The Sins of Fine Gael - Tax Default, Corruption and Inappropriate Behaviour

[C. Flower]

Fine Gael has pursued Mick Wallace TD with vigour over VAT default.

There have been a number of regrettable occurrences involving Fine Gael Councillors and TDs, and the Party itself.

I'm opening this thread so that an overall picture can be gathered, over time, of any proven cases of Fine Gael transgression.

Just to get the ball rolling -


6 Dec 2011 The Irish Times PAUL CULLEN
Fine Gael yet to hold inquiry on tax default

FINE GAEL has yet to hold a promised internal inquiry into the case of one of its county councillors who was declared a tax defaulter six months ago.
Last June, the party expressed regret after Co Offaly councillor Percy Clendennen reached a €125,000 settlement with the Revenue Commissioners for underdeclaration of VAT.

http://irishtimes.newspaperdirect.com/epaper/viewer.aspx

[Andrew49]

FINE GAEL HAS declined to comment after one of the party’s former councillors was found guilty of corruptly accepting payments totalling €80,000 at Waterford Circuit Criminal Court. Source (http://www.thejournal.ie/no-comment-from-fine-gael-as-fred-forsey-found-guilty-in-corruption-trial-456032-May2012/)

He had denied all the charges in the case relating to a 32-hectare site near Dungarvan which Forsey was said to have tired to get rezoned.

[Andrew49]

In 2006 Fine Gaeler Michael Fitzgerald (50), a member of Tipperary South County Council at th etime, criticised the drink-driving laws as too severe. Fitzgerald, who has a conviction for drink driving, argued at a council meeting that people living in rural areas should be entitled to drive home after drinking three or four pints. He also bemoaned the demise of the rural pub and thought it quite wrong that drivers on their way to work in the morning should be breathalysed and perhaps convicted as a result of drink taken the previous night. The councillor repeated his beliefs on local radio

[Andrew49]

In 2006: Fine Gael TD, Pat Breen, said he did not seek to represent a convicted paedophile when he asked a question in the Dáil about a possible early release date for the man.

Source (http://www.rte.ie/news/2006/1024/breenp.html)

[antiestablishmentarian]

If memory serves correct was not a current FG senator recently in the news for not filing tax return,s and for his lack of a tax clearance cert? Funny how the party remained schtum on that, while being so vocal on Wallace. Double standards one might almost say, if such a thing could be believed of Fine Gael....

[PaddyJoe]

If memory serves correct was not a current FG senator recently in the news for not filing tax return,s and for his lack of a tax clearance cert? Funny how the party remained schtum on that, while being so vocal on Wallace. Double standards one might almost say, if such a thing could be believed of Fine Gael....

This chap, perhaps

Saturday, May 26, 2012
A Fine Gael senator is facing separate Seanad and party investigations after failing to provide a tax clearance certificate to the State’s ethics watchdog.
Pat O’Neill has breached the law by failing to provide the required documentation to the Standards in Public Office Commission (Sipo).

Mr O’Neill, who is based in Kilkenny and regarded as an ally of Environment Minister Phil Hogan, last night told the Irish Examiner he had a capital gains tax bill that he had spent the last year paying off.

"But it has been cleared," he said. "I’ve been paying it off for the last year and I paid the last instalment of it last Thursday."

He said he would now seek to obtain the tax clearance cert from Revenue for Sipo.
http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/fg-senator-faces-probes-over-lack-of-tax-clearance-cert-195258.html

[Slim Buddha]

Lest we forget..............Cllr. Anne Devitt

http://www.fingal-independent.ie/news/devitts-dismay-at-grossly-unfair-findings-3062252.html

[Slim Buddha]

Lest We Forget...........................Cllr Tom Hand.

http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/kfididkfcwmh/rss2/


http://www.independent.ie/opinion/columnists/gene-kerrigan/gene-kerrigan-one-hundred-reasons-to-dislike-big-phil-3060496.html

[Slim Buddha]

Lest We Forget....................... Cllr. Liam T. Cosgrave


http://www.rte.ie/news/2005/1017/cosgravel.html

[Andrew49]

From 2009/10 - Tribune archives: A MARRIED couple, who are both serving TDs, double-claimed on overnight allowances worth almost €120,000 during the first three years of their marriage, details of their expenses claims have shown. The claim forms, released by the Houses of the Oireachtas Commission, show that Fine Gael's Joe McHugh and Olwyn Enright were double-claiming for three years until they ended the practice last summer. During the period in which they both put in for the overnight allowance, Joe McHugh took home an estimated €58,800 in overnight expenses while his wife Olwyn Enright made €61,600 on the tax-free allowance. The expenses forms, released under the Freedom of Information Act, show that the couple have claimed more than €509,000 in overall expenses during the past five years. Detailed figures released by the Houses of the Oireachtas Commission show that Joe McHugh and Olwyn Enright have been claiming up to €50,000 a year each in tax-free expenses.

The massive expenses payments include the dozens of overnight allowances that the couple claimed even after they got married and despite the fact they were able to share accommodation.

In a 10-week period from 12 September 2005 to 19 November 2005, Donegal TD Joe McHugh made a total of 33 overnight claims, copies of his expense claims show. The claims would have yielded him in the region of €4,620.

[Baron von Biffo]

If memory serves correct was not a current FG senator recently in the news for not filing tax return,s and for his lack of a tax clearance cert? Funny how the party remained schtum on that, while being so vocal on Wallace. Double standards one might almost say, if such a thing could be believed of Fine Gael....

FG double standards are no different from SP double standards.

If the day ever comes when a TD caught doing wrong isn't defended by his own side on the basis that 'There's bigger crooks on the other side' we'll have started on the road to a genuine democracy.

[Slim Buddha]

From 2009/10 - Tribune archives: A MARRIED couple, who are both serving TDs, double-claimed on overnight allowances worth almost €120,000 during the first three years of their marriage, details of their expenses claims have shown. The claim forms, released by the Houses of the Oireachtas Commission, show that Fine Gael's Joe McHugh and Olwyn Enright were double-claiming for three years until they ended the practice last summer. During the period in which they both put in for the overnight allowance, Joe McHugh took home an estimated €58,800 in overnight expenses while his wife Olwyn Enright made €61,600 on the tax-free allowance. The expenses forms, released under the Freedom of Information Act, show that the couple have claimed more than €509,000 in overall expenses during the past five years. Detailed figures released by the Houses of the Oireachtas Commission show that Joe McHugh and Olwyn Enright have been claiming up to €50,000 a year each in tax-free expenses.

The massive expenses payments include the dozens of overnight allowances that the couple claimed even after they got married and despite the fact they were able to share accommodation.

In a 10-week period from 12 September 2005 to 19 November 2005, Donegal TD Joe McHugh made a total of 33 overnight claims, copies of his expense claims show. The claims would have yielded him in the region of €4,620.

What an absolutely incredible waste of money on two nobodies!!!!!!!!!!!

[morticia]

Has anyone asked them for a refund, dating back to the date of marriage?

[Slim Buddha]

Has anyone asked them for a refund, dating back to the date of marriage?

That IS the question! Who IS "anyone"? There is a thing called the Bundestagausschuss in Germany which audits Bundestag members expenses. Gerhard Schröder went to Moscow to sign a deal in 2004 with Putin. He brought his wife. Claimed for her too. The Bundestagausschuss decided she was not there in any kind of official capacity. Schröder had to pay her bills himself. And he was the Bundeskanzler at the time.

Another example of "Ireland as a failed state".

[disability student]

It's about time that this thread was set up re FG and their sins. FG didn't care when Labour was doing the heavy lifting re budget and other things. It reminded me of the greens as a lackey or lapdog with no real power nor constructive action which could force FF/ FG to change their behaviours.

Ideally,i would like to see FG/Lab/FF gone from the political landscape but it's a very tall order.

[Slim Buddha]

Ideally,i would like to see FG/Lab/FF gone from the political landscape but it's a very tall order.

Ideally, of course, you are right. All three are uniquely awful in their own way. But as this is about FG, let's keep digging the dirt on them and posting it here

[Baron von Biffo]

That IS the question! Who IS "anyone"? There is a thing called the Bundestagausschuss in Germany which audits Bundestag members expenses. Gerhard Schröder went to Moscow to sign a deal in 2004 with Putin. He brought his wife. Claimed for her too. The Bundestagausschuss decided she was not there in any kind of official capacity. Schröder had to pay her bills himself. And he was the Bundeskanzler at the time.

Another example of "Ireland as a failed state".

What Enright and McHugh did was grubby but not illegal, it's not even going to feature on the consciousness of voters who elect outright crooks even in the full knowledge that they're crooks.

[Slim Buddha]

What Enright and McHugh did was grubby but not illegal, it's not even going to feature on the consciousness of voters who elect outright crooks even in the full knowledge that they're crooks.

The voters who vote in this sort of dross are as much a part of the failed state as the useless wasters they elect. But it is Ireland and nobody gives a toss. And once in a while the political class spoonfeeds them enough saccherine-tasting crap and get re-elected.

In a functioning democracy, what Enright and McHugh did would lead to criminal charges.

[The Moth]

Don't forget MIchael Lowry.

http://www.independent.ie/opinion/analysis/jody-corcoran-a-tribe-adept-at-dipping-into-the-pockets-of-industry-3067565.html

[Baron von Biffo]

The voters who vote in this sort of dross are as much a part of the failed state as the useless wasters they elect. But it is Ireland and nobody gives a toss. And once in a while the political class spoonfeeds them enough saccherine-tasting crap and get re-elected.

In a functioning democracy, what Enright and McHugh did would lead to criminal charges.

Well no, it wouldn't. They didn't break any law. What they did was wrong but not criminal. The appropriate sanction therefore, is through the ballot box rather than the courts. Even knowing that he'd exploited the expenses system, the people of Donegal North East gave McHugh over 7000 votes and I have no doubt but Enright would have sailed home here in Laois/Offaly had she contested the GE.

By the same token SF TDs who are also claiming expenses that they don't need (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2157052/Sinn-F-barely-leave-wages-make-TD-Sandra-McLellan-says-partys-pay-policy-deter-candidates.html?ito=feeds-newsxml) and handing them over to their party wont be punished.

It always comes back to our failure to take our civic duty seriously.

[Slim Buddha]

Well no, it wouldn't. They didn't break any law. What they did was wrong but not criminal. The appropriate sanction therefore, is through the ballot box rather than the courts. Even knowing that he'd exploited the expenses system, the people of Donegal North East gave McHugh over 7000 votes and I have no doubt but Enright would have sailed home here in Laois/Offaly had she contested the GE.

By the same token SF TDs who are also claiming expenses that they don't need (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2157052/Sinn-F-barely-leave-wages-make-TD-Sandra-McLellan-says-partys-pay-policy-deter-candidates.html?ito=feeds-newsxml) and handing them over to their party wont be punished.

It always comes back to our failure to take our civic duty seriously.

I said that they would be charged in a functioning democracy because in a functioning democracy, what they did would be classified as a crime.

Ipso facto, Ireland is not a functioning democracy.

[antiestablishmentarian]

FG double standards are no different from SP double standards.

If the day ever comes when a TD caught doing wrong isn't defended by his own side on the basis that 'There's bigger crooks on the other side' we'll have started on the road to a genuine democracy.

Won't find me arguing with you on that one, Wallace deserves to be investigated a la the Garlic-Man, and prosecuted if there is sufficient evidence.

[Dr. FIVE]

Regina Doherty has broken company law with a director's loan says Goldhawk. Breech of section 31 of the companies Act with the loan breeching the permitted 10%

She also managed to forget her Directorship or shareholding on the register of interests this year. An "error of memory" we are told

[Baron von Biffo]

Regina Doherty has broken company law with a director's loan says Goldhawk. Breech of section 31 of the companies Act with the loan breeching the permitted 10%

She also managed to forget her Directorship or shareholding on the register of interests this year. An "error of memory" we are told

Used to be a time when FG was very strict on section 31. :)

[ang]

An "error of memory" we are told

Surely suffering from that type of illness requires medical assessment ?

[Dr. FIVE]

Surely suffering from that type of illness requires medical assessment ?

An awful affliction. Going round Leinster house for years

[PaddyJoe]

An awful affliction. Going round Leinster house for years

Resistant to antibiotics as well because of mutation. Mature refection, economy with the truth, mental reservation: there are loads of variations.

[DCon]

Regina Doherty in the news


A Fine Gael TD regarded as a rising star in the party could face prosecution after a company she owns went into liquidation with questions over how the firm was run.

Meath East TD Regina Doherty could face prosecution by the Director of Corporate Enforcement following the liquidation of her Enhanced Solutions Ltd company last week.


Business failure is not an offence but accounts filed before the liquidation reveal damning evidence that the company was not being properly run.

In a special report dated August 2012 the company's own independent auditors said it had failed to keep proper books of accounts in 2010, the last period covered by filed financial accounts.


As a director of the IT consultancy, the Meath TD could potentially faces serious penalties, including in the extreme case up to five years in jail, and €10,000 in fines.


Ms Doherty has said previously that Enhanced Solutions Ltd had ceased trading in 2009. She didn't declare her directorship of the company in the annual declaration of TDs' interests after becoming a TD in the 2011 General Election.

She later admitted her error and asked that her records be corrected.

http://www.independent.ie/national-news/fine-gael-tds-firm-folds-with-debts-of-280000-3362559.html


Ms Doherty also admitted breaking company law by taking an illegal loan from the company.

http://www.independent.ie/national-news/fine-gaels-rising-star-3362599.html

[goatstoe]

Has Senator Fidelma Healy Eames been mentioned in this thread yet? You could have a whole thread about her. Convicted of driving with no motor tax, of not paying for a train ticket...

Healy Eames strikes me as one of those who thought to herself that now that she has arrived as a Councillor/Senator/public person, that she is somehow above the law and one of those people that the Gardai don't prosecute for traffic offenses and the like. Perhaps Healy Eames was too brazen about it, you have to learn to be discreet about becoming an insider.

http://www.rte.ie/news/2012/1219/fidelma-healy-eames-court.html

[PaddyJoe]

Has Senator Fidelma Healy Eames been mentioned in this thread yet? You could have a whole thread about her. Convicted of driving with no motor tax, of not paying for a train ticket...

Healy Eames strikes me as one of those who thought to herself that now that she has arrived as a Councillor/Senator/public person, that she is somehow above the law and one of those people that the Gardai don't prosecute for traffic offenses and the like. Perhaps Healy Eames was too brazen about it, you have to learn to be discreet about becoming an insider.

http://www.rte.ie/news/2012/1219/fidelma-healy-eames-court.html

We do:)

Accident Prone Senator
http://www.politicalworld.org/showthread.php?t=12410

[goatstoe]

We do:)

http://www.politicalworld.org/showthread.php?t=12410

Ah there it is. I take it she was one of Enda's appointments to the upper house that he promised to abolish. She's not exactly a good example for advocating the keeping the Seanaid.

[Dr. FIVE]

haha

http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/drink-drive-councillor-fled-and-hid-in-bushes-225589.html


A serving county councillor who had headed a Joint Policing Committee was yesterday convicted of a drink driving charge.

Fine Gael’s Michael Hegarty tried to avoid a Garda checkpoint and drove into a church yard, where he jumped over a wall and hid in bushes, before later emerging.


He contested the case on the grounds of being improperly deprived of his liberty, as he was arrested prior to being breathalysed.

His solicitor, Brian O’Callaghan, also stated that Hegarty should not have been arrested on private property and that his constitutional rights had been violated.

[PaddyJoe]

Looks like this case got settled sharpish before Charlie had to turn up for court.

A WOMAN who sued her former solicitor - now government TD Charles Flanagan - for alleged professional negligence has settled her High Court action.

Mary Rigney Murray brought the case over the 2003 handling by Mr Flanagan and his firm Bolger White Egan & Flanagan Solicitors of an action against her employers, the HSE. In her claim for negligence and breach of contract she alleged her legal representatives failed to prosecute her claim within the required time limits and allowed it to become statue barred. She also alleged Mr Flanagan, without her consent, had entered into talks aimed at halting her action with the HSE.
http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/courts/woman-settles-professional-negligence-case-against-fine-gael-td-29188025.html

[Simonsays]

Ah there it is. I take it she was one of Enda's appointments to the upper house that he promised to abolish. She's not exactly a good example for advocating the keeping the Seanaid.

You take it wrong. She is an elected senator, not a taoiseach's nominee.

It is comical sometimes reading the absolute nonsense written by people about the plan to abolish the Seanad. The facts are black and white.

1. The referendum could not take place until the new amendments were drafted. That was make explicit in every statement by Kenny on the issue.

2. Until the house is abolished the Taoiseach is constitutionally bound to appoint the 11 nominees. It would be unconstitutional not to.

3. The referendum was announced for late 2013 over a year ago. It wouldn't be held earlier because (a) the amendment would not be ready and (b) there was a list of other referendums ahead of it. Experience in the past is to avoid more than a small number of referendums at the one time because when a serious of them was held before subsequent research found that people felt that some of the referendums got overshadowed by others, so they wanted to have no more than 3 at the one time, preferably 2. So the Seanad one is among the list down for late 2013.

4. It was spelt out clearly in the policy document that the abolition, of voted for, will come into force at the next general election. That is because the constitution specifies terms of office to the modern Seanad and the advice legally is that it would be problematic to effectively unelect people elected already for a term. So the effect of the amendment will be to kill off the Seanad when the current term ends. (The previous Free State Seanad could be abolished straight away because until the modern Seanad it wasn't elected to terms, but was elected with a form of rolling membership, with a proportion elected every couple of years. So legally there was no natural end point so you were able to create one.)

[Dr. FIVE]

Derek Keating was skewered by Lucan School principal (http://www.gazettegroup.com/news/principal-blasts-keating-leaflet/) last week and today his 'adviser' was caught on camera (http://www.herald.ie/news/the-tds-aide-the-school-row-and-the-vanishing-pile-of-local-newspapers-29248906.html) dumping copies of the paper.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BJrPaqcCUAAo1kA.jpg



This is the same adviser who was defending Enda Kenny against Fr McKevitt and Alive! magazine on liveline last month. Neither he nor Joe Duffy disclosed his background.

[Dr. FIVE]

jaysus, not the first time he's hit the headlines either

http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/fg-activist-to-sue-state-over-secrets-leak-probe-26173966.html

[Dr. FIVE]

LOL

http://www.gazettegroup.com/news/garda-inquiry-launched-after-removal-of-newspapers/

http://cf.broadsheet.ie/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Screen-Shot-2013-05-08-at-16.34.39.jpg


Made the Guardian too > http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/greenslade/2013/may/08/free-newspapers-ireland?CMP=twt_gu

[Baron von Biffo]

LOL

http://www.gazettegroup.com/news/garda-inquiry-launched-after-removal-of-newspapers/

http://cf.broadsheet.ie/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Screen-Shot-2013-05-08-at-16.34.39.jpg


Made the Guardian too > http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/greenslade/2013/may/08/free-newspapers-ireland?CMP=twt_gu

PJ beat you to it. ;)

http://www.politicalworld.org/showthread.php?14268-The-TD-s-aide-the-school-row-and-the-vanishing-pile-of-local-newspapers

[Dr. FIVE]

hilarity

from the original report


Residents in Lucan South last week received a leaflet from Fine Gael TD Derek Keating that outlined what he has “delivered” for the people of Lucan. Amongst the list was news of a school expansion at Griffeen Valley Educate Together – an inclusion that has angered that school’s principal, Tomas O’Dulaing. In an open letter to Deputy Keating, O’Dulaing said that he had not assisted in the expansion plans whatsoever.

“You never once contacted our school, Griffeen Valley, in relation to our forthcoming school extension,” says O’Dulaing’s letter.

“Neither did anybody from our board of management or staff contact you or seek your assistance in relation to the extension.

You had absolutely nothing to do with this development, and yet you distribute a leaflet in the Lucan area claiming to have ‘initiated, led and delivered’ this extension.

“This is nothing but gross cynical opportunism on your behalf, which I find objectionable and depressing.”


And as if by magic, look what Derek Keating was asking about yesterday. School buildings and talking to local principals

http://www.kildarestreet.com/debates/?id=2013-05-07a.230&s=speaker%3A319#g231