"Anxious wait for some as Moriarty report nears publication"

[Bogball XV]

The big issue here is corporate donations to a political party during its term of office in government by a company (but really O'Brien) to which a licence for a state contract was awarded and the basis on which such award was made has been deemed to be resulting from corruption.

I don't think that is such a big issue tbh, it was par for the course back then and goes on in most countries and usually to a much higer degree.  Whilst it looks very bad, it's not as serious imo as the fact the competition to award what turned out to be one of the biggest money spinning contracts in the state's history appears to have been seriously compromised by payments from a company/person to one individual.

There should be a comeback for the state for that, not to mention the other competitors.  What makes matters worse was that O'Brien didn't even pay the tax that would have been due on his windfall as he changed residency just before his payday.

[muppet]

Some interesting comments if you have nothing better to do.

http://www.facebook.com/michaellowrytd

[muppet]

http://diarmuiddoyle.wordpress.com/

[Main Street]

Lowry should be locked up.

He has some neck on him now saying the report (cost €100m) is not based on fact and the report is wrong.

He is a disgrace.

I can't believe our tax is paying his wages.

If he believes that he should sue.

I hope the people of North Tipp are happy with themselves now. I never have, nor never would, give that sleveen any sort of a preference on my ballot.

"But he's done great things for North Tipp". My cordouroy bag. He's done great things for North Tipp so he could keep getting himself elected so he could do better things for himself. But they will not hear a word about him upto now down here.

There is an equal enough spread of gullibility throughout Ireland, towards sleazy gombeen politician like Lowry.

[mayogodhelpus@gmail.com]

The details of the event were passed on unsolicited under the instructions of the leader of the day Micheal Noonan to the Tribunal.

The Tribunal also found that then Minister Lowery was the only member of the cabinate to bear any cabinate responsibility.

Micheal Lowery was ejected from the party immediately.

The 50K aquired by the pair of rogue members was returned.

Your loyalty is admirable. Every party needs people like you to survive.

I don't know, sometimes even staunch supporters would gain more credibility by taking heed of the facts, admitting that errors were made, and leaving it at that.
[/quote]

I agree with Bogball, by stating those facts I was not denying the fact that errors were made. I think they were the wrongdoings of Lowry and a few others close to the party rather than Fine Gael. The Tribunal as much says so.

I hope Kenny, the Government and Opposition route out the politics and corruption of the past, from Lowry to Ahernites, from the Northern Bankites to the Unions.

By the way the local councils need to be cleaned up just as much as the lower house (to hell with the upper one).

[stephenite]

There are any number of threads this could be posted on, feel free to do so as I think this is required readng for everyone.

http://spailpin.blogspot.com/

[mylestheslasher]

What a difference in the words of labour and FG towards this sc**bag Lowry in comparison to the sc**bag Ivor Callely. So much for the honest, straight talking government.

[Bogball XV]

I think it's a bit unfair to tar FG with the same stench of corruption that engulfed FF, imo there was a difference.  A large section of FF saw the spoils of corruption as their just rewards for having scaled the political heights, they even thought that they were helping the country by creating jobs by facilitating business and sure a few quid for themselves was about right.  In FG, Lowry seems to have been the only one up to these shenanigans.  Of course, the fact that FG have barely been in power for the the last century might help explain that as the antics of their county councillors as seen in the Flood tribunal prove that at lower ranks at least, there was very little difference.
We should also remember that when these antics took place the SIPO legislation had not been enacted and every party and almost every individual politician took corporate donations and brown envelopes from developers, by the standards of the time it was deemed acceptable.

Michael Lowry admitted to evading tax and settled with the revenue for about €1.5m, how the fcuk is the man allowed to stand for election as a legislator when we have proof that he doesn't heed that legislation?  Ahern was unable to produce a tax clearance certificate as required by the SIPO legislation, but that problem sort of went away, Michael Collins was another sitting TD who had set up a bogus company for the purposes of evading tax (his nephew now has the family seat), he stood down in 2007. 
In addition to the above, there are multitudes of politicians who had offshore accounts throughout the 80's and 90s set up specifically to evade tax. 
People don't see it as a crime, sure what's the harm in trying to keep the few quid about you, rather than pay it to them hoors in Dublin, except that in these cases the people doing the evading were the hoors in Dublin who were expecting everyone else to foot the bill for their evasion. 

It's not even about the disconnect between taxes and the services they pay for, it's more that we don't seem to have figured out yet that we are paying that tax for ourselves, it's not going to fund the Queen's newest horses anymore.  If we don't want to pay taxes we have the power to elect people who will enact legislation to that effect, God knows the campaign won't be much different that what we've just endured, the SF manifesto seemed to be pretty much in line with that policy, no spending cuts and no tax increases!!

[macdanger2]

Lowry is a pure crook - almost incredible that he has topped the polls for years in N Tipp except when you consider that Bertie did the same despite the "allegations" in 2007 and although Bev wasn't in the same league she still always took her seat.

While not under allegations of these kind, the likes of Mattie McGrath & Healy Rae also get in............you certainly get the government you deserve.

Corporate donations should be made illegal - Noonan did this unilaterally for FG when he became leader and look where it got him with the electorate - so it has to be straight across the board.

Every party would get a set (small) amount based on it's number of TDs (or the % vote in the previous election) to spend as they wish - I don't think too many would miss the posters. This may seem tough on smaller parties but it's hard to do it in a fairer manner. You would have to make some sort of allowance for sitting independents. First time independents would have to be allowed to spend only a limited amount to prevent "buying" of seats.

Good to see the report being sent the DPP - hopefully the law can do something about these bloody crooks.

[macdanger2]

On a side point - Hartigans on leeson st was where DO'B and ML met after the AIF in 1995.

DOB described it as a "packed Dublin pub" - I wouldn't have thought there'd be a sinner in Hartigans the night of all AIF? Even with the Dubs winning, surely it would have all been up in Drumcondra? Unless the team were in the Burlo?

[baoithe]

The big issue here is corporate donations to a political party during its term of office in government by a company (but really O'Brien) to which a licence for a state contract was awarded and the basis on which such award was made has been deemed to be resulting from corruption.

I don't think that is such a big issue tbh, it was par for the course back then and goes on in most countries and usually to a much higer degree.  Whilst it looks very bad, it's not as serious imo as the fact the competition to award what turned out to be one of the biggest money spinning contracts in the state's history appears to have been seriously compromised by payments from a company/person to one individual.

There should be a comeback for the state for that, not to mention the other competitors.  What makes matters worse was that O'Brien didn't even pay the tax that would have been due on his windfall as he changed residency just before his payday.

Whether it was par for the course back then or goes on in other countries is irrelevant. It shouldn'[t have happened. A FG government awarded a licence to O'Brien who contemporaneously and immediately subsequently made donations to that party. FG were also evasive in its dealings with those donations. There was a serious conflict of interest. If FG were a incorporated body they would have breached the companies acts and its directors could have been criminally liable.
You're right in that there isn't as much corruption in FG as there was in FF but, as you say, thats down to the sparse number of years they have been in power. It boils down to opinion on whether you believe the FG party is culpable here. I certainly see the way they managed this as underhand at best.

[baoithe]

The details of the event were passed on unsolicited under the instructions of the leader of the day Micheal Noonan to the Tribunal.

The Tribunal also found that then Minister Lowery was the only member of the cabinate to bear any cabinate responsibility.

Micheal Lowery was ejected from the party immediately.

The 50K aquired by the pair of rogue members was returned.

Your loyalty is admirable. Every party needs people like you to survive.

I don't know, sometimes even staunch supporters would gain more credibility by taking heed of the facts, admitting that errors were made, and leaving it at that.
[/quote]

I agree but its true that political parties could not function if all of their members actually used the bit of grey matter between their lugs and recognised the woods for the trees. You need people who are blindly loyal and who swallow the party spin. Gombeens really.

[Capt Pat]

Do you mind me asking. What did Michael Loery do for North Tipp?

[Capt Pat]

Some interesting comments if you have nothing better to do.

http://www.facebook.com/michaellowrytd

That is shocking. They are like Michael Jackson fans

[mylestheslasher]

Sure its the irish people who get what they deserve. The Flynns were esxactly the same in Mayo, lining their pockets and breaking the rules. But many people in Castlebar will tell you they were mighty TD's because they "brought the road to Castlebar".

Politics needs legislation that brutally punishes any TD found to be corrupt. I'm talking about being sacked from the Dail, having to repay your salary and pension and banned from politics for life - real hard hitting stuff. There should also be an independent investigation team with permission to check and audit everything with wide reaching powers. This group should be mandated to sack these politicians from the Dail 1st in they believe them to be corrupt. Let the guards then spend the 10 years investigating them. The fact that we don't have anyting close to this shows us that maybe an awful lot of these politicans have something to hide? Rules like this means the gombeen voter will have no possibility in putting a guy like Lowry in the Dail.