Monday, February 3, 2014
Barry Clifford: Insurance Fraud By The Insurers
It is quiet shocking that several
insurance companies, Zurich, FBD, and Travelers Inc, accused of fraud
themselves and after admitting violating the Data Protection Act, have already
evaded a criminal conviction just by donating €20,000 each to charity. A little
bit too charitable I would have thought.
FBD Insurance already admitted in an
earlier case that allegations by the company accusing an elderly couple of
fraud, which was based on an ‘anonymous call and letter’ to them were totally
unfounded. They had even claimed too that the fire that destroyed their house
was not a risk covered. Thankfully the judge this time was on the side of right
and insured that the couple got their just claim settled.
It will interesting times now to see
how the insurance companies will handle the many flood and storm claims filed
against them this winter. The small print that may not have been read by an
unsuspecting claimant will surely never be forgotten should that fine print
reduce their claim to zero.
In future, when I see that ad again
on television about insurance fraudsters putting there hand in our pockets, the
only thing that will come to mind will be the insurance companies themselves
Barry Clifford
Article: Ten things you can do in Ireland that almost certainly won’t land you in jail
A country that can’t protect its
citizens from the effects of wrongdoing is not a Republic
Beata Schmid has been told to turn up
in the High Court in Dublin today packed for a trip to prison. An Garda
Síochána has been told to make sure there are officers in court “with a view to
conveying Ms Schmid to prison”.
Ms Schmid worked for a division of
IBM Ireland and sees herself as a whistleblower. She told the court in her last
appearance before Judge George Birmingham that she had discovered and reported
“severe discrepancies” in sales records. She downloaded the data on to a memory
stick which she took home. IBM then went to court and secured an order
requiring her to hand over her laptop and the memory stick, which she did.
IBM then went back to court demanding
the return of a second memory stick on to which it believes she made at least a
partial copy of the data. She insists she does not have a second memory stick.
The judge ordered her to produce it nonetheless and told her that she will go
to prison today if she does not comply.
I make no comment on the rights and
wrongs of this case. I don’t doubt at all that the court will apply the
existing law fairly and with integrity. I merely draw attention to a certain
poignancy – Beata Schmid, who rightly or wrongly sees herself as a corporate
whistleblower, may well go to prison just days after the collapse of the trial
of those accused of corrupting the planning process in Dublin.
Here are 10 things for which we can
say with confidence that Beata Schmid almost certainly would not go to jail.
1 Systematically paying workers a
significant portion of their wages “under the counter”, without deducting tax and
insurance. And regularly sourcing the cash for these from local banks using
fraudulent cheques made out to nonexistent individuals. (Goodman beef
processors, as concluded by the beef tribunal.)
2 Undermining the integrity of a key
State commercial competition by exerting an “insidious and perverse” and
“pervasive and abusive” influence on the process. (Michael Lowry, Moriarty
tribunal report.)
3 Acting in a manner that was
“profoundly corrupt to a degree that was nothing short of breathtaking”. (Lowry
and Ben Dunne, in relation to attempts to influence arbitration of rental
payments to Dunne, Moriarty report.)
4 Making corruption “both systemic
and endemic” at every level of Irish political life. (The Mahon tribunal)
5 Stealing money raised for a friend’s
life-saving operation. The Moriarty tribunal found that Charles Haughey stole a
“sizeable proportion” of Brian Lenihan’s medical fund.
6 Committing perjury. Charles Haughey
lied to the McCracken tribunal, claiming that he had not received money from Ben
Dunne but later conceding he had done so. The Bailey brothers “hindered and
obstructed” the Flood tribunal in a number of ways, including making untrue
statements under oath. Not only did Mick and Tom Bailey each give false
evidence under oath, but the tribunal found that they had colluded to concoct
that evidence.
7 Insider trading. Both the Supreme
Court and the Director of Corporate Enforcement concluded that businessman Jim
Flavin had improperly used inside information in dealing in the shares of Fyffe’s.
But a High Court inspector found that this was okay because “Mr Flavin
genuinely believed that he was not in possession of price-sensitive
information.” Perhaps uniquely in the developed world, insider trading in
Ireland is not about objective facts but about one’s state of mind.
8 Covering up and repeatedly
facilitating sexual attacks on children by known predatory paedophiles.
(Several Irish bishops, the Murphy report.)
9 Operating a massive and systematic
tax fraud against the State. In 1993, the then huge sum of £2 billion was held
in non-residential accounts the banks knew to be fraudulent. Allied Irish Bank
alone had 88,000 “non-resident” accounts – the practice was highly organised
throughout virtually all Irish banks. The public accounts committee found it to
be “an industry-wide phenomenon”.
10 Manufacturing a therapeutic
substance without a licence, not informing women that you knew had been
infected with hepatitis C and not informing the Department of Health of the
infection as you were obliged to do by law. (Senior management of the Blood
Transfusion Service Board, Finlay report).
These are some of the socially
destructive things you can do in Ireland, confident that there is a tiny chance
you will be prosecuted, a tinier chance you will be convicted and a chance of
going to jail that recedes towards vanishing point.
And this is not about the dark past:
in the three years after the bank collapse, 2008, 2009 and 2010, the conviction
rate for white-collar offences fell dramatically. In 2004, there were 467
convictions for white-collar crimes; in 2010, there were just 178. This is in
spite of the fact that the number of recorded white-collar offences rose by 33
per cent in the same period.
A country that can’t enforce its own laws against acts
that cause immense damage to citizens is not merely not a republic – it’s not
even a functioning State. And only a dysfunctional State would be refusing to
talk about the catastrophic failure of its legal system.
By Fintan O Toole
Sunday, February 2, 2014
Barry Clifford: Letterfrack’s Industrial Reformatory Institution in Clifden Co Galway
In Letterfrack’s Industrial Reformatory Institution in
Clifden Co Galway, there is a small cemetery on its grounds. Buried there are
99 souls of which little is known; less is known of where others are buried in
unmarked graves except one: a young child, an infant, aged 4 years old named
Bernard Kerrigan who died in 1935. His grave was discovered in 2002.
The man that helped other institution
survivors find that grave then was a 74 years old gentleman who had wished to
remain anonymous. He was attending a ceremony with survivors and others who chose
never to forget. He had come to pay his last respect to a childhood
friend before he himself died for he was gravely ill. He said that he had played with Bernard the day
before he passed away and had attended his burial the next day. The cause of the child's death was buried with him.The boys grave
was just yards from the main buildings of the reformatory prison, in a place I
could have been myself for I spent 10 years in another one in Galway since I
was 5 years old.
There have been many changes before
and since then in Letterfrack and little to do with remembering Bernard or the
other children who were buried here because of disease, loneliest, starvation and abuse, or indeed those others living or dead that number
in the thousands from all the other institutions. One could be forgiven if you
visited the Reformatory grounds today and not be aware what these oppressive looking
buildings were or stood for in the not so distant past. The normal terror that
children suffered here has been replaced today by an invasive normality that
obscures and hides this most vicious past. Part of covering up and moving on in a more enlightened age does not give voice to these children still in perpetual spiritual mourning in the melancholy presence that always haunts this place.
On the Connemara National Parks
Visitors Centre they do not mention the Industrial prison or the boys cemetery.
The visitor is told about a farm but not the child slaves that worked on it. At
the Visitors Centre interpretive office in one of the prisons buildings, it is
peppered with brochures informing the un-lightened and curious visitor about
student projects, wildlife, walks, the fauna and a playground; again, there is
nothing about the place of hell that is beneath and around its feet or its
terrible secrets.
You have to ask searching questions
rather than be given answers freely. There is an aerial photograph of the
Centre which shows everything but the children’s cemetery. A road arches from
the main natural entrance of the Industrial School that loops around its entire
grounds circumventing and obscuring the cemetery itself. This road cost over
3,500,000 Irish pounds to build fifteen years ago. I asked a man working at the centre where is
the industrial children’s cemetery only to be informed by him that: “it
was down in the Village.”
A nations conscience cannot allow
this insult to the children that suffered and died here and to those survivors
still living. Bernard Kerrigan and the other innocent spirits here will be forever
silent to the sound of children playing in a playground at the Visitors centre
right beside where they lay buried. He and all the other children, boys and
girls, that passed through all the Industrial prisons should never be
forgotten; least of all here and in this heartless way. To the living we owe
respect; to the dead we owe justice; to history we owe the truth.
This Interpretive Centre is designed to miss-inform by
omission of that truth. It is an arrogance and an abuse for this place to be
here at all and is as ludicrous in comparison if you were to have a Polish
Heritage Centre on the grounds of the death camps in Auschwitz in Poland
without mentioning the Jews.
Barry Clifford
Photos: An absolutely terrifying and deadly beauty
Mount Sinabug erupting on Karo Island in north Sumatra Indonesia
Article: Struggling waitress left $1075 tip for $29.30 bill
Khadijah Muhammad turned up to work at Cheddar's cafe-restaurant in Knoxville, Tennessee on Wednesday knowing that she needed a miracle.
As she left her house there was a disconnection notice on the door that her electricity was about to be shut off - one of many bills that amounted this month after the 26-year-old wife was forced to give up her shifts and rush to Ohio to be with her mom, who had suffered a heart attack.
'All I wanted was to see my mother one more time,' a teary Muhammad said,
'With God's help, I managed to make it up there driving in the middle of the big snow storm that hit earlier this month.
'I was able to see her and she pulled through, thankfully.'
But when she returned home, her financial woes awaited.
'It started to sink in how much work I missed and that I was not going to be able to pay all of my bills,' she said.
'I've been trying to pick up any extra shifts that I can.
'I was thinking I'm really going to need a miracle to pay my bills this month.'
Her shift started normally and, being mid-week, business was fairly slow.
Among the customers were a husband and a wife and their small child.
'They really did not stand out,' Muhammad recalled.
'They were just nice folks. I remember talking to them and having a friendly conversation like you would with a neighbour.
Act of pure kindness: The check and the note the family left
'The father ordered a country steak. The mother and son split a fish taco. They split it.
'They were really humble people.'
The bill was $29.30 after tax, but the receipt was turned upside down when Muhammad went to clear the table, which is usually a bad sign.
'Normally, as a server, when a receipt is turned upside down it means you did not get a good tip or any tip,' she said.
'Or people will leave a nasty note about how you messed something up with their service. I remember thinking, ''I wonder what I did wrong''.
However the receipt turned Muhammad's life upside down.
'I just remember seeing a comma after the one and knew it wasn't $10. And I was like, ''Oh, my God!'' And I just lost my balance and I was like, 'Does this say a thousand dollars?' I could not believe it.'
Khadijah Muhammad promises to one day return the favour to someone else that is in need of help
The tip was for $1,075 - representing a tithe the family would have normally given to their church.
While the couple wish to stay anonymous, they told reporters that they had recently moved to Knoxville from Ohio and had not decided where to send their tithe money.
They had recently received a work bonus and, after being impressed with Muhammad's service, decided their donation this month should go to her.
The note they left Muhammad partially explained the decision, saying: 'Jesus Blessed us and we were led to give it to you. God Bless!'
What makes the story all the more surprising is that the family were completely unaware of Muhammad's circumstances and just how much they have helped her.
'I just want to thank them,' she said.
'Thank them so much, because I'm humbled. I'm grateful. I do believe that God led you to me at this time in my life
'I hope and pray that someday I'm able to do this for somebody. And at the first opportunity I will do it.'miracle.
As
she left her house there was a disconnection notice on the door that her
electricity was about to be shut off - one of many bills that amounted this
month after the 26-year-old wife was forced to give up her shifts and rush to
Ohio to be with her mom, who had suffered a heart attack.
'All
I wanted was to see my mother one more time,' a teary Muhammad said,
'With
God's help, I managed to make it up there driving in the middle of the big snow
storm that hit earlier this month.
'I
was able to see her and she pulled through, thankfully.'
But
when she returned home, her financial woes awaited.
'It
started to sink in how much work I missed and that I was not going to be able
to pay all of my bills,' she said.
'I've
been trying to pick up any extra shifts that I can.
'I
was thinking I'm really going to need a miracle to pay my bills this month.'
Her
shift started normally and, being mid-week, business was fairly slow.
Among
the customers were a husband and a wife and their small child.
'They
really did not stand out,' Muhammad recalled.
'They
were just nice folks. I remember talking to them and having a friendly conversation
like you would with a neighbour.
Act of pure kindness: The check and the note the
family left
'The
father ordered a country steak. The mother and son split a fish taco. They
split it.
'They
were really humble people.'
The
bill was $29.30 after tax, but the receipt was turned upside down when Muhammad
went to clear the table, which is usually a bad sign.
'Normally,
as a server, when a receipt is turned upside down it means you did not get a
good tip or any tip,' she said.
'Or
people will leave a nasty note about how you messed something up with their
service. I remember thinking, ''I wonder what I did wrong''.
However
the receipt turned Muhammad's life upside down.
'I
just remember seeing a comma after the one and knew it wasn't $10. And I was
like, ''Oh, my God!'' And I just lost my balance and I was like, 'Does this say
a thousand dollars?' I could not believe it.'
Khadijah Muhammad promises to one day return the
favour to someone else that is in need of help
The
tip was for $1,075 - representing a tithe the family would have normally given
to their church.
While
the couple wish to stay anonymous, they told reporters that they had recently moved to
Knoxville from Ohio and had not decided where to send their tithe money.
They
had recently received a work bonus and, after being impressed with Muhammad's
service, decided their donation this month should go to her.
The
note they left Muhammad partially explained the decision, saying: 'Jesus
Blessed us and we were led to give it to you. God Bless!'
What
makes the story all the more surprising is that the family were completely
unaware of Muhammad's circumstances and just how much they have helped her.
'I
just want to thank them,' she said.
'Thank
them so much, because I'm humbled. I'm grateful. I do believe that God led you
to me at this time in my life
'I hope and pray that someday I'm able to do this for somebody. And at the first opportunity I will do it.'
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