Author: Mark Coughlan

P O’Neill on A Fistful of Euros. The man has some observations.

Paul Krugman agrees.

The usually-reliable Royaldutchshellplc.com blog has published what it says are leaked emails relating to the Corrib gas pipeline.

Shell Corrib Gas Pipeline – flood of leaked internal emails.

Nothing explosive (excuse the pun) as far as I can see, though some readers may be interested in having a goo. There’s a natural gas glossary here for those in need too.

Two things did twig my interest, according to the last few mails Shell didn’t really have any idea who had the “current asset ownership of the wells”. That was in early 2009.

Also, Shell told the government that documents are commercially sensitive when they may not have been, thus ensuring the department would have to inform them were the documents to be released under FOI.

That blog is run by some guys with a serious gripe with Shell, but has been recognised for its work in exposing strange workings inside Shell over the years. It is seen as a forum for Shell whistleblowers. The Financial Times, Reuters, Times of London and Fortune magazine have all recognised it as a bona fide source. It’s former owner, Alfred Donovan has featured in several documentaries about adversarial websites and online activism.

I was away in Niger. I’m back blogging. The Digest shall return on Sundays this week.

In the past I’ve spoken about the odd – unfortunately, odd – position the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday occupy in the national conversation… please Ireland, don’t sleep this time.

Luke Byrne knocks it out of the park. Cracking journalism.

A two-month investigation into the Fianna Fáil senator’s expenses claims show he was paid the cash on foot of invoices indicating he had bought four mobile phones in five years from a north Dublin firm. But the MoS has established that the company, Business Communications Ltd, went bust over a decade before Callely’s claim.

A former director told the MoS the invoices had not been generated by his company – and that Business Communications Ltd had never sold a mobile phone to Ivor Callely.

While Callely this weekend refused to comment on the damning revelations, they seem certain to spell the final chapter of his ignominious political career.

Can Callely come back from this one? More to the point, does anyone want him to?

The OECD/Transparency International Progress Report into international bribery passed the world by there yesterday. Pity, it’s broadly positive.

On the Irish angle though, not so much. What’s new though, hey?

On the international comparisons Ireland is ranked in the lowest category for its efforts to deter the payment of bribes in the export/import markets. We’re categorised as having “little or no enforcement”. The experts of OECD/Transparency International point out that we do have ‘jurisdictional limitations’ (i.e. a porous border) but find that we lack sufficient legislation for criminal liability for corporations anyway; and once again that we’ve no whistleblower protection. The OECD also found fault with Ireland’s level of sanctions for foreign bribery and false accounting. Furthermore they question whether “the Garda Bureau of Fraud Investigations is sufficiently trained and resourced to enforce the prohibition of foreign bribery”.

More worrying however is the country report. As you can see in table B and C or the PDF, Ireland is the only country examined with ‘null’ figures. This is because the Gardaí outright refuse to provide information to the OECD/TI team in relation to investigations carried out during the year.

The claim is any report would tip-off subjects that they are being investigated. Stunning; a ‘1’ – no further details! – on a TI report published annually would tip-off an person paying bribes? Gimme a break.

In compiling their figures Transparency International experts do also attempt to glean information from relevant media reports on investigations, but none were available for Ireland. This shows just how secretive the Garda Siochana is by international standards. Figures were calculable for Turkey, Estonia, Bulgaria, Chile and South Africa but not Ireland. We alone are the country with null figures in table B and C. This reflects poorly on the Gardai, the State and, to an extent, the media.

OECD/TI also express concern that the Prevention of Corruption (Amendment) Bill has yet to be enacted despite being due for implementation in January of this year. They recommend it be enacted as soon as possible. Who wouldn’t? Here’s hoping.

Previous posts from this website on Garda secrecy and unaccountability: ‘Gardai and Freedom of Information‘, New details relating to the Terence Wheelock case; Deaths in Garda Custody.

Maybe Paul Williams could look into international bribery for Transparency International’s 2011 report?

Press release from the Green Party today to capitalise on the Creighton-O’Flynn-Anglo Ten donations-Fine Gael issue. Opening line;

The Green Party Leader and Environment Minister John Gormley has said that he intends to change the way politics is funded…

A quick look back into The Irish Times archive for their coverage of the announcement of John Gormley’s selection as environment minister. July 7 2007;

The newly elected leader of the Green Party, Minister for the Environment John Gormley, said yesterday he wants changes in the ways political parties are funded.

That was 1,103 days ago. Or 157 weeks. 26,472 hours. 95,299,200 seconds.

Tick-tock tick-tock.

For several weeks starting in late September Rody Molloy’s pension led news reports. I wish to return to it as I’ve some new questions to raise following weeks of fairly frustrating research.

This is a lengthy post. The next series of paragraphs are all context to the whole Rody Molloy pension issue. You may find being reminded of the details useful, if so, read on. If not scroll down and click ‘Continued’ and it’ll bring right into the main subject…

Readers may remember Mr Molloy finished in his role at Fás in strange circumstances following a prolonged period where various questions regarding his excessive expenses, his handling of internal procedures and his general management abilities, were raised.

For a period in September 2009 there was confusion about whether he resigned or had been removed from his position. This would later become important as it would have effected his pension entitlements.

On September 24 the Public Accounts Committee was told he had received a generous pension enhancement valued at more than €1m. Peter McCloone and Sean Gorman spoke of how they brokered deal on behalf of Fás with Mr Molloy, part of which involved him agreeing to resign. Questions were immediately asked about how the deal was negotiated. “There was no question of pals or anything like that”, Gorman told the PAC. They admitted no legal advice had been taken.

As the media pounded on the stunning admission that no legal advice had been sought, ministers desperately attempted to pass the buck. It became clear that both the minister for enterprise, then Mary Coughlan, and minister for finance, Brian Lenihan would have been required to sign-off on the deal. The Green Party quickly distanced themselves from the story, obviously uncomfortable with the deal and how it came about. Mary Coughlan ordered a review into the circumstances surrounding the deal.

Two days after the PAC meeting An Taoiseach Brian Cowen was pushed on the issue. He admitted that Mr Molloy did not threaten legal action during discussions. He said Mr Molloy acted “honourably” by resigning and claimed the enhanced pension fell within departmental guidelines. Prior to this ,in an attempt to excuse the the cost of the deal, ministers had insinuated that Mr Molloy would have initiated a lengthy legal action which would have cost the taxpayer far more than the €1m golden handshake. Nobody (me included) bar one letter writer, seemed to notice that even if this had been the case Fas could seemingly have used the Employment Appeals Tribunal or Rights Commissioner, both of which are inexpensive as they require no legal teams. Even if Mr Molloy had won his case there the maximum award would have been two years salary – about €440,000 – much less than the million euro deal signed-off by Government.

We were the first to question whether Mr Molloy’s pension did in fact fall within the guidelines cited by An Taoiseach when we published them in full on this website. It wasn’t until two weeks later that the print media returned to this element. Several more reports in various media outlets continued to state unchallenged that the deal was within departmental guidelines. Some two weeks later Shane Phelan of The Irish Independent destroyed that myth with a frontpage story about how even senior civil servants in the department didn’t believe the enhanced pension fell within the guidelines. The enhancements should only have been available as part of a contract termination by the Government but Mr Molloy had resigned, as we’d noted earlier on this website.

The new revelations, contained in emails and correspondence seen by the Irish Independent, will come as a major embarrassment to Taoiseach Brian Cowen.

He insisted just weeks ago that all proper guidelines had been followed.

[…] The memos show at least three different Department of Finance officials warned prior to the deal being approved that it fell outside of what was allowed in the guidelines.

In comments made on September 25, he also said formal cabinet approval was not needed for the deal, even though it is now known there was clear advice from within the department that the matter should be referred to the Government.

When asked about the issue three days after the Taoiseach’s comments, Tanaiste Mary Coughlan made no reference to the department guidelines and instead said the legal basis for the deal was covered by the Labour Services Act.

However, none of the extensive departmental correspondence seen by the Irish Independent refers to this act. In fact, notes from negotiations show that those involved were only concerned about two main issues — the terms of Mr Molloy’s contract and what was allowable under the department guidelines.

Guidelines are essentially plain-English versions of legislation.

As part of the review initiated by Mary Coughlan legal advice was sought from the attorney general and thereafter no alteration was made to the pension deal.

Continue reading “Revisiting Rody Molloy's golden handshake”

The Irish Times leader is on ethics and standards in public life today. Good piece. Ending paragraph;

It is not just Fianna Fáil that has behaved badly over ethical legislation and transparency. Because political donations below a certain limit do not have to be disclosed to the standards commission, many donations were set below the limit.. The commission also suspects that large donations may be split up into small amounts to avoid disclosure. Last year, when local, European and byelections were held, not a single donation was publicly recorded by Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael or the Labour Party. This is a disgrace. Ethical standards and political funding mechanisms require fundamental reform.

Interesting bit in bold there.

Parties use various methods to effectively bypass the donations system. We’ve written about this pretty extensively in the past. Two pieces maybe worth re-reading if you’re interested in the topic. This one on a prior Times leader on funding reform which I disagreed with…

One oddity of the current system for donations to individuals is related to declaration thresholds. Despite being obliged to open an account once they receive a donation exceeding €126.97, politicians don’t have to declare full details of any donations less than €643.97 to the Standards in Public Office Commission. This means the bank account, for the purposes of transparency, is effectively useless unless a donation exceeding €643.97 is made. Reducing the declaration threshold from €643.97 to €126.97 while ensuring all transactions below the lower figure are on record anonymously would be beneficial to the transparency of the funding process. This would mean the public could inspect the credit and debit side of the donations account upon declaration and see if there were excessive amounts of donations made for more than, say, €100. If this was the case and SIPO suspected several of these may have come from one individual, SIPO should have the right to inspect the account in detail.

Of course a significant increase in the level penalties imposed against those who breach the above would also be warranted also. That almost goes without saying.

And one of the first posts on this site from way-back-when, when I tended to adopt a more cynical radical tone; Want to bypass our donations system? No problem.

The dreamer in me has been telling for while not the write this post. “Don’t tell the good politicians how the bold ones work the system”, it screamed. The other 99% of me said, “fuck it, they all know about this anyway, it’s whether they chose to work it or not is the question”. So here, dear reader, I tell you how I understand our public representatives can work the donations system…

Pretty much a how-to, that one, but perhaps insightful.

The Standards in Public Office Commission’s 8th annual report is out today. More hugely important, considered and implementable recommendations which will almost certainly be ignored, again.

I’m averse to publishing press releases in full but in this case I think there’s merit in seeing it straight from the horses mouth… Continue reading “SIPO Annual Report published”