Michael McDowell is Quickly Trying To Consolidate A Shitload Of Power

by history Fri Jun 24, 2005 16:37

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by mmmmm Fri Jun 24, 2005 16:47

Anyone want to transcribe what the ff td mentioned said on VB last night? Beat gavin to it?

http://www.irishcorruption.com/?p=33

by redjade Fri Jun 24, 2005 16:49

USA Big Bro Reaches Into EU
http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=70389

Data is global and so power is globalised.
In whose pocket is Mikey McD?

Is he still investigating those 'Renditions' through Shannon?
http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=67865

Or are his boys just pretending to be Guardians of the Peace?
http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=69381

by eeekkkk Sun Jun 26, 2005 21:01

Note the combinations


ADVERTISEMENT

JANE SUITER

JUST days after finally landing Professor Brendan Drumm to run the Health Service Executive, the Tanaiste, Mary Harney has suffered the blow of losing one of her right-hand men.

Ms Harney's communications adviser, and Head of Government Information Services, Iarla Mongey has handed in his resignation and is set to depart to the private sector at the end of July.

Following in the footsteps of many Government advisers, he is to become the client public affairs director at Drury Communications, one of the country's largest PR firms. Fintan Drury, who owns the PR firm, and who is also head of Paddy Power Bookmakers, will this week be appointed chairman of the RTE Authority, the Sunday Independent can also reveal.

It was recently disclosed that Mr Mongey, 39, a native of Castlebar, Co Mayo was on a salary of €96,192 a year. Ms Harney, the Minister for Health, recently appointed a Press Director in her Department, Derek Cunningham, who is on a salary of €105,000.

Mr Mongey was thought to have been surprised that Mr Cunningham, a former Irish Farmers' Association press officer, had managed to negotiate a better package. His package is also well below some of the Tanaiste's other top aides. For example, Katherine Bulbulia, Ms Harney's Programme Manager takes homes €134,948, while John O'Brien, her special adviser on economics, is on €127,808.

The Tanaiste will now have to launch into a new recruitment process just as it looked as if some of her worst problems - the nursing homes issue and A&E waiting lists - may be behind her.

The loss of her top adviser, a former radio journalist, follows on from her near loss of Professor Brendan Drumm when the HSE initially refused to allow him to return to clinical practice after completing his term. The Tanaiste initially warned that she did not have a "bottomless pit" but later the HSE negotiated a contract with Professor Drumm who is expected to transform the health service.

The loss of a senior adviser just days after the near debacle will come as a blow to the Tanaiste. Mr Mongey took up the job in January 2001. He will now be expected to put his contacts to good use. His main job will be to "improve the relations between business and the Government at the broadest level," according to Billy Murphy of Drury who headhunted him.

by eeekkkkk via www.irishcorruption.com Tue Jun 28, 2005 01:18

Last Thursday, June 23rd, there was a discussion on the Vincent Browne show on RTE Radio 1. The panel included various politicians, including Mae Sexton, PD TD for Longford/Roscommon.

The debate in question centered on the death of Brian Rossiter in Garda custody in Clonmel in 2002. I have transribed a portion of the debate, but the audio will be available on archive at the RTE website.

I have highlighted some curious remarks by Mae Sexton.


VB: Mae Sexton, how could we be in a situation like this after all that has come out about the Gardai. How could the Minister for Justice behave like this yet again?

MS: Well I suppose, could I first of all say that it is regrettable that anyone would die in Garda custody. Can I just ask this question by the way for clarity. Is this the young boy whose parents decided to leave him in the station over night to teach him a lesson?

VB: His father did yeah. By the way it was illegal to have him remained, to have him retained in the station, but anyway..

MS: Yeah but I mean first and foremost, as I say, it’s regrettable that any child, at the end of the day it’s a child

VB: We all know that, and when somebody starts off…

MS: Ah no no

VB: …some blather…diversionary blather..

MS: Not it’s not, it’s not. In defference to the family because they’ve lost a child.

VB: We know, everyone knows that…

MS: Just want to say….secondly, certainly if my 14 year old was arrested there’s absoultely no way, Vincent, that I would allow him to remain in a Garda station, no matter what he had done. Like he’s still a child, and…

VB: Deal with the main points

MS: Thirdly, this young man appears to have been assaulted before he ever got to the Garda station. He had been on the streets for a number of nights, apparently, before it happened.

VB: He’d been playing around the streets beforehand…on the streets doesn’t mean that he was living rough or something. He wasn’t.

MS: Well he was on the streets anyway and he was obviously being watched by the Gardai, because…I am only sayingthat this is my comprehension of what I’ve read, eh, about the case. And, so, I have to ask the question, y’know, why was he brought in and left there by his parents who should have been there…

VB: His father…

MS: Somebody should have been there…

VB: His father..

MS: Well his father but someone should have been there in loco parentis, that’s the first thing I’d say in this particular case.

VB: That’s the first thing you’d say? My god. Breathtaking.

MS: Having said that, I am trying to defend what you are saying in relation to the reports that appear to have been given by Michael McDowell or to Micheal McDowell from the Gardai. I imagine that the first report would have been pretty much the same as any other reports, you can’t get involved in a case that is being pursued by the Gardai until it’s finished. I understand that there was a civil case being pursued as well which would have excluded the Ministers involvement in it.

VB: No, no, no, no. What happened was that the fella who assaulted…and this too is a bit worrying, I would have thought. The fellow who assaulted him on the Sunday night was charged with manslaughter. So get in first and charge this fellow with manslaughter, fix the blame straight away. Now they’ve backed off that and they’re not going to charge him with manslaughter anymore they are just going to charge him with assault.

MS: I’ll just finish the point I’m making, that there would appear to be a whole load of people responsible for what has happened. I would absolutely agree with you though, and Vincent I grew up beside the Garda barracks in Longford and I have the height of respect for the Gardai. But I am also fully aware that there are groups, in the country, of Gardai, who are capable of doing things that they shouldn’t do but I would be concerned first of all to hear exactly what the assault that took place was, and the reports on that assault.

VB: Mae, Mae. The fact of the matter is that a boy, a 14 year old boy, died in Garda custody.

MS: Absolutely

VB: Wouldn’t you think that would necessitate an independent examination on it’s own?

MS: Well I, yes I would imagine that will happen now..

VB: It didn’t happen

MS: Well…

VB: It hasn’t happened since, just a minute, just a minute. And then when this evidence begins to mount that there’s reason to be greviously worried about what happened to a boy in Garda custody. Wouldn’t you think after all we know about the Gardai that the Minister for Justice woul day, would now have the sense to say, let alone the humanity, but the sense to say ‘My god we better make sure we are not caught on the wrong side on this one, let’s have some independent examination of this’.

The conversation then broadens, but comes back to VB versus MS:


VB: Mae Sexton’s first response was to fix blame on the father

MS: I absolutely believe that as a parent I have a responsibility…my 14 year old, anytime…and I make no apologies for that Vincent. Even though I am sorry for the father who didn’t….I still believe I would not leave my 14 year old in a Garda station. And I’ll tell you what, particularly when you talk about the McBrearty case and all that has gone on, who in their right mind would leave a 14 year old in the custody of Gardai?

VB: You go on about this as a diversionary tactic to avoid the responsibility of Michael McDowell.

MS: I’m not, I would welcome an investigation…absolutely

The above marked comment is very strange indeed. Mae Sexton is saying that no minor is safe to be held in any Garda station anywhere, and by implication I would assume that if a 14 year old boy is not safe, then neither is anyone. Bringing the McBrearty case into only deepens the hole she has already gotten herself in. The question she poses is correct, but she doesn’t seem to realise that it makes her look incredibly hypocritical. Who indeed would either leave a 14 year old in Garda custody, or indeed an 18 year old, or a 30 year old, or anybody for that matter?

…


MS: You have already said that the charges have been changed from what were orginally manslaughter charges to assault charges, I presume he is trying to find out if the assault happened prior to i mean there’s natural justice here Vincent and I still say I would not have left my 14 year old son in a Garda station

MS: (speaking over VB) to learn a lesson, Vincent come here listen, there is personal responsibilty on parents. You know there wouldn’t be any need for ASBOs and all the things that are needed if parents took responsibility for their children. Simple as that. Simple as that. And I fully accept that the Gardai are entitled to be defended, just because you find one group…

VB: (speaking over MS)It’s shocking, shocking, shocking that you fix responsibility on the father for this appalling thing, is really appalling, it really is, I am actually sorry I brought it up, I didn’t think there would be anybody as cynical as you are to blame the boys father in the circumstances. Sorry about this, let’s go to a break.

The above passage was a shouting match. Vincent became so angry he cut to a break.

by eeekkkkk Tue Jun 28, 2005 10:38

Big Brother Michael’s poster eyes are following you around the room
By Fergus Finlay
WINSTON SMITH sat in the bar, alone as always, the glass of gin in his hand. The smells were familiar to him, the smells of boiled cabbage and damp.
Even though they were unpleasant, there was something comforting about them, something that reminded him of home.
And on each wall of the bar there was the poster. It depicted simply an enormous face, more than a metre wide: the face of a man of about 54, with thinning blond hair, piercing eyes squinting narrowly through gold-rimmed glasses, and that vulpine smile he had known for years. The posters were everywhere - not just in the bar, but on every street corner, on every wall in every room in every public building, indeed in every building where people gathered.
Or even where they sat alone, as Winston did every night. The picture on the poster was always the same, one of those pictures so contrived that the eyes follow you about when you move. And the caption was always the same, too: BIG BROTHER MICHAEL IS WATCHING YOU, it said.





He knew it was true. Not literally, of course. Big Brother Michael didn’t have the time to watch everyone all the time. But his agents, known as the Garda Siochána, did. And he could demand the files. What files they were, full of the surveillance information that came from the universally-positioned microphones, the two-way telescreens, the detailed reports about thought crime. And of course, meticulous records about the ultimate crime, the refusal to accept the true value of newspeak, the language Big Brother Michael had invented all those years ago.
Winston had hated that language, had distrusted it. He had believed, back then, that the new language was intended to intimidate, to make it harder to debate ideas in public. Big Brother Michael’s claiming of the Republic, for instance, or his insistence that inequality was good for you. Or as Big Brother would put it, everyone is equal. But some are more equal than others. That was back then, of course. Winston had long ago learned, or perhaps more accurately been taught, that newspeak was the only true faith.
But still, he couldn’t help remembering. It had started back in 2005, the triumph of newspeak. Innocent enough it had seemed at the time, a simple piece of legislation aimed at modernising what was then the police force, before it had become Big Brother Michael’s garda. And the newspapers, who back in those days were free to say whatever they wanted (as long as it wasn’t too critical), had supported the legislation. Reform is urgent, they had said. You must do it now.
They hadn’t paid much attention to the fact that all the changes were put through at the last minute, many of them never debated at all because the authorities closed down the debate, because the deputies were forced to pass a motion that put all of Big Brother Michael’s amendments into law, even though many of them had never been debated or analysed at all. A motion with the effect of a guillotine rammed through: “That the amendments set down by the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform and not disposed of are hereby made to the bill, Fourth Stage is hereby completed and the bill is hereby passed.”
And in this way, all the amendments put down by the opposition (yes, Winston remembered, opposition was allowed back then) were wiped out, and Big Brother’s amendments were considered to have been passed into law, even the ones nobody had read.
What a clever ruse it had been, Winston thought. The press at the time had largely ignored the amendments and the changes brought in by stealth in this way. That was because the police were under tremendous pressure. There were rumours everywhere of corruption, of policemen concocting evidence to frame people for crimes they hadn’t committed.
nnocent people had been framed, and the demand for police reform grew, so there was no real tolerance for debate or discussion. Winston thought that some day, when the history of Big Brother’s reign was written, this would be seen as the moment it had all started. Those amendments, ignored by the people, had become the buttress of his awesome power.
First of all, the arbitrary power to sack a policemen had made all the police afraid. Up to 2005, sacking a policeman was immensely difficult, and everyone agreed that was not a good thing. But after 2005 the head of the police, who reported directly to Big Brother, held their job security in the palm of his hand.
THEN there was the awesome power given to the head of the garda to install closed-circuit TV cameras anywhere he wanted to, for the “sole or primary purpose,” as the law said, “of securing public order and safety in public places by facilitating the deterrence, prevention, detection and prosecution of offences.”
You simply never knew when anything you did was being watched and monitored in those control rooms built by Big Brother under the so-called “decentralisation programme.” But the defining power, the one that made everything possible, was the one known as “the duty to account.” Under this provision, another one of those never debated but passed into law anyway, the head of the garda was made legally accountable to “the Minister and the Government” through the head of the Justice Department (that’s what it was called back then, before Big Brother changed its name to the Crimes against the State Office).
Legal accountability sounded innocent enough, Winston remembered. But it included the duty to hand over any document in the Garda’s possession, any file, any collection of information or pictures. And it also included a legal obligation to keep the minister, as Big Brother was known in those days, fully informed of any development that might affect the security of the state, including, “whenever required by the minister,” a requirement that the head of the garda would hand over a report on “any matters connected with the policing or security of the State”.
Yes, they were innocent days, back in June 2005. Winston and others had warned of the dangers. He, and some of his friends, had complained, perhaps too much, about the potential for abuse in these hidden powers, about the danger that is always present when too much power is concentrated in too few hands.
But no one listened. And Big Brother’s power grew on a daily basis. Soon, it was Winston’s turn to be re-educated. He shuddered every time he thought of the dark rooms to which he had been taken, and the things he had endured there. But the re-education had been complete.
Winston gazed up at the face on the enormous poster. Many years it had taken him to learn what kind of smile was hidden beneath that thinning hairline, those close-set eyes. But the realisation had dawned. Winston didn’t matter. No one else did either. Big Brother Michael was the boss now.
(With apologies to George Orwell).

by beeepppp Mon Jul 18, 2005 11:05

18/07/05

Conditions in prisons are being covered up, says Kinlen
By Jimmy Woulfe and Niamh Hennessy
THE Inspector of Prisons has accused the Department of Justice of trying to cover up unacceptable conditions in jails.
Retired High Court judge, Mr Justice Dermot Kinlen, said: “What we need in this day and age is openness, transparency, accountancy and efficiency. The department want to attack the messenger rather than deal with his message.”
The department, he said, was obsessed with power, control and secrecy.
He accused it of trying to cover up conditions in prisons with a new rule which means the inspector can only visit a jail at hours which are deemed reasonable.
On one late-night visit to Mountjoy, he found prisoners being held in appalling conditions, some sleeping in their own vomit.




“What is a reasonable hour?” Mr Justice Kinlen asked. “I found prisoners in these conditions at 10pm.”
He stressed he was prepared to risk his own personal finances if exposing jail conditions led to him being sued in the courts.
By contrast, the department had edited out sections of previous annual reports by Mr Justice Kinlen.
“They say they did this because the minister does not want to be sued. I don’t mind being sued, and if I am sued, I have only my own assets.
“But for the sake of the independence of my office, I am prepared to risk my own assets, while the Minister for Justice has the assets of the Minister for Finance to fall back on.”
He again called on the Government to make the prisons inspector a statutory position which would enable him to report directly to the Oireachtas and not the Minister for Justice.
He said he would be repeating this demand in his fourth annual report which he is working on.
“I won’t throw in the towel.
“I feel this is a useful job which should have been done years ago and I do not want to be restricted by sanctions of the minister and his department, but tell people what is going on in our prisons.”
He said there were rotten apples among prison officers as in every walk of life.
“But,” he said, “the bulk of them are first-class and many of them have developed a sense of vocation in their work.”
Neither the department nor the Prison Officers’ Association would comment on the matter.

by eeekkkk Fri Dec 23, 2005 16:00

IrishTimes 23 dec 2005 - reprinted in full because of obvious relevance to this site

The conflict between the Minister for Justice and Frank Connolly touches on fundamental issues relating to freedom of the press, writes Carol Coulter, Legal Affairs Correspondent

The controversy concerning the actions of the Minister for Justice against Frank Connolly in his capacity as director of the Centre for Public Inquiry (CPI) has died down, and will probably fade away over the holiday period. But it leaves behind a number of precedents that could return to haunt the Minister, the wider political world and the media.

While many of Michael McDowell's statements had the appearance of retrospective justifications for hasty action, they nonetheless set a legal and constitutional framework for ministerial action that merited wider comment.

In his statement to the Dáil on December 13th, Mr McDowell quoted Article 40.6.1 of the Constitution, dealing with freedom of expression, which states: "The State shall endeavour to ensure that organs of public opinion, such as the radio, the press, the cinema, while preserving their rightful liberty of expression, including criticism of Government policy, shall not be used to undermine public order or morality or the authority of the State."

He continued: "Undoubtedly, the Centre for Public Inquiry aspires to be an organ of public opinion, but equally it is one which has, in subversive hands, the capacity to gravely undermine the authority of the State."

This, he said, was the reason why he was bound in duty to bring to public attention the role in that body of a person who, according to the Minister, participated in a series of visits to Colombia designed to exchange know-how in terrorism for money "apparently to be spent on distorting our democratic process". This justified the handing over of documents from a Garda file to the Irish Independent, and his earlier statement in the Dáil.

Mr McDowell did not explain how the CPI could, "in subversive hands", be a threat to the authority of the State.

Even if its board exercised no supervisory role over its allegedly subversive director, the centre would be subject to the same defamation laws as any other body, and could not publish material on any organisation or person in public life that was defamatory or untrue, without facing severe sanction.

While it was not referred to in the statement, presumably the possibility that the CPI might "gravely undermine the authority of the State" was the reason why Mr McDowell also sought to interfere in the running of the centre, by persuading its funder, Chuck Feeney, to either get rid of Mr Connolly or withdraw its funding.

This statement differs from the statement made by the Minister the previous weekend, when he referred only to a threat to "the security of the State". This is cited in the Official Secrets Act as the justification for making official documents, such as Garda files, public.

The shift in emphasis in this controversy to defending "the authority of the State" has been followed up by other Ministers, including Mary Harney and Willie O'Dea. On RTÉ's Questions & Answers programme Mr O'Dea claimed, wrongly, that Article 40.6.1 required the Minister to act to defend "the authority of the State".

This Article of the Constitution has, in the past, been widely criticised as overly restrictive of the right of freedom of expression. The Constitution Review Group described the constitutional protection for free speech as "weak and heavily circumscribed", and said that it should not be subject to "public order and morality and the authority of the State". It suggested it should be replaced by a new provision modelled on Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

Up to now, Ministers have not interfered in freedom of expression without legislative authority. Censorship of publications and films for obscene material, the prohibition of certain publications under the Offences Against the State Act, and the ban on broadcasting interviews with members of Sinn Féin, were all carried out under specific legislation, spelling out the need for the restrictions.

Last week, however, a Minister stated he was interfering with an "organ of public opinion" because he personally held the opinion it was a "threat to the authority of the State".

No legislation was proposed, no opportunity was presented for a debate on what constituted a "threat to the authority of the State".

Other Ministers have supported this new interpretation of the Constitution, making the defence of the authority of the State a matter of ministerial opinion.

What is now to stop any organisation, be it a media or a campaigning body, which brings to public attention material that is embarrassing for the Government or individual Ministers, being described as a "threat to the authority of the State" and restricted accordingly?

by Barry Fri Dec 23, 2005 17:16

The references are continually to "the state" rather than the Irish people as a whole . "The state" ,and not the people is more important , because the state controls the people , and the Irish people must be controlled .

The interests of the Irish state are uppermost and never the interests of the Irish people , because the state does not serve the interests of the Irish people . Never has and was never supposed to . Merely to control them . The state serves only the interests of those who created it in the first place , the power elites , namely capitalists and British interests . The William Martin Murphys and the faceless spooks who effectively run the entire country north and south . A threat to either automatically becomes a threat to the state .

Its highly doubtful any amount of tinkering will ever change this fundamentally flawed arrangement . A state that serves the interests of all the Irish people is whats needed , not a few toothless watchdogs . But the mechanisms by which the state is run ensure that wont happen . So if we want a country run in our own interests it will be necessary to replace the failed states ., the states that simply fail to serve our interests .

Irish democracy at its fullest expression is anathema to the likes of McDowell , hence his persistent attempts to limit its expression along with freedom of speech . He does this with the full backing of that cunning little bastard Ahern and the rest .

Therefore Irish democracy at its maximum expression should be what revolutionaries , republicans and socialists insist upon at all times . Limiting democracy is denying it .Those who try to silence speech and limit democracy ( deny it) on this island are simply oppressors who should be gotten rid of by necessity . Its simply in our own interests as Irish citizens to remove them .

McDowell is not consolidating power for himself . Hes consolidating it on behalf of the state and those whose interests the state serves .

The most glaring incident which cries for a public enquiry is the Dublin Monaghan massacre . Yet only a couple of years ago the states files into it disapear from Garda archives in their entirety . Not a garda head has rolled , no arrests for this criminal act within the garda - assisting terrorism directly . No media outcry , next to no political outcry save a few lone voices about this national scandal . Effective garda collusion in the mass murder of Irish citizens .

Destruction and covering up of evidence is aiding and abetting a crime - very simple stuff . But its people who will be calling for a public enquiry into this who are "enemies of the state " . And they are that precisely because the state is our enemy in this instance . It directly aids and abets those forces who blew our fellow citizens to pieces in 1974 still 30 years later ..

Sir Anthony OReilly who controls so much of this countrys media certainly isnt making it a cause celebre either . Journalists would most likely be sacked if the Irish ferries dispute is anything to go by . McDowell hasnt demanded any garda heads roll or anyone resign for this absolute scandal . Indeed it isnt even seen as a scandal - just very strange and nothing we can do about it according to "the state" . This is the same state which jails Mayo farmers for peaceful protests yet protects and covers up for British mass murderers still . The state is anti Irish people - there is no other rational explanation for this anomaly .

National democracy at its maximum expression at all times and with all that entails is the cure for this disgraceful state of affairs . Personalising this around a hate figure like McDowell misses the point - its the vested interests which McDowell serves who are consolidating their power in order to deny democracy to the Irish people .

If Irish freedom can be defined as democracy at its maximum expression republicans , socialists et al must make their strategy and their objective one and the same . While political groups themselves continue with internal undemocratic procedures they will get nowhere . And the state will simply consolidate all the power it is happy to take . They can get away with anything and happily call it democracy at work ..

by rooster Sun Dec 25, 2005 19:03

you mean like what the shinners did we they cut that blokes throat in Belfast last Christmas??

by Joe Public Tue Dec 27, 2005 05:12

Its OK when its the shinners and their mates are doing it.

As Barry pointed out, the state is the more important but then again, the state is the people in a democracy. Who does the IRA answer to? Sure as hell aint the people.

by Barry Tue Dec 27, 2005 19:23

Identical in fact .