth. Regarding this bogus scandal, historian Diarmaid Ferriter wrote "Some became angry that when Harry Whelehan was questioned and denied the existence of a Catholic conspiracy within the Attorney-General's office, he felt the need to defend his right to be a practicing Catholic."  However senior civil servant Matt Russell was probably NOT a "practising Catholic" but was forced to resign anyway as a result of the athmosphere of public hysteria created by Rabbitte. (See Appendix 3 to the preceding article: "The Dismissal of Matt Russell")

Pablo McCabe
Moreover Nora Wall's co-accused Pablo (Paul) McCabe was a homeless schizophrenic man, who was obviously penniless but was accused because - prior to 1999 - no woman had been convicted of rape in Ireland. McCabe was branded as the main rapist - with Nora Wall as his helper - in order to make the rape allegations seem more plausible. The two accusers then planned to sue the Sisters of Mercy for  a fortune. Their vile antics were a street level version of the behaviour of Rabbitte, Hogan and Flanagan.

The only detailed account of the tragedy of Pablo McCabe is in an article by Breda O'Brien in the Jesuit Review Studies in Winter 2006: "Miscarriage of Justice: Paul McCabe and Nora Wall

She begins with a quote from Arthur Miller's "Death of a Salesman"

I don't say he's a great man... His name was never in the paper. He's not the finest character that ever lived. But he's a human being, and a terrible thing is happening to him. So attention must be paid. He's not to be allowed to fall in his grave like an old dog. Attention, attention must finally be paid to such a person.

Kevin Myers
Although the Irish Times account of Charlie Flanagan's attack on Nora Wall in 2009 doesn't mention it, Deputy Flanagan also criticised journalist Kevin Myers - because he had defended her. See my article Justice Minister Charlie Flanagan, George Hook and Nora Wall [1]
Since her conviction was overturned, she has been portrayed as an heroic martyr in many quarters with references to witch hunts and witch trials abounding. Six weeks ago, the columnist Kevin Myers wrote in a national newspaper: "The liberal-left lynch mob that went after poor Nora Wall a decade ago was prepared to destroy her life on the basis of lies."

It is therefore not really surprising that in 2017 Kevin Myers himself was libelled - as an anti-Semite! - by then Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Leo Varadkar, his Deputy Frances Fitzgerald, a former Deputy PM Joan Burton and by State Broadcaster RTE. It was a series of events unprecedented in the history of this State and probably of any democracy! I write about it here:
Kevin Myers and the Age of de Valera and McQuaid

There was no direct connection between the 2017 libels and Kevin Myers defence of Nora Wall in 1999 but a link certainly exists. There is NO possibility that our "liberal" politicians or RTE would libel "progressive" journalists - like Myers former colleagues in the Irish Times. Kevin Myers was libelled for reasons of ideological hatred - very similar to the motives of racial or religious hatred that inspire extreme Right-wing ideologues!

Ruairi Quinn libels Dept of Education Civil Servants
In 1994 Labour Party TD Ruairi Quinn had been an enthusiastic exponent of the hysterical claims that caused the collapse of the Fianna Fail-Labour Coalition headed by Albert Reynolds. He told Reynolds "We've come for a head. Yours or Harry's [Whelehan], and we are not going to get Harry's." He boasted about his role in his 2005 autobiography "Straight Left" written long after it was clear that neither Reynolds nor Whelehan had done anything wrong. 

In June 2009 Quinn, then Labour Spokesman for Education said in the Dail that "Either officials in the department [of Education] are members of secret societies, such as the Knights of St Columbanus and Opus Dei, and have taken it upon themselves to protect the interests of these clerical orders at this point in time. . . or, alternatively, the [Fianna Fail] minister is politically incompetent and incapable of managing the department"

Ruairi Quinn's slander of Education officials was not as vile as that of Fine Gael's Phil Hogan or Charlie Flanagan but it was made in June 2009 at the same time that the latter was accusing a former official of being a member of a paedophile ring. It also echoes Richard Webster's observation about the events of 1994 precipitated by Deputy Pat Rabbitte when "the Fianna Fail government of Albert Reynolds fell, amidst talk of a dark conspiracy involving politicians, members of Opus Dei, the Knights of Columbus and others.

Ruairi Quinn was leader of the Labour Party from 1997 to 2002 - prior to voicing his fantasies about Opus Dei in Education - and went on to become Minister for Education himself from 2011 to 2014. Now in retirement, Quinn gave an interview to Kathy Sheridan of the Irish Times which was published on 22 February 2016, entitled "Not retiring quietly, Ruairi Quinn has harsh words for critics"  

....There is no shouting now either, more a deep frustration, disappointment and the sadness of a man first elected nearly 40 years ago, now facing into retirement amid unprecedented levels of abuse and venom. He blames media coverage and intolerance, and a general drop in standards. “People feel they can blackguard each other. ..... [my emphasis]

Irony is definitely not the former Education Minister's  strong point. There is no hint that Quinn's own brand of thuggish rhetoric had anything to do with the "unprecedented levels of abuse and venom" in public discourse!

Charlie Flanagan vs Civil Servants in Department of Justice
I wrote about this issue in a number of previous articles including "Justice Ministers Kevin O'Higgins to Charlie Flanagan: from Decency to Decadence". Two successive Secretary Generals in Department of Justice were forced to resign as on the basis of groundless allegations in relation to the Garda Whistle-blower scandals  - and received no support from Justice Ministers Frances Fitzgerald or Charlie Flanagan who were preoccupied with saving their own their own political skins. Civil servants cannot defend themselves against media assault; they depend on their Minister to do so but our current politicians will not stand for justice when faced with a mob. 

Secretary General Brian Purcell stood aside in July 2014 after then Justice minister Frances Fitzgerald published the Toland Report on the Department, which identified a "closed, secretive and silo-driven culture" supposedly prevalent there. He was the third senior Justice figure forced to resign - after Minister for Justice Alan Shatter and Garda Commissioner Martin Callinan.

Noel Waters served as acting secretary general of Department of Justice after Mr. Purcell's departure. He was appointed on a permanent basis in October 2016. He had planned to retire in February 2018 but instead resigned on 28 November 2017 while issuing a statement that those working in Justice had been "subjected to a barrage of unwarranted criticism". 

Originally Noel Waters had intended to run the Department for a few weeks while a permanent successor was found but this proved impossible! See article by Fiach Kelly in Irish Times on 30 November 2017 The job nobody wants: secretary-general of the Department of Justice 

Justice is seen as one of the big beast departments, alongside the Departments of the Taoiseach, Finance, Public Expenditure, and Foreign Affairs, and should be one of the most attractive. Yet the process that led to Mr Waters’s eventual appointment took two years, and some who were informally approached turned down the opportunity to interview for the job. “We couldn’t get anyone to apply for it,” said one figure involved in the process.

Secretary Generals usually remain in place for 7 years but Noel Waters stepped down in November 2017 a few hours after former Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald resigned as Tanaiste (Deputy Prime Minister). He made a statement to colleagues that is probably unprecedented in the history of the civil service:

As he departed, he strongly defended the department - which he said had been “subject to a barrage of unwarranted criticism” - in an email to colleagues. “I want to assure you that, in so far as is humanly possible, this Department has sought at all times to act appropriately, upholding the law and the institutions of the State,” he wrote. “Many of the claims about how the Department has acted that have been made in the media and in the Dáil are not true. The Department makes an important contribution to Irish society, a contribution that more often than not goes unseen and unnoticed,” he added, urging staff not to “not lose sight of your contribution to public service and continue to give your best. Through the years I have worked with truly talented and honourable people and each and every one of you work to make Ireland a safe, fair and inclusive place to live and work.”

The authors of the "barrage of unwarranted criticism" and the "untruthful claims" included Taoiseach Leo Varadkar and Minister for Justice Charlie Flanagan. Leo Varadkar said the events of recent days “again exposed major problems within a dysfunctional Department of Justice, including the way important emails were not found and therefore not sent on to the Charleton Tribunal during discovery”. 

Charlie Flanagan: “I want to record my thanks to Deputy Kelly for his PQs which led to the unearthing of an email that had not been sent to the Tribunal.” The minister poured blame on officials at the Department of Justice, saying it has been “a major challenge at every step to obtain complete information in a timely manner, indeed, on a few occasions recently, information has been provided to me, to the Taoiseach, and then to this House, which has proven subsequently to be inaccurate

In contrast Leo Varadkar defended Frances Fitzgerald who had been forced to resign as Tanaiste in the course of the same fake scandal. A good woman is leaving office without a full or fair hearing' - Varadkar addresses Dáil following Fitzgerald's resignation as Tanáiste (Both Leo and Frances had joined in libelling Kevin Myers earlier in 2017!) 

Charlie Flanagan, who libelled Nora Wall and Leo Varadkar who libelled Kevin Myers, are prepared to trash the reputations of their civil servants. When they attack those in Department of Justice they are directly undermining the security of the State

(E) Supreme Court Justice Seamus Woulfe Refuses to Resign in "Golfgate"

On 26 August 2020 the BBC did quite a good summary report of Golfgate as it then stood: What is GolfGate and why is it causing Ireland problems?

Last Thursday night, a story broke about a dinner at a hotel in the west of Ireland that has thrown the country's government into turmoil. First reported in the Irish Examiner, it emerged that more than 80 people had attended an Irish parliamentary golf society event in Clifden, County Galway. Included on the guest list were a host of high-profile figures from Irish political life. But the event came just one day after Irish authorities tightened Covid-19 restrictions on gatherings. Gardaí (Irish police) are investigating the event for possible breaches of the regulations. A week later, three politicians, including a government minister and EU trade commissioner Phil Hogan, have resigned their posts. Mr Hogan - who would have been leading the EU's post-Brexit free trade negotiations with the UK - had been facing calls to quit for days before he fell on his sword on Wednesday night. ... James Sweeney, from the Station House Hotel where the event was held, told Irish broadcaster RTÉ he had checked with the Irish Hotels Federation to ensure the event complied with regulations. He said he was told it would be, if the guests were in two separate rooms, with fewer than 50 people in each.

As  a result of this preposterous media-created "scandal" Agriculture Minister Dara Calleary resigned as did Jerry Buttimer, the deputy chairman of the Irish Senate. They  did so without creating a fuss and no doubt their careers won't be permanently affected. The same cannot be said about Phil Hogan, the man who used Dail Privilege to libel Nora Wall and an unnamed senior official in Dept of Education. He strongly resisted his downfall - and rightly so - but it hard to imagine him ever rising again to the dizzy heights he once scaled. In addition Ireland is seen as having undermined its own reputation in the EU. Of course we lost the very important Trade Commissioner post and our replacement Commissioner Mairead McGuinness has been allocated part of the portfolio once held by Valdis Dombrovskis - the man who was promoted to take over from Phil Hogan! 

But fellow-attendee at the golf society dinner, Justice Seamus Woulfe who had only been appointed to the Supreme Court in July 2020, refuses to resign!  The Supreme Court requested its former Chief Justice, Susan Denham, to report on Woulfe's attendance at the dinner.  Denham's report was published on 1 October 2020. She concluded that in the circumstances Woulfe should not have attended the dinner, but she observed that he did not break the law or Covid guidelines. She said that a resignation would be "unjust and disproportionate" - a perfectly sensible observation amidst the hysteria! Ms Justice Denham said she was “of the opinion that it would be open to the Chief Justice [Frank Clarke] to deal with this matter by way of informal resolution.” The Supreme Court initially accepted Denham's Report but media and political hysteria continued and Woulfe criticised same in a private meeting with colleagues. 

Frank Clarke met with Woulfe as part of the  "informal resolution" on 5 November 2020 where he read the contents of a draft letter to Woulfe. Clarke said that all of the judges of the Supreme Court, including the Presidents of the Court of Appeal and the High Court, believed that Woulfe's actions had caused "significant and irreparable" damage to the Supreme Court. The Chief Justice said that in his "personal opinion" Woulfe should resign. He referred to developments since the report was published  doubting Woulfe's understanding of "genuine public concern" and questioning Woulfe's critical remarks of the Taoiseach, the government, and his judicial colleagues. On 9 November, contrary to the wishes of Woulfe, Chief Justice Clarke published the correspondence in which reprimanded Woulfe for his response to the scandal and stated that it was his opinion that Woulfe should resign in order to avoid continuing serious damage to the judiciary

Justice Seamus Woulfe faced down public hysteria generated by the media and endorsed by his own colleagues and refused to resign. Under the Constitution a judge may be removed from office only for "stated misbehaviour or incapacity" and only if a joint resolution is adopted by both houses of the Oireachtas (Parliament). No judge has been removed from office under this procedure since the foundation of the state in 1922. At attempt was made by a few far-left TDs to invoke the impeachment procedure but received no support from the main political parties. The latter would have liked Justice Woulfe to relieve them of responsible by resigning but had no appetite for a fight against a determined opponent! On 17 November 2020, Taoiseach (PM) Michael Martin said the government would not pursue any further action against Woulfe.

(F) Conclusion Sinn Fein and Antifa

Since Ireland's three main political parties are in coalition now, Sinn Fein are the main opposition and are likely to come to power in Ireland's next general election. In my article about the Free Speech Vs Anti-Racism Rallies in December 2019, I wrote about how those of us who opposed Charlie Flanagan's Hate Speech proposals were attacked by Antifa. The attackers were held back by the Gardai (police) and by their own stewards. I have little interest in politics myself but I was told the stewards were from Sinn Fein. But what will happen when Sinn Fein are in power? Will they appoint a new Garda Commissioner and instruct him not to intervene in those circumstances? Will they continue to restrain the street fighting thugs - OR use them as their own enforcers of political orthodoxy? 

One thing is clear. Politicians like Charlie Flanagan and Leo Varadkar (and former ones like Phil Hogan, Alan Shatter (NOTE [1] ) Ruairi Quinn and Pat Rabbitte) have gutted their integrity - much more so than democratic politicians in the Weimar Republic whom historians see as mediocrities rather than morally corrupt. (Supreme Court Judges - including Chief Justice Frank Clarke - have also demonstrated their weakness in the face of popular hysteria.) Weimar "decadence" was more in evidence among the intelligentsia than the political class. It's certainly evident among Irish intellectuals who express no objection to bogus allegations of child rape and murder being directed at Catholic clergy. However our political class for certain - and perhaps our judges - are similarly decadent and equally incapable of standing up to the barbarians at the gates! 


NOTES

[1] See Blood Libel in Ireland - directed against Catholics not Jews! for former Justice Minister Alan Shatter's contribution to the debate on Separation of Church and State in Ireland!




Wednesday, November 4, 2020

Irish "Antifa" Attacks Protesters - "Liberal" Irish Media Don't Mind

 

So far I have been at three demonstrations in Dublin that have been attacked by Antifa types. The first two were outside Dail Eireann (Irish Parliament) protesting the Irish Government's proposed new Hate Speech Law and I have an article about the initial demonstration and attack by Antifa HERE - Free Speech Vs Anti-Racism Rallies and My Response to Department of Justice The third was a protest outside the Custom House against the Government's Covid restrictions. (As it was a different topic I wondered on Twitter if Antifa would attack but they did!) 

Brenda Power had an excellent article in the Sunday Times recently concerning a different demonstration outside Dail Eireann on 10 October where the Antifa attackers seem to have been even more aggressive than anything I had experienced. (I learned about it very late and decided not to go - if I had known what was going to transpire, I would certainly have gone along to show my support). It seems that political violence is becoming a feature of Irish life, it is getting worse with time, is coming almost exclusively from the Left but THAT fact is being played down by the Irish media  that prefers to talk about clashes between groups - as if both are equally to blame!

Most of Brenda Power's article is behind a paywall. I have used my two free articles a month privilege to reproduce her article dated 18 October 2020. 



Antifa counter-demonstrators (left) attack demonstrators outside Dail Eireann


Brenda Power: Left-Wing Activism Flies Under the Extremism Radar

The Sunday Times October 18 2020 by Brenda Power

A group of people opposed to lockdown, in the belief that the Covid-19 threat is exaggerated, organised a protest last weekend to air their views outside Leinster House. As they stood peaceably at the gates, they were set upon by a violent group of masked hooligans. Footage from the event shows this mob aggressively confronting gardai as officers attempt to protect the 150 or so people behind the riot barriers.

The original crowd of protesters was not belligerent, was not physically threatening anyone and, because they don’t believe in the things, for the most part the campaigners’ identities were not conveniently concealed behind face masks. And with a gathering smaller than you’d find around a decent Hozier tribute act on Grafton Street, they didn’t pose any immediate threat to the stability or security of the state. They were just a bunch of people, in a country that constitutionally guarantees free speech, trying to express an unpopular opinion. The other crowd was a gang of sinister thugs trying to beat them up.

At least, so it might appear to a disinterested observer, perhaps a news reporter: peaceable group versus violent thugs. No problem figuring out the bad guys in that equation, right? Well, wrong, actually — at least not from the perspective favoured by the majority of the liberal Irish media. Because the peaceable protesters, led by the National Party, have been filed under the all-purpose heading “far right” and so, as far as the prevailing narrative has it, they are always, always going to be the ones in the wrong.

Even when they’re being physically attacked for expressing their views. Even when a Dublin hotel is forced, as in 2016, to cancel the National Party launch because of “public safety fears”. Even when it is clear that the only danger to public safety, then and last Saturday week, came from the people assailing them. But because this shower style themselves “left wing”, then they are always, always going to be the good guys.

The centre of Ireland’s political gravity has moved steadily to the left over the past 20 years. We have a “socialist” president who, up to recently, was also a landlord. President Michael D Higgins once lauded the murderous tyrant Fidel Castro as “a giant among global leaders”. The media is dominated by socialists with typewriters who are acutely attuned to the dog whistles of the right but entirely deaf to the growing rumble of left-leaning menace.

The violence at that Dail fracas came almost entirely from the self-styled protectors of liberty, equality and harmony on the militant far left, but most such clashes illustrate an obvious flaw in the left-versus-right model. It is not a straight line from the good guys on the far left to the bad guys on the far right, but rather a tight horseshoe, with the two extremes separated only by the width of a riot shield.

When The Irish Times dared to publish a glossary of far-right terms a few years ago, the most vocal liberals lost their reason. The very people who had paraded under the Je Suis Charlie banner after the Charlie Hebdo massacre, defending the French newspaper’s right to insult Muslims in vile terms as an exercise in free speech, were having none of that free speech lark when it came to their own cherished views. Their pious excuse was that they were fighting against “fascism” — mostly just people with different opinions — and that’s the same justification employed by those thugs outside the Dail, who will defend to the death, literally if necessary, your right to agree with them. Better dead than, er, not red.

You’ll find lots of definitions of fascism online but, as Lewis Carroll’s Humpty Dumpty observed, words can mean what you want them to mean. Yet most agree that, in essence, fascism is characterised by dictatorial power, the strong regimentation of society, and the forcible suppression of opposition: you know, being compelled to hold exactly the same views, which some unelected cabal has decreed are the correct ones, with dissenting opinion being punished by threats to your job, your reputation, your personal freedom, even your physical safety.

If you’re of the liberal left, that’s a hypothetical scenario which must be averted at all costs. If you’re right wing, it’s basically Twitter.


NPHET’s Death Toll in Doubt, But Debate is Off Limits

On June 16, NPHET [National Public Health Emergency Team]  announced that the national death toll from Covid-19 over the previous three months had reached 1,709. Yet on July 3, HIQA [Health Information and Quality Authority] released a statement questioning this figure. In the previous three months, HIQA calculated, there were about 1,200 deaths more than usual, and therefore 500 supposed Covid fatalities were not directly due to the virus.

The explanation was that the reported number of Covid deaths “may have included people who were infected with coronavirus but whose deaths may have been predominantly due to other causes”. NPHET has not revised its figures; the current death toll is predicated on that June figure being correct, despite HIQA saying it was not.

Last week a full-page advertisement addressed “to our leaders” appeared in The Irish Times. Citing “facts from Irish government websites”, it questioned the lockdown model, and linked to the recent Great Barrington declaration by leading epidemiologists which denounced the approach.

The ad also claimed that younger folk had a greater chance of being killed by a car than by Covid-19, and yet we may still drive. It said the median age of death from the virus was still 18 months greater than our average life expectancy, and pointed out that the Covid statistics included those who died with, rather than of, the virus. That was exactly as HIQA said in July. Yet the mere publication of these claims was then decried as irresponsible.

We cannot, it seems, even debate this subject.

brenda.power@sunday-times.ie

We Have a Decadent Ruling Class That Won't Stand against Terrorism (or Sinn Fein)

The author of our new proposed Hate Speech Law is former Minister for Justice and Equality Charlie Flanagan - the guy who used Parliamentary Privilege to libel Sister of Mercy Nora Wall - see my article Justice Minister Charlie Flanagan, George Hook and Nora Wall [1] During his Dail speech, Charlie also denounced Kevin Myers - the only journalist who defended Nora when she was convicted of rape - and he did so because Myers had defended Nora. Our journalists barely reported Charlie's libel at the time. They were aware that it was false and that Nora had successfully sued the Sunday World for libel in 2002!

Kevin Myers -  a strong supporter of Israel - was subsequently libelled as an anti-Semite (!) by our Prime Minister, Leo Varadkar, his then Deputy Frances Fitzgerald and a former Deputy PM Joan Burton. See my article Kevin Myers and the Age of de Valera and McQuaid. It's pleasant to note that Frances Fitzgerald - who was also a former Minister for Justice - was forced to resign as Deputy PM in an "unrelated"  bogus scandal (but it was related to the athmosphere of hysteria she had helped to foster). However Leo survived unscathed. Even when the Jewish Representative Council of Ireland said the allegation against Myers was false, no journalist asked our Prime Minister if he would apologise.

Before  Francis Fitzgerald was Minister for Justice and Equality, the role was held by Alan Shatter. - a man who plays a prominent role in my article Blood Libel in Ireland - directed against Catholics not Jews In 2009 Shatter demanded - and got - a year long Garda (police) inquiry into claims that the Catholic Church had been involved in the unsolved murder of a young girl Bernadette Connolly in 1970 - nearly 40 years before. A few months after the Gardai reported there was no evidence of any Catholic collusion. the Government fell and Shatter was promoted to the ;post of Minister for Justice and Equality. No journalist questioned his fitness for the role - just as they raised no objection to Charlie Flanagan's promotion to the same role in 2017.

As per Wikipedia "On 7 May 2014, Shatter resigned as Minister for Justice and Equality and as Minister for Defence following receipt by the Taoiseach, Enda Kenny, of the report of Seán Guerin into allegations made by Garda Sergeant Maurice McCabe." It was a bogus scandal and a subsequent inquiry established that Shatter had done nothing wrong - nor had Fitzgerald Fitzgerald also forced to resign in 2017 - but both were victims of the athmosphere of public hysteria they had conspired to create!

I have an article dated January 2018 The Maurice McCabe Affair - Six Top Level Resignations To Date (and More to Come?)  that relates inter alia, to Alan Shatter, Frances Fitzgerald and Charlie Flanagan. There were media calls for the latter to resign also in relation to the Maurice McCabe Affair. He was likely saved by the fact that both his predecessors had been forced out of office and the appetites of our brave investigative journalists were sated! However my prediction of "More to Come" has been fulfilled by the recent forced resignation of Ireland's EU Commissioner for Trade, Phil Hogan - a man who also used Parliamentary Privilege to libel Nora Wall! Phil Hogan was forced out in the preposterous Golfgate Scandal - another legacy of the public hysteria he and has fellow politicians had thought useful as long as it could be directed against the Catholic Church!

The Decadence of Archbishop Diarmuid

Catholic Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin had something to say on this topic and naturally he condemned the victims of the assault! There was an article in the Irish Examiner on Friday 16 October (by Cormac O'Keefe) that should be compared to the above-mentioned article by Brenda Power on the following Sunday Diarmuid Martin Warns Anti-Mask Protestors are 'Dangerous Influence' on Young People and I quote:
Catholic archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin has warned that organisers of ‘anti-mask’ protests could be a dangerous influence on young people by denying the Covid-19 pandemic. He said some of the people who have taken part in anti-mask rallies are the same groups that attempted to “overturn” his car when he attended an Islamic gathering in Croke Park. This is thought to refer to an historic prayer service on the pitch to mark the holy festival of Eid al-Adha, which he attended last July.

Speaking on Newstalk’s Pat Kenny show, Dr Martin said the people who set up anti-mask rallies are very organised and he is worried they might have an influence on young people. He noted that elsewhere in Europe young people are being influenced by neo-Nazis. 

A number of 'anti-mask' protests have taken place in Dublin the most recent on October 3 seeing several hundred demonstrators packed onto Grafton Street and staging a sit down. This was followed a week later by a so-called "End the Lockdown" rally outside the Dáil, which was organised by the far-right National Party and saw clashes with counter-protestors. [My emphasis]
Compare this to Brenda Power's  "As they stood peaceably at the gates, they were set upon by a violent group of masked hooligans..... They were just a bunch of people, in a country that constitutionally guarantees free speech, trying to express an unpopular opinion. The other crowd was a gang of sinister thugs trying to beat them up." 

But the Catholic Archbishop of Dublin will only condemn those attacked by the gang of sinister thugs!

Sinn Fein and Antifa

Since Ireland's three main political parties are in coalition now, Sinn Fein are the main opposition and are likely to come to power in Ireland's next general election. I referred above to the Free Speech Vs Anti-Racism Rallies last December where those of us who opposed Charlie Flanagan's Hate Speech proposals were attacked by Antifa. The attackers were held back by the Gardai (police) and by their own stewards. I have little interest in politics myself but I was told the stewards were from Sinn Fein. But what will happen when Sinn Fein are in power? Will they appoint a new Garda Commissioner and instruct him not to intervene in those circumstances? Will they continue to restrain the street fighting thugs - OR use them as their own enforcers of political orthodoxy? 

One thing is clear. Politicians like Charlie Flanagan and Leo Varadkar have gutted their integrity - much more so than democratic politicians in the Weimar Republic whom historians see as mediocrities rather than morally corrupt. Weimar "decadence" was more in evidence among the intelligentsia than the political class. It's certainly evident among Irish intellectuals who express no objection to bogus allegations of child rape and murder being directed at Catholic clergy. However our political class are similarly decadent and equally incapable of standing up to the barbarians at the gates! 

[See also article Justice Ministers Kevin O'Higgins to Charlie Flanagan: from Decency to Decadence"    Not all my predictions came true but I think the essence still applies - including politicians who are prepared to betray senior civil servants in order to save their own skins.]

Thursday, January 4, 2018

The Maurice McCabe Affair - Six Top Level Resignations To Date (and More to Come?)

Alan Shatter - Resigned May 2014
Frances Fitzgerald - Resigned Nov. 2017


To date the saga of whistleblower Sergeant Maurice McCabe has resulted in the forced resignations of  six prominent individuals and has had a negative effect on the careers of  two successive Irish Prime Ministers - and on the current Minster for Justice Charlie Flanagan (whose two predecessors, pictured above, had to fall on their swords in disgrace). Meanwhile Sergeant McCabe has gone from success to success - "he who must not be criticised" - even though the O'Higgins Commission was less than supportive of his claim that five senior Gardai, ranging from his immediate superior to the Garda Commissioner, were corrupt.
   .
"It's a bit Irish" our former colonial masters used to say about some especially farcical situation. However they are in no position to laugh now. In recent years in the UK, two major investigations  - Operations Midland (London Metropolitan Police) and Conifer (Wiltshire Police) - were carried out into allegations of paedophilia, homicide and Satanic Ritual Abuse leveled at former Tory Prime Minister Ted Heath who died in 2005 i.e. a decade before the investigations began. In Ireland we still have some way to go  before we plumb those depths of insanity - but we are getting there!

To summarise the Irish saga, the casualties to date include: 

  • Two successive Ministers for Justice - Alan Shatter and Frances Fitzgerald.
  • Two successive Secretary-Generals of the Department of Justice - Brian Purcell and Noel Waters.
  • Two successive Garda (Police) Commissioners - Martin Callinan and Noirin O'Sullivan.
Moreover the affair contributed to the controversies surrounding the retirement of  former Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Enda Kenny in June 2017, while his successor Leo Varadkar has been weakened by the resignation of deputy PM Frances Fitzgerald.

[ I have photos only of Shatter and Fitzgerald above. Both may well be  innocent in the present case, but they previously whipped up the media mob against their own "reactionary" enemies. (See links on their names). Now they have fallen victim not to the "reactionaries", but to their former media friends who have turned Nihilist, and now hate everyone in power! ]

The most dangerous and long-lasting consequence of this fake scandal is likely to be on the morale of An Garda Siochana (Irish police). However the immediate consequence will be the difficulty in getting a credible candidate to take on the post of Secretary- General of the Department of Justice. Noel Waters reluctantly took over from Brian Purcell in 2014 as Acting Secretary General on the understanding that he would pass on the poisoned chalice to a newly appointed SG after a few weeks. However no credible candidate applied for the job and Noel Waters was appointed on a permanent basis in October 2016. Now he has gone too!


Enough of shameful tokenism, dismantling 'Independent Republic' must be next step

The above is the headline over an article in the Irish Independent on 29 November 2017 by Ivan Yates, a businessman and broadcaster who is also a former Fine Gael politician who was once a Minister (of Agriculture). The 'Independent Republic' he refers to is the Department of Justice and his article demonstrates the danger to the institutions of the State posed by people who treat a whistleblower with uncritical adulation. ("Shameful tokenism" is supposed to describe the multiple resignations and general hysteria to date.) Yates also provides a useful summary of how this scandal developed:

The entire tenure of Frances Fitzgerald as justice minister covered May 8, 2014 to June 14, 2017.To ascertain the first she knew of Garda management's campaign of retaliation against Sergeant Maurice McCabe was in June 2016, could never be sustained. .....Appointing and constantly defending Noirin O'Sullivan as Garda commissioner and Noel Waters as secretary general at Justice meant she favoured and protected the status quo rather than seeking radical reform. 

The first wave of the toxic fallout for the failed McCabe character assasination ended the careers of former justice minister Alan Shatter, Garda commissioner Martin Callinan and secretary general of the Department of Justice Brian Purcell. The second wave toppled Taoisceach Enda Kenny, Ms O Sullivan, Mr. Waters and Ms. Fitzgerald. But more need to go. Management structures at An Garda Siochana in the Phoenix Park and Department of Justice in St. Stephens Green need to be deconstructed. ........

The 'Independent Republic' of the Department of Justice needs to be dismantled. It hasn't so much regulated the Department of Justice as acted as its downtown office. It has used the cloak of 'state security' to operate a secretive culture unanswerable to the elected government. It is dysfunctionable in passing communications to ministers in time, proving this week that it always covers its own backside. 

Justice Minister Charlie Flanagan risks becoming its latest victim by failing to assert his ministerial authority.......

It's a nihilistic view and unsurprisingly Ivan Yates praises the media and TDs Mick Wallace and Clare Daly for voicing  the same criticisms over the years. I see that Yates gave an interview to Eolas magazine recently in which he gave this interesting overview of his career to date:
http://www.eolasmagazine.ie/live-and-let-live-ivan-yates/
“It’s funny,” laughs Yates. “When I went into politics a lot of Protestants said: ‘Tut Tut, politics is the lowest form of animal life and you shouldn’t be doing it.’ And when I was getting out of politics into bookmaking the politicians said: ‘What are you doing? Bookmaking is the lowest form of animal life!’ So I kept going down-hill and ending up in the media is the gutter altogether.”

Well that's honest anyway - and accurate as well!


Garda Controversies:The Personnel and Casualties to Date

 Maurice McCabe: Actually more an instigator than a casualty. Whistleblower Sergeant Maurice McCabe began raising his questions about alleged garda malpractise more than a decade ago. The ongoing Disclosures Tribunal chaired by Mr. Justice Peter Charleton is investigating if he was subjected to a "smear campaign" by the gardai he was accusing of corruption. (Does this "campaign" amount to anything more than gardai defending themselves against allegations that the O'Higgins Commission found were false?)

Martin Callinan: The former Garda commissioner resigned in March 2014 with the force embroiled in two controversies - namely the whistleblower issue and concern over the practise of recording phone calls at Garda stations. (Giving evidence before the Public Accounts Committee in January 2014, Martin Callinan had described the actions of  two Garda whistleblowers John Wilson and Maurice McCabe as "disgusting".)

Alan Shatter: The ex-Fine Gael TD quit as Justice Minister in May 2014 after his handling of the whistleblower claims was challanged in the Guerin report. The O'Higgins Commission subsequently found that Mr Shatter had handled the concerns appropriately. The Report of the Commission was published in May 2016 - but Shatter had also lost his Dail seat in the General Election of February 2016.

Brian Purcell: Former Department of Justice Secretary General Brian Purcell stood aside in July 2014 after then Justice minister Frances Fitzgerald published theToland Report on the Department, which identified a "closed, secretive and silo-driven culture" there. 

Enda Kenny: Mr Kenny's departure as Taoiseach (Prime Minister) in June 2017 is said to have been  accelerated over his handling of revelations the previous February, that false allegations of child abuse were made against Sergeant Maurice McCabe. (A gross blunder by a social worker had led her to cut and paste details from a diferent case, onto a file dealing with Sergeant McCabe!) 

Noirin O'Sullivan: Ms. O'Sullivan quit as Garda commissioner in September 2017. She said that the "unending cycle" of investigations and inquiries into Garda controversies was making it difficult to "implement the  deep ... reform necessary to modernise" the Garda. She was the second garda commissioner to resign over the Maurice McCabe affair.

Noel Waters: Mr.Waters served as acting secretary general of Department of Justice after Mr. Purcell's departure. He was appointed on a permanent basis in October 2016. He had planned to retire in February 2018 but instead resigned on 28 November 2017 while issuing a statement that those working in Justice had been "subjected to a barrage of unwarranted criticism". He was the second Secretary general of Justice to resign over the McCabe affair.

Frances Fitzgerald: Frances Fitzgerald resigned as Tanaiste (Deputy Prime Minister) and Minister for Business, Enterprise and Innovation on 28 November 2017. She had been Minister for Justice until June 2017 and thus became the second former Minister for Justice to resign over the whistleblower "scandal". 

Fitzgerald was a close ally of Taoiseach Leo Varadkar but Fianna Fail had threatened to withdraw from their co-operation agreement with the Government and thus cause an election, if Fitzgerald did not resign. Varadkar is therefore the second Taoiseach to be adversely  affected by this "scandal" based on the allegations of Sergeant McCabe.

Charlie Flanagan: Charlie Flanagan is our current Minister for Justice. As indicated in previous posts and especially this one, he survives because he is prepared to throw his own civil servants under the bus in order to save himself. To do him justice (no pun intended), the almost simultaneous resignations of  Noel Waters and Frances Fitzgerald also took pressure off him and served to sate the media witch-hunters. For the time being, no one wants to force a third Minister for Justice to fall on his sword!


Conclusion:


It is notable that all of the politicians who have been adversely affected by this fake "scandal" have themselves  slandered other people or joined in media witch-hunts against their ideological opponents. 

Alan Shatter: In 2009 Shatter demanded - and got - a high level Garda investigation into allegations that the Catholic Church had been involved in the unsolved murder of  a 10 year old girl Bernadette Connolly, four decades previously in 1970. A year later he was told by the then Minister for Justice Dermot Ahern (Fianna Fail) that no evidence of such collusion had been found. A few months after that, Fianna Fail were out of power and in March 2011, Shatter himself became Minister for Justice in the new Fine Gael government. There was not a word from him subsequently about Bernadette Connolly, so we can assume that he did not suspect that Fianna Fail had colluded with the Gardai investigators to protect the Church! However Shatter further aggravated an existing climate of public hysteria - and fell victim to it himself three years later.  

Enda Kenny. On 20 July 2011 the then Taoiseach Enda Kenny condemned the Vatican for its allege role in a "scandal" relating to the Dioces of Cloyne in Co. Cork.  He stated that the Church's alleged role in obstructing the Cloyne investigation into child abuse was a serious infringement upon the sovereignty of Ireland and that the scandal revealed "the dysfunction, disconnection and elitism that dominates the culture of the Vatican to this day" He added that "the historic relationship between church and state in Ireland could not be the same again".

On 3 September 2011, the Holy See issued its response to Mr Kenny's speech noting that "the accusation that the Holy See attempted to frustrate an Inquiry in a sovereign, democratic republic as little as three years ago, not three decades ago", which Mr Kenny made no attempt to substantiate, is unfounded. Indeed, when asked, a Government spokesperson clarified that Mr. Kenny was not referring to any specific incident. [My emphasis].  The response added that "Those Reports [...] contain no evidence to suggest that the Holy See meddled in the internal affairs of the Irish State or, for that matter, was involved in the day-to-day management of Irish dioceses or religious congregations with respect to sexual abuse issues."

[NOTE: The reckless invocation of a non-existent grievance is a feature of  anti-clericalism in Ireland and I have written about an extreme example here. Our anti-clerics know that they will not be required to justify their allegations, so they feel free to make absurd claims!]

Leo Varadkar and Frances Fitzgerald supported the witch-hunt against journalist Kevin Myers in July/August 2017. Leo Varadkar claimed that the article written by Myers  "is misogynistic and anti-Semitic" and approved of the Sunday Times action in firing him. Frances Fitzgerald added that "there’s an onus on everyone, including the media obviously, to make sure that articles like that do not appear". Few journalists objected to our Prime Minister and Deputy PM endorsing political censorship nor did they pose any awkward questions to our great leaders when the Jewish Representative Council of Ireland declared that Kevin Myers is not an anti-Semite. However Varadkar and Fitzgerald's endorsement of the witch-hunt against Myers did not do them any good later when they themselves were targeted by the same media wolves!

Our current Minister for Justice Charlie Flanagan was just an ordinary TD (Member of Parliament) in July 2009 when he made an obscene allegation against Nora Wall (formally Sister Dominic of the Sisters of Mercy). The allegation - that she had supplied children to paedophile priests - was one for which she had received an apology and damages from the Sunday World in 2002. Deputy Flanagan of course knew that he could not be sued for anything he said in the Dail (Parliament). I quote from his speech:
"There is more to this than meets the eye in respect of these social events. It has been suggested that there were frequent visits to the Cappoquin home by some clergy from Mount Melleray Abbey. Access to children may have been a key motivation for these visits. One must bear in mind that Mount Melleray was selected by the notorious paedophile, Fr. Brendan Smith, as a holiday destination or as a haven to which to escape when he was on the run from the authorities in Northern Ireland. This issue must be revisited" [My emphasis]

"This issue must be revisited". Like Alan Shatter before him, Charlie Flanagan is now Justice Minister. Has he revisited the issue? If he has failed to do so - as Shatter failed to follow up on his allegations regarding the murder of Bernadette Connolly - why has this happened? Does the Catholic Church still exercise secret power in Department of Justice?   Are senior civil servants members of Opus Dei or the Knights of Columbanus?  I think that Minister Flanagan has a duty to enlighten us!

NOTE dated 11 January 2018
In addition to slandering Nora Wall (and the Cistercian monks of Mount Melleray) in 2009, I had forgotten that  Charlie Flanagan also defamed a senior civil servant in the  Department of Health. This man had carried out an inspection of the Sister of Mercy children's home in Cappoquin which was managed by Nora Wall and given it a favourable report. In the insane  imaginings of the then Fine Gael Spokesman for Justice (now Minister), that meant the official must have been complicit in child abuse and a member of a Paedophile Ring! See my Comment below dated 10 January.

Charlie Flanagan is now trying to save his political skin by throwing his own civil servants under the bus in relation to the Maurice McCabe "scandal". Clearly this is NOT the first time he targeted civil servants in relation to an invented and hysterical "scandal".