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In 2007, the chairman of the Revenue Commissioners was Frank Daly, now head of NAMA, and it might be instructive to have his view on how a tax ruling by his officials threatens the government, in 2016

Two-and-a-half times as many in South as in Dublin Mid Leinster

Newish Northern Ireland First Minister Arlene Foster is in the middle of a successful charm offensive. She is popular, even with some Nationalists. The vortex into normality engulfs ever more of the increasingly hateless political classes despite themselves. We have recently emerged from one of the quietest marching seasons since the Troubles began. Any friction was small-scale. The last highly-contentious parades to survive into the present are the annual July 12th morning and evening parades by Orange lodges and associated bands from Belfast’s Upper Crumlin Road area. These pass the Catholic Ardoyne area. The Parades Commission has refused permission for the return leg of this. In recent years, there has been serious violence on it. This year, there was a short stand-off, then some skirmishing. Only one of the lodges involved in the parade took part in protests. There have been talks between representatives of the Orange Order and Nationalist residents. Both parties, in principle, accept the need for dialogue. Nationalist representatives are willing to accept a march, while Orange representatives accept provocative behaviour is unacceptable. Overall, the great majority of Protestants believe the Loyal Orders have a right to march. However, pointless street violence is a turn-off. There are internal tensions, with a perception that the more intransigent sections of the Orange contingent come from areas with few Catholics. Some Loyalists disparagingly refer to them as ‘seaside Orangemen’, whose intransigence fuels violence around interface areas. Then they go home, leaving community workers on the ground to pick up the pieces. Some Orangemen feel that these drive an agenda of refusing to talk to Nationalist residents – because they don’t have to face the issue in their own areas. Within the Orange community, there is also a tiredness. Many feel ‘protested out’ after long protests at Drumcree in Portadown and Ardoyne were unsuccessful. On the Catholic/Nationalist side there is no great love of Orange. However, there is also an acceptance that marches are a part of life, and no great appetite to oppose them as long as they are properly conducted, and there is consultation. Marching, of course, has been a lively issue in the North, and Ulster, since the Orange Order was established in the 1790s. Even in quiet periods like the early 1950s there were occasional riots in the curtelage of Orange processions. However, what the summer produced was the unexpected. We’re used to Somme-visiting Martin McGuinness taking tea with royalty but no writer would have been bold enough to make up the contact between flag protestor Jamie Bryson and Sinn Féin’s Assembly Finance Committee Chair, Dáithí McKay. Bryson came to prominence as an organiser of protests when Belfast City Council voted to cease flying the Union Jack every day on City Hall. He was against Sinn Féin being in government. However, there he was undoubtedly, exchanging friendly messages with McKay. McKay, one of Sinn Féin’s most able performers, has resigned. Bryson’s limited credibility as a hardliner has been tainted. It is unclear who leaked the messages. Bryson has strenuously denied responsibility. He is, though, the main suspect. The affair has damaged Sinn Féin’s image of discipline and control. Bryson is a loose cannon. He had good information on the actions of NAMA in the North: this obviously came from the anti-Robinson faction in the DUP. If Sinn Féin is established to have been working with him they will look far worse than duplicitous: they will look stupid. It is interesting that Frank Connolly reported in Village last year that Gerry Adams was “telegraphing” messages to ensure Peter Robinson knew that unless he resurrected the suspended executive Sinn Féin would play hard ball on his Nama travails. Meanwhile, this controversy has taken the focus away from the sale of NAMA properties in the North at significantly below value. There is no evidence that former First Minister Peter Robinson engaged in any illegal activity. However, several of those involved in the sales were perceived as close to Robinson. There are still big questions to be answered: the Bryson- McKay controversy has (to date) diverted attention from this. The summer also showed how the Sinn Féin – DUP arrangement is still stable. Foster’s political honeymoon will, naturally, not last but she has people skills that Robinson lacked. It is significant that the DUP did not call for the head of Finance Minister Máirtín Ó Muileoir until late in the day – and is not threatening the Executive on the issue. DUP sources see the Executive as solid. There were unexpected developments on bonfires, too. As expected Sinn Féin posters were burned on Loyalist bonfires round the 12th. They were also burned on a bonfire built by alienated young people in Derry’s Bogside. That youth alienation, across the community, is a bigger threat than the growth of Republican or Loyalist dissidents. By Anton McCabe

Reading a Pulitzer-winning New York biography over the summer it was difficult not to think of Pat Hickey and his control of the Olympic Council of Ireland (OCI). Hickey’s ego and ability to run rings around ministers is reminiscent, on a much smaller scale, of the way Robert Moses domineered in New York from the 1930s to the 1960s. Moses’ career is brilliantly expounded in Robert Caro’s outstanding, if at 1336 pages remarkably long, biography, ‘The Power Broker’. Moses unsuccessfully stood for New York State governor in 1934. But never achieving elected office didn’t stop him from becoming the most powerful man in New York. He rebuilt much of the city, in some ways positively, though he had little regard for the poor, and none for blacks. He created more public parks and recreational areas for New Yorkers, but in almost half a century he also committed the state to the car, building more roads, and starving public transport of investment, with predictable results. His story is one of remarkable power ostensibly based on the control of innocuous-sounding public authorities. His superior knowledge of rules, rules he often drafted himself, gave him control of these authorities. He collected information on every potential collaborator, who were, of course, also potential enemies. But most of all Moses organised the corruption of the city’s public works programmes. He ensured that anyone with any power had an interest in Moses’ success. He was able to defeat powerful enemies this way. And his successes made him powerful friends. In this perspective, the OCI ticketing scandal is pretty small beer. It might be a sign of how healthy our democracy is that we’re getting so exercised by it. More likely is that it happened in August and so, other than an underwhelming Irish performance at the Olympics, the media had little else to report. But it has become a scandal, and scandals create a vacuum that must be filled by the outrage of the overwrought. ‘Shell shocked’ ministers promised action. If Joe Duffy is currently pandering to the self-appointed morally superior, his interlocutors are sure to have been aghast. It will have provided proof for them, not that any was needed, that ‘they’re all the same’. And so to fill the vacuum, Shane Ross rushed in with an ‘independent’ inquiry. As a non-statutory inquiry it will depend on the goodwill of those it’s seeking to investigate. If there is wrongdoing, it is unlikely to find anything other than a lack of co-operation. It would be very hard for Pat Hickey to co-operate, should he want to, while under threat from the Brazilian criminal system. It does mean, however, that the OCI can’t sweep the matter away, which presumably it would prefer to do. But above all the purpose of the inquiry is to be seen to do something. Hopefully judge Carroll Moran will have the sense to see that and not drag it out longer than is needed. The real lessons are entirely predictable. When we look at the scandals that have emerged in Irish state-dependent organisations recently, a common thread is evident. The problems in Console, Rehab, the Central Remedial Clinic and the OCI – as well as Irish Nationwide, whether a result of corruption or mis-management, all happened in organisations that became dominated by one man or woman. They could get away it for so long because the dominant player controlled money, information and personnel and was dependent on absentee directors who showed little interest or taste in propriety. They went along usually because of the generous rewards associated with the roles. Sonia O’Sullivan’s admission that anything she knew about the OCI scandal she knew from the media shows a surprising lack of interest, given her position on its board. But badly managed organisations depend on the torpidity of others. The Irish scandals dwarf in comparison to Moses’ operation, but if we are serious about avoiding the excessive rewards and mismanagement of important Irish institutions, we need to think about regulation certainly, but even more about how directors operate and the terms of their leadership. Because many were overpaid we assume that no pay is the answer. This, it is thought, ensures that only the honest and genuinely interested will serve. But it means they may take it less seriously, and they may feel entitled to pursue other ways to get rewards. Moses made a big deal of the fact that he served in his many public jobs (except as New York City Parks Commissioner) without compensation, but he lived royally and enriched those around him in public and private life who aided him. Some pay is reasonable and desirable. Unless directors are made personally responsible for the activities of their organisations these scandals will continue. And if they are dominated by egotistical individuals, then scandal is almost a certainty. By Eoin O’Malley

Shane Ross knows a thing or two about US multi-national corporations and the way they operate in this globalised economy. They avoid tax, in particular the 35% rate that applies in the US. No amount of huffing and puffing by Tim Cook, Michael Noonan or anyone else can alter that fact, and Ross knows it. As Joseph Stiglitz put it, the Irish government has been complicit in assisting Apple, or more precisely, its Irish subsidiary ASI, in massive tax avoidance: “The fact is you were avoiding tax and you knew it”, said the Nobel-prize-winning economist. “Whether the income was correctly attributed to Ireland is another matter. If Apple is saying that this is Irish income, you have an obligation to impose taxes on income that they say originated in Ireland”. Pocket the money and use it to meet the needs of the Irish people for homes, schools and hospitals, he told RTÉ. Put simply the EU commission has said to the Government that a Revenue ruling in 2007 was not based on any real figures but was more a negotiation with Apple that helped the giant corporation avoid paying any tax on profits it gained from sales of its products in countries across Europe and the world. The 2007 ruling was a negotiation with Apple based on earning projections provided by the company, the EU Commission argues. It was wrong in that it allowed Apple to declare income earned in other states as Irish income because it was booked in this country. The ruling was based on a similar 1991 letter of comfort provided by the Revenue Commissioners to Apple. The Minister for Finance in 1991 was Bertie Ahern and in 2007 it was Brian Cowen but it is unclear what knowledge or involvement either had in the deliberations between Apple and the Revenue. In 2007, the chairman of the Revenue Commissioners was Frank Daly, now head of NAMA, and it might be instructive to have his view on how a tax ruling by his officials at that time has ended up threatening the collapse of an already shaky government, in 2016. For Shane Ross and the Independent Alliance (IA) the issues are more immediate and stark. Fine Gael ministers and staffers have already conceded a recall of the Dáil which will provide the political cover for the coalition independents when they vote in favour of an appeal of the EU Commission ruling on Apple. That cover will be provided in the main by Fianna Fáil supporting the government in a Dáil vote. “Fianna Fáil are the crucial ones”, one IA source told Village as we went to print. The party’s finance spokesman, Michael McGrath has already indicated such support and that is hardly surprising as Fianna Fáil were in power when the controversial tax rulings were made and never expressed any concerns with the arrangements over the past 25 years. Fine Gael ministers are not so happy about the second demand by the IA which is for a “strong and decisive” motion on taxation policy which Noonan and his advisors argue has the potential to undermine decades of an industrial strategy based on foreign direct investment and the 340,000 jobs it supports across the country. As the internal coalition wrangling continues few in Leinster House believe that Ross et al. want to pull the government down or that he will not bring his troops across the line when it comes to the vote on an appeal of the EU ruling. What matters is the public perception of how the various parties and independents have acted in the face of an apparent gift to the exchequer of €13bn (plus €6bn interest). No one seriously believes either that this amount will somehow arrive in time for a budget anytime soon or that it would survive intact the legal challenges any transfer to the Irish state from Apple would meet from the company itself, from other states where the income was earned or from the US authorities. And of course Apple is to appeal the EU ruling. But there is no harm in seeking the sun, moon and stars. The €13bn Apple debacle comes on the back of the government turmoil over fatal foetal abnormalities before the summer and the recent trauma of the Olympic games when Ross was humiliated by the chairman of the Irish Olympic Committee before Patrick Hickey landed in Bangu jail in Rio for alleged ticket touting. Not for the first time the survival of this weak administration depends on Micheál Martin and his party. How long can this go on? By Frank Connolly

On a Saturday in April Republican Sinn Féin (RSF) gathered outside the Garden of Remembrance at Parnell Square in Dublin for their national centenary commemoration. As Garda Special branch approached members and onlookers from the public for their names and addresses, the RSF colour party formed up in front of the garden. To the music of the Coatbridge band which lined up behind the colour party, they marched down O’Connell Street, passing the Gresham hotel and the now closed Clerys department store. The parade marched alongside barricades present in the middle of O’Connell Street which had been erected ahead of the official State commemoration that took place on the 27th March, Easter Sunday. The symbolism of the colour party’s flags brushing against the barricades as they marched was not lost. The parade turned at the Middle Abbey Street junction to continue their march up the other side of O’Connell Street to the GPO, where they ceased. Once again Garda Special Branch constituted an obvious presence, looking on as the colour parties of Republican Sinn Féin, Na Fianna Éireann and Cumann na mBan formed up facing the GPO and stood to attention. The occasion was in great contrast to Provisional Sinn Féin’s Easter Rising commemoration in Dublin the following day, which has been described in the Irish Times by historian Eunan O’Halpin as “necessarily decommissioned”. Mandates and Support When we hear the words ‘dissident republican’ in popular outlets they are ubiquitously followed by references to violence, the Omagh bombing in 1998 or low levels of public support. Since May of this year the threat level from republicans has been raised by security services from moderate to substantial. Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams has announced that “dissidents have no support”. Moreover, in the aftermath of the killing of two British soldiers at Masareen and PSNI Constable Stephen Carroll in 2009 the Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland, Martin McGuinness, while standing on the steps of Stormont Castle, famously labelled so-called dissidents as “traitors to Ireland”, and referred to an absence of support for such groups in the community. Narratives about so-called dissident republicanism are shrouded in questions of mandates and legitimacy. A common criticism levelled at Republican Sinn Féin, and the Continuity IRA (CIRA) which shares RSF’s ideology, is that they lack public support- in votes – and that they fail to secure elected representatives. In fact Republican Sinn Féin does have an elected Councillor in Galway, namely Tomás O’Curraoin who has held the position since 2009. Councillor O’Curraoin has always contested the election on an RSF platform. However, to concentrate on mandates in an electoral sense neglects the historical reality that republicanism has not traditionally taken its mandate from the polls. 1798, 1916 and the First and Second Dáileanna are invoked as legitimising the current republican campaign. Legitimacy is not sought at the polls; rather, a line of continuity is drawn through republican history. To put undue emphasis on electoral mandates fails to acknowledge the core of republican ideology. A dream deferred As talk of continuity and unfinished business hung in the air that Saturday outside the GPO, I snapped the adjoining photo of RSF President Des Dalton and the commemoration’s guest speaker John Hunt. The image coincidentally captured the reflection of a blowing tricolour on the glass of the GPO; the reflected flag was on a pole in the centre of O’Connell Street. This image embodies more than a 1916 commemoration. It reveals a living historical link between the 1940s and present day republicanism. Competing with a helicopter over-head, John Hunt addressed the crowd with an oration entitled, ‘1916: A dream deferred’. After the speech Hunt was congratulated on his oration and the ninety-six year old veteran replied “if I hadn’t got a cold you’d have heard me at the other end of Connell Street”. A rebel till the end John Hunt travelled to the commemoration from Chicago in the US where he has lived since the late 1940s. Originally from Limerick he is one of only two surviving internees of the Curragh internment camp in the 1940s, Tom Doran being the other. Hunt was born in Athea in Limerick in 1920. His childhood memories include attending republican commemorations. The earliest commemoration he can recall took place when he was nine-years old. He attended a commemoration at Gortagleanna in Knockanure in County Kerry with his Father. A few years later John was among the crowd listening to a speech by Tom Barry in Abbeyfeale, County Limerick. John worked as a cobbler and was an active member of the local unit of the Irish Republican Army. Early in 1940, along with approximately 500 other men John was interned for IRA activity. He was first taken to police barracks in Limerick and was then transferred to Cork jail. His final destination was Tintown at the Curragh military camp. In the huts the IRA maintained its structures and members reported to the Officer Commanding. In protest at poor conditions and at the treatment meted out by Free State soldiers, who were former comrades, internees burnt a number of the huts on 14 December 1940. The resulting punishment was solitary confinement for a number of the men including Hunt. In 1941 Hunt was sentenced to four years and was transferred to Mountjoy prison and then on to Arbour Hill where he spent one year before being transferred back to the Curragh. His eventual release came in 1945 when he was one of the last men active in that era to be released. Hunt’s attendance at the commemoration was viewed through the RSF lens as conferring legitimacy to the organisation. A line of succession was stressed reaching back to the Fenians, the Young Irelanders, Robert Emmet, Wolfe Tone and the United Irishmen. From the podium John Hunt bellowed out “as a young man, in the darkness of my prison cell, I understood that the sacrifices of the republicans before me would inspire generations yet unborn”. Hunt went on to quote the oft-cited words of

The World Giving Index consistently ranked Ireland in the top five until 2015, when it dropped to its lowest rank of ninth perhaps due to certain scandals in the Irish charity sector. Before the recent revelations concerning Console there had been a number of high-profile scandals over the last five years, affecting the reputation of the sector as a whole. To-date, there are 18,543 civil society organisations in Ireland, with just over 8,000 charities. While reputational damage can be difficult to quantify, charities have reported a drop in their fundraising income in the wake of each controversy. A survey conducted by The Wheel, a national representative network for the voluntary sector in Ireland, in 2014, showed that 59% of the 297 charities surveyed reported a drop in public funding (by as much as 10%) from the previous year. Reductions in government funding, largely due to austerity measures in the past few years, have further savaged charity’s income. Consequently, in the past few years charities have seen their income shrink while demand for their services continues to grow. Historically, charities have relied on people giving up their time and money to a help others. However, the latter half of the Twentieth Century saw charities’ operational plans shifting towards private-sector business models, and charities are fast becoming accountable to the standards and norms of the private sector. While the ongoing Console scandal gathers headlines and the charity is now to be wound up, it is important to note that fraud can occur in any sector.Nevertheless, there are certain measures that can be undertaken to mitigate the dangers. More stringent governance codes, tighter regulations, stricter oversight and greater investigative powers must be imposed. In particular, certain provisions of the Charities Act 2009 have yet to be passed. Part IV of the Charities Act 2009 would grant the Charity Regulatory Authority investigative powers to take pre-emptive action into the affairs of charitable organisations. This includes the power to require them to produce documents, entry and search of premises, and the ability to impose intermediate sanctions under Section 73(5)(a), including the removal of the charitable organisation from the register for such period as the Authority deems necessary. Moreover, in order to ensure uniformity, the Charity Regulatory Authority should set a financial reporting standard for charities, such as the Statement of Recommended Practice for Financial Reporting by Charities (the SORP). The role media play in shaping public perceptions of the charity sector is crucial when assessing a charity’s virtuousness. Media coverage of a controversy, though appropriate in holding management to account, can foster negative perceptions which damage an entire sector. This is not surprising given the inbuilt cognitive bias called the availability heuristic: a quick method for making judgements about the likelihood of something happening. Altruism Ireland was formed to build up a partnership of trust with the general public; a trust founded on transparency. Transparency is more than a buzzword. The truth is people won’t, and shouldn’t, donate their hard-earned cash unless there is trust that the money is being suitably spent. Therefore, each charity that comes on-board its platform is given a transparency score out of ten, based on three main criteria of communicating their projects, results and financial standing. The latter includes the requirement to disclose a CEO’s salary. The reason for this is not to expose individuals, but to help combat public scepticism around ‘golden salaries’. In May of this year, The Journal.ie reported on top charity executives earning in excess of €100,000 euro a year. What Altruism Ireland asks is for people to make informed decisions. Ultimately it is a matter of personal sensitivity to decide if a salary is appropriate for the level of responsibility of a CEO, but before making any judgements about salaries, Altruism Ireland encourages people to look at CEO compensation as a percentage of total expenses. For example, a charity with an annual income of €10m is more justified in paying their CEO €100,000 a year (1%), compared to a smaller organisation with an income of €1m. Furthermore, unlike private fundraising platforms that charge in the region of 5-7% on donations, Altruism Ireland charges 0% commission, ensuring more of the money that people raise goes directly to the charity and into the hands of those who need it the most. Donating and fundraising for charity ought not to be driven by a for-profit motive. Negative perceptions, however, continue to have real-life consequences. The World Giving Index; an annual report published by the Charities Aid Foundation which ranks how charitable a nation is, consistently ranked Ireland in the top five. That was until 2015, when it dropped to its lowest rank of ninth. Again, it is hard to quantify whether this is a direct result of certain scandals in the Irish charity sector, but it seems likely to have played a part. In order to combat a further fall and the lack of dialogue between the public and the charity sector, Altruism Ireland seeks to act as a bridge between the two in order to generate a better understanding of how the sector operates, and in doing so facilitating trust. The ultimate aim of all involved in the charity sector is not only to ensure Ireland’s status as a highly generous society, but to turn it into the most efficient and transparent one. John Clarke is Relationship Manager of Altruism Ireland By John Clarke