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Most Popular Recent Post: In Praise of Name-calling
Wednesday, January 29, 2014 at 08:22AM The context of this post is discernible from this news-story in "The Journal". Notably, the website has disabled the "comments" feature for this page which is a very, very, unusual occurrence.
No, I cannot think of anything satisfactory to write in praise of name-calling in this situation.
How about you ?
Sunday, October 13, 2013 at 04:43PM The estimable Constantin Gurdgiev comments here on this speech earlier this week by Governor Honohan.(Hat-tip to the Ballyhea Bondholder bailout protest page on FaceBook.)
It may surprise some readers, but I pretty much agree with his comments.
"Strategic" is very rarely a term properly applicable to defaulters in Ireland. "Tactical" might be a better one, but,for me, whichever term is used, it is not appropriate to regard it as always a derogatory one. Such defaulters are not all trying to "game" the system or escape scot-free from their obligations. In a significant number of instances, lenders are still unable or unwilling to engage realistically or at all with their troubled clients.
Faced with unresponsive or unrealistic creditors, some debtors are "defaulting" as a negotiation move.
However, this is a dangerous course for many, whose circumstances are often too precarious to enable the requisite discipline and clear-sightedness to be maintained. They may start with a lump-sum in a separate account, and adding monthly payments to it, but may not be able to resist drawing from that account for other more immediately pressing needs, for example.
And of course many - not all, or even most - debtors continue to pretend that hard decisions can be put off for ever, that the mistakes of others excuse all of their own, and generally that "the world owes them a living". When one reads suggestions that someone who isn't paying for the roof over his head "deserves" a foreign holiday, one has to wonder how farther we still need to go to approach collective sanity.
Still, I repeat that we won't get there by pretending that taking every debtor case-by-case through a fantasy attempt to get blood out of stones is doing anything but indulging an alternative - and, really, less forgiveable - fantasy. I am disappointed that the Governor appears to be flirting with this.
[UPDATE: The full text of Prof. Honohan's speech is now available here. As usual with utterances from that source, the speech repays close reading, and is full of useful information and comment.]
Note that I have not mentioned moral issues yet. If we "go there", though, again the position is that both extremes, and many who do not accept that they are extremists, are propagating positions which, in my view, do not stand up to moral scrutiny.
The notion that you can take other peoples' money, agreeing that, if necessary, you will have to lose your home to pay them back, and then use violence to obstruct execution of that agreement, is hard to justify in moral terms.
But it is even harder to so justify the "meme" that says "I paid all my loans back, so must everyone else, whatever it takes" or "I didn't borrow at all" or "I didn't borrow foolishly", "so why is it my problem ?"
Nor does the call that "it's not our debt" stand up to moral scrutiny, except with many qualifications and reservations.
Finally, the idea that all bondholders deserve to be "burned", whether on the nonsense basis that they were only gamblers, or on any other basis, while other creditors suffer no loss at all, is devoid of moral reasoning.
Wednesday, December 7, 2011 at 05:47PM On the wonderful website The Irish Economy, I made a number of contributions in the Comments section following a post on the above subject. A commenter called Bklyn_rntr responded to me (and to others) on November 28th last and again early on the following day. As the comments to the post in question had already gone on for too long, I promised to respond here and I belatedly do so now.
I shall address his points in the order in which they were made.
...Anglo had only one reasonably effective system for managing risk and that was to insist that loans granted MUST be deposited with the bank. Indeed, a minimum deposit was required or the loan would become callable. In 2008, apparently, when Lenihan was presented with a series of choices surrounding the guarantee, he chose to guarantee everything AND to allow deposits to be withdrawn, including those subject to the minimum deposit requirement.
I don't believe that when considering, and deciding upon, the Guarantee, the then Minister or anyone involved would - even if they knew about them, which I also doubt - have had the position of such security deposits in mind. If the suggestion is that Anglo management later released such security without repayment of the loans, then I will await sight of the evidence that this happened before commenting.
...if you want to demonstrate your superior legal skills by offering a definition of treason, feel free. I don’t pretend to have training here. However a dictionary says it is acting to weaken or harm your state or sovereign or offering help or succor to your country’s enemies. Well, IMHO, foisting what were clearly private sector losses onto the sovereign in order to protect the banks of Germany and France, was an act that weakened Ireland.
Compliment acknowledged, but I don't think that it requires legal training to appreciate the fact that to speak of treason is out of place here. Indeed, working out what constitutes the offence in the modern world caused grave difficulty as far back as 1916, when Roger Casement ended up being "hanged by a comma".
If a country is at war with another, someone who aids the enemy might be reasonably described as a traitor. At a stretch, one might also so refer to someone who works to replace, by force, our democratic constitutional arrangements with rule by one man, or by a small group, accountable to no electorate.
In both cases, the intention of the traitor to actually bring about the bad results would have to be an essential ingredient of the offence. One is not validly called a murderer automatically just because one is the cause of someone's death. It can be an accident.
I might agree with the opinion that the actions of many people - from all walks of life, not merely politicians and bankers - have, with the benefit of hindsight, damaged our state. Unless it can be shown that they did so with that intention, it is not just inaccurate but ludicrous to speak of what they did as criminal in any sense, never mind treason. And we are not at war.
Of course, I realise that many serious people, not excluding better lawyers than I, will speak in those terms in informal social encounters, but they will not do so in a serious context such as the present one.
If anyone really believes that people like Seán FitzPatrick, David Drumm or Brian Cowen took the disastrous decisions that they did with the intention that they would damage Ireland and/or aid the country's enemies, then it is long past time for evidence of such intentions to be produced. I have seen nothing which has even tended to constitute such evidence, and those who keep muttering about it are, it seems to me, living in a fantasy.
...it is shocking to think that concealed management loans, back handers, irresponsible lending practices, nefarious share support schemes were, and I suppose are still, legal...
None of those things have ever been or are "legal". (It might be useful to know, though, whether we share the same understanding of the terms "irresponsible" and "back-handers"). I don't understand Sarah Carey to suggest that she disagrees. What I understand her to be saying is that, because so many of the crimes alleged happened with the apparent connivance of the authorities, the miscreants can't and won't be prosecuted.
The world still spins on its axis in the same way, and accordingly I disagree with Sarah, but she has a valid point. Just ask yourself if a jury would convict Willie McAteer if they believe - I am not sure that I do - that he was actively encouraged ("Fair play to you,Willie") by the Financial Regulator to "window-dress" Anglo's balance sheet. And would a jury convict Kevin Cardiff of conspiracy if he persuaded the jury members that he sincerely believed that the interests of the State required him to do what he did ?
And that those who ran the country into the ground (public and private sector) are ... given an opportunity to state their side of the story to an obviously sympathetic journalist is shocking to me.
Sigh.
How are we to judge whether these people are really responsible if we object to hearing their side of the story ? Even if some issues of their responsibility may be clear by now, there is still a lot that they can explain. I would like to hear them do so.
In this case, a provocative interview with one of the most spineless, grasping thieves, and I will say it again, a traitor to boot is really too much to bear
Contact me if you have the evidence for those accusations, and I will help you to bring a prosecution yourself, if it can be done. I will not be holding my breath while I wait.
And "what about" sentences won’t do to justify why NOBODY, including this traitor, has been called to account
There haven't been any "what about" arguments made against your position, as far as I can see.
(By the way, I also participated starting here in the discussion about the same interview on the rather good Namawinelake website).
Tuesday, November 8, 2011 at 06:45PM My last post was found unconvincing, even - shockingly ! - by some lawyers 
. So, I need to elaborate further on my case.
Before I start, I should again attempt to make it clear what I am, and am not, saying.
I am not arguing that there is a term in the Troika documents which explicitly (or even implicitly) provides that any particular debt of any bank must be paid in full. To the contrary, there are a number of references to the option of not doing so.
What I am contending is that, under the Troika agreements, the decision on whether to pay is not for the Irish Government alone, and that the consent of the Troika fairly clearly was not forthcoming for anything less than a full payment of Anglo's "billion-dollar bond" last week.This news story from last June would appear to bear that out. Note in particular the last paragraph
On the issue of plans affecting senior bondholders at Anglo Irish Bank, Mr Van Rompuy said he 'took note of it' but this could happen only with consultation and negotiation
See also this story, also from June 2011, featuring a rather significant comment
The European Central Bank has opposed any moves to force losses onto senior bank bondholders and Ireland won’t act unilaterally, Deputy Prime Minister Eamon Gilmore said today.
In that sense - and that one only, I think - the payment is required by the "bail-out". Without the "bail-out", the Irish Government would have had a freer hand, although the fear of causing difficulties for the continuation of ECB liquidity support for the banking system would have been a significant constraint on that freedom.
I propose to elaborate further by way of some "big picture" points, followed by some detailed citation of the publicly available documentation.
The version of the "bail-out agreement" from which I will be quoting is this one (PDF) from the Department of Finance website.
Please note these provisions
I think that the cumulative effect of these provisions is clear enough. Yes, I agree that the language is not very strong, or particularly "tight", but it is the same tone throughout the documents, on all areas of policy. The Troika can speak quietly because it carries a big stick.
An interesting consequence of the repayment of this unguaranteed bond issue is to undermine the importance of the infamous "Bank Guarantee" of September 2008 in the evolution of the Irish bank crisis. One is prompted by recent events to doubt whether the ECB would have permitted bank defaults, even without the Guarantee.
Thursday, November 3, 2011 at 06:11PM (Don't shoot this messenger again, please ! I am describing, not defending, the "bail-out deal")
This post is written in response to the continued suggestions from members of the Irish media, political class and economists (e.g. Namawinelake, Professor Brian Lucey, Stephen Donnelly T.D.) that the redemption at par of the senior bonds - neither secured nor guaranteed, be it noted - issued by Anglo-Irish Bank was not required by the terms of the so-called "IMF bail-out".
Before showing (as I hope)that this view is grievously mistaken, I must observe that I find the prevalence of this view, and the vehemence with which it is held, rather surprising. It seemed to me - even before I read the documents - that nothing could explain the Government's persistence with the payment, other than external compulsion. It also was my impression that submission to the bail-out terms was widely accepted, and indeed lamented, in the same quarters, as removing our freedom of decision in such matters.
Ireland's agreement with the Troika - commonly mis-described as "our IMF bail-out" - gives the latter, of which the ECB is one member, a veto over any plans to "burn bondholders".
See paragraph 10 et seq. of the first attachment to this letter (it's on page 5 of the PDF) sent by Lenihan & Honohan on December 3,2010. It is a crucial part of the "bail-out deal" architecture. By it, Ireland has committed to agreeing its plans in the relevant respects, including "burden-sharing" with bank creditors, with the Troika.
The word "veto" is not used. It does not have to be. Failure to approve has the same effect.
Now, there are those who are suggesting that our government has not tried, and that if they only tried hard enough, the ECB would "cave-in" and agree to "burden-sharing" a.k.a "burning the bond-holders".
I have no personal knowledge of whether such suggestions have any basis in reality, but I have noticed that Messrs Kenny, Gilmore and Noonan have claimed to have discussed the question with M. Trichet. I have also noticed a lot of abuse directed at Trichet because of his alleged obdurate refusal to countenance any suggestions that the ECB should relax its opposition to bond "haircuts".
I also note that, contrary to views expressed in many quarters, the IMF is none too keen, either. See p.23 of this PDF at paragraph 34, third bullet point (and especially the last sentence).
It does not look to me as if the necessary approval is available from the Troika just now, whatever the future may bring. What leverage do we have to persuade them to a change of mind ? As long as our borrowing requirement is circa €15 billion, not a lot, in my view.
But what do I know ?
Fergus O'Rourke
Fergus O'Rourke
Sunday, June 5, 2011 at 06:30PM The previous blogposts in this series have now been kindly re-published as a single article here by TheJournal.ie.
The article has generated a satisfying number of comments, some of quality, and there has also been vigorous reaction on Twitter.
The discussion will continue here and elsewhere.
Tuesday, May 3, 2011 at 06:41PM Unemployment is, in absolute terms, at an all-time high just now in the Republic of Ireland. While we have experienced higher rates of unemployment in the 1980s, the current number of nearly half a million is a new record.
I am confident that it will come down again, but the descent will be slower than the upward surge was.
Does anyone think that even 300,000 jobs will be "created" within, say, 5 years ? There is no sign that even the most optimistic left-wing politician believes that this can be achieved.
This means that an awful lot of people are facing a long period of unemployment if they restrict themselves to the opportunities afforded by the Irish labour market. It is a sobering thought. It is not less sobering to note that the opportunities in the traditional English-speaking destinations for Irish job-seekers are perhaps not going to be as good as in the past. And, as noted above, our current temporary labour surplus has never been higher.
On the brighter side, the richer countries are pretty short of the kind of people of whom we now have a surplus, and also, over the last quarter-century it has been noticeable that Irish people have found opportunities all over the world, and not just in the traditional comfort-zones.
The traditional cultural inclination, however, has been for Irish workers to wait and wait and .... Emigration was slow to resume in the 1980s and only really got going after 1986. This was bad for the individuals, and for society in general.It would be tragic if we let the same thing happen again.
I am not suggesting that everyone should, like our forbears, "take the boat" and join the Cricklewood navvy gangs, (even if there are any left), but we should, I suggest, shake off at least a little of our instinctive emigration-averse acculturation and treat the world Global Village as our oyster (which it is). It does not provide an easy option for any but a lucky few, but for many others opportunities will present themselves if they decide, starting right now, to be open to them.
The rest of us, I would urge, should stop bewailing "the return of the spectre of emigration".
And remember: VOIP is a great thing, and medium/long-distance travel has never been quicker, easier or cheaper.
Fergus O'Rourke
Monday, May 2, 2011 at 05:48PM My view on emigration is, understandably, shaped by my experience.
I was born in Canada, as was my eldest brother (we have joint citizenship).Of the nine children produced by my four grandparents, not one spent their entire working life in the State, and three are permanently resident abroad.Of my seven siblings, only one has not lived and worked abroad, and two still do.
I have 34 first cousins living, of whom 25 were born in Ireland. Nineteen now live in Ireland, of whom three have returned after being located elsewhere.
I have three children. One lives in Dublin (at least three hours travelling time away). The other two live abroad.
I have nine nephews/nieces: four live abroad.
To sum all this up: Emigration has always been part of the story of my family as I have known it.
It's not exactly that "it's no big deal", as it were; it is more a case that this is Life - if your desires, plans, ambitions, relationships need you to live a long way away from where you grew up, you do it. You do not wring your hands, and wish that it could be otherwise, and neither do those whom you are leaving behind. There is some pain in separation, but it's not "the end of the world."
Of course, it is very important to this mind-set that separation, albeit it may be prolonged over years, is not seen as permanent. For many Irish families, though not mine, the experience of emigration meant the departure of family members who were never seen or heard from again.
Next, I hope to address the topic of emigration in the context of Ireland's current circumstances in 2011.
Fergus O'Rourke
Tuesday, April 26, 2011 at 01:21PM Cormac Lucey, if I do not misunderstand this article of his, thinks that the EMU project is the ultimate culprit for our current economic mess. He is not alone in holding that view.
I do not agree: in my opinion, it is the lack of an appropriate Irish fiscal/regulatory policy response to the implications of our circumstances that is the proper culprit in that context. My recollection is that flaws in the Eurozone architecture were competently identified and policy prescriptions recommended by the "economist community".
Very unfortunately, those recommendations were not followed, and that is why "we are where we are". I don't claim to have been prescient about the extent of the financial "meltdown", but do claim that my opposition to the Lisbon Treaty was partially due to a revulsion from the failure - a failure of the EU elites, not just the Irish - to face the fact that the EU governance arrangements were neither one thing nor the other, and not fit for purpose, especially for a monetary union.
See these statements, for examples:
Having to play by the EMU rules is an acceptable long term price to pay for EMU’s economic benefits
I remain concerned by the robustness of the arrangements for the Euro. The Stability Pact is not the only one of its foundation pillars that is looking shaky
They are extracts from a 2008 post of mine.
Monday, March 8, 2010 at 10:31AM A common meme of discussion on politics and politicians in Ireland (and elsewhere) is that politicians are "out of touch" with the feelings, concerns and even the requirements of the voters to whom they are responsible and accountable.
Maybe they are - some of them certainly are - but it seems to me that it is unlikely that, as a class, politicians are more out of touch than anyone else. To the contrary, in fact.
Since so much of our discussion of these matters takes place in the mass media, almost always in contexts chosen and moderated by journalists, and in which journalists are often the only interlocutors, it is inevitable that the voters to whom reference is made in those discussions are not the generality of voters but those voters with whom the journalistic class identify.
I do not intend to suggest that journalists as a class identify solely with a narrow group rather than with the generality. They do tend to so identify, however, and I do intend to insinuate that journalists, and the "lay" people with whom they like to discuss current affairs, may well be more out of touch than politicians are.
As always, I may well be wrong.
But I ask you to consider this:
- Elected politicians owe their jobs to being in touch
- Out of touch politicians lose their jobs
- In Ireland at least, journalists have a dreadful record when it comes to predicting election results
- Journalists who are out of touch with the general electorate do not lose their jobs
It is not guaranteed to be so, but I suggest that people whose future depends on getting public opinion right are more likely to succeed in that than people whose futures are not so dependent.
Thursday, January 14, 2010 at 11:23AM I have been thinking about hypocrites and hypocrisy and whether they are useful terms any more. My conclusion is that they are; read on if you wish to learn why.
Hypocrisy has no friends. Hypocrites - i.e. the people as distinct from the thing - might be a little more popular but it's a "in spite of" rather than "because of" thing.
My own tolerance for hypocrisy is possibly higher than average, but that tolerance has limits (and maybe it's hypocritical of me to even claim to have any !): I suspect that we humans may be "hard-wired" to abhor the phenomenon.
The dictionary definition of hypocrisy is "the pretence of virtue" but in common discourse, this meaning has been abandoned and the word has, unfortunately I think, come to have two possible meanings, both very similar though subtly distinct from each other. The first refers to not practising what one preaches. The other is holding others to standards which we cannot uphold ourselves.
Using "hypocrisy" as having either of these meanings leads to a similar problem: the word loses its power, because as far as I am aware there is no human being who is not guilty to a greater or lesser extent. No-one is able to conform perfectly to what one preaches, or to always uphold the standards one wishes to be generally followed. I am certainly guilty myself, and I have no doubt that both the Pope and the Dali Lama would also acknowledge that they are not "without sin".
Does this mean that logic demands that all aspirations to do good and to avoid doing ill be eschewed ? Does it even mean that no-one should criticise or hold to account those who have failed to "keep to the rules" because to do so is necessarily hypocritical ?
I say "no". I also say that we should retain the dictionary definition and reserve the label of "hypocrite" for those who pretend to a virtue that they do not in fact possess.
Of course, I do accept that very often those who hold others to standards that they cannot, or will not, observe themselves are in effect pretending an unmerited virtue, and are therefore hypocrites. (Some especially nasty people do this, though, without any attempt to pretend consistency). Similarly, continuously and with great sanctimony preaching what one fails to practise will often be associated with a pretence to possession of unmerited virtue.
However, this is not as common among the usual targets for accusations of hypocrisy as many younger people (influenced by some whited sepulchres given vent in the mass media) believe.
I tend to believe that humility or the Socratic principle (the wise man is conscious of his vast ignorance) in ethical matters is the best course. For all its faults, Christianity's official line is still that "we are all sinners" and I respect it hugely for that, no matter how many of its adherents or prelates often forget it in practice.
Fergus O'Rourke
Having - yes, belatedly - checked on the accepted meaning of "whited sepulchre", I find that it is the worst kind of "hypocrite", a person full of evil but apparently perfect on the outside. I did not really have that meaning in mind. What I have in mind is the kind of shrill outrage of those who are not evil or especially hypocritical themselves - that would be too hard on them - but who, with imperfectly suppressed relish, sternly "shovel" enormous moral indignation on people who have fallen from grace e.g. dismissed bank executives, convicted bouncers, dead bishops, disgraced politicians.
This behaviour makes my flesh crawl, not just because of the lack of a proper humility but because it is usually a case of "kicking the man when he is down".
Tuesday, September 29, 2009 at 03:21PM We, the undersigned, have decided to vote "No" on Friday and recommend that our fellow voters do so as well.
We each have slightly different reasons for our position but are agreed on what now follows.
Contrary to a common argument from our opponents, the Treaty is about much more than improving decision-making, but even if it was
The North Korean parliament is a marvel of efficient decision-making, as is a torch-wielding lynch mob. Neither is an attractive model for the EU
(The quotation is from "The Economist")
The Referendum Commission's work, while valuable, at best clarifies what is in this treaty. Given its complexity, there is an understandable tendency to conclude that, having reached some understanding of its contents and having failed to confirm one's worst fears, it is safe to vote for it. This is, sadly, no way to decide on the rules for our government. The treaty must also be seen in a larger context, especially that of its genesis.
None of the other groups opposed to the Treaty represent us adequately, and in the case of some, do not represent us at all. Nor, as is absolutely clear from polls and from last June's elections, do they represent the majority of "No" voters.
In deciding how to vote, the bad reasons on either side are irrelevant.
Some say that Lisbon is a bad deal for Ireland: we don't agree with this formulation of the problem at all. Our negotiators did a reasonable job.
C'est Magnifique! Mais C'est Ne Pas la Democratie
The EU's Constitution (for that is what the Treaties culminating in Lisbon amount to) has been developed, and continues to develop, without adequate democratic participation. Most regrettably, Lisbon was deliberately written to further preclude this. "The Economist", whose Europhile credentials are impeccable, had the integrity to note this as drafting proceeded. The titles of the relevant articles - Hee-hee Voters Fooled Again and Journalists for a Cover-up - must make any genuine democrat's blood run cold.
Public opinion in the EU states has not been able to arrive at an informed view on the merits of the Treaty because of the way in which it was written. Even to us, as lawyers accustomed to dealing with abstruse documents, the Treaty as signed is well-nigh unreadable. We recognise that some of this arose from the inherent difficulty of arriving at an agreement, but it is clear beyond dispute that the form in which the Treaty was signed was a function of the perceived necessity to disguise, or at least to "cosmetise", some aspects which would cause difficulty, especially for the people of the UK.
Voting "No" is Not Rejecting Everything
We acknowledge some good things in the Treaty, but cannot support further extension of Union competences while the ethos of democratic exclusion continues to hold sway. The Union leadership has now developed the habit of discarding democratic methods reflexively, if they do not produce the right answer.
Indeed, we fear that the Union may already have gone further than is inherently possible while remaining politically legitimate. The choice now is either to go fully federal or to revert to a community of more or less equal states. Lisbon is an unsatisfactory mish-mash from this perspective.
The Commission's sole power to initiate legislation, including repealing measures, is increasingly anachronistic in democratic terms now that so many of the laws governing us are made in this way.
We don't accept that non-ratification will lead to "the sky falling in". The ECB, for example, is not helping us as a reward or a bribe. (But if it is , it will stop on Monday whether we vote "Yes" or "No").
Whether "Yes" or "No", Ireland will still be near the top of the table of countries supportive of the EU. Even "No" voters are 2-to-1 in favour of membership.
Some "Yes" people want an EU government instead of an Irish one, arguing that native rule has failed. That is a dangerous fantasy and one which the EU itself will not indulge.
The apparent requirement on EU Commission staff from top to bottom to be not merely functionaries but enthusiasts and proselytisers for "the project" is worrying for an ostensibly democratic entity.
Brendan Nix S.C., Joe Noonan, Solicitor, Fergus O'Rourke B.L., John McGuiggan B.L.
[ends]
Sunday, November 30, 2008 at 08:47PM
Despite the fact that we agreed on how to vote on the Lisbon Treaty, there are not many things that I find attractive in Declan Ganley.
The feature that I probably find least attractive is his political amateurism and his unsophisticated tendency, very reminiscent of the British euro-sceptics, to see the "evil hand of Brussels" behind every question that he finds uncomfortable.
Some of his other unattractive debating faults can be seen at work here.
However, it is quite clear that "they" are indeed out to get him. Having, as they see it, single-handedly sabotaged "the project" by his intervention in the Lisbon referendum, and having managed, as they see it, to get the EU's most euro-philic electorate (see statistics quoted here) to deliver a perverse decision, the forces ranged on the other side of that argument are naturally keen to weaken Ganley before the re-run of the referendum which they plan to have next year.
On last Thursday night,"Prime Time",Ireland's leading television current affairs programme, broadcast what struck me as more or less a 40 minute hatchet-job.
It was not completely unfair to Ganley. It did
However, the programme's most interesting sections concerned Mr Ganley's activities in Latvia,Russia, Bulgaria, Albania, and the U.S..
Latvia
The chief focus of this was what seems to have been an exaggeration by Ganley of his influence as a very young man on a junior minister in the first post-soviet government. It was careful,though, to allow an "expert" to explain to us that the area of Riga in which Ganley worked was largely controlled by gangsters and illicit traders.
What was the point of this ?
Russia
The only point of this section seems to have been to note that Ganley held his Russian forestry venture through a Cypriot company and to give time for another "expert" to dilate on the lack of transparency associated with use of Cyprus-registered companies and how the Russian gangster class were very fond of using Cyprus.
So, if you use a Cypriot company, you are ipso facto a gangster, right ? I don't think so, but I would be surprised if most viewers did not take that impression.
Bulgaria
For some reason, all we heard about this was that Ganley made a lot of money from the sale of his cable-television investment in Bulgaria. No detail whatsoever was given.
Albania
This was the most sensationalistic section of the programme.
We were shown the body of a man lying on a deserted roadway. The body is of someone who worked for Ganley's company at one time many years ago. We are told that shortly before being murdered just recently, this man had started to reveal secrets of criminal activity.
Ganley denies ever knowing him, but eventually concedes that he may have been connected. So what ? We are not told.
What we are told is that Ganley was involved in Albania's "privatisation voucher" scheme, and we hear a very old man tell us at some length, through an interpreter, how he lost all his life's savings through the collapse of the scheme. How Ganley was alleged to be culpable is not explained. One of Ganley's American associates says that the Albanian government aborted the scheme, which cannot be blamed on Ganley, but I suspect that the significance of this will have escaped the television audience, for the most part. Was this accidental ?
United States
We get a fairly detailed account of an alleged attempt by Ganley to acquire by stealth a mobile-phone operator's licence in Iraq. The response of Ganley and his associates suggests that this was a very murky episode one way or another. Which way is impossible to judge. Why the full story could not be summarised for us in comprehensible way may be a story in itself, but the way it is presented is not to Ganley's advantage.
SIPO
SIPO is the Irish government body which regulates the spending of money for political purposes.
It was suggested on the programme that Ganley had failed to "engage" with SIPO, which he denied, and quotation was made from a leaked letter, allegedly on its way to Ganley from SIPO, which gave him an ultimatum. We were not shown the letter; it does not appear that Ganley was, either. (And I gather from a not-particularly-reliable source that it has been reported that he still has not received it).
Summary
This was a shoddy piece of biassed reporting. I would like to think that we won't get any more of this, but I suspect that I will be disappointed.
However, I am not so certain that the cumulative effect of this kind of story will be as intended.
