Attorney General Máire Whelan and Taoiseach Enda Kenny
The Fennelly report has confirmed a serious problem that exists within our democratic process – matters of grave importance are being decided at the very highest echelons within the State without any official record of the discussions that led to them. This allows the participants in these discussions to give widely varying accounts of what actually happened and what was said.
This, in my opinion, is because none of the participants wish to have their actions and words scrutinised by the Irish people as a result of subsequent freedom of information requests from media or academic sources. There was a time when we had leaders who would stand over their words and deeds, but this is what “openness”, “accountability” and “transparency” have come to mean. It is not good enough.
Liam Stenson,
Knocknacarra,
Galway.
Taking note of the Fennelly report (Irish Times letters page)
Fennelly Report: The Digested Read
Kenny is a physical anomaly in that he can stand up straight without a spine.
W£€¥$@
This is exactly how I feel. How can one have faith in our government, let alone the institutions under state control, if we can quite see ‘transparently’ that there is something rotten, something deeply wrong.
Voters have been accused of being apathetic. Can you blame them? When we are asked to pick the best of a bad bunch who will do nothing and change nothing.
“There was a time when we had leaders who would stand over their words and deeds”
LOL!
Well, if you go back as far Henry VIII, like.
Yesterday, I read that Aldi were rounding bills to the nearest 5c because the Central Bank had said it was uneconomic to produce 1c and 2c. And was no longer going to do so.
Shouldn’t this be the sort of thing that is discussed by our legislature?
Are we being asked to believe that some random civil servant can make major decisions about our currency. And if this is the case, is this not a very worrying development?
Our country is run via phone calls and secret meetings between individuals who are not supposed to be engaging on official or judicial matters outside of the democratic institutions.
They are usually old school or college mates, all part of a wider circle of control going back generations.
We’re not a democracy folks. We never have been.
Stop that.
I was happy when I was ignorant.
The change of who is in government is the illusion of choice. We vote like we are doing something, like we heave a tiny fraction of power, but really there is nothing to vote for. People like to believe that their vote counts. Oh I suppose someone does count it, but like the 1 and 2 cent pieces it has no value.
That isn’t really true.
Your conspiracy theories distract from doing anything practical.
Liam Stenson makes a very good point.
One need only look to the set up and awarding of contracts with Irish Water to see a prime example of this.
Meetings with no minutes or notes between the head of Bord Gáis and Big Phil. 13 other meetings between IW and Bord Gais thereafter,again without minutes etc
For all the work of Tribunals, Fine Gael and Fianna Fail have not changed. Corruption is merely no longer being documented, it has been driven deeper underground.
What we do not know about their works is what should scare us.
I agree completely with this letter, if lies are the tools of government where will that leave us ?
I agree completely with this letter also.
We need rules something along the lines of….. No meeting minutes, no meeting. And anything agreed in a meeting without minutes is not legally binding to anyone.
It’d stop the complete morons making bank guarantees for starters.
And this should not be just applied to our govt ministers and top civil servants, but should also be in some sort of corporate governance… to stop “verbal” agreements between dodgy businessmen like Denis O’Brien (as proven in the Moriarty Tribunal) and dodgy bankers.