General

          FRANK CONNOLLY:   Micheál Grealy has waited almost 40 years to find out what caused the death of his wife, Kathy, just weeks after she gave birth to their first child in Dublin’s Coombe Hospital. Admitted in full health to the hospital after 39 and a half weeks of a normal pregnancy on Christmas Day 1972, Kathy Grealy died seven and a half weeks later in the intensive care unit of St Vincent’s Hospital where she was taken soon after her baby, Casey Anne, was born. The child died from congenital haemolytic disease on the day of her delivery after the Coombe hospital medical team failed to identify the incompatibility between Kathy’s Rhesus negative and her husband’s Rhesus positive blood groups. In this case, the hospital had not established the incompatibility through a routine test for anti-bodies, or taken adequate steps to ascertain that Kathy had a pregnancy terminated some years earlier. Kathy Grealy was an Australian-born citizen who met her Mayo-born husband when she first came to Ireland to trace her roots in the mid-1960s. She died after food entered her lungs – a complication known in medical terms as Mendelson’s Syndrome – during the administration of the general anaesthetic before the Caesarean birth. She had requested, and was promised, that an epidural rather than a general anaesthetic would be administered. The Coombe hospital report of her case describes a “regurgitation of small amount of gastric contents on induction of anaesthesia after failure to pass Ryles tube”. The St Vincent’s in-patient summary on her admission to the intensive care unit on St Stephen’s Day 1972 records that “this woman was admitted from the Coombe Lying-in Hospital for intensive care following accidental inhalation of vomitus (Mendelson’s Syndrome)”. The confirmation that her death on 16th February, 1973 from complications including ‘haemorrhage from tracheostomy site’ and irreversible lung and kidney damage was precipitated during the anaesthetic procedure in the Coombe led her distraught husband on an increasingly-desperate journey to establish the full circumstances surrounding her medical care in one of the country’s largest maternity hospitals. Kathy Grealy had chosen the Coombe over other, private, facilities, not least because she was impressed by the reputation of its leading gynaecologist, the late Professor J K Feeney. The Journal of the Irish Medical Association published in November 1973 provided an apparently unambiguous explanation of where responsibility lay for Kathy’s death, although it also contained seriously inaccurate information about her mental state. In its Annual Maternal Mortality report for 1972 it described her death as “avoidable” while the “hospital” was the only item listed under the heading “Factors of Responsibility”. After almost 40 years of personal investigation and legal inquiries, not one individual or institution has been made answerable for Kathy’s “avoidable” demise.  Nor has there been any explanation why the 1973 report in the IMA journal described her as a “psychotic patient” although she had never displayed any psychotic tendencies according to subsequent reports from experts in the field. In a letter sent to Grealy in August 2005, the Master of the Coombe, Dr Seán Daly, stated that there was no reference in the clinical notes “to any type of psychosis or details that would suggest that the description of psychotic patient should have been applied to your wife”. Dr Daly stated that he did not know “who made the diagnosis, when it was made or upon what is was based as there is no evidence from the clinical notes that such a diagnosis was made”. Yet the ‘diagnosis’ is written in black and white in the IMA Maternal Mortality Committee report on her case. Efforts to get all of the notes, documents and reports relevant to the issues have been unsuccessful despite the involvement of lawyers, politicians, a private investigator and the Information Commissioner who was informed back in 2002 that no relevant files exist in the Department of Health or in the hospital. Grealy met former Labour TD, and later Fianna Fáil health minister, Dr John O’Connell, in the early years of his search for truth and was told by the politician that an inquiry was urgently needed into certain circumstances in the Coombe, a view echoed by two senior civil servants in the Department of Health at the time. Over the years he has met with a wall of resistance, not least from within the medical and legal professions. It took an extraordinary ten years before Micheál Grealy was informed of the identity of the anaesthetist who administered to Kathy. He claims that he was told, wrongly, by Professor Feeney that the procedure had been carried out by someone of another name. When contacted since, the now-retired consultant anaesthetist declined to answer any questions until they were first put to his lawyers. Attempts to contact other members of staff, including nurses and mid-wives have proved fruitless to date. Recently Village has been informed by senior medical sources that there are issues of serious public importance surrounding medical practice at the hospital during the years around Kathy Grealy’s death. Her husband is now seeking the assistance of the Ombudsman’s office to help uncover any illuminating official information – and hoping someone who may know what really happened makes contact with him. It may require an independent inquiry assisted by an expert obstetrician and anaesthetist to help explain why Kathy Grealy and her daughter did not survive childbirth and why other patients may have suffered negligent care by personnel of that hospital, in the Coombe and elsewhere.

  FRANK CONNOLLY:   The conviction and jailing of former Dungarvan Fine Gael councillor, Fred Forsey (43), on corruption charges has been hailed as a great victory by the establishment although the party has maintained a dignified silence in the whole affair. And why wouldn’t they as the man from whom Forsey is accused of accepting an €80,000 bribe is another former Fine Gael councillor. Michael Ryan (60) is also the owner of Al Eile stud farm in Kilgobnet outside Dungarvan and of a famous race horse of the same name and is expected to appear on similar charges next year. He owned the land which Forsey convinced his fellow councillors to  rezone so that Ryan could develop it for a tidy profit. It was only because he fell out with his wife that Forsey was rumbled and is now facing four years in Midland Prison. Former environment minister, John Gormley, stopped the re-zoning. What is shocking is not that a Fine Gael councillor was found with his hand in the till – it is that dozens, if not more, have not been as successfully pursued by the Garda given what emerged of Frank Dunlop’s corrupt activities at the Mahon tribunal. While the disgraced lobbyist bribed his way across more than 15 controversial re-zonings in Dublin in the 1980s and 1990s on behalf of his various clients not one of them has been properly held to account while Dunlop served less than two years in jail. Developer, James Kennedy, former FG senator, Liam T. Cosgrave and a handful of other former councillors are awaiting trial based on Dunlop’s claims. What is also disturbing is that an attempt by Gormley to deal with the ever-growing list of complaints about planning irregularities was effectively suppressed by the new government when it took office last year. A proposed inquiry into questionable planning decisions in no less than seven counties – Dublin city, Carlow, Cork city and county, Donegal, Galway and Meath – was underway before it was stifled by a combination of civil service intransigence and a lack of political enthusiasm on the part of the Government. The story under review in Meath alone could occupy a team of investigators for several months as it is an intricate tale involving competing developers, planners, councillors, a leading soccer club and even national politicians that ends up covering no-one in glory. It is rooted in a proposal in 2004 by Drogheda Borough Council, and Louth and Meath county councils, to establish a new conurbation south of Drogheda  and inside the Meath county boundary, incorporating lands known as Bryanstown.  A decision was also made that other lands on the Mornington Road closer to to Drogheda would remain reserved and would not be developed until long-term plans for the port in the town were completed. Wicklow-based developer, Bill Doyle, recognised the potential of the Bryanstown site and began to assemble lands there after receiving what he claimed were assurances from Meath County manager, Tom Dowling, that the proposals by the three local authorities would proceed as envisaged. Doyle eventually purchased 124 acres and – in co-operation with other landowners – designed a major residential, retail and industrial new town on the site. He also assisted Drogheda United in securing new grounds on a 20-acre site adjoining the Bryanstown lands and close to the M1 motorway which was to give the successful soccer club a new lease of life. It was agreed after discussions involving Doyle, his professional advisers and the council management that a variation of the county development plan was the best way to achieve his objectives. With millions borrowed from Anglo Irish Bank, Doyle was then shocked to learn that some councillors were objecting to the completion of the East Meath area plan, including the Bryanstown development unless the reservation on the lands on the Mornington Road was lifted. These lands were controlled by Seamus Murphy, a local builder and quarry-owner and by Phil Reilly of Shannon Homes, a major house builder in the Louth and Meath area.  Shannon Homes also developed a retail centre at Grange Rath south of Drogheda. Reilly was also a political supporter of local FF TD Thomas Byrne and his father Thomas Byrne senior, an auctioneer who sold the Shannon Homes properties over many years. The objections of the three local councillors Jimmy Cudden (Ind), Pat Bushell (FF) and Thomas Kelly who was a member of the Green Party until it fell out with him out over his support for building houses on flood plains in county Meath, stalled the implementation of Doyle’s plan. An intervention by then minister Dick Roche in August 2008, who was connected through marriage to one of the Bryanstown landowners and who wrote to the county manager and minister Gormley, expressing his concerns, failed to break the deadlock. Doyle was then shocked to learn that when the final plan was eventually published in 2008 some 80 acres of his land bank at Bryanstown had been de-zoned from residential to green space and industrial making it commercially unviable to proceed with the development. At the same time the views of the three local councillors had prevailed and the lands at the Mornington Road were freed up for development to the potential benefit of Phil Reilly and his business partners. According to council officials, the decision to allow development on Reilly’s site meant that the Drogheda sewerage scheme could not accommodate the scale of the Bryanstown proposal. With millions in bank debts, Doyle was eventually forced to drop the ambitious scheme while the plans by Drogheda FC  for a new playing and training facilities in a modern stadium, surrounded by retail and other commercial ventures, also collapsed even though it had received planning permission from Meath County Council. Coming so close to the banking collapse any plans by Shannon Homes to develop its lands also went by the wayside with the result that both sites are idle and unlikely to be developed any time soon. The

                CONSTANTIN GURDGIEV:     Last month’s desperate deal reached by the euro-area leaders in a bid to rescue the common currency could have borrowed its cover from the famous guide. The Irish Government, coming out of the June eurozone summit, was full of conviction that Ireland will be delivered salvation from the onerous debts imposed onto the taxpayers under the successive government programmes for bank recapitalisations. The “seismic deal” allegedly “secured by the Taoiseach”, “gives Ireland the credibility to get back to the markets” and sets the government on track to “aim high in negotiations with euro-zone authorities”. That this bravado had a contagious effect on the Irish official Left – the Labour Party – simply adds some icing to an already grotesquely sugar-coated rhetorical cake. Let’s start from the top. Éamon Gilmore used to claim he stood for the ‘working people’ of Ireland. So, the Labour Party are allegedly striving to put forward solutions to the crisis that protect the interests of ordinary taxpayers and consumers. And yet  the Labour Party leader has wasted no time in throwing his support behind the ‘debt deal’ which will simply re-brand some of our Sovereign Debt into consumer and mortgage-holders’ debt. Instead of writing down some €30 billion worth of the outstanding banking-sector-related debts and putting the insolvent banking institutions through a receivership, Mr Gilmore will replace the old debt with a new one. The ‘deal’, assuming it does apply retroactively to Ireland’s case (an assumption of a tall order as will be explained below), will require the Irish state to guarantee banking debts to the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) which will act as a funding authority to the bust banks here. Instead of holding equity in Irish banks against capital put into them, the Irish taxpayers will end up issuing guarantees to cover the ESM holdings of Irish bank equity. Irish taxpayers will then, as consumers of banking services and mortgage-holders, be required to repay the ESM. This, in turn, means mortgages rates must rise, charges for bank-account  holders must go up and enforcement of distressed mortgages will have to become more stringent. Families will be going to the wall paying the ESM back on bank debts, while Kenny and Gilmore will be washing their hands of  any responsibility: “We’ve restructured banks debts, you see. Not our headache anymore. All complaints to the ESM, please.” The problem with the entire deal is that neither the euro-area leaders, nor our own cabal of entrenched “State first, Citizens last” ideologues, seem to understand that the crisis we are living through is a crisis of excessive debt. The ‘seismic deal’ signed by the euro-area leaders changes nothing except the names of the  legal holders of our bad debts. The payers of it remain the same, namely us. Add to that the fact that according to the latest German government statements and the euro-area white paper on banking union prepared by Herman von Rompuy, the common supervisory infrastructure and the deposits-guarantee scheme will be financed out of the mandatory euro-area financial transactions tax (FTT) and we have an even bigger problem. Even basic economics would tell you that when market power is concentrated in the hands of a monopoly or duopoly, any tax or charge will be immediately passed in full to the end buyer of services supplied by the monopolist. Now, recall that under Irish government plans, our banking system is moving toward a ‘Twin Pillar’ system – in other words to a Bank of Ireland plus AIB duopoly. In such an environment, the EU-set  FTT will simply be a levy on the ‘ordinary workers’ availing of basic banking services here. So, go ahead Mr Gilmore, do the ‘right’ thing by your socialist textbook – punish the bad banks with a good ‘Robin Hood’ tax and see our private households’ debts become even less sustainable. And the crisis will not be solved via ESM either, courtesy of the latest ‘deal’. The ESM’s set capacity is €500 billion. Setting aside the fact that it has yet to raise any of the funds it will be lending out, we already have EFSF-related demands for ESM funds (which will replace the EFSF in 2014) of €240-250 billion. But wait: retrospectivity   imports retrospectivity for all. If so, recall that Germany, France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Austria have also used taxpayers’ funds to recapitalise some of their banks. Thus before any of the new (post-2013) lending can be extended by the ESM, before any of the bonds buy-outs from the markets, and before any new capital injections into insolvent euro-area banks can start, the ‘seismic’ deal signed in June would have the ESM coffers fully exhausted. The trials of the ESM, however, are semantic, compared to the heroic efforts of the Irish government to win a PR battle for the hearts and minds of the ‘ordinary workers’. The ‘deal’ in their view, allows for ‘relieving the burden of the banks debt’ and promises to ‘restart our economy back to growth’. If the former proposition, as argued above, is questionable, the latter is outright bogus. Since about 1999 – the year Ireland entered the fast-paced world of Ponzi finance with the first (dot.com) bubble, our growth was dependent on borrowing ever-increasing amounts of money from an ever-wider (geographically) set of lenders and blowing it on: Investments in improved public services (e.g HSE, Fas, failed ICT systems debacles); Benchmarking awards to raise productivity in the public sector; PPPs that enriched politically-connected private sector players via contracts for ‘infrastructure development’ and subsidies to various schemes; Private investments in land and development, as well as households’ investments in housing and property; Excessive private consumption; and Over-optimistic investments and acquisitions by the Celtic Tiger Irish companies. Now, we are being told by our leaders – from both the centre and the left of our political spectrum – Ireland needs even more debt to kick-start the very same debt spiral with more public investments to ‘generate

  NIALL CROWLEY:   The state of our democracy is rarely a focus for public debate. ‘It’s the economy, stupid’ is the order of the day. Yet our democracy sorely needs some attention. The challenge to reinvent our democracy was the focus for debate at Claiming our Future’s most recent deliberative event. Our institutions, as they currently operate, do not appear to be capable of imagining and developing the new models of governance, economic strategy, or social relations that might promise a more equal, sustainable and participative society. It seems they cannot look beyond recreating the – troubled –  past. Political failure and the inadequacy of our democratic institutions contributed aggressively to our economic crisis. It was political decisions that unleashed the banks from adequate regulatory control, gave the tax breaks and incentives that enriched the developers, and allowed  dominance to the ‘market’. The same institutions and  processes do not now appear able to escape the limits of their lack of competence, their relationship with the economic elite, and their horror of equality and environmental sustainability. A political fatigue has settled down in the absence of real alternatives. The Claiming our Future debates prioritised a reinvention of our democracy from the local level. A broader range of powers needs to be devolved to the local level. Local authorities need to be able to raise their own finance. These issues of subsidiarity were identified as a priority for campaigns. There was strong support for developing more participative forms of governance and decision-making at local level. The issues of distance from decision-making and powerlessness were  identified as a key source of discontent. Change in our democracy at national level was also identified as a necessary focus in future campaigns. The need for a Dáil that might be fit for purpose was prioritised. The power of the whip system needs to be reduced. Greater powers should be afforded to Oireachtas committees. The electoral system needs reform if we are to get politicians with a capacity to grapple with the crises we face and if we are to get a diversity of representation that reflects the actual composition of our society. The danger to democracy in the silencing of voices of dissent was highlighted. There was strong support for a Constitutional provision to protect advocacy by community groups representing those living in poverty and inequality. Equality was noted as a key value to shape democracy. It is potentially a shared value. Accountability was identified as another such value. It is noteworthy that democratic change at the level of the European Union was not accorded a priority in the debates. A number of proposals was put to the event but did not achieve the same level of interest or support as action for change at the local and national levels. This is challenging in a context of the ever-increasing importance of Europe in our affairs. Two specific events were identified as offering a focus for the ongoing work of Claiming our Future on these issues. The first is the promised Constitutional Convention. There was a suggestion for Claiming our Future to organise some form of alternative Constitutional Convention – an alternative where the voices of those experiencing inequality and poverty would have influence and where the agenda would be sufficiently broad to contribute to a real reinvention of our democracy. The 1916 centenary offers a moment for examining the issue of our democracy. A real republic would be governed by different values and would require new political processes. The Claiming our Future debates have set a compelling agenda for what might be required such a real republic.

Democracy depends on justice. Justice must be dispensed evenly.  This democracy is subverted by the flagrancy and impunity of white-collar crime – crime committed by the upper social classes, a type of crime that has ultimately ravaged this country. At every level the criminal system has been set up to ensure maintenance of the status quo, and certainly not to challenge the privileges of the wealthiest or most powerful in society.  There is some sign that progressive legislation is being introduced but the culture in the criminal justice system  and particularly among the prosecuting authorities has allowed white collar crime to fester and grow – from widespread tax evasion to deception on a gigantic scale causing the loss of billions. Regulators raided the offices of Anglo Irish Bank in February 2009. Three years on, the investigation continues. This is far from the first time that the State has launched a lengthy investigation into white-collar crime. The investigation into Merchant Banking’s failure to comply with financial regulations in the 1980s lasted for six years before it was determined that the case could not be prosecuted. Criminal investigations of planning corruption in the 1980s were abortive. In 2011 High Court Judge Peter Kelly refused an application from the gardai and the Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement (ODCE) for a six-month extension to their joint inquiry into Anglo. “Will it [the inquiry] ever end?” he thundered, occasioning privately-expressed outrage from the beleaguered Gardai, the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) and the ODCE. Three separate investigations are ongoing into Anglo after its spectacular collapse likely to cost the country around €25bn. It appears that the refusal of ten witnesses to co-operate with the ODCE is one of the principal reasons why the Anglo investigation rolls on interminably. Last year the ODCE  submitted five extensive investigation files on Anglo to the DPP. In the first quarter of 2012, it  sent another three large investigation files to the DPP. The ODCE now regards the investigative phase of its Anglo Irish Bank investigations as almost complete. Yet no charges have been referred against Seán Ftzpatrick, David Drumm or Michael Fingleton. It is entirely a matter for the DPP to determine if, and to what extent, any of the extensive investigation files which she has received from the ODCE and the Garda Bureau of Fraud Investigation warrant prosecution. The biggest problem seems to be  the mentality of civil servants in the prosecuting authorities who do not see the urgency of the imperative to prosecute those who have riven our country with their greedy corruptions. There is evidence that the judiciary, led by some of the Tribunal judges and Judge Kelly, but also by the likes of Judge Griffin in the Circuit Court who recently sentenced Councillor Forsey for corruption, understand the significance of advancing these prosecutions, but the ODCE, DPP, Central Bank and the Fraud Squad are timorous, and deferential in the face of the moneyed and the professional. Since its inception, the Competition Authority has secured 33 convictions against companies and individuals, but the yield has been low: €600,000 in fines and no one sent to jail. The ODCE has secured around 300 convictions, mostly in the District Court where fines and penalties are derisory. In its 10-year history, the ODCE has never secured a single prosecution for insider trading or market abuse, though last year it did finally secure a three-year prison sentence arising from a company law conviction. The only convictions related to the drawn-out tribunals have been of Ray Burke for tax evasion, George Redmond (eventually overturned) and Frank Dunlop for corruption, and Liam Cosgrave for offences under the ethics acts; as well as of Liam Lawlor for blatant obstruction of the Planning Tribunal.  More are needed. Comparisons have inevitably been drawn with the US where Ponzi scheme supremo, Bernie Madoff, is serving a 150- year jail term and where even cuddly newspaperman, Conrad Black, did porridge. But there is little appetite in cosy Ireland to replicate the US prosecutor’s panoply of wire-taps, plea-bargaining, monetary incentives for witnesses to testify against former colleagues and the wholesale removal of discretion in sentencing from judges. Consideration needs to be given to granting US-style immunity from prosecution to corporate whistleblowers. It is also time to consider the introduction of pre-trial hearings that would force prosecutors to show their hand at an early stage, flushing out frivolous cases and reducing delays. Such hearings would deal with  complex issues such as disclosure, admissibility of evidence and disputes over documents and expert evidence before a single juror is empanelled.    There should be a debate as to how prosecutors should be more democratically accountable. Rudolph Guiliani and Eliot Spitzer both made names from aggressive prosecutions of white-collar criminals, though  it seems clear that  US-style elections would  introduce an undesirable majoritarian populism to prosecution functions. A law is required, as in the UK, to compel witnesses (as opposed to suspects) to co-operate with serious fraud investigators. 1j3Many powers to  procure co-operation and information from are on the statute books: there is little evidence that those powers have been used or fully tested. The powers must be reviewed immediately to see if they can be improved by reference to the experience of other jurisdictions such as the UK. Indeed last year Minister for Justice Alan Shatter introduced the Criminal Justice Act 2011, which sees witnesses being compelled to provide information to Gardai across a broad range of white collar/fraud categories if it  might be of material assistance in preventing the commission by another person of a relevant offence or securing the  prosecution   of any person for a relevant offence. But above all we need a change in the ethos of the criminal justice system. A rigorous programme of training for judges, lawyers, Gardaí and officials in the Office of Corporate Enforcement, Central Bank, Competition Office and Director of Public Prosecutions and Revenue offices must be initiated as soon as possible. The law on corporate crime and corruption is no longer