TheStory.ie

Here’s a slight re-ordering/re-wording of the bottom-of-the-page story that appears of page 4 (the In The Courts page) of this morning’s Irish Times…

‘Judge compares incident with Garda to infamous US beating’

A JUDGE has compared an incident between a Garda and a member of the public to the Rodney King beating in Los Angeles.

Garda Curtis (23) of Ardee, Co Louth, had pleaded not guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to assault and assault causing harm to John Paul Maughan (19) on Alexandria Road in the Dublin Docks on July 11th, 2009.

Referring to the CCTV recording of the incident, Judge McDonagh said: “On first viewing one is reminded of the Rodney King beating.”

“Self control was sadly lacking”, he told the court in the absence of the jury. “This to me is a case of a single garda overreacting.”

He also questioned why gardaí decided to smash the car’s windows instead of waiting for Mr Maughan and his accomplice to get out when Mr Maughan was clearly not going to escape after the stolen vehicle crashed.

During the five-day trial, the jury heard from several Garda witnesses that Garda Curtis had used justified force.

Referring to other gardaí who gave evidence, Judge McDonagh said: “I do not believe his colleagues bathed themselves in glory either. Too much of the evidence in this trial was clearly partisan.”

On Tuesday the jury was shown footage of the moment when the car crashed and Mr Maughan was dragged out. Some 15 gardaí arrived on the scene and a garda could be seen striking the suspect with his baton.

Several gardaí gave evidence that Mr Maughan was kicking out violently during the arrest.

Garda Gerard Curtis was found not guilty by direction of Judge Donagh McDonagh after he ruled that the prosecution failed to disprove the garda was acting in self-defence when he hit the suspect with his baton after a car chase.

And so it ends. We’ll probably never know if the Garda was/is disciplined, moved, re-trained, questioned internally… An Garda is a black hole of information.

Like some other organisations…

Previous posts on An Garda on this site:

OECD/Transparency International report on Ireland

New details relating to the Terence Wheelock case

Deaths in Garda custody

FOI and An Garda: And again, I quote from that link…

All that is needed for An Garda Síochána to come under FOI is the signature of Finance Minister Brian Lenihan, and some regulations to be implemented. Then we can take our place among such nations as Moldova, Georgia and Azerbaijan as a country that allows citizens to request information from their police force. The Gardai must be brought under FOI as a matter of urgency.

Heh.

Check out the third table.

Really, all we need is some positive thinking and the meeja to stop talking down the economy. We’ve already turned a corner, don’t you remember?

Sigrún Davíðsdóttir, London Correspondent with RUV, the Icelandic RTE…

For an Icelander the demise of the Irish banks has a strong resemblance to what happened in Iceland. The huge difference is that Icelanders know a lot more about banking in Iceland thanks to the fantastic report of the Althingi Investigative Commission. So far, the Irish only have sporadic insights into their banks and their relations to big investors and clients…

Read it in full.

Transparency? Democracy? Heh.

Bottom of the main business page from Friday’s Irish Times…

[Tazbell Holdings/Group] has won a tender from the Department of Justice to manage “the collection of overdue court-imposed fines”.

The contract, won by Dublin-based Tazbell, involves managing the collection of unpaid court fines through “proactive contact attempts” with the debtor. This will include “traditional credit management methods”, such as letters, phone calls and e-mails.

As the article also states, Tazbell is owned by Derek Quinlan, the well-known financier who’s currently selling his property on the exclusive Shrewsbury Road. He’s one of the top ten property investors heading into Nama via one of his other companies, Avestus.

The parent company over all his enterprises is registered on the Isle of Man. In August last year Quinlan took up permanent residence in Switzerland for “tax and personal reasons“.

Quinlan is also a director in Park Rite, which runs many of the car parks around the nation’s cities (Dublin alone: Arnotts, City Quay, Tallaght Hospital, St James’s Hospital, Fleet Street in Templebar, Mount Carmel Hospital, Parnell Street and a few more). On top of that Park Rite is the parent company of Dublin Street Parking Services. DSPS is an unlimited company not required to file accounts with the CRO. However, the Dublin City Council budget for 2009 shows that DSPS was paid almost €10m that year for “clamps, removals or car relocations” by the Council. It’s a clamping company contracted by the Council.

Quinlan – via Tazbell – also now has the contract for court fine debt collection. Oh, and he collects the toll on the M4-M6 motorway too via another company (a public-private partnership construction), in case you’re passing through.

So you can either pay to park with Tazbell or get clamped. Or you park in the pay-and-display… though you should be aware that if you overstay and catch a fine it’ll be Tazbell that’ll force you to cough up. Or park in one of the smaller car parks if you can find one… and good luck doing that as you rush into Tallaght Hospital, St James’s, Mount Carmel or University College Hospital Galway.

All the while he pays tax in Switzerland, bases his parent company in the Isle of Man as the taxpayer – the same one he’s clamping, charging and chasing for fines – takes on his loans through Nama.

Larrrrrvley innit?