Great to see the old habit of appointing political cronies to plum government quangos is alive and well.
Former PD candidate and Harneyy crony "Gerry McCaughey has been appointed Chairperson of the Dublin Docklands Development Authority by the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, John Gormley."
fxcentre Breaking News
Replacing a crook crony of Ahern, with a crony of Harney and Tom Parlon.
"Green politics is clean politics"…………..
And he on Q&A tonight.
Every one sees what you appear to be, few really know what you are, and those few dare not oppose themselves to the opinion of the many, who have the majesty of the state to defend them.
- [SIZE=2]Niccolò Machiavelli[/SIZE]
Would the guy have had to interview for the position? Or is it more of a political appointment type thingy?
Regardless of his political friendships - he is a talented and well regarded entrepreneur internationally and Kingspan is a well respected company that was up and going long before the Celtic Tiger arrived and has a good reputation for being innovative - so its bucking the trend of appointing a nice,but totally unqualified individual to the position.Originally Posted by White Horse
It beats the position going to the Paddy the Plasterer!
That's what I was thinking. He does seem fairly well qualified in fairness.
[COLOR=#009900]'Legal corruption' high in absence of accountability[/COLOR]
[COLOR=#009900]IRELAND SUFFERS high levels of “legal corruption” because of the Green-FF Government’s failure to make political parties, large corporations and government bodies more publicly accountable.[/COLOR]
[COLOR=#009900]Ireland's shortcomings include: [/COLOR]
- Risk of patronage and corruption in appointments to State boards.
[COLOR=#009900]
[/COLOR]
[COLOR=#009900]More: [/COLOR]'Legal corruption' high in absence of accountability - The Irish Times - Tue, Mar 03, 2009
This report by the anti-corruption watchdog Transparency International is based on comprehensive research carried out over three years into the integrity of the different pillars of the State, encompassing government, parliament, courts, law and order, the public service and the media.
Fine Gael should ash him to join their party, they took Cannon after all.
[SIZE="4"]Fianna Fáil[/SIZE]
[COLOR="DarkGreen"] The Land agents party[/COLOR].
21 days in the job, that must be a record for a Government appointee. I still would respect Mr. McCaughey for doing the honourable thing and resigning.
Last edited by onthefence; 25th March 2009 at 03:58 PM. Reason: spelling error
Knowledge is power.
Economic Left/Right: -0.25
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -2.97
In 2009
Economic Left/Right: -2.12
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -4.26
One part of me says - Fair play to McCaughey for resigning in regard to this - public representatives should be seen to be above board.
Another part of me says - why the F. should he resign?
He has done absolutely nothing illegal - This Tax avoidance was a totally legal avenue at the time - has since been closed by the Revenue - but he acted completely within the law.
I feel he is the fall guy for a Green Party that is desperate to throw some red meat to the baying mob, a mob that is green with jealousy, high on self righteousness and totally hungover now that the credit cocaine has run out.
One would have to ask how the KPMG documents came into the public domain.
Also all this episode shows us is the total joke that our regulatory authorities are in this country - and by default the Government - better and tighter regulation and better agreements with other tax juristictions would have prevented him doing this.
People have been trying to avoid paying any more tax than they really have to since Adam hid the extra bushel of wheat behind the tree - this is a reality - every business and individual tries to minimise their tax contribution by whatever means possible - from large companies using legal firms etc etc to joe public buying their groceries in the north, developing specially designated properties,buying cigarettes and alcohol in the duty-free or abroad for personal consumption and on and on an on - anybody who says any different is a hypocrite or a liar or both.
If we are going to automatically bar any individual who has legitimately avoided paying tax in this juristiction from holding public office - boy - we will have a country run by the most timid, risk adverse, dullards in the land - there is not a single business or businessman in the country who has not legally avoided paying tax in this country.
There is a serious difference between Tax avoidance and Tax evasion - any clever people will always come up with inventive ways around the tax rules until the Revenue catch up and close more - this game has been going on for yonks.
To give you an example - for the last 6 years - the company I worked for imported a lot of machinery and technology from outside the EU - for use on the products we manufactured and designed here for export both to the rest of the EU and Ex-EU - my job as Customs Compliance Officer and logistics Manager was to get those products from the manufacturer to our production floor as cost effectively as possible by whatever means within the law - ie to reduce as much as possible the cost of transportation, duty& excise and VAT paid. And I can guarantee you that I pushed the envelope on every definition !
One particular case comes to mind - before I joined the company we had been importing a particular piece of machinery from the USA and were paying 8% Duty and full VAT at 21% even tho the product would be rexported as part of a larger machine outside the EU - I challenged the legal advice they had received in regard to this duty payment on this product - I did my research into precedent in the EU and approached the Revenue that I wanted to reclassify the product to a 0% duty import and that as the products were being re-exported outside the EU , I got my accounts dep to apply for the refund of the VAT - Revenue fought me on this and we went to the courts over this and I won - not only for future imports but all imports going back 10 years - the Revenue had to write us a cheque for 30 million euros - a lot of potatoes - because I legitimately avoided paying duty thru the rules that were in existence - it was up to me to do this - the Revenue are not going to give you any hints - Its up to you to minimize your tax payments. I did this wherever I could on all our imports and saved the company a sizeable amount of cash - that was my job - thats what they hired me for - to reduce the cost of doing business as much as possible and by whatever means possible within the law at the time.
Now before anybody accuses me of taking the bread out of the mouths of Public servants babies - the money that was saved there was recycled back into the company - primarily into hiring R/D personnel here, enlarging the workforce and allowed us the luxury of being able to buy Irish when it came to the pitiful few items that we required that were manufactured in Ireland and ,Yes, some of it probably went to the shareholders in dividend too - thats ok with me - they put up the capital to start the company - they took the risk - they are entitled to the reward.
The point of those last 2 paragraphs is to demonstrate that businesses will do anything to legitimately avoid paying more tax than they have to - they already pay a heck of lot in income taxes,VAT,duty,local rates,waste levies etc etc - its up to the state and the state agencies to have proper regulation in place - if its slack and undefined , then don't be surprised that some clever, devious, scheming chancer like yours truly will see a loophole and exploit it.
anybody who says any different is deluding themselves - communism ended working in exactly the same way folks - human nature is universal
Self interest comes before common interest always - its up to society to figure out how to harness self-interest into working for the common interest - it can be done -but it takes a lot of intelligence and good planning and vision - something our state regulatory agencies and current government are bereft of.
Its a pity McCaughey is gone - something about the Docklands Authority stinks to the high heaven of cosy deals,cronyism and lot of slackers earning easy money for f^ck all - he would have been the man to sort that stuff out - and Gilmore is talking thru his populist posterior in accusing him of cronyism - you would think that Pat will all his Union experience and the rural labour fiefdoms and their requirement for you to have the TDs DNA to get on the council, would be able to distinguish the real thing - tit.
Last edited by Edo; 25th March 2009 at 07:46 PM.
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