Corruption everyhere from Greystones to Mayo

by Polly Thu Mar 12, 2009 19:20

I love the idea that most Irish people are law-abiding and pay their taxes, in particular... Most small companies and their employees do not pay all taxes due. The company puts €300 through the books and the other €200 is cash in an envelope. It is my belief that this is the norm in companies with less than ten employees. The black market for nixers in tiling, plumbing etc. is alive and well. Farm hire usually has a 20% cash element and the rest goes through the books.

I wonder what the author means by true democracy. Is it the 50.009% telling the 49.001 what to do. A number of years ago I belonged to a Golf Club where they wanted to build a new Club House and they were going to levy every member €185.00 for the next 20 years and 125 voted for it and 123 voted against. Is that democracy? The committee decided to go ahead with the project and believed it had the support of the Members. Democracy is a much maligned word and I have seen it used by a village group who were simply a mob intent on putting down the person they saw as a local toff.

Having sat on a couple of committees I believe that 90% of Irish people are subjective in their views and the person who produces reasoned arguments for a particular road ahead is wasting his/her time unless the group are already thinking on the same lines. People in general do not use reason to justify their ideas or actions. Just look at the hold religion has on so many; most who have read little and have little knowledge of the religion they believe in and most importantly have little interest in knowing their religion.

I also firmly believe that 90% of Irish people would behave in exactly the same way as the Fianna Fail party, the Bank Chiefs, senior business people and senior civil servants if they had the opportunity and thought they wouldn't get caught. I believe our Education System is not organised to teach children to critically evaluate on an ethical level and again the Church has simply concentrated on sexual repression and has a very narrow view of morality. Loyalty above all is not healthy. We must evaluate in a more objective manner.

I'm sure your heart is in the right place and probably your arguments but truly did the majority of people actively support your position?. My favourite golf club story is where 14 of us women were sitting around on a Sunday evening after golf and discussing a rule of golf. My day job gives me a certain familiarity with reading rules and regulations and I knew the interpretation of this rule without any doubt, the 99.999999% answer. All 13 of the other women disagreed and one low-handicap golfer who had been a member of the Club for years said, "How can we all be wrong and you be right?" How do you answer that one? Is that healthy democracy?

by Tagger Thu Mar 12, 2009 20:26

I have read your post Peter and I fully agree with your views, for Ireland to be a Democratic country which is based on the principle that everyone in society is equal but that is not the case, so that blows Democracy right into outer space and indeed beyond.

by Tagger Thu Mar 12, 2009 20:38

i have read your article Peter very well put together, tells it as it is, just one comment ,

In conclusion, we hope that the Minister for the Environment and the leader of the Green Party through his fine speech on the 7th of March 2009 at his Party Conference in Wexford that he hopes to bring about that real change that we so badly need for our planning system which was taken over by rogue developers. The planning process is a joke. We will all hold our breaths that the Minister for Environment will do something regarding cleaning it up but we all know that the party whom he is in government with needs the planning process to remain the way it is for their friends and donors to their party-THE DEVELOPERS.We wish him and his party the best of luck in their endeavors.

There is a very old saying "If you lie down with dogs, you will get up with fleas"

I hope I'am wrong but we have seen no real action from The Greens yet.

by Peter - Concerned Citizens Action Committee Thu Mar 12, 2009 20:50

Firstly thanks to Tagger and Greystones Friend.

Now to you Polly,

Good comment Polly but a little bit critical of the Irish People. Not everybody benefited from the Celtic Tiger boom. You state that 90% of the Irish people are subjective and that if they had the chance that they would all do the same thing as Fianna Fail. This is not true. There are some very good decent people out there in our society but unfortunately for them they got tied up in the web of greed which was brought on by the banks and developers who built these over-priced houses and apartments and people had to have somewhere to live. I hope Irish Society as we know it will be decent and honest. You will find that some of the people that you talk about in the golf clubs come from well seasoned and financially well to do families who would't have much ideas about the real world and what people are experiencing at the moment. Yes agreed a lot of people voted for Fianna Fail because they were looking out for their own end which is only human nature and we cannot blame them for this. Irish society was not always like that but unfortunately because of the greed that was generated out there everybody went with the flow and believed what the Minister for finance had to say three days before the election which we now know the public finances are not in good shape. I take it from reading your comment that you are a person aged in your mid to late 40's who would have known what the recession was like in the mid 1980's so you must appreciate why so many of our young people were jumping on this rollercoaster of overspending and not putting the money away for a rainy day. In relation to democracy the people do not count only at election time because since the foundation of the state a minority of people are running this country in which the Irish people will have to stop voting them in and we need our own good decent people in there to bring about real change.

by Augustine Clarke Fri Mar 13, 2009 01:34

Oh no its Greystones on the Map again.

Peter, WHY do you have to go on at length with these endless statements.

You put a soul off before we get half way through reading them with the endless droll of FACTS.

We read all the same stuff in our papers every day and it gets quite boring.

Bankers, Politicians, Developers, we ALL know the corruption around them but endless talking about them is not going to resolve the crisis.

It takes action but you seem to endlessly complain but the direct action is nil.

by Viking Marauder. Fri Mar 13, 2009 14:49

It's the same all over the world.

A country which regularly tops the "Most Admired Country in the World" league is Denmark.

And rightly so.

Denmark is indeed one of the "cleanest" (in EVERY sense) countries in the world.

But.......

A Danish Tax Official recently said that Denmark's national sport should be declared "Tax Dodging".
.

by Another Danish Bore. Fri Mar 13, 2009 20:18

Right Wing Americans call us Danes "Communists by Stealth".

We willingly pay 60% income tax to produce services which Irish people and American people envy.

Where did this attitude come from I wonder?

Think of Forty Vikings off Slyne Head in a Longship in a force 10 Storm.

Out to plunder the Ardagh Chalice from the rightly named "Island Of Saints and Scholars".

In a heaving ship non-communist (co-operative)Vikings were thrown overboard I'd say.

Hopefully the Irish will throw the Bankers overboard.

Feed the Bankers to the Sharks.

.

by Fred Johnston Sat Mar 14, 2009 14:12

The true depressing feature of all of this is the strong sentiment amongst the Irish public that the unhealthy connectons between certain political parties, banks and builders means that none of the errant bankers will ever appear in court. Why participate in politics at all, then, if simple justice is not a feature of that politics? The arrogance of the bankers is matched by the arrogance of politicians, who seem to brook no dissent or criticism, forgetting that the people elected them, and that they work for us, not the other way around. Sadly, we know in Ireland that the bigger the white-collar crime, the greater your chances of getting away with it. That is why we have become a shame and a disgrace.