Regrets: None, absolutely nein, zero, zip, zilch...

Anybody expecting Charlie McCreevy to enter the banking inquiry armed with sackcloth and ashes would have been a long time waiting.

Instead, he burst in on the unsuspecting committee members with guns blazing. Regrets? He has none. Absolutely nein. Zero, zip, zilch. He did everything correctly. He hinted that he’s too polite to point out the bleedin’ obvious — that he was pure brilliant. He dragged the country, kicking and screaming into prosperity, and he was gone down the road when things began to turn sour.

McCreevy didn’t just arrive in to defend his record. He was there to blow out of the water all those who had fingered him as one of the main culprits of the bubble that begat the bust. He began by reeling off an array of dizzying statistics that showed how his tenure as Minister for Finance was, well, one of the greatest known to the State.

He defended property incentives and his record in public spending. “No matter how the figures are interpreted, it is quite clear there was no splurge over the period,” he said.

If it wasn’t for the redeeming features of his folksy manner and flashes of humour, he might have come across as insufferable.

During his opening remarks, he actually taunted two of his prospective interrogators in reference to why, as minister for finance between 1997 and 2004, he hadn’t taken advice from his department at various times.

“I’m sure when Deputy Pearse Doherty is Minister for Finance and Deputy Joe Higgins is Minister for Public Expenditure, they will get loads of advice from the Department of Finance and ignore it,” he said.

As it turned out, Doherty was the first to put the bould Charlie under the cosh. Would he accept that there had been a property bubble? McCreevy made a point of noting that there was no bubble up until 2004, when he went to Europe as Bertie’s commissioner. He had imposed an edict on himself not to talk about anything that happened thereafter.

Doherty pushed him. He resisted. That was his edict and he was sticking to it. The committee went into private session. When it returned, chairman Ciaran Lynch issued a legal warning to McCreevy.

Was there a bubble? In the end, he accepted there was, which was a relief, as the alternative was to accept Charlie really was living on a different planet from the rest of us.

That was about all he conceded through the rest of his evidence. His decision to row back on measures introduced in the Bacon report to damp down housing demand did not contribute to the bubble, he said.

The tax incentives he extended by two years did not contribute to the bubble. The decision to hive off regulation to a body separate to the Central Bank did not contribute to the bubble. He could admit that there was a bubble — after he’d left for Brussels — but he had nothing to do with it.

Equally, he didn’t do anything to drive the economy towards the rapids that awaited downstream. The hare-brained decentralisation scheme that, at the time in 2003, was alleged to have been formulated on the back of a cigarette packet?

“No,” he said. “I see a great many offices all over the country, decentralised offices. I’d be very sad that the total decentralisation hadn’t been completed as we had envisaged.”

You will have to look hard to find anybody who would agree with that conclusion. He had no regrets about the Special Savings Incentive Account, which cost €2.5bn, and has long been regarded as an election gimmick.

His old sparring partner Joe Higgins went looking for some self-reflection. He wondered whether McCreevy’s devotion to free markets been disturbed at all by the devestation and toxic debts that resulted from the economic collapse of 2008.

“I accept the facts speak for themselves,” he said, “but I’m not a believer in the alternative solutions that you have been advocating since we were both students a long time ago. I certainly agree it caused devestation, but I’m not giving up on it yet.”

He was too wily for the committee members. Will his appearance and performance adjust the general view of his role in propelling the economy towards its destiny? Unlikely. Those who regard him as well as he regards himself will continue to do so. Others will hardly have been swayed by a bravura performance that worked as a defence, but can’t change the facts.

Others who have come before the inquiry have, with some reflection, voiced regrets about aspects of their tenure in office or power. Not so McCreevy. If he maintains his edict of silence, we are unlikely to hear any more of his robust and entertaining version of how he oversaw the economy with mighty self-regard.

Michael Clifford

Photo Minute: Nature will always prevail

Photo Minute: The one that got away

 A kingfisher bites off more than he can chew and almost becomes dinner to a water snake.

He lives to fight another day and tell the tale to its young about the one that got away: him

"It is a tragedy......"

‘It is a tragedy. We have been plagued by bad politicians for many years. They did not care about the public interest, only their own pockets. And then there was the big mistake of going into the eurozone in the first place. After that, successive governments have taken out loans in order to employ more public servants in order to buy votes.”

The above comment is what one Greek citizen said this morning with regard to the fallout from the Greece financial meltdown that has started today but had been simmering for years. If it sounds he could be talking about Ireland then lesson learned; the only difference will be time.

Ireland has being doing business like the Greeks as long as they have. That is corruption on an institutional level and where to be anything but corrupt would seem rather out of place.  The only real difference is that Ireland does it better. Rather than confront, they prostrate on bended and grovelling knee, and that has served it well and suspended indefinitely that sense of outrage since it’s birth as a banana republic. 

There has been no real growth in Ireland in the private sector, and ultimately that is the sector that only matters in the end. It is where any bounce in the economy will be created and any pay rises be really earned. Also, and because of it, a huge gaping hole is left in the numbers that make up our twenty somethings who have left these shores recently, while migration in general from here has been on the increase as well. As many foreign nationals are now leaving as much as Irish ones and most of the former have seen economies in their native countries that would make Ireland’s worst day seem like a walk in the park. Those days are at an end for them and for us.

Ireland is in as much debt as it was in 2008. Changing lenders was all that made it seem better on the balance sheet, yet Ireland borrows billions more every year to keep afloat in just paying the interest on what is already borrowed. As far as Greece is concerned, we are running a close second. 

The soundbites are sounding a lot like each other as well from the politicians as well as from those that elected them. A vicious circle of false hopes and empty promises on both sides. As long as the one side stays asleep, the wolves will continue to prey on the other until nothing is left. And then the wolves will be the first to leave the building and the country for better pickings elsewhere. Many have gone already.

An election is looming and the same drumbeat is beating again and as that Greek man said: 

”....After that, successive governments have taken out loans in order to employ more public servants in order to buy votes.” When an election is bought like that it can and will only end in tears.

When and if Irelands sense of outrage will ever return will be a matter of record. Since the Celts, that record has been one of great passivity and begging. It is as if we can only be led and not lead; and still our own worst enemy that has always shown to be the greatest one that works constantly against us, is the enemy within. 

All we have left since 2008 is more debt, more tribunals, more corruption and no accountability. As long as we remain passive, blinded, tame and docile, then more medicine will be given of the same until we are clinically dead. 

Last time I looked, I thought we already were. 

Barry Clifford 

Thoughts for today

“You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life.”

Winston Churchill

“If we had no faults we should not take so much pleasure in noting those of others.” 

Francois De La Rochefoucauld

“To avoid criticism say nothing, do nothing, be nothing.” 

Aristotle

“People ask you for criticism, but they only want praise.”

W Somerset Maugham

“It's easy to attack and destroy an act of creation. It's a lot more difficult to perform one.” 

Chuck Palahniuk

Riverwalk Court: Homes where trouble seeps out of the walls

A view from The Riverwalk Court development at Fairyhouse Rd, Ratoath, Co Meath. Preferring to remain unnamed, this owner-occupier family allowed access to their home. Picture Nick Bradshaw

PASSING the buck has been a feature of Irish public life since time immemorial, but few instances are as blatant or as serious as what’s unfolding in a small residential development where lives have been turned upside down.

Riverwalk Court is a development of 26 apartments and duplexes in Ratoath, Co Meath. It was built in 2002 by Saltan Properties, the principal of which is Michael Ryan, a developer and stud owner, who three years ago was acquitted of bribing a town councillor with €60,000. The councillor, Fred Forsey, was imprisoned for six years for the offence.

In 2007, major flaws were found with the development, most prominently to do with water ingress. Various disputes arose between Ryan and the residents/owners.

The latter commissioned a number of independent engineers’ reports at some expense. According to residents’ spokesman Mark Fitzmaurice, each report uncovered more problems.

Eventually, the structural defects insurer, Premier, took responsibility for structural remedial work, which began last March. As revealed in today’s Irish Examiner, that work has now uncovered that the balconies on the three-storey development are unsafe due to rotting wood.

This is the latest of a succession of blows to the owners/occupiers that has rendered their homes to be unsafe and a world away from what they thought they were buying into.

Premier is suing Ryan’s company over the structural defects issue.

Apart from the structural defects, the various reports have also uncovered major fire hazards in the building.

The latest of these last July enumerated nine separate deficiencies that contravened fire safety standards, rendering the block dangerous. The report, from Conspect Engineers added: “In keeping with a duty of care and in the interests of safety to the occupants we have made our current findings a matter of record to the local authority (Meath Co Council fire office and Building Control).”

Despite being alerted that residents, whose homes were issued with a fire safety certificate, may be living in a fire trap, the council has done nothing.

Ordinarily, the council — which is the fire authority — would be expected to conduct a fire safety inspection, compile a report and decide on a course of action. That could involve instructing the developer to undertake immediate remedial action, instruct the owner/ occupiers to do so, or have the building evacuated until it is made safe.

Nothing has been done. No inspection was conducted, bar an apparent cursory visit to the site in September by two officials, neither of which was the chief fire officer.

The residents have not had it confirmed whether or not they are living in a fire trap.

Nobody from the fire authority has met them to outline whether or not they should fear for their safety.

When the Irish Examiner was compiling a story on the matter two weeks ago, a series of question was submitted to the council. There was no response for a full week until the story was published.

This attitude by a public body to a matter of public interest in the media is unprecedented in the experience of this reporter.

Following publication of the story, the council issued a statement that failed to address any of the main questions. Has a fire safety inspection report been complied? If so, why have the residents not been informed? Are their homes safe?

The statement did say that a meeting with residents was planned. “The fire service has now scheduled a meeting with the apartment owners and the management company and their legal representatives for June 22 in order to progress matters.”

That meeting did not happen. The council’s solicitor met a solicitor for the residents, but none of those who are living through this were invited to the meeting, contrary to the council’s statement.

Since then, a request by the residents for a meeting with officials in the council has been denied on the basis that “talks” are ongoing.

The Irish Examiner understands that a proposal was forwarded that a joint report be commissioned between the developer and the residents. This beggars belief.

The residents and owners have commissioned four separate reports and had the value of their homes decimated.

Why is another such report required? Why can’t the council do its duty, and if necessary, follow through under Section 20 of the Fire Safety Act to “serve notice on a building which appears to be a potentially dangerous building”.

Similar scenarios that have arisen in recent years in Dublin and Kildare have prompted swift action from those authorities. In Meath, the actions of the council so far point to a “bury head in sand and hope for the best” strategy.

One one level, it’s easy to see why the council is reluctant to do its duty. Once the authority acts, it is drawn directly into the problem, it could be a financial drag.

However, the local authority issued the fire safety certificate that reassured buyers that they were purchasing a home that met with the standards of fire safety.

If that is no longer the case, where lies the blame? Is it good enough that a local authority on which citizens relied for safety can now wash its hands of the matter?

One thing is sure, this type of issue is going to raise its head in other parts of the country as the fallout from the shoddy self-regulation, and frantic building splurge continues to seep out of the walls of homes thrown together.

Meanwhile, life goes on for the developer of Riverwalk Court. In July last year, Michael Ryan received planning permission for 66 houses, according to the planning file.

The issuing authority was Meath County Council. The houses are earmarked for Corballis in Ratoath, just up the road from Riverwalk Court.

Michael Clifford

Photo Minute: Gone fishing......