Tales from Talbot Towers

These are the pictures of Terence Wheelock, who we are told left Store Street garda station without any physical injuries, except some bruising on his left arm and a ligature wound to his neck.

The photos speak for themselves and it is not hard to understand why his family believe he was the victim of an assault while in garda custody.

It is very hard to believe that anybody who examined Terence Wheelock prior to him being taken to his cell would not have made note of some of these injuries: to his back, his legs, and his hands.

So the question still remains – when did they happen and what caused them?

“Some media reports refer to extensive bruising on Terence’s body,” read the garda statement.

“The gardai see no reason for this nor were they noticed by the gardai or Dublin Fire Brigade personnel who attended the scene.”

When Terence Wheelock was taken into custody, gardai made a note of his injuries and any other distinguishing marks.

The garda who filled out the custody form said he had a birthmark as well as bruising on his left arm.

He was later strip-searched but no note was taken of extensive bruising and cuts on his legs, cuts to his hands, and a mysterious cut on his back as well as bruises on his lower back.

This is the first of a series of pictures I plan to publish here of these injuries

These injuries remain unexplained and according to garda accounts did not even exist when he left their custody.

Terence Wheelock was taken by ambulance from Store Street garda station in a coma in June 2005 and never woke again. He died three months later in the Mater Hospital.

The “full” report of the Garda Ombudsman Commission, which was published earlier this week, is available here

Although it is important to note that the publicly available report differs substantially from the one that has been given to the Garda Commissioner and also to the Wheelock family.

More of that later in the week and also I will post the other pictures that were released by the Wheelock family to me.

A WATCHDOG on political expenses – who resigned from his position in frustration at the slow rate of expense reform last year – has said there is an “entitlements culture” in the Irish public sector.

In a hard-hitting article for Accountancy Ireland magazine, Tom O’Higgins, who chaired a number of high-profile government audit committees, said there was genuine public anger over the expenses controversies.

O’Higgins wrote: “There is widespread anger about the abuses of expenses by management and board members in some state bodies and government departments – in- cluding those of ministers.

“The problem is that the so-called entitlements culture is deeply embedded throughout the Irish public sector. This cannot be permitted to continue.

“Who will have the courage to say stop and instigate a root-and-branch reform to the expenses regimes from county councils, state bodies, prison-visiting committees and the Oireachtas?

There must be far greater transparency and vigilance by management and greater scrutiny by audit committees of expense claims in all ­bodies.”

O’Higgins resigned as chairman of the Houses of the Oireachtas Commission Audit Committee last year.

The committee was the financial watchdog for the Oireachtas Commission, which at the time was chaired by ceann comhairle John O’Donoghue.

O’Higgins was concerned that reform of political expenses was not moving quickly enough and that unvouched expenses would not be abolished.

His fears proved well-founded and a recent reform of the expenses system ann­ounced by finance minister Brian Lenihan has left aspects of the old system in place.

O’Higgins said that if advice from an audit committee is not welcome, then the chairman should resign. He wrote: “If there is not a supportive and positive attitude to the audit committee from the top, the committ­ee chairman should resign.

“He should never forget that he has a responsibility to be independent. He must have courage and integrity to accept that, at times, taking an independent stance may incur the wrath of executives and directors or even secretaries general.”

Read the O’Higgins article here in Accountancy Ireland.

It is on page 18 to 21 and should be required reading for Ireland’s political elite, the bankers and those who “serve” in semi-states and quangos.

Also, in a shameless plug for my new book Revenge, here’s an edited extract of one of the chapters, as appeared in the Sunday Tribune a fortnight ago.

The Death Warrant

And so, at last my book has come out, you can buy it here:
www.poolbeg.com
Or read a bit more about it on the blog. I’ll post up some chapters from it after the weekend.

THE Department of Finance climbed down on major pay cuts for 650 senior civil servants and other highly-paid public workers, primarily because they feared a costly legal action.

Legal advice had been sought by the Association of Assistant Secretaries and Higher Grades, which found that performance-related
awards were in fact part of a “core remuneration package”.

The Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan eventually decided to scale back the pay cuts for senior civil servants to take into account these bonus payments, which had already been stripped from their salaries.

A series of documents released under the Freedom of Information Act detail the to-ing and fro-ing that went on between the Department and the civil servants, as early as last May.

A letter sent by Bryan Andrews of the Association of Assistant Secretaries and Higher Grades said: “Our membership is also strongly
of the view that for the purpose of any exercise being contemplated as part of a reform of public service pay, Performance Related Awards must be seen as part of our core remuneration package.

“Such a position is strongly borne out by the legal advice now available to the Association. As you will appreciate from the foregoing, the Association has considerable concerns about this review exercise.”

Mr Andrews said his association represented an “important cohort of senior management” and that they were acutely aware of the deterioration in public finances.

He said: “We are also keen to emphasise that we are more than willing to make our contribution to restoring the health of the public
finances subject only to the proviso that it is done in a fair, equitable and transparent manner.”

The Association also made a separate submission to the Review Body on Higher Remuneration in August of last year, arguing that the current debate about high level of pays was “driven by ill-informed media comment”.

Mr Andrews said that on a comparison with the private sector; pay for senior civil servants was just 53 per cent of what it should be.

He wrote: “There can be no justification for a further decrease in current remuneration levels for the assistant secretary grade.

“Indeed, in other more favourable economic circumstances, this data would overwhelmingly support the case for an increase.”

In October of last year, Mr Andrews wrote to the Minister for Finance requesting a meeting as a “matter of urgency” to discuss pay cuts.

He said: “While we have made a very considered, reasonable and detailed submission to the Review Body on Higher Remuneration … we have had no indication to date, other than through various media comments and conjecture, of the recommendations contained in their report.

“We are deeply concerned, for example, regarding the level of consideration, if any, give within those deliberations to the status
of the performance-related awards scheme which we regard – and this is supported by legal advice – to be an integral part of our remuneration package.”

It said that the removal of the bonus scheme had put the senior civil servants at a “serious financial disadvantage” relative to others.

Mr Andrews said: “In your announcement to abolish the performance related element of our remuneration, you stated that this would be subject to discussions on the implementation of this decision.

“Such discussions have not taken place in any meaningful way and the abolition summarily of the performance related element represents a 10 per cent reduction across the board.”

The Minister for Finance agreed to a meeting with the Association in November and a briefing note prepared for Brian Lenihan outlines the compromise reached.

It says that the removal of the performance related bonus would be taken into account and that a much smaller pay cut of three per cent would apply instead.

Ciaran Connolly, Secretary General at Public Service Management, wrote: “There is a risk that the proposed approach will attract
criticism from news media or from unions representing lower paid public servants, which could focus solely on the reduction in the
salary scale while ignoring the reduction through the suspension of the awards scheme.

“It is important that the presentation of this issue refers to the full reduction incorporating the effect of the suspension of the
awards scheme resulting in overall reductions of 11.8 per cent for Assistant Secretaries and 14 per cent for Deputy Secretaries.”

The relevant documents are attached and make interesting reading [some have not been released and that explains the numbering]:

Schedule

Record 1

Record 3

Record 4

Record 5

Record 6

Record 7

Record 13

Record 14

Record 15

Record 16

Record 17

Record 18

Record 19

Record 20

Record 21

While Bertie Ahern was fortunate enough to be deemed eligible for the artist’s exemption for his memoirs, others have not fared quite so well.

Figures from the Revenue Commissioners show that seventeen people have been refused the tax break in the past four years.

All of them appear to have taken their cases to the Revenue Appeals Commissioner, where eleven of the cases ended up being overturned.

That leaves six people who have been refused the artist’s exemption since 2006 and if you’re one of those “non-artists” and wish to speak about your experience, get in touch with me on ken.foxe (at) gmail.com.

The figures from the Revenue Commissioners:

* Note: one of these cases heard at Circuit Court

What is most interesting about this whole affair is that the Revenue Commissioners and their counterparts in the Arts Council appear to have very different ideas about who should and who should not benefit.

The Arts Council are not in a position to comment directly on Bertie Ahern because they were never consulted about it.

However, this lengthy statement, issued to the Sunday Tribune, gives a fair idea of what they might have said had they been asked.

“The Arts Council regards the Artists’ Exemption Scheme as enlightened legislation, unique to Ireland, of which every citizen can be proud. It demonstrates to all that our society still values and nurtures creative artists. It sends a clear signal to the world that this country is a hub of creativity, innovation and fresh thinking, and that is an excellent location for smart-economy investment.

“The Arts Council is asked regularly throughout the year by the Revenue Commissioners for a recommendation on whether or not a particular publication falls within the guidelines of the scheme. In the case of an appeal by an individual against a Revenue Commissioners’ decision, Arts Council officers will offer an opinion and answer questions at the proceedings of Revenue Appeals Commission. We take these duties very seriously, and make an assessment in each case on the basis of the Revenue Commissioners’ published guidelines.

“The guidelines are very clear that biographies and autobiographies do not qualify for the artists’ exemption. The only exception to this is if the book encompasses “…the subjects of fiction writing, drama, music, film, dance, mime or visual arts, and related commentaries by bona fide artists”.

“In recent years the Revenue Appeals Commissioners have made several rulings in favour of plaintiffs, and against the recommendations of the Arts Council.

“We were not asked for a recommendation on any book by Bertie Ahern, nor have we considered it, and therefore have no comment on it.”

Is it not truly bizarre that we have two state agencies with a completely different understanding of the artist’s exemption.

Obviously, the major concern for the Arts Council is that the operation of the scheme has come into disrepute because the public might perceive it as going to undeserving people, like Bertie Ahern.

In that scenario, a new government might find it expedient to abolish the exemption altogether.

Stung by criticism from the Sunday Times about the lack of activity on this site, I’ve determined to post at least one update a week for the foreseeable future

John Burns makes a number of good points in that article about the many false starts there have been in Irish blogging, and there is no doubt that the art of blogging has not fully matured here as yet.

Mainstream journalism does not perceive it as providing a significant threat and it is hard to recall any serious story ever broken online, until thestory.ie came along and changed the terms of the Irish blog.

Ironically, around the time I started in journalism, there was also an interesting “muck-raking” website called Cogair, which printed various stories about Irish public and political figures.

Unfortunately, it did not necessarily subscribe to the same standards of truth and accuracy as The Story, and a lot of what appeared was simply the idle tittle-tattle that regularly circulates amongst journalists.

We have all heard these stories over the years: the ones about politicians beating their wives, or a certain celebrity’s wife finding him in bed with another certain male celebrity.

These stories always have one thing in common, a friend of a relative’s friend’s mother’s brother has confirmed the story and they are absolutely certain about it because they were there.

These stories are not true and the only thing that gives them currency is journalists repeating them to each other and their friends.

Anyway, back to the business of the day, I wrote some time ago about how I had tried to get access to travel costs for Minister Michael Martin during a period he served at the Dept of Enterprise.

After much ado and a fee, the Department came back to us with no information and effectively told us Enterprise Ireland and the IDA had paid for almost all of his overseas travel.

I’ve received the relevant documentation from Enterprise Ireland and the figures involved are significant.

The IDA are looking for close to E400 for similar information and in the current environment of “expenses fatigue”, I don’t think we will be proceeding with the request.

For what it’s worth, here are the Enterprise Ireland figures and you could probably double them as the IDA were also involved in a similar amount of trips.

Enterprise Ireland 2006-2007

On another note, Vincent Browne made some interesting points about the political lobby and whether they became too close to politicans.

Harry McGee wrote a withering response to this on his blog over at the Irish Times but strangely elected to chose the example of John O’Donoghue as one where political correspondents had elected to “bite the hand that feeds it”.

Quite aside from the fact that the story did not emanate from the political lobby, some members of that group hardly covered themselves in glory in the saga.

Anybody who followed the story from the beginning would remember many instances where John O’Donoghue was defended as a very decent man and an excellent Ceann Comhairle by members of the Fourth Estate.

Of even bigger concern, the day after O’Donoghue elected to release his expenses as Ceann Comhairle [two hours after they were released under FOI] RTE gave him a clean bill of health and declared the story all but over.

On that bulletin, the newsreader asked – in all seriousness – if other politicians would now follow John O’Donoghue’s example in the interests of openness and transparency.

One of the issues I’ve consistently tried to drive home over recent months is the enormous difficulty involved in getting the full picture of overseas travel expenditure for any government Minister.

Last week after another two months of waiting, I got back details from the Department of Enterprise on Ministerial travel for a specific year.

They charged the Sunday Tribune a fee, an admittedly small E90, but what was eventually released was hardly worth it.

For six or seven trips right around the world, the total expenditure for the Department had been just a few thousand euro. It covered car hire for one trip, the purchase of gifts and a single hotel bill.

Once again, the real cost is buried, hidden in the accounts department of the IDA and Enterprise Ireland, who it now seems actually picked up the tab for the Minister in question.

Obviously, we now have to go down the road of requesting the same information from those two bodies but there will be more delays and there will be more fees.

I am not even going to publish the material gathered so far online and I’ll only do it when I have everything, which will provide a clear illustration of how legitimate journalistic inquiry is being delayed for political reasons.

In future, any time you hear a government Minister saying that their overseas spending records are open and transparent and easily available under FOI, just mutter to yourself two simple words, the first of which is bull.

And any time you hear a journalist scoff at how “lazy” it is to do FOIs, ask them to try it themselves some time.

Suggest to them they waste months chasing up these files and ask them why was it that they never thought to inquire about John O’Donoghue’s global odyssey whilst a Minister and why we did.

Anyway, this is a long-winded introduction to the latest documents relating to John O’Donoghue, which I am posting below. They cover a three-year period between 2003 and 2005 when he was Minister for Arts, Sport and Tourism.

This is what Tourism Ireland felt it necessary to spend on the Minister and by happy coincidence, three of the trips happened to clash with major horse racing events: twice with the Melbourne Cup in Australia and once with the Breeders Cup.

Somewhat fittingly, the chief executive of Tourism Ireland at the time was Paul O’Toole and he would presumably have had a fair knowledge of the expenditure involved.

In one of those strange, uniquely Irish twists, Mr O’Toole has since been appointed to clean up the mess at FAS and has replaced Rody Molloy as Director General there.

The John O’Donoghue documents are here.

By far the most expensive aspect of Ministerial travel in recent years has been the use of the various government jets.

Technically, there are two, a Gulfstream IV for longer journeys and a Learjet, which is generally used for short hops around Europe.

Aside from that, the government also makes frequent use of the Beechcraft and a number of Air Corps helicopter for their VIP travel needs.

The costs involved are quite simply massive and since 2006, the cost of travel for the Gulfstream and the Learjet has been estimated at around E10.6 million.

These figures are worked out on the basis of per hour flying costs, which have been provided by the Department of Defence.

Currently, these stand at E7,890 for the Gulfstream IV and E2,950 for the Learjet.

The hourly cost for the Beechcraft is E1,770 and the estimated hourly costs for the Eurocopter and Agusta Westland choppers are a conservative E1,000 and E1,800 per hour respectively.

Anyway, for people who want to get an idea of how much travel is involved, I’m uploading records of Ministerial Transport from 2006 until date.

They are excel files and you can use the buttons down the bottom to jump from one type of aircraft to another.

2009

2008

2007

2006

For the best part of three months, I (and a couple of other newspaper reporters, it now seems) have been trying to get details of all overseas travel expenses involving Mary Harney, the former Tanaiste and current Minister for Health.

A few weeks ago, we got our hands on the general details of her costs for a story that we carried in the Sunday Tribune.

We also worked out costs of Ms Harney’s use of the government jet but on subsequent examination, it seems like the actual cost was more like E620,000 as opposed to the E730,000 that we originally stated. And so I am happy to clarify the over-estimation.

The hourly cost of the Learjet and Gulfstream IV changed in 2009 and we were working off those values rather than the older lesser ones that applied when this travel took place in the period between 2006 and 2008.

Anyway, four weeks after the deadline for releasing this information had passed, the Department of Health finally released more than 700 pages of documentation on Friday October 23.

All eight files are available online now at scribd. There is a lot of information there and it will take quite some time to go through it. If anyone has any thoughts, you can email me or make a comment.

It starts off with the itineraries of Ms Harney’s overseas travel.

Then we have general details of the expenditure overseas on hotels, food, car transport and so on. These are the most interesting ones.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

After that, we’ve got details of Ministerial travel expenses, generally subsistence that was claimed back by Ms Harney.

For the sake of completeness, we also looked for details of expenditure on travel within Ireland and that’s here.

On the occasions when Minister Harney didn’t use the government jet, flights were generally booked through Club Travel and those details are here.

Finally, we have the bill for VIP services at Dublin Airport, which the Department released as a separate file.