Category: Comment

There are two very interesting pieces on the front of the Galway City Tribune this week. The lede (main headline item) is “Planning probe into ‘Garda’ signature on GAA document”, with the sub-headline ‘Validity of controversial Pearse Stadium application questioned’.

The second item (not online) is again on questionable planning practices, it’s headed “Council sold residents’ car park in error”. This story appears extremely complicated and is quite difficult to understand on first reading, but it is worth a read. For non-Galwegians: you can view an electronic version of the print edition by clicking the masthead below if you wish to inform yourself further.

The main story is slightly easier to get your head around. Enda Cunningham reports a senior garda has ordered the GAA and Galway City Council to establish who signed a document submitted as part of a contentious planning application for floodlights on Pearse Stadium. The signature, purported to be that of a member of An Garda Siochana, is attached to an official letter from An Garda and was submitted as part of a the traffic management part of the application.  The superintendent at Salthill station, Noel Kelly, does not know who signed this letter.

He is quoted a saying:

On the morning of January 6 2010 I went to the planning section of Galway City Council to view the alleged document. […] I have a concern with the document entitled Pearse Stadium/Transort Traffic Arrangements which is attached to Sergeant Moloney’s letter. The [document] purports to be signed by a member of An Garda Siochana. The signature is not mine. It is not my inspector’s or Sergeant Maloney’s signature. No other persons have permissions to sign documents on behalf of An Garda Siochana.”

The GC Tribune also reports that the Council has accused the GAA of misleading them as the the number of games which would be played under the proposed floodlights. Over 100 objections have been lodged against the application by local residents and resident’s associations.

My understanding of the second story is as followings: Galway City Council had granted planning permission for two “badly-needed” schools to the Vocational Education Committee (VEC) on a site near a large housing estate in Doughiska, on the outskirts of the city. It has now emerged that planning permission was then granted for a car park to be built for residents of the housing estate on the same site, this car park has since been built. The planning permission for the car parks was granted to and, it appears, the work carried out by, McInerneys, the company who built the estate. The result is the building of the two schools,which would cater for more than 1000 pupils, may be delayed by up to four years.

It’s an odd story, councillors are even pointing out the lack of transparency surrounding it. A report was submitted about the site to Galway City Council on Friday just after The GC Tribune went to print, I’m going to look for a copy of it tomorrow, if I do get my hands on one I’ll post it here.

Two stories worth keeping an eye on, we’d be interested in hearing about any further developments, of course.

Thanks to Allan for letting us know about them.

The Galway City Tribune is part of the Connacht Tribune Group, you can pick it up around Galway for something like €2.

Some readers may be interested in attending the Transparency Ireland event taking place next Tuesday in Buswells at 1pm.

The topic will be ‘An alternative to silence – protecting whistle-blowers in Ireland’.

See this link for more information.

Speakers include Eugene McErlean, former internal auditor at AIB, Bernadette Sullivan, former nurse at Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital, Tom Clonan, former officer in the Irish Army and now Irish Times defence correspondent; and John Devitt, Chief Executive of TI Ireland.

Do say hello if you spot me (though I will be off back to work afterwards). Gav will probably be there too.

This blog post by a former county councillor, Donal Corcoran, has caused quite a kerfuffle over the last few days in Kildare. It details what conferences Kildare County Council was charged for by councillors for tickets to over the last year. Yes, that last sentence appears terribly structured but it’s that way for good reason; it appears county councillors didn’t attend all the conferences for which the claimed the cost of tickets.

To get this straight; councillors didn’t attend conferences for which they requested the council pay for tickets. It doesn’t seem to be them over-claiming on their own expenses, instead they seem to be wasting money by not turning up at conferences which the council paid for them to attend. Complicated sentence structures all ’round but I hope you get my drift.

The Leinster Leader and Kildare FM have followed up the story – Leinster Leader without attributing it to the original source unfortunately (“as seen by this paper” tut tut, what’s wrong with crediting blogs, lads?) – you can get their coverage here and here. (Kildare FM credited the story to Leinster Leader). Jim at Primal Sneeze gave me a heads-up on it earlier in the week, you can read his feelings on the matter at this link.

Strangely, some of Kildare’s reps claimed for attending days like “Maximising Your Vote” and “Get Elected: You the Media”. These seminars appear to be geared towards improving an individual’s personal political potential, not their abilities or understanding of the issues they’re elected by the people of Kildare to cover. They really should be paying for these events out of their own pockets, not yours and mine, right?

Maybe a few of the regional and local journalists and bloggers who read this website will consider contacting their own local authority and ask for similar information. It may available on request without submitting an FOI. We could do with a better picture of what type of seminars councillors are attending in the name of improving the standard of local governance. At the moment I suspect widespread junketeering.

I’d also be interested in hearing from conference organisers, surely councillors don’t turn up at conferences that might be on a Friday, sign-in, stay until lunch and disappear? They’d never do that, especially not conferences held far enough away from their area that they’d have to claim an overnight allowance, surely not?

Incidentally, John Gormley has announced new restrictions on the amounts councillors can spend annually in attending conferences today.

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If you get similar information from another local authority please do email me at coughlanmp AT gmail DOT com.

Update: Tweet came in from Dermot Looney, councillor in Tallaght, he says, “Those of us who refuse to claim any Conf expenses & divert that money to homeless accomm instead never seem to get a mention!”. I’m further informed that 15 of the 26 South Dublin councillors have pledged to do the same, all party reps bar the Fine Gaelers. Note: I haven’t checked that and am taking Cllr Looney on his word.

If you know of councillors who do other such things get in touch and I’ll be happy to list them here.

Pictures of ghost estates from 2008

Some interesting new research on ghost estates by Ireland After Nama (IAN) can be studied here. The resultant data map is also worth viewing – the full image is at this link.

Justin Gleeson, Peter Foley and Rob Kitchin found “there are 74 estates [which entered the national address database before December 31 2007]… where over 30 percent of the houses have been under-construction or vacant for over 2 years.”

Considering the property market peaked somewhere around December 2006, it’s fair to conclude the majority of dwellings covered in the research are likely to remain in their respective categories for some time. Why, in two years, would someone buy a house that has been unoccupied for five years, when they could get a brand-spanking-new gaff at a similar price? Of course, that thought-process assumes the property market will be on the up by 2012, as claimed by Government, thus there will be new gaffs to buy. That’s not at all guaranteed. Continue reading “Ghost estates in Ireland”

An article in the latest New Statesman outlines the economic and fiscal policies of Fianna Fáil that has us where we are today.

Failed by Fianna – New Statesman

[…] The cuts announced in December aim to reduce state spending by €4bn this year, but the overall plan is to slash it by €15bn within four years. As total expenditure by the Dublin exchequer was just under €60bn last year, this means that the Irish state is set to shrink by a full quarter in less than half a decade.

At least two generations look destined to pay a painful price for the follies of the golden circles whose scams, swindles and con jobs have lumbered Ireland with zombie banks that make RBS and HBOS look relatively vibrant. Anglo Irish alone may swallow over €30bn of public cash, equivalent to the total revenues collected by the Irish exchequer in the whole of last year.

more below…

[…] Dublin’s fragile coalition government seems far more spooked by the danger of international investors downgrading their country’s credit rating (which would make the cost of borrowing substantially higher) and the spectre of the IMF seizing the financial reins. Dublin is determined to distinguish Ireland from Greece, whose continued profligacy threatens to destabilise the entire eurozone.

[Additional Reading: Greece calls in IMF to help sort out massive debt]

The NS piece is a decent potrait of recent events, albeit one written for an audience not heavily informed on current affairs in Ireland. (Though I’ve never heard an Irish politician being referred to as “Iron Brian”).

The description of Boom-time Ireland as “a land of spivs and speculators and a manufacturing outpost for American multinationals” is concise and accurate. As is the comment “Ireland’s economic miracle was always somewhat hallucinatory, because these US firms… used it as an Atlantic tax haven and route to the EU marketplace”.

One also has to agree “most welfare recipients probably won’t be any worse off [following the Decemeber budget], as the slight fall in their benefits will be offset by the steep fall in prices that Ireland is now experiencing”. Though I would note ‘most’ is a numeric term in this context. AK comments on this topic below…

Unfortunately, the New Statesman writer has missed (or ignored) the recent u-turn on elements of the ‘progressive’ pay cuts proposed for the public sector, which would add some context to that paragraph. Overall though, worth the read, and a damning verdict on the Irish Government of the last decade from an influential overseas magazine.

Guido‘s comment on the piece is, as some would expect, a slanted simplification of the situation (can’t Ireland and the UK both be in economic meltdown concurrently?) which misses the point entirely to get a cheap dig in at the British Government. Suppose, can hardly blame him, they haven’t exactly covered themselves in glory over there either.

8 Jan 2010

Madam, – When I wrote a biography of Brendan Bracken I was denied the artists’ tax exemption by the Revenue because a biography, being a recital of facts, did not rank as an original and creative work. Are we to infer from their determination in relation to Mr Ahern’s memoirs that they are fiction? – Yours, etc,

CHARLES LYSAGHT,

Strand Road,

Merrion,

Dublin 4.

I was under the impression that the Arts Council judged whether work warranted the exemption or not – possibly incorrect.

Bono, Enya, Elvis Costello, Maeve Binchey, Louis Walsh and now Bertie Ahern . Who’da thunk.

Section 195 of the Taxes Consolidation Act 1997 is the legislation under which Bertie Ahern claimed his tax exemption as an artist of ‘cultural or artistic merit’. The exemption was introduced by Ahern’s mentor, Charles J. Haughey, in 1969 as a way to encourage individuals with artistic talent to work in, or continue working in, the Arts. Until 2006 when a €250,000 cap was placed on the level of tax-free earnings, all income through artistic endeavor was completely tax free (this cap has since been lowered to €125,000). Last year the Commission on Taxation recommended a completely abolished, though arts minister Martin Cullen has rejected that out-right.

Judging by details available on claimants since 2001, somewhere near three quarters of claimants each year – approx 800 to 1000 individuals – sought exemptions on less than one and a half times the average industrial wage (excuse the ill-defined figures, inflation and other economic flucuations mitigate against exactitude). Approximately half that number were claiming on less than one third of the same figure. Quite rightly too, it was brought in help struggling artists and encourage people not working full-time in the area to produce work of note, despite what some wealthy artists will try to tell you. Continue reading “Bertie Ahern and the artists' tax exemption”

Suzy had the eyes peeled on somewhere none of the rest of us thought of interest. Go read her post.

Bertie Ahern, he’s an artist, didn’t you know.

Updated: Four thoughts –

1) Does this mean The Buke is officially deemed a work of fiction? “Cultural or artistic merit”, hmm… set me straight here, folks.

2) He has a tax clearence certificate now?

3) Shouldn’t it be Richard Aldous, not Bertie Ahern himself, who avails of this tax exemption.

4) I’m keeping this one to myself… I’m sure regular readers will know exactly what I’m thinking.

A small sidebar piece on page four of today’s Sunday Tribune raised a half-smile-half-grimace from me.

Today’s edition hasn’t gone online yet, so I can’t link, quote or send traffic to Tribune.ie, unfortunately. However, the story to which I refer is pretty much a rewrite of this piece from the Donegal Democrat. One-line summary; the 10 Fianna Fáil county councillors in Donegal passed the annual council Budget while the other 19 councilors were out of the room.

Carolyn Farrar of the Democrat reports…

Labour Cllr. Frank McBrearty Jr said that Donegal Mayor, Fianna Fáil Cllr. Brendan Byrne, has broken the trust in the council chamber by allowing a quorum of 10 Fianna Fáil councillors to adopt the 2010 budget while the remaining 19 were in a meeting down the hall.

[…] This was Cllr. McBrearty’s first budget meeting and he said he was led to believe meetings would be adjourned and reconvened several times to allow for negotiations among parties, as they had been in the past.

“Dirty tricks politics is what it is,” Cllr. McBrearty said. He said the move will affect the way he sees the chair.

Note: Labour, Fianna Fáil, Sinn Féin and one independent are in coalition to run the council.

How does the Fianna Fáil mayor, who is also the chair – therefore, neutral – feel? Ocean FM reports… Continue reading “Donegal County Council's Budget-passing woes”