From top: Alan Kelly and Joan Burton; Anne Marie McNally

While Labour rent their ideals to the highest bidder the problem of homelessness can never be solved.

Anne-Marie McNally writes:

The past few days have seen raging debates about the current humanitarian crisis playing out across Europe and how Ireland might play its part in alleviating the suffering of those people.

A lot of that debate has been framed in the context of our own problems here at home and cries of ‘what about our own’. One of the key areas for concern in that regard surrounds the contentious issue of homelessness and the wider topic of housing.

How long have we been talking about housing issues in this country? From planning scandals to Celtic tiger bubbles to spiralling rents to supply shortages, and eventually to a homelessness crisis that worsens every day.

But here’s the crux – homelessness can be solved. Let’s get real about this. Yes, there is a section of the homeless population who have extremely complex issues requiring far more integrated services than a simple housing solution but increasingly we are seeing individuals and families being pushed into homelessness for no reason other than poor strategy and consistent failures on behalf of Government to implement basic preventative measures.

Over the past 12 months or so we’ve come through the usual Government spectrum of dealing with an issue (i) deny it exists (ii) claim it’s being blown out of proportion by hysterical people (iii) admit there’s an issue but claim to have a handle on it (iv) issue a raft of important sounding announcements to solve said problem and (v) vociferously deny the reality that those announcements have made zero impact on the problem and in fact the problem has worsened. Repeat process.

In December 2014, in response to the tragic death of homeless man Jonathan Corrie, Minister Alan Kelly and his junior Minister Paudie Coffey announced a 20 point plan to tackle homelessness.

To date – the majority of those 20 proposals languish somewhere between non-existent or half completed. The majority of them were knee-jerk type responses aimed at taking the immediate pressure off and to be perfectly honest, most were aimed at those homeless individuals with more complex, multi-agency needs.

Nowhere was there any sign of a policy to address the critical role that the unrealistic rent caps play in forcing families out of rented accommodation.

Joan Burton held firm on the ‘negotiate with the landlord’ line – which might be grand if you’re the Tánaiste but not when you’re a parent with young children and the landlord is giving you a steely glare all the while knowing he/she can get an extra 300 quid a month on the open market over the limit that the Department are prepared to pay him. Your negotiating stance is fairly weak in that situation!

There were grandiose statements about building targets and new units – in smaller print underneath was the fact that delivery and implementation of these policies would not be until 2017 or 2020 in some cases.

Given that this Government’s term in office ends in April 2016 at the latest, it’s quite presumptive and somewhat arrogant to formulate a response based on policy that won’t be implemented for 2-5 years particularly when the crisis is in the here and now.

The mismanagement of so many elements of society, not least housing policy, by this Government and its predecessor has misled people into believing that we don’t have the capacity or the capabilities to deal with extra demand on our services.

In truth, if we could just get our act together, reorganise how we do things, and start looking at meaningful, outside the box, solutions, we could design quality systems and public services to create a country where people want to live, aspire to emigrate to, and an Ireland that others want to return to.

Instead you’ll likely get a vote-buying tax cut in the upcoming budget while services and social infrastructure crumble around us and meanwhile Joan will go from renting out her party to the conservative right and instead sign up them for a long-term lease.

Anne-Marie McNally is a Political and media strategist working with Catherine Murphy TD and will be a candidate for The Social Democrats in the next General Election. Opinions expressed may not necessarily be shared by her employers. Follow Anne-Marie on Twitter: @amomcnally

From top: Enda Kenny (left) and Bryan Dobson on RTÉ’s Six One last night; Anne-Marie McNally

This just spin.

Enda Kenny did not fire the Garda Commissioner.

Are we clear?

Anne-Marie McNally writes:

When you’re a school kid you wait anxiously for your end of year report. You try and get a gander at it before the parents set eyes on it and all hell breaks loose.

When you’re the Taoiseach of the country it’s water off a duck’s back. At this stage Enda has so many reports coming at him that he doesn’t know if he’s a news editor or a politician.

Each report or inquiry represents its own little scandal. Each little scandal got kicked to touch at some stage along the way by the Taoiseach announcing (in his gravest voice) that a commission of investigation will be established and a report will be produced.

What Enda forgets is that at some stage, the ball will come back in from touch when the report is finally ready. But don’t worry, Enda’s got a game plan for that as well – he gathers the Cabinet into a team huddle, they touch knuckles and shout ‘SPIN’ before rushing off in different directions to the various media outlets to get their version out before most journalists have had a chance to open the front cover of said report.

We witnessed it in all its spinning glory just last evening. The Fennelly Report arises from the Fennelly Commission which was tasked with investigating various matters of public interest relating to An Garda Siochanna and the circumstances surrounding the ‘resignation’ of the Garda Commissioner.

The report landed in the public sphere around 5pm Tuesday evening.  Enda & Co had gotten a copy on Monday evening, held a meeting with the current Garda Commissioner and Minister for Justice on Tuesday morning, but kept schtum all day Tuesday.

When the 288 page report was dropping on journalists desks on Tuesday evening Enda was already en-route to Montrose all set to give his spiel on Six One.

Enda assured Bryan Dobson that the report fully vindicated him; not only had he not sacked the Commissioner but he’d never even pushed him into retiring. Bryan probed and prodded Enda (in so much as he could given that he hadn’t had time to read the report) but Enda held firm – nothing to see here, the Commissioner resigned of his own volition and this is a storm in a tea cup.

Oh, and we have full confidence in the Government appointed Attorney-General, Marie Whelan who the report found had been at the heart of the ‘communication issues’ which led to the significant confusion regarding Alan Shatter’s knowledge of the Garda taping issue.

Enda’s yarn was spun to the nation by 6:30pm. At that stage Journalists were getting to grips with the actual reality of the report.

Enda’s assertions that he had not sacked the Commissioner and had nothing to do with his retirement seemed to sit in stark contrast to the report’s findings that Enda had sent the Secretary General of the Department , Brian Purcell, to the Commissioner’s home late on a Sunday evening in what was described as an ‘unprecedented move’.

It went on to say that Mr Purcell – who described it as the ‘worst day of his life’-informed the Commissioner that the Taoiseach didn’t have full confidence in him.

Essentially the entire point of the visit was to encourage the Commissioner to consider his position. When the Commissioner said he planned to retire in 3 months, he was informed the next morning, by Enda, that his retirement must be immediate. But he wasn’t pushed out at all, at all. Right so Ted.

My point here is an obvious one. We can have all the reports in the world – and we almost do at this stage – but unless we take the time to read, interpret, and understand exactly what they find then we are left at the mercy of a well-oiled spin machine who will paint a very different picture to the reality.

We would do well to remember that and make an effort to become the eagle-eyed parents awaiting the report card no matter how hard the kid tries to spin us a good news story.

Anne-Marie McNally is a Political and media strategist working with Catherine Murphy TD and The Social Democrats. Opinions expressed may not necessarily be shared by her employers. Follow her on Twitter: @amomcnally

From top: The Moriarty Report Part 2, 2011; Anne-Marie McNally

When strong evidence of alleged corruption is presented and amassed at great cost and nothing happens perhaps the process itself is corrupt?

Anne Marie McNally writes:

We spend a lot of our time on this little island decrying the lack of hard-line action on white collar crime. We bandy the word corruption around quite a lot but how do we define corruption and are we really victims of it or just some bad nudge, nudge, wink, wink, behaviour?

Convictions for corruption are not unheard of but they are very few and far between.The most recent and possibly highest profile case was that of a former Fine Gael Councillor in Waterford who was found guilty of receiving €80,000 in payments from a property developer and sentenced to six years in prison with two suspended. Interestingly, the property developer who made the corrupt payments had no such inconvenience.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines corruption as ‘dishonest or fraudulent conduct by those in power, typically involving bribery’ – seems pretty self-explanatory and straightforward doesn’t it? In Ireland, The Prevention of Corruption Acts 1889-2010 define corruption as ‘any payment offered or received in order to influence a public official‘.

The various Acts do not require actual proof that the transaction ultimately secured a contract or a licence but rather just evidence that information pertaining to a State contract or licence was provided or that a public official was influenced in any way.

One of the 2011 findings of the Moriarty Tribunal was that Michael Lowry TD provided substantive information to Denis O’Brien which was “of significant value to him in securing the (2nd mobile phone) licence.”

With that in mind, carefully recall the definition above as laid out in the Prevention of Corruption Act 2010. So why has there been no legal action on foot of the Moriarty findings?

A little understood fact regarding the Moriarty tribunal is that the conclusions are merely opinions. Opinions, it must be stated, which are vehemently rejected by both Denis O’Brien and Michael Lowry.

However, for any further action to come from the findings of the tribunal the Gardaí would be required to uncover actual evidence through a new investigation because any evidence presented to a tribunal of Inquiry cannot be used to secure a criminal conviction against a witness from that Tribunal!

A lot of flak has been aimed at the DPP for its failure to act on Moriarty but in reality the DPP is not permitted to act on alleged offences and she would need to be presented with evidence from the Gardaí that actual wrong-doing has taken place in order to proceed with any actions.

So are the Gardaí currently working on presenting this evidence, if it exists? Well, in short, no. Yes they apparently carried out an initial investigation led by the Criminal Assets Bureau chief but at the moment the official line is that they are still waiting for guidance from the DPP as to whether or not to proceed with a full investigation.

But wait, what was that bit earlier about the office of the DPP needing the Gardaí to bring them evidence in order to proceed? I’m as confused as you are and as, it seems, are Government because it has rolled out the same PQ reply on numerous occasions which basically states that the Gardaí are awaiting direction from the DPP as to how to proceed.

Whoever is dropping the ball on this one may be unclear, but what is very clear is the original players in this sorry saga are getting on with their careers and business interests unperturbed by those pesky meddling kids on the tribunal benches.

Anne-Marie McNally is a Political and media strategist working with Catherine Murphy TD and The Social Democrats. Opinions expressed may not necessarily be shared by her employers. Follow her on Twitter: @amomcnally