From top: Taoiseach Enda Kenny (second left) and Attorney General Marie Whelan second right) at former Attorney General Declan Costello’s funeral; Siteserv logo.
Yesterday’s Sunday Business Post revealed that the Commission of investigation into transactions made during the wind up of Anglo Irish Bank, including the sale of Siteserv to Denis O’Brien, can not proceed.
Six months after its set up the commission says it does not have the powers to make a determination as to whether documents in the possession of the liquidators, KPMG, are “covered by legal and banking privilege”.
Concerned Citizen asks:
Are Fine Gael attempting to throw the Attorney General under the bus for giving poor advice?
And will the Attorney General say the problems were known from the outset but Fine Gael proceeded because they assumed a General Election would come first?
Anyone?
(RollingNews.ie)
That last segment reads like the end of a two-part episode of Batman. With a bit less KAPOW.
@PBDC
Less KAPOW but more KORRUPSHUN!
FG don’t want the murky dealings between itself and Redacted coming to light, technically he was given Siteserv as a gift as none of his money was used in the purchase and there was already issues about his ability to repay other outstanding debts.
wonder what sort of spinwash will be thrown on today to relegate this to the middle pages
anyone know what powers are missing specifically?
I *think* the special liquidator has said they can give the judge anything he wants on the transaction – but he can’t show them to witnesses or anything, for his eyes only. Which makes it impossible to actually interrogate the thing / rebut anything anyone says. That’s the gist I got anyway.
I heard it was Paddy Cosgrave what did it!
Shouldn’t she be resigning about now? This was a deliberate attempt to kick it in to touch, until after the election.
Enda throwing someone under the bus to distract attention? Nah, he would never do that, the guy has ethics and cojones, right?
Ha!
According to Paul Anthony McDermott on Morning Ireland today the issue is with section 21 of the Commissions of Investigation Act 2004.
http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/2004/act/23/section/21/enacted/en/html
So basically once someone claims that a particular document is privileged or confidential the Commission has no power to compel the handing over of that document.
Pretty much makes a joke of the entire Act I would have thought.
Hardly going to be easy to resolve either as any potential solution its bound to have knock on effects in other areas.
Then there’s the strong possibility of O’Brien mounting another legal challenge.
Criminal win
…again
This is mostly why people are refusing to pay the water charges – every few weeks some other nugget of nonsense slowly falls out of IW hoop, quickly wiped by some FG shill…
This only strengthens further my opinion that a vote for my dog would be better for the country than a vote for FG.
Nice try Enda, you crooked arrogant gobsheen.
Ha!
It seems to be impossible at this stage to land anyone in jail for white collar crime or corruption. The people we put in power have no obvious intention of changing this.
White collars, blue shirts.