Villager - Village Magazine

6September/October 2015

Villager

Spit on ngers

Who is that shorn and beardless gent on the

streets of Dublin ? Why it’s old Michael

Fingleton heading oﬀ to the Banking

Inquiry to undo some of the unfairness

done to him by the media. Without the

beard and hat you might confuse him with

an honest person, or a competent one, or

one who wasn’t largely responsible for the

worst bank in history, one which cost Ire-

land €.bn. If you look carefully you can

still tell it’s him from his watch and his pot

(in which he keeps his €m pension) and

his barefacedness. The only way – unless he

opens his mouth – you know what he is

capable of is from his moustache. The trag-

edy is that the disguise means that the

citizenry don’t get to exercise their expec-

torant rights as is so temptingly the

prerogative with Ahern, Cowen, Fitzpatrick

et al on the mean streets of wised-up

Ireland.

Going to Town?

Village is reinventing itself. That could

mean it’s quietly selling out or changing.

But unfortunately as far as Villager is con-

cerned, it doesn’t. It’s just going to

concentrate more on getting out there, and

marketing. The Board have been ensconced

for the last week in bonding and brain-

storming sessions with relays of men with

clipboards. Apparently even the name is up

for grabs. Ideas have included Incite, Town,

Village Eye, Angle, In Fairness, Magwell

and New Village (Villager especially liked

that one. He could become New Villager. On

the other hand, where would he go in a

magazine called ‘Town’?).

Joint the dots, lads

The latest tax defaulters’ list shows Ire-

land’s most ostentatiously and oleaginously

corrupt man, lobbyist Frank Dunlop, made

a settlement with the Revenue totalling

€, for under-declaration of income

tax and VAT. Now where did he get an

income that would tax at that amount?

Turns on terms

Rory Mulcahy SC is to look into Gerard

Convie’s allegations of planning orruption

in Donegal, The terms of reference for a

‘review report’ [by god is this not an

Inquiry or Tribunal] expressly allow the

Minister, slippery Alan Kelly, or his succes-

sor not to publish its ﬁndings, and exclude

An Bord Pleanála from the scope of the

‘report’. Lack of clarity and too much dis-

cretion to malleable ministers is what you

get when, as here, an investigation is ‘non-

statutory’ ie the Minister’s civil servants

has made up its workings as he has gone

along.

It is not clear if it will address impropri-

ety or just ‘bad practice’’ though if it does

not address impropriety it is possible that

Convie whose allegations have already

been actionably pooh-poohed by a Minis-

ter, leading to a payment to Convie, may

consider he has again to return to court to

defend his name as a serious complainant

in view of the fact he has raised allegations

that indubitably are about corruption or

impropriety.

Convie worked in Donegal County Coun-

cil as a senior planner for nearly  years.

He has claimed, in an aﬃdavit opened in

court, that during his tenure in the Council

there was bullying and intimidation of

planners who sought to make decisions

based exclusively on the planning merits of

particular applications and that planning

irregularities were perpetrated by named

oﬃcials at the highest level in the Council.

He claims these included former Manager

Michael McLoone - who has initiated defa-

mation proceedings against Village

magazine - as well as named county coun-

cillors. Convie had a list of more than 

“suspect cases” in the County.

Don’t mention the ‘local

produce’ thing

Is Ballymaloe relish in McDonalds’ burgers

not a sellout? For McDonalds like.

RIAI Graby train leaves station

What a year in the Royal Institute of the

Architects of Ireland (RIAI). Last Septem-

ber saw a fractious AGM, followed by

resignations en masse from the board due

to governance issues and dark clouds

gather around veteran ‘CEO for life’ John

Graby. At the AGM Graby defended his

position of keeping his remuneration pack-

age conﬁdential from the treasurer and the

RIAI Board, his employers. One in a long

list of remarkable revelations on the night

was the untendered payment of €k for

services, to his son’s company Bluebloc

over a ﬁve-year period. Under questioning

from the ﬂoor, Kathryn Megan (RIAI

deputy CEO) conﬁrmed that the organisa-

tion did not have a procurement policy. The

oﬃcial account just released states “The

Deputy CEO also advised that the current

September/October 2015 7

procurement policy is based primarily on

the requirement to obtain value for money.

The RIAI had a detailed Procurement

Process”.

Less than  months on from the AGM,

and two days after publication of an exter-

nal governance review, Graby announced

his retirement from a role he inhabited for

 years having turned  over the

summer. Apparently contracts with Blue-

bloc will not be renewed and joint roles held

by Graby as CEO and statutory Registrar of

architects, are soon to be separated and

advertised separately. RIAI President Robin

Mandal recently said the RIAI was begin-

ning “a new spring”.

The jingle jangle – of cash

Meanwhile, architects are having to adapt

to the “new reality” and grow business in

the most unlikely of surroundings. Whis-

pers in social circles are that

architect-about-town Neil Burke Kennedy

has attended meetings in Mountjoy Jail.

The client? Tiernan O’Mahony, jailed ex-

Anglo Irish Bank Executive and failed

ﬁnancier. Apparently he is keeping busy in

lock-up by working with his architect, plan-

ning a , sq foot €m home for when

he is released. Mr O’Mahony certainly does

not work on a small scale. He still holds the

record for the largest ever Irish corporate

cash loss. His International Securities

Trading Corporation (that he set up after

leaving Anglo in ) left investors nurs-

ing losses of €m. It made Anglo look

frugal.

Bambi no more

As Britain’s Labour Party was pushing

ahead with electing Jeremy Corbyn (some-

one who at least wanted to do things

diﬀerently), John Prescott, former Deputy

Prime Minister, had occasion to reprimand

his former boss, Tony Blair. Blair had deni-

grated a lurch to the left and said people

who said their heart was with Jeremy

Corbyn should “get a transplant”. Lord

Prescott declared these comments were

“unacceptable”, that he should “calm

down” and that Labour was all about heart

and head.

Prescott recently denied claims he

pushed Linda McDougall, now wife of

former Labour MP Austin Mitchell against

a wall in  with sexual intent, saying

she was “built like a bloody barn door” and

that the “f***ing house would have fallen

down” if he had done so.

Though Two Jags is no paraclete, he still,

at , manages to look younger than New

Blair who is only  but has been wizened

by evil.

Not over

Villager doesn’t like queens and for a long

time didn’t like the Queen of [now what

should I call it?]. But she salvaged herself

with just the right amount of smiling,

bowing and Gaeilge on The Visit. The loyal-

ist Daily Telegraph headlined the day she

surpassed Victoria’s , days with ‘The

longest to reign over us’, as if that were a

good thing. For Villager if anyone reigns

over you (or your waves), you’re in trouble.

Indeed you’re not really living in a democ-

racy which depends on equal rights for the

citizenry, not equal rights with someone

over them.

Great writers’ light

“Whatever spark or gift I possess has been

transmitted to Lucia”, James Joyce once

said of his troubled daughter, “and it has

kindled a ﬁre in her brain”. CJ Jung, who

treated Lucia for apparent schizophrenia,

agreed, describing father and daughter as

“two people going to the bottom of a river,

one falling and the other diving”. Dancer,

writer, musician; Lucia Joyce was a talented

and courageous woman. Her father spoiled

her, sang to her, but only when he had time.

He worked all day and then, on many

nights, he went out and got blind drunk.

The family was evicted from apartment

after apartment. By the age of seven, Lucia

had lived at ﬁve diﬀerent addresses. By

thirteen, she had lived in three diﬀerent

countries. At  she was jilted by Samuel

Beckett, a year older and an acolyte of her

father. Lucia was incarcerated by her

brother Giorgio and forced to remain in

psychiatric hospitals for  years until her

death in . Her time in Ireland during

the s – in particular in Bray, County

Wicklow – was one of her few moments of

freedom. Many of her writings, including a

novel and letters of communication with

James, have since been suspiciously

destroyed. Working from what remains of

Lucia’s writings, ‘Medicated Milk’ is a ﬁlm

by Aine Stepleton that tries to understand

who she really was, what happened to her,

and why her story is important to us now. It

has been playing in the Tiger Fringe Festi-

val in Dublin.

Gulag?

Villager recommends newly-released Rus-

sian-language movie ‘Moscow Never Sleeps’

directed by Dubliner Johnny O’Reilly, part-

funded by the Irish Film board with some

funding from ex-pat Russian, Leonard Bla-

vatnik, whose net €bn made him

‘Britain’s’ Richest Man in .

O’Reilly, who has written the odd article

for Village, excelled himself when he man-

aged to get dramatically cut oﬀ during a

recent morning news programme on the

regime-friendly ‘Life News’ TV channel

after he mentioned fellow Russian Director,

Oleg Senstov, had been imprisoned for

political reasons. O’Reilly explained to Vil-

lager “the worst that could happen is I

could be arrested and deported and that

would be great for the movie”.

Villager follows up with the goss

O’Reilly’s movie is an exuberant celebration

of sexy Moscow, a sort of ‘About Adam’ with

added Russian hoods.

Incidentally dreamboat Stuart Townsend

New

Labour:

father and

son

8September/October 2015

who starred in that moodfest to Dublin is

now living in Costa Rica and seems to have

dumped his Hollywood career in favour of

US TV dramas (his Facebook page says he is

a student of life), just like Charlize Theron

dumped him. Theron has been dumped by

Sean Penn who was dumped by Madonna

who dumped Guy Ritchie who married

model Jacqui Aynsley in London since Vil-

lage last went to press. Photographs of

their neck warts and hairy lips to follow.

Villager becomes the Torygraph

Even for the passionless, Isis is revolting:

the antithesis of civilisation. It seems to

appeal to an atavistic viciousness in

humanity. And it and its mates comprising

hundreds of thousands of sadists have time

on their side. And they only have to get

lucky once –let alone serially. Hundreds of

thousands of people who perpetrate ever

more barbarous tortures for sport and

who’d be delighted to bring nuclear winter

to much of the world seems like a bet civili-

sation could well lose. And the paranoia

that a Syrian refugee-turned host-nation

bomber could induce across Europe is

daunting. ISIS knows how to propagandise

and its message is clear. It is also already

clear that it must be stopped. The risks it

poses are of such an order that extraordi-

nary responses are required. Certainly it is

utterly naïve wittingly to promote, by

retransmission, their propaganda. The

Indo recently introduced a video of dyna-

mitings in Palmyra as “never before seen

footage” as if it was the new Bond movie.

At the least Villager suggests a (volun-

tary) worldwide media blackout of ISIS

video horrors.

Equally dangerous

Ditto, incidentally, and for the same reason

– that he is ineﬀably dangerous and foolish:

Donald Trump.

Systemic inequality

Some of the richest areas of Dublin are get-

ting among the highest allocations of

special-needs supports for schoolchildren,

data published by the Irish Times show,

highlighting a deep inequality in the educa-

tion system. The ability of middle-class

parents to get a diagnosis of disability for

their children via private doctors gives

them an edge over less-well-oﬀ peers who

face long waiting lists for an assessment of

needs by the public health service.

Primary schools in Dublin  (Ranelagh/

Rathgar etc) got an hour of additional

teaching support for every . children last

year, whereas those in the more working-

class areas of Dublin  (Beaumont/

Drumcondra etc) and Dublin  (Ballymun/

Glasnevin) got an hour for every  chil-

dren. Just one of eight areas which received

an allocation above the national average

was on the northside (Dublin ).

Renua and Flat Tax

Emblematic of the dearth of serious ideol-

ogy in Ireland, Renua’s latest think-in

threw up the idea of a ﬂat tax, and Declan

Ganley to promote it as a “great disrupter”

that “would create a huge buzz that would

attract international business and ﬁnance

to Ireland”. What would happen to the dis-

rupted, and do businesses really like buzz?

In Villager’s experience they prefer hum to

rattle.

Smart

So Ryanair is overhauling its uniforms as

part of its provocatively named ‘Always

Getting Better’ programme. And changing

its garish yellow interiors, creating health-

ier menus and changing its seats. Together

with the end of the klaxon and new baggage

policy it’ll scarcely be recognisable as Cryi-

nAir. Apart from the sexism,

environmental proﬂigacy and clownings of

cheapness supremo, Michael O’Leary, it

might as well be Aer Lingus, though much

more proﬁtable: its guidance is for €.bn

proﬁt for . Village once ran a DIY

column on how to do damage to Ryanair,

legally. Best answer: bring large numbers of

spiders on to your ﬂight and release them

before takeoﬀ; and stick chewing gum on

the seat. Some hatreds never go away.

Making Ireland look good

Marine Le Pen’s French National Front

topped a recent poll on ﬁrst-round voting

intentions for the  Presidential elec-

tion. It’s been running  town halls since

last year’s municipal elections and weirdly,

bearing in mind its ugly populism, seems to

specialise in cutting spending, admittedly

often of do-good antagonists like human

rights NGOs. Meanwhile the acceptable

face’s Jew-hating Daddy, Jean Marie, has

been expelled from the party he founded

and is to start his own party which will be

NEWS Villager

Le Pens in

happier

times

September/October 2015 9

modelled on the Waﬀen SS.

Overdoing Stanislavski

Why do so many ‘Love/Hate’ actors get con-

victed of crimes relating to drugs and

violence?

Always wrong

Irish Farmers’ Association President Eddie

Downey has called for action at European

level, and in particular from well-loved EU

Agriculture Commissioner Phil Hogan, to

safeguard the incomes of farming families

following the elimination of milk quota and

the predictable collapse in milk prices. Ever

deferential Minister for Agriculture Simon

Coveney duly said he will be engaging with

his counterparts in other Member States in

the coming days to discuss proposals to

provide further assistance to farmers

including for a rise in the EU intervention

price for milk.

The price collapse reﬂects the sage pre-

dictions of the European Milk Board, a

federation of dairy farmers with member

organisations from  countries, which in

April said it was likely that the market

would not be able to cope with signiﬁcantly

expanded production in a reasonable way.

“Chronic price collapses are inevitable, the

next crisis is on its way”, EMB president

Romuald Schaber said.

On the other hand the terminally unwise

Irish Farmers Association (IFA) estimated

the ending of quotas would create ,

extra jobs in Ireland, and upwards of

€.bn annual additional export revenue.

The Examiner of  March reported:

“’Ireland aims to be the world’s fastest-

growing dairy producer when the cap on

milk production is lifted by the EU in two

weeks’, said Agriculture Minister Simon

Coveney. He rubbished fears that the

ending of the milk quota system in the EU

after more than  years would mean a

surge in production, depressing the price

and leaving farmers in trouble.

‘We cannot pretend that what is happen-

ing in the EU means that prices will

collapse’. he said. “This ignores what is

happening outside the union, in other con-

tinents such as Asia and Africa, where we

are seeing dramatic increases in dairy con-

sumption, and Ireland will be looking to

expand to export outside the EU”, he said

betting his reputation on it.

Fracktious

Pat Rabbitte famously said fracking would

be a game-changer in Ireland, though he

commissioned a report on it and the EPA

duly delegated most of it to CDM Smith,

which has lobbied for fracking in the US.

In recent years Americans have been

hearing that the United States is poised to

regain its role as the world’s premier oil and

natural gas producer, thanks to fracking.

Whatever about the dangers of local pol-

lution and the fact that gas generates

unsustainable CO emissions and preempts

development of renewables, after four

years of record supply, America’s natural

gas output is showing signs of weakness as

producers retreat amid tumbling oil prices.

Gas production from the seven largest U.S.

shale basins fell . percent to . billion

cubic feet a day in August from a month

earlier, the biggest drop since March ,

the US Energy Information Administration

(EIA) said recently.

The government’s forecasts signal the

collapse in crude oil prices, which have

plunged by about half over the past year, is

reverberating for natural gas.

Four of the US’s seven shale gas ﬁelds are

already in decline and production from the

top seven ﬁelds will underperform EIA’s

forecast by % from  to . By

 production from shale gas ﬁelds

other than the top seven will be about one-

third that of the EIA forecast.

Approximately , additional shale

gas wells will need to be drilled by  to

meet projections, on top of the ,

wells drilled in these plays through .

Assuming an average well cost of $m, this

would require $bn of additional capital

input by . And play a not insigniﬁcant

role in facilitating runaway climate change.

Why, Nama, just why?

Rumblings from the North suggest govern-

ance at Nama may reward much more

stringent scrutiny. It sold €.bn of prop-

erty loans in Northern Ireland for €.bn

– a  per cent discount – to US investment

fund Cerberus in controversial circum-

stances. But more generally, why does

NAMA often insist on divvying out so many

of its portfolios in such large bundles that

only vulture funds, often advised by grasp-

ing former delinquent developers and their

acolytes ,can aﬀord to bid for them. And

why is it still oﬀering such big discounts on

par value when the market for the rest of us

seems to have entered an unpleasant boom.

Project Arrow comprising some €.bn

worth of non-performing Irish and British

loans secured mostly against property, is

currently being sold by the agency. Mick

Wallace TD, a developer by background,

has legitimately questioned why it is

deemed appropriate to sell the portfolio in

one go given the loans are non-performing.

Presumably smaller purchasers would be

better disposed to ‘working through’ the

loans with the borrowers. Than giant

vultures.

Foster care

As Villager was getting ready for his post-

deadline snooze Northern Ireland’s ﬁrst

minister, Peter Robinson, walked out of

Stormont’s devolved, power-sharing gov-

ernment because the Assembly was neither

being suspended by the British Government

nor adjourned; and Arlene Foster was

moving to take over from him (no loss).

Villager is aware that this might serve as a

cue for some of the dormant thugs in the

North but reﬂects that the quality of the

governance in the North is so low that it

might be a relief.

He returned to his torpor. •

dumped

Townsend