Category Archives: Misc

maryboyle

independent

From top: Gemma O’Doherty’s documentary, Mary Boyle: The Untold Story; Independent.ie logo.

Gemma O’Doherty posted her documentary Mary Boyle: The Untold Story on YouTube on July 4 – about the disappearance of six-year-old twin Mary Boyle in Donegal in 1977.

The documentary, which has been viewed more than 160,000 times, features interviews with retired sergeant Martin Collins and retired detective sergeant Aidan Murray, in which they allege political interference in the investigation into Mary’s disappearance.

It’s been recently reported in the Independent that both men have since denied there was political interference.

Ms O’Doherty, in an interview with Ocean FM yesterday, said, once the documentary was posted online, the two men were very happy with the documentary; she hasn’t been contacted by either of the men and that she finds the reports to be “very sinister”.

The documentary has been the subject of several critical stories in the Independent, where Ms O’Doherty worked as a journalist before she was fired after calling to the home of the then Garda Commissioner Martin Callinan to question him about quashed penalty points.

And yet it is the paper’s recent coverage of Mary Boyle’s fate, much like the recent ‘revelations’ concerning Philip Cairns case, that have sown the most confusion.

Tuesday, July 12, 2016 (morning): Irish Independent reports on a report by the Irish Daily Star that, in the next few weeks, the Garda cold case unit will launch a “fresh investigation” into the disappearance of Mary Boyle, “with all evidence and suspects to be reexamined”.

Following the investigation, which is expected to last six months, a report will be given to the Garda Commissioner Noirin O’Sullivan.

It’s reported:

“‘The first thing that will happen is that the team will go to Donegal (where Mary disappeared) to get a feel for the area,’ a source told [the] newspaper. The source also revealed that the detectives would draw up a list of all serving and retired gardai that investigated Mary’s disappearance in 1977. The source said that the new cold case team would have no pre-conceived ideas of who was or wasn’t a suspect and that all evidence would be followed.”

The report mentions former Irish Independent journalist Gemma O’Doherty’s documentary about Mary’s disappearance – without naming Ms O’Doherty.

It’s reported:

“After a documentary into the investigation earlier this month called Mary Boyle: The Untold Story, there were claims of political interference by two former gardai involved in the case. Retired sergeant Martin Collins claimed a political figure rang gardai at the height of the probe and said: ‘The gist was that none of a particular family should be made suspect for Mary’s interference’.

“Former detective Aidan Murray told the documentary he believed he was close to getting a suspect to confess to murdering Mary but was told to ‘ease-off’ on the suspect by a senior officer. Mary’s twin sister Ann said she believes Mary was being sexually abused and was killed to cover ‘the secret’.”

In addition, it’s reported:

“Six-year-old Mary Boyle had been at her grandparents’ house in Cashelard, a remote and boggy townland outside Ballyshannon, where the extended family had lunch. Her uncle, Gerry Gallagher, was the last person to see her alive after she walked back to her grandparent’s house but never made it there.”

Tuesday, July 12, 2016 (evening): Independent.ie reports that the gardaí have confirmed that cold case detectives are reviewing the Mary Boyle case.

However, they also report

“In a statement given to independent.ie this evening, Garda HQ said a review is underway into the disappearance of Mary. This evening gardaí dismissed reports that a new investigation is underway, saying the case has never been closed… However the statement said it is being reviewed.”

The statement is reported as saying:

“The disappearance of Mary Boyle is under active investigation as it has been since Mary disappeared and that investigation will continue. Any new information that is reported to An Garda Síochána, in relation to an ongoing investigation, will be investigated accordingly.

“As well as the investigation at the time there have been two reviews by An Garda Síochána into Mary’s disappearance. The latest began in 2011 and is being undertaken by a Review Team from the Northern Region.

“The Review team has to date conducted a significant investigation that has involved interviewing a wide range of people and undertaking a number of searches with the assistance of forensic and geology experts. Its investigation is ongoing.

“The Serious Crime Review team has recently been tasked to review the case. The Serious Crime Review Team (SCRT) was established in August 2007 to review of unresolved homicides and other serious crimes within the State.

“The primary purpose of a review is to assist Senior Investigation Officers who are investigating a serious crime by identifying new and potential investigative opportunities. Members of the SCRT are trained in homicide investigation and in the reviewing of unresolved homicides.

“The SCRT comes under the command of the Assistant Commissioner, National Support Services and the Office of the Detective Chief Superintendent, National Bureau of Criminal Investigation. The head of the Serious Crime Review Team is Detective Superintendent Walter O’Sullivan.”

Friday, July 14, 2016: The Irish Independent reports on an Irish Daily Star report that says a 73-year-old fisherman PJ Coughlan claims he saw ‘a red Volkswagen Beetle speeding away from the area that Mary went missing ten minutes before he saw Mary’s uncle Gerry frantically searching for her’.

Mr Coughlan is quoted as saying: “I believe I saw her being driven away in a car. There’s no doubt in my mind she was lifted.”

It’s reported that:

“Coughlan was the first person at the Garda station in Ballyshannon in 1977 to report Mary’s disappearance. He said he told gardai about the car but he claimed that this wasn’t recorded because the gardai already had a suspect. Meanwhile, Detective Superintendent Walter O’Sullivan has confirmed that the cold case investigation into Mary’s disappearance will be launched in the next few weeks and will last up to six months.”

In addition, it’s reported that Mary’s sister Ann Doherty has complained to the Garda Siochana Ombudsman Commission over “gardai leaking information about the new investigation to the Irish Daily Star before she was notified.”

The article also includes a statement from Ann Doherty’s solicitor, Darragh Mackin which states:

“It is deeply troubling, that a decision was taken to provide such a development in an exclusive to a national newspaper, before conveying same to our client. Our Client, Ms Doherty has still not been contacted by An Garda Siochana to confirm the contents of the article and therefore we are not in a position to confirm the accuracy of whether or not there is in fact a fresh probe into the disappearance of Mary Boyle, on foot of the recently published documentary.”

Saturday, July 15, 2016: The Irish Independent reports that gardai have started to search a bog – that was previously searched – in Donegal “as a fresh investigation is underway into the disappearance of six-year-old Mary Boyle”. It’s reported that the bog is being drained.

The article repeats the claims of political interference made by two gardai in the documentary Mary Boyle: The Untold Story – again, without naming Gemma O’Doherty as having made the documentary.

Saturday, July 15, 2016 (later in the day):  The Irish Independent reports that “an excavation” has been started on land near where Mary Boyle went missing.

Monday, July 18, 2016: The Irish Independent reports that Fianna Fáil councillor Sean McEniff has released a statement.

The statement is quoted as saying:

“Mr McEniff emphatically and unconditionally denies that he was the politician who allegedly contacted the Gardai in Ballyshannon at the time of the disappearance of Mary Boyle.

“He has no knowledge of such a call other than what he has heard recently on what was contained in the video “Mary Boyle, The Untold Story”.”

“Mr McEniff is satisfied that the two former Gardai interviewed as part of the video have recently clarified that at the time of the disappearance or in the investigation that followed neither were aware of any such alleged phonecall and that there was no impediment from their superiors in the investigation as a result.”

It’s further reported:

“Mr McEniff also asserted his right to a good name and said he has taken legal advice in relation to what he says are defamatory comments ‘made both directly and by innuendo’.”

“The statement says he will also ‘take such steps as are necessary to protect his reputation’. He alleges that comments and statements made in relation to the issue are false, malicious and damaging to him. The statement also says Mr McEniff will make no further public statements in relation to the issue and all further related issues will be dealt with through his solicitors.”

The article names Gemma O’Doherty as the creator of the documentary.

It also states that McEniff, who has been a Donegal County Councillor for more than 40 years, supports the call for a Commission of Investigation into Mary Boyle’s case.

Sunday, August 14, 2016: The Sunday Independent reports that retired detective sergeant Aidan Murray, who was in Ms O’Doherty’s documentary, denies claims of political interference in the investigation into the disappearance of Mary Boyle.

It’s reported:

“Retired detective sergeant Aidan Murray, who featured in Mary Boyle: The Untold Story, has claimed the programme was ‘selective’ and ‘misleading’ in how it presented his interview.”

“In a sworn statement to a solicitor, Mr Murray said that at no stage during his investigation into the disappearance of the little girl in Donegal was he subjected to ‘interference’ or ‘pressure’.”

“He said his two senior officers, a superintendent and an inspector, were ‘honourable and professional men’ and ‘at no point attempted to influence’ him in the conduct of the investigation.”

“He alleged that the documentary had ‘taken a number of my comments out of context and creates the wrong impression’.”

“Mr Murray’s comments echo those of his former colleague, retired sergeant Martin Collins, who also featured in the documentary, Mary Boyle: The Untold Story. Speaking to his local newspaper in Donegal, Mr Collins also denied any political interference.’”

In addition, it’s reported:

“In the statement, which he made last week, Mr Murray said: ‘I was not aware of any alleged phone call at the time and I subsequently heard the rumour many months later at a garda conference.’ He said: ‘The reason Inspector Daly asked me to pause the interview was because of his genuine concern for the mental health of the person being interviewed. It was not for any other reason.’”

“Mr Murray alleged that the Mary Boyle documentary was ‘selectively edited to suggest that this was because of political interference. This is absolutely incorrect.’”

Monday, August 15, 2016: The Irish Independent repeats sections of the Sunday Independent report in relation to Mr Murray but includes that, “Mr Murray says Fianna Fáil councillor Sean McEniff ‘did not make any phone or contact the gardai in relation to the investigation’.”

The article also includes sections of Mr McEniff’s statement of July where he denied contacting the gardaí in Ballyshannon at the time of Mary’s disappearance.

It further includes a line about retired Sgt Collins, saying “[Collings] emphatically told a local Donegal newspaper that there had been no political or garda cover-up.”

Further to the reports above, Ms O’Doherty did an interview with Ocean FM yesterday.

During the interview, Ms O’Doherty said:

“I have to say that it’s very alarming. Aidan Murray has not contacted me about this, nor asked me to retract anything that he said in my documentary and nor will I be retracting anything.

“Aidan Murray is very clear, in the documentary when he said, in his own words, that certain people were not allowed to be interviewed, as a result of the politician’s phone call. He said that, I didn’t, it came out of his own mouth. You cannot really un-say what you have said.

“…We did actually record them twice because I was involved with UTV Northern Ireland, making a documentary, and the two men travelled over to Lough Erne Resort and we did interview there.

“Now, we decided we weren’t going to go ahead with UTV, for a number of reasons, so this was something that they did at their own free will. And, you know, I know that after the documentary was aired, on July the 4th, they expressed profound happiness about it.

“Margo spoke to both of them, Margo O’Donnell and she said that they were overjoyed. And I spoke to them and I know that that was their sense as well. So, I haven’t heard from them in relation to this sudden retraction but I do find it very sinister.”

Meanwhile, Mary Boyle: The Untold Story will be screened in Eoin’s Bar on Clanbrassil Street in Dundalk, Co. Louth tonight,  followed by a Q&A with Ms O’Doherty and Margo O’Donnell.

It will begin at 8pm and admission is free.

Producer of Mary Boyle documentary describes statement as ‘sinister’ (Ocean FM)

Watch Mary Boyle: The Untold Story here

Thanks Rory

banks

In the event of a bail-in, the government and banks are likely to seek to impose deeper haircuts on creditors including depositors in order to bail-out and protect the failing banking system, writes Mark O’Byrne, of Irish gold brokers Goldcore,

He adds:

Deposit bail-in risks are slowly being realised in Ireland, after it emerged overnight that FBD, one of Ireland’s largest insurance companies, have been moving cash out of Irish bank deposits and into bonds.

Revelations regarding deposit bail-in risks came in the wake of warnings of a new property crash centred on the housing market in Ireland. The former deputy governor of the Central Bank warned in an op-ed in a leading international financial publication, Project Syndicate, that Ireland is at risk of another housing market crash.

Insurer FBD has moved over €150 million out of the Irish banking system and into corporate and sovereign bonds over the past year. The move was prompted by low returns offered by bank deposits and the risks that deposit bail-in rules could see deposits confiscated.

FBD chief executive Fiona Muldoon told the Irish Independent that the

“extremely low returns offered on term deposits by banks, coupled with fears that new bail-in rules introduced this year by the European Union could expose bank bondholders and depositors to bailing out a failed lender, meant it has shifted investments away from banks.”

The new deposit bail-in mechanism is designed to protect banks and is touted as a way to prevent taxpayers being liable for bailing out collapsed lenders. It is believed that it leaves bank bondholders and deposit customers with more than €100,000 on deposit at risk of footing the bill.

There is a belief that bail-ins only relate to “the wealthy” and “rich” depositors as they will be imposed on those with deposits greater than national deposit guarantees.

These deposit “guarantees” are generally the ‘big round’, arbitrary number of say €100,000, $250,000 and £75,000. These are not particularly large amounts and could amount to the entire life savings of a pensioner, a family or indeed it could be the entire capital of a small to medium size business enterprise.

An example of this is the UK where the deposit guarantee was arbitrarily, suddenly and with little fanfare quietly reduced from £100,000 to £75,000 just last year in July 2015.

Thus, it is important to note that the arbitrary round number in the various government deposit guarantees can be, and probably will be, reduced to a lower number – say the new round number of €50,000, £50,000 and $50,000 – depending on the severity of the next banking crash.

….FBD’s deposits with Irish banks were reduced from €451 million to €305 million in recent months. FBD made a €3.1m loss in the first half of the year….

The recent bank stress tests showed that Irish banks are the most vulnerable in the EU in the event of another financial crisis…

FIGHT!

Deposit Bail-in Warning In Ireland – Bail-in Risk In UK Very High (Mark O’Byrne, Goldcore)

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Ilenkus – new single from post-metal Galwegians

What you may need to know…

01. Previous column featurees Ilenkus return with their first new material in nearly two years.

02. Emerging in 2011, the band combines heavy-duty riffage with atmosphere and technical proficiency, as best displayed on their 2014 sophomore effort The Crossing.

03. Streaming above is new single Hunny Bunny, which premiered last week on MetalSucks before going on general release via Bandcamp.

04. It’s taken from the band’s upcoming Hunger 7″ E.P., for released later this autumn, pending the current crush on vinyl production.

Verdict: Hunny Bunny takes the band’s dynamic and turns it on its head, as long-form compositions give way to more focused aggression.

Ilenkus

oldmanMichael Taft

From top: Pensioner on the Ha’penny Bridge, Dublin; Michael Taft

The pension debate is overly complex and full of scare mongering.

That ends here.

Michael Taft writes:

Get ready for the big upcoming pension debate. Hopefully it won’t be conducted like the ‘we-are-taxed-too-much’ debate or the ‘Irish-wages-are-too-high’-debate.

Hopefully the pension debate will be evidence-based, without unsubstantiated assertions or slogans masquerading as policy. Let’s keep hope alive by looking at a couple of issues arising out of the report from the Interdepartmental Group on Fuller Working Lives.

For many, pensions are as exciting as a snail race. But believe me, when you get to a certain age it becomes seriously interesting. And with the rising number of elderly, it will become even more prominent in the debate.

The Interdepartmental report focused on the specific dilemma facing people forced to retire at the age of 65 but not being eligible for a pension until they turn 66 (by 2028 the eligibility age will be increased to 68). But the report touches upon wider issues. Let’s look at two of them.

We Can’t Afford Them

We’re going to get a lot of ‘we-can’t-afford-them’ – that is, future pension costs will be fiscally unsustainable due to the rising number of pensioners: .

‘Expenditure on State Pension payments and relevant supplementary payments is estimated to rise from just over €6.5bn in 2015 to around €8.7bn in 2026, assuming no further changes in rates – an increase of 34%.’

While they don’t scare-monger these numbers, others will. But should we be overly-worried about this number?

As a proportion of national output (GDP or GNP) these numbers indicate that pensions will actually cost less in the future; at least up to 2026.

1

Using the report’s own numbers, pensions as measured as a proportion of national output will fall between 2015 and 2026 – whether measured by GDP or GNP. In my own calculations,

inserting a 2.5 percent annual increase in weekly pension payments, the cost remains the same. This doesn’t factor in the increased revenue – higher income and indirect tax revenue which will offset a small part of the cost.

Yes, there is a problem with GDP and GNP measurements, but the above measure trends. After 2021 I assume a 4 percent nominal increase in GDP and a 3.5 percent nominal increase in GNP).

This is not to under-estimate the challenges of funding people’s post-retirement income; after 2026 the cost will continue to rise. But it is important to keep these rising costs in perspective.

There’s Going to Be More of Them

More pensioners, that is. Which brings us to another issue – the age-dependency ratio. It has been pointed out that there will be fewer people at work supporting more people retired – a real social, economic and fiscal challenge.

2

Ireland’s dependency ratio, while staying below the mean average of other EU-15 countries, will nonetheless double over the period to 2050 – to 45 percent. After that the ratio falls to the level that exists in other EU-15 average today – and then rises again.

A couple of things to note about this type of projections. First, it is highly sensitive to small changes in variables such as immigration levels, longevity, fertility, etc.

To show how fragile these projections can be, just remember Ireland in 1989. High emigration, low immigration; who would have imagined that within 10 years everything would be turned upside down. If it’s hard to project demographics over a decade, try attempting it over multiple decades.

Second, age and pension-dependency ratios are also a product of policy. For instance, even under same variables, the above chart is out-of-date. The age range is 65. But Irish policy is to increase the pension age to 68 by 2028. This will improve the dependency ratio under current projections.

Or how about this: the Government pledged to take in 4,000 Syrian refugees yet only 350 have arrived. If we were to have a more pro-active immigration policy, we could improve the dependency ratio.

Why do you think Germany committed to taking so many in? Under current projections, their dependency ratio will rise to a staggering 60 percent, with the population in decline (many EU countries are facing into falling populations).

That’s why what’s called the European ‘immigration crisis’ is actually a ‘social and economic opportunity’.

Again, this doesn’t under-estimate the challenge but hopefully it will point us to positive proposals, rather than an alarmist debate.

Just Outlaw It

The purpose of the inter-governmental report was to address the issue of raising the pension age while people were still required to retire at 65 years. The report calls for a number of interventions, mostly aspirational.

Why not just forbid forced retirement at the age of 65. Retirement should at least become mandatory only when someone is eligible for a state pension.

Or why not go further and just outlaw age-ism. People should be given a range of work-choices – continuing to work past the pension age, reduce working hours, or retire at the pension age. If someone is not considered fit to continue working in a company, it should be treated as a health and safety issue, not an issue of an arbitrary age.

There is no denying the complexity of the issues regarding ageing, pensions, life-time savings and the diminishing number of defined-benefit occupational schemes. We will need an informed debate based on evidence with proposals that are intended to enhance peoples’ life-options and living standards.

One might be pessimistic that this will happen when one considers the how debates over tax, spending cuts, competitiveness, etc. have been, and continue to be, conducted.

But one should live in hope – hopefully for a long, healthy and prosperous life-time.

Michael Taft is Research Officer with Unite the Union. His column appears here every Tuesday. He is author of the political economy blog, Unite’s Notes on the Front. Follow Michael on Twitter: @notesonthefront