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Senior gardai will get honesty lessons!?

Written by Joerg Steegmueller
Senior gardai will get honesty lessons!?

Senior gardai will get honesty lessons!?

The gardai in Ireland were part of more scandals in recent years than they should have been. There was the corruption that was revealed by whistleblower Sergeant McCabe, then he was bullied and accused of a lot of things incorrectly. penalty points were deleted by gardai and more recently totally wrong and over-exaggerated number of alcohol tests on Irish roads were published.

The amount of scandals are seriously worrying and something has to be done about it. But it is shocking nevertheless to see that the solution is to give lessons about the nine points of the Garda Ethics Code.

The Garda Ethics Code was launched seven months ago by Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald and was described as a “as a beacon to guide ethical behaviour in An Garda Síochána for years to come”.

It is clearly an example of “whatever you do is wrong”, because if nothing was done about the problem we would all shake our heads and complain. But when something is done, we also shake our head and complain. …just for different reasons.

My biggest question is if anybody really thinks a “Code of Ethics” will make a difference. A good, honest and upstanding Garda will be exactly that (good, honest and upstanding) before and after the training and why would he need that training?? And a dodgy and dishonest garda will not suddenly out of the blue repent and turn his life around and become honest. So, is that Code of Ethics just a joke? Pretending to do something?

How did this make it into the news? The Office of Government Procurement is looking for a suitable provider who will give classes about the “Garda Code of Ethics” to 1000 gardai. That Code of Ethics is about upholding the laws, acting with honesty and integrity, speaking up and reporting any wrongdoing or corrupt, unethical or unprofessional behaviour of colleagues.

All topics seem to be exactly the traits that you expect as natural and minimum requirements for someone who is a gardai and it is not a good sign that all senior gardai need to be trained on it. It is also not a good sign that only the senior gardai will be trained. Is it expected that they will brief the rest OR are only senior gardai not honest YET OR is there no hope for the rest?

And why did it take seven months from launching this Code of Ethics until teaching the 1000 about it?

Quite odd this whole situation and definitely not what we would have thought our gardai to be.

Justice, Politics, , ,

Dangerous Brazilian Au-Pair???

Written by Joerg Steegmueller
Dangerous Brazilian Au-Pair???

An unbelievable story emerged on Thursday about a 24 year old Brazilian ex-Au pair that wanted to visit her former host family and instead was put into prison.

Paloma Aparezida Silva-Carvalho from Sao Paulo was in Switzerland to visit her boy friend and then had planned to come to Ireland to visit her former host family in Galway. She had worked here before as an au pair for 18 months in 2015/2016 and now intended to come back to stay with the family for 2 months. Immigration officers at Dublin airport, however, were convinced that she wanted to enter the country to work illegally and therefore arrested her and out her in prison where she was strip searched and locked in a cell overnight. :-O

The host family was contacted and confirmed that she was expected to come for holidays, but the immigration officers still decided to send her to prison and told her that she would be sent back to Switzerland the next day.

Now the information in the newspapers doesn’t seem to be fully congruent and the Independent and the Irish Times have told the the story in slightly different ways and have changed the story during the day, but here are some details that were reported:
1) Brazilian citizens do not need a visa to visit Ireland as long as they will stay less than 90 days
2) Paloma had a booked return flight and had EUR 1000 cash with her, so there was plenty of money and clear intention to leave

The EUR 1000 was not mentioned anymore in a later version of the Irish Times story. Also in an earlier version the Irish Times reported that the former Au Pair had decided to leave Ireland immediately once she got released from prison with a permission to stay for just 10 days. But a later version explained that the family actually did collect her and the 10 days reference wasn’t there anymore.

Sooo, we don’t know all the details by the looks of it and even the newspapers don’t really seem to know, but what must have happened there?

A young woman arrives from a foreign country. She worked here before and now came without a work permit. But she planned to stay for a relatively long period of time (2 months) and school holidays are also that long, so there is a possibility that she will look after the kids of the host family during that time. And there is a possibility that the host family will give her some pocket money or even pay her some proper salary. Yes, all this is possible, but it is also possible that food and bed would have been the only pay OR that she was not expected to WORK.

Let’s assume for a moment that the arrangement was that the girl will look after the kids and will get a bit of money for it. Yes, strictly speaking this is work and she needs a work visa. But come-on, are we THAT petty about it now? That girl would not have damaged the Irish economy nor would she have taken another person’s job, not would she have to pay any taxes because over the year the bit of money would have been to low to get her in the claws of the revenue commissioner. So I really think the immigration officers totally overreacted because there is the definite possibility that no employment or formal work was planned.

Sure rules are rules and an immigration officer doesn’t have the power to interpret the rules, he/she just has to apply them. But let’s be honest, they INTERPRET rules every single day and in this case they interpreted the rules unnecessarily strict.

I hope Paloma Aparezida Silva-Carvalho will have a good time in Ireland and I hope she will get a nice bit of pocket money from the family when she leaves and if she looks after the kids. But I think we should apologise to her for a totally unreasonable treatment and the responsible immigration officer should be sent on a humanity training course!

P.S: And here is another story that was reported on the SAME day: A 24 year old guy met an 18 year old Spanish girl in town. They spent some time together, but later he allegedly held her against her will and repeatedly raped her on the former Irish Glass Bottle site near Irishtown over two days. The guy is already on bail for some serious public order crime awaiting a trial, but after he was interviewed by the police, they released him with no criminal charges brought against him, but inquiries will continue.

So a totally harmless and innocent Brazilian girl who wants to visit an upstanding family will be thrown into jail because she MIGHT work here, but a guy that might have raped a girl and who is awaiting trial for a serious public order offence is free to roam the streets. WTF!?!?!?!

 

Dublin, Justice, Odd, Tourism, , , , , ,

Trust issues – Is the Irish Police Force dodgy?

Written by Joerg Steegmueller
Trust issues – Is the Irish Police Force dodgy?

The An Garda Siochana, the Irish Police Force, is – like every other police force in the democratic world – the one and only enforcer of right and wrong in the country. They are not the judge if it is REALLY right or wrong, that’s what we have the judiciary (the courts and judges) for, but the police has to enforce the laws.

If you enforce the laws, however, you should also be obliged to stick to the laws. It increases your credibility tremendously and you set an all important example. If the rules don’t apply to the enforcer of the laws, then people behave like the children of parents that don’t stick to the rules they spout out. They become unruly and break the rules.

A small example: It is wrong for the Gardai to be allowed to use/handle mobile phones when driving, as long as all of us are not allowed to use mobile phones. And I think that EVEN if the mobile phone use is exclusively in the pursuit of their job….because we all know that it is NOT only in the pursuit of their job when they use the phone.

This is however a really small example and the Irish Gardai do it better:

1) Over the last few years they claimed that they carried out 1.9mio roadside alcohol test, but the Medical Bureau of Road Safety only knows of 1mio. How can there be a discrepancy of nearly a million? (RTE Report)

2) 14,500 people were prosecuted for road traffic offences and will have their convictions quashed because the gardai screwed up. They were brought to court without getting a fixed charge notice first. Not ok! (How come it took so long to come out?) The people that now get their money back and points removed because they drove 3km/h too fast (I got 3 points for that. Grrr!) are ok in my eyes, but what about people that committed serious traffic offences and who will also go without any penalty now? (RTE Report)

3) The Sergeant Maurice McCabe saga that is also called the Garda Whistleblower Scandal where Maurice McCabe lifted the lid on Garda corruption around the penalty point system and was threatened within the police force and a cover up was attempted is still not completely sorted. 5 years after it started!

4) This week it emerged that there are financial irregularities at the Garda College in Templemore. They had 50 (!) bank accounts for the college and used money for entertainment and presents that should not have been used for that. (RTE Report)

5) And now the Garda Commissioner Noirin O’Sullivan indicates that this might not be the only falsifications there are.

Can we really trust our Police Force? I am sure (and know) there are many Gardai that can be trusted but if there are soo many problems, there seems to be a huge systemic problem and if you need LUCK to get to deal with a “good” Gardai then that doesn’t instill confidence in the enforcer of right and wrong in our country.

Dublin, Justice, Odd, Politics, , , ,

Mountain Walking will NOT be banned – Important Court decision

Written by Joerg Steegmueller
Mountain Walking will NOT be banned – Important Court decision

The High Court made on Friday an EXTREMELY important decision for everybody who likes Hill Walking or Mountain Walking.

In August of 2013 a Teresa Wall from Swords went for a Hill Walk in the Dublin Mountains near the Sally Gap/Roundwood. In that area old railway sleepers (big wooden beams) are put together to form a boardwalk across wetland. But Teresa Wall had a mishap. She tripped accidentally and fell on her knee. This is nothing unusual and has happened to most of us at some stage in our life. You and I would probably hurt for a bit, maybe even have to go to a doctor, but we know that if we trip, then we didn’t pay enough attention and it was our own fault.

Mrs Wall was thinking differently and must have seen an opportunity to make some money. She sued the National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) and the Circuit Court under Judge Jacqueline Linnane made the crazy decision that Wall deserved a payment of EUR 40,000 because allegedly the NPWS who put the boardwalk there was negligent because the wood had rotted at a place, which was a contributor to the fall.

Luckily and rightly the High Court disagreed and overturned the decision. Teresa Wall will now get nothing and importantly it was decided that SHE was negligent and not the NPWS. A great decision to stop people from trying to make money through compensations but also extremely important because if the NPWS had been given all blame, they would have to stop people from using the boardwalks as otherwise the law suits against them would never stop.

www.rte.ie/news/2017/0217/853394-teresa-wall-hillwalker-appeal/

Environment, Justice, Society, Tourism, , , , ,

8th Amendment – Avoidance at all cost?

Written by Joerg Steegmueller
8th Amendment – Avoidance at all cost?

The 8th Amendment to the Irish Constitution guarantees the equal right to life of the mother and the unborn and makes abortion illegal, but also puts doctors in a very tricky situation if they expect that they can only safe the life of one of the two in disastrous circumstances. The clause was added to the Irish constitution after a referendum in 1983 and many people think that a lot has happened in these 33 years and that the 8th amendment should be repealed (deleted from the constitution.

The supporters of the clause are not overly interested in a referendum because there is the possibility that the opponents will win the referendum. The opponents want to have a referendum as soon as possible to stop the odd situation that women need to travel to the UK to get an abortion that is illegal in Ireland.

So how could we find out what the majority of citizens in Ireland really wants? Let me think? Hmmmm?? Maybe put the head in the sand and pretend that there is no issue? – That seems to be the government’s approach once again! Enda Kenny and his gang are not the most decisive crowd at best of times.

In a true democracy, you would give the citizens a chance to voice their opinion and you would run a referendum if there is evidence that the public opinion could have changed drastically. There is no guarantee that the 8th amendment will be repealed if a referendum happens, but at least we would know then.

Last week the alliance of Anti Austerity Alliance and People Before Profit (AAA-PBP) has asked the government to run a referendum, but that was rejected and the government explains that in the usual way and I will paraphrase VERY VERY freely here:

“We will not ask for the real opinion of the people because we have put in place an artificial structure of a Citizens Assembly that will allow us to delay any decision as long as possible. We gave them loads ot time until half way through 2017 and we hope that they will take that time. Then this Citizen Assembly will come back to us with an opinion. We secretly hope that they will say that no referendum is needed, because then we can blame them. But if they tell us we should hold a referendum, then we will first need to discuss that and at some time later vote on it. Because once the Citizen Assembly comes back with an opinion we will first give that opinion to a Special Oireachtas Committee as this will give us a chance to delay the process further. That Special Oireachtas Committee will be also given six months to decide. So it will be well over a year before we even think about a referendum and we hope that the Irish citizens will have forgotten by then! If the Special Oireachtas Committee ALSO says we should have a referendum then we will CONSIDER to have one and will schedule it for as far away from today as we can. because we are extremely afraid of the outcome and hope that we have won the next election by then so that that referendum will not screw our chances. All in all, we don’t care about the opinion of the Irish Citizens anyway. We only care about our position in power and to maintain that we will do whatever possible to block and delay anything that interfere with our power in the slightest way.”

So with that in mind – and I stress that this is MY interpretation of the situation, but it is based on the government’s official statement as you can find it through this Tweet – there won’t be a referendum for the next 2.5 – 3 years AT LEAST!

In the last 33 years, the opinion in large parts of the population certainly has changed and they have a right to ask for a new vote. Keep in mind that neither side has a guarantee that they will win or lose and that’s not what this opinion here is about. Sure I have an opinion about the 8th amendment, but my opinion is so irrelevant (I am not even allowed to vote in a referendum!) that I just want to focus on the undemocratic-ness of the government’s decision.

We don’t need a Citizens Assembly or a Special Oireachtas Committee! We have clear evidence that there is a ground swell that could indicate that the opinion has changed. That should be enough to ask for the opinion again!

Irish, Justice, Politics, Society, , , ,
 
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