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G
ERARD Convie is a whistleblower, but you won’t have heard of
him. Over the last few years Village has helped a number of other
whistleblowers whose cases are to varying degrees unassailable
but have not been championed by the media or pursued by the authorities:
Jonathan Sugarman on Unicredit Bank, Noel Wardick on the Red Cross,
Paul Clinton on Treasury Holdings and Dublin City Council, Séamus Kirk
on planning appeals withdrawn after a € million payout in Louth, Colm
Murphy on solicitor fraud and Law Society ‘skulduggery’.
As Frank McBrearty, the whistleblower whose attempted fram-
ing for the murder of Richie Barron led to the instigation of the Morris
Tribunal, told Village this week: “without whistleblowers you can’t expose
corruption”.
But the lack of official interest in these brave citizens, or action on their
allegations, bespeaks an overwhelming cynicism veiled only by the cor-
relative rush to be publicly perceived as welcoming of whistleblowers
such as the gardaí who revealed the penalty-points scandal. As one man’s
freedom fighter is another man’s terrorist, so one man’s whistleblower is
another’s deluded obsessive. You only really become a whisleblower once
your whistle has been heard by the ‘political correspondents’ and the
party spokespersons. When you are at your most vulnerable they won’t
seek you out or even answer your letters.
Convie worked in Donegal County Council as a senior planner for nearly
years. He claims it was well known in Donegal and beyond that he would
not capitulate to the “goings-on in planning” by certain councillors and
senior officials in Co Donegal. He tried to control one-off housing, pro-
duced the first design guide, and used to appeal to An Bord Pleanála on his
own behalf and at his own expense all decisions to grant planning permis-
sion via the infamous S motions. This was controversial. He claims one
councilor constantly referred to him as a ”wee shit from the North”.
Convie has claimed, in an affidavit opened in court, that during his ten-
ure there was bullying and intimidation within the council of planners
who sought to make decisions based exclusively on the planning merits
of particular applications.
In the affidavit, Convie alleges another planner:
) recommended permissions that breached the Donegal County
Development Plan to an extent that was almost systemic
) submitted planning applications to Donegal County Council on behalf
of friends and associates
) dealt with planning applications from submission to decision
) ignored the recommendations of other planners
) destroyed the recommendations of other planners
) submitted fraudulent correspondence to the planning department
) forged signatures
) improperly interfered as described in a number of planning
applications
) was close to a number of leading architects and developers in Donegal,
including the head of the largest ‘architectural’ practice in Donegal, with
whom he holidayed but the relationship with whom was undeclared.
His affidavit also refers to irregularities perpetrated by named officials
at the highest level in the Council as well as named senior county coun-
cilors. The Minister and Donegal County Council made no defence of any
averment in Convie’s Affidavit.
Convie had a list of more than “suspect cases” in the County. As he
reverted to private practice he claimed that there must be many more,
perhaps hundreds, “a cesspit”. His complaints to various Ministers for
the Environment and to the Standards in Public Office Commission went
nowhere.
After the Greens got into government, Environment Minister, John
Gormley, announced “planning reviews” in , not of corruption but
of bad practice - in seven local authorities including Donegal. Convie’s case
studies comprised all the material for the review in Donegal. But when
the new Fine Gael and Labour government took over they very quickly
dropped the independent inquiries. A lazy internal review stated:
“The department’s rigorous analysis finds that the allegations do not relate
to systemic corruption in the planning system…Nonetheless, they raise
serious matters, ranging from maladministration to inconsistency in
application of planning policy or non-adherence to forward plans, such as
development plans”. As regards Donegal, the Department, extraordinar-
ily and scandalously, decided - according to Minister Jan O’Sullivan in the
Dáil, that: “ … the complainant [Convie] has failed at any stage to produce
evidence of wrong-doing in Donegal Council’s planning department”.
Convie felt this left him in an invidious position and, in the absence of
any defense of him by from any source, he successfully sued. In the High
Court Order all the conclusions by the Minister were withdrawn, includ-
ing reports on the matters prepared for the Minister by Donegal County
Council.
The government has been forced to reinstate the planning enquiries.
But it will be important to see the ramifications for the civil servants who
concluded that Convie’s complaint did not constitute “evidence”, and for
the Minister who accepted the conclusions. While some of the council offi-
cials who are named in the irregularities in Convie’s Affidavit have retired,
some remain in the Council’s employ and have seen their careers soar.
The Convie file has been referred to the Attorney General for direction
and she has now reported back to the Minister. The Department will report
its review before the summer. Meanwhile a taint hangs over the adminis-
tration of planning in Donegal, and a whistleblower twists in the wind.
As Village was going to print, things were finally heating up in Donegal
County Council. The Director of Housing and Corporate Services told
Village the Council would be responding to Convie’s reported allegations,
shortly, and Ethics Officer, Paul McGill, said the matter was being exam-
ined by management. As regards County Councillors, the current mayor
of Donegal, independent Ian McGarvey, while making it clear he did not
wish to be involved in anything ‘scurrilous’, said he would refer the issue to
the county secretary. Independent Donegal County Councillor Frank Mc
Brearty noted it was difficult for current councillors to ascertain the truth
of such matters because of difficulties getting files – even last year when he
was mayor. While complimentary of the current incumbent, McBrearty
felt ethics registrars should be independent of the Council. He said les-
sons should be learnt from the planning tribunal. As with the Garda, these
include that government must ensure an independent investigation, pro-
viding for natural justice. He notes of Donegal, “because the County is so
isolated, allegations seem to take longer to be investigated, and then are
not investigated independently. The political will is not there”.
Since the Departmental review is about maladministration, not impro-
priety, it is legitimate and imperative for Donegal County Council to probe
the allegations, now. So far it has refused to carry out any investigation
into any of Convie’s complaints. Meanwhile Minister O’Sullivan has serious
questions to answer. While the media pontificate about whistleblow-
ing in the gardai, and in the abstract, in Donegal the whistle blows into
a gale. •
Hypocrisy about whistleblowing
Official Ireland is indifferent. This time about Donegal
VILLAGEApril/May
OPINION EDITORIAL
April/May VILLAGE
On Happiness
Dear Editor:
I was interested in your cover feature “Economissed the point: Do
economists undervalue happiness, cause Depression?” and article
by Michael Smith and Constantin Gurdgiev (February/March
). According to the Dalai Lama, “the purpose of life is to be
happy”. But what is happiness? Can happiness be measured and
studied? And what has happened to happiness in Ireland during
the recent economic turmoil and its emergent resolution?
Happily, the past two decades have seen a significant increase in
research about happiness, prompted by findings that happiness is
associated with improved health, higher subsequent earnings and
a longer life. Recent studies have tended to use simple questions to
assess happiness, such as this one, from the European Social Survey
(ESS): “Taking all things together, how happy would you say you are?”.
So what factors are associated with happiness? Throughout
the s, women traditionally rated themselves as happier than
men. This began to change in the s and our analysis is that
men (. out of ) are now slightly happier than women (.).
Age is also related to happiness, with greatest happiness
occurring in early life, followed by a relative decline in mid-life
and an increase in later life. Genetic effects are poorly understood
but may determine as much as % of variability in happiness.
Happiness increases with income up to a certain point ($,
per head, adjusted for purchasing power parity, when the relevant
study was performed), but beyond that there is little additional
increase in happiness. In addition, relative income is important:
a majority of people would choose a salary of $, per year
when others are receiving $,, compared to $,
when others are receiving $,. Consistent with this,
international comparisons show that, once basic needs are met,
entire countries do not become happier as they become richer.
Our recent analyses, which focus primarily on Europe, confirm
strong, positive relationships between happiness and income,
employment, good health, social trust, religiosity and, intriguingly,
place of residence. Like others, we found that the Danes rate themselves
as particularly happy, but we Irish have traditionally rated ourselves
as very happy too: in , our self-rated happiness was the highest
of countries surveyed, with % of Irish residents rating
ourselves “very happy”, nine times the figure for Hungary (%).
Over recent years, however, we found that happiness in Ireland
(-) dropped slightly. We found that, among the factors
studied, satisfaction with health was the strongest correlate
of happiness in Ireland in , and , but by
satisfaction with income had become the strongest correlate.
Correlation is not causation, but this shift in emphasis from health
to income, as Ireland’s economic situation evolved, is interesting.
By , unemployment in Ireland stood at .% and happiness
had reached .. This is not a surprise because unemployment
is especially corrosive of happiness: the reduction in happiness
associated with unemployment is three times larger than that
associated with poor health; an increase of % in the general
unemployment rate decreases everyone’s happiness (employed
and unemployed alike); and the negative effects of sustained
unemployment may persist even after new employment is found.
Happily, unemployment had fallen to .% by last December.
Against this background, the slight decline in happiness in Ireland
in recent years is by no means precipitous and is arguably less than
might have been expected. Moreover, the period between
and saw the rate of suicide decline slightly in Ireland, giving
Ireland the eighth lowest suicide rate in the EU in . Suicide
is still, of course, a very real problem that needs to be addressed, but
these figures give significant reason to believe that, with continued
effort, Ireland’s suicide rate can be reduced, even in difficult times.
Intriguingly, there is international evidence that the higher the
average happiness rating is in a country, the higher the suicide rate
is too. This is the “happiness-suicide” paradox and may stem from
the fact that countries with high ratings for happiness (e.g. Nordic
countries) tend to have high levels of social conformity, which may
increase happiness for the majority, but create particular isolation
among a minority, increasing risk of suicide. On this basis, addressing
social exclusion should remain a key priority in suicide prevention.
So, what is the secret of happiness? First, the fact that much
of the variability in happiness may be inherited is not a licence
for defeatism: research clearly shows that physical and mental
health are central to happiness, and there is much that we can do
to improve these. Second, happiness is strongly associated with
trust in democracy: individuals with greater trust in governmental
institutions rate consistently themselves as happier. This is likely to
be a two-way relationship, and it suggests that if government earns
increased trust, happiness may also increase. With this in mind, it
would be wise if public policy initiatives were assessed in terms of
likely impact on happiness, as well as impact on the environment
(which is also likely to affect wellbeing), before implementation.
Yours faithfully,
Professor Brendan Kelly
Associate Clinical Professor of Psychiatry
UCD, / Eccles Street, Dublin
On Unselfishness
Dear Editor:
The so-called Selfie in our Brave New World serves as the ultimate dis-
traction. One’s self. This, to use a word of some disputation currently, is
little short of “disgusting”. Great hardship is characteristic of our time.
The narcissistic preoccupa-
tion with self photography is
a personal fascism.
It is time for the therapeutic
antithesis of the Selfie.
The Unselfie.
Yours faithfully,
John Kelly
Prospect Court
Mullingar, Co Westmeath
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from September.
Please forward your CV
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April/May VILLAGE
TO THE EDITOR
LETTERS
