€10,000 reward for info on Libertas Funding!

asdasd

This sounds like a left wing and Establishment witchhunt. I voted no because I don't agree with the provisions of the Lisbon treaty. Which I have read. Libertas had no input into my decision.

Regardless how much money Libertas had, against the No vote were: the Catholic church, most other religions, all political parties, the business groups, all trade unions, the State and most of the Newpapers. This shows just how unbalanced the thing was and, yet, still the YES vote lost - as they would have lost in most other countries had it been put to a vote.

The fact that controlled puppets, who did what they were told by the Establishment to do, now have to audacity to turn around and accuse those of us who made independent decisions of being influenced ( and by the tiny player that is libertas) shows the extent of their controlled minds.

And we voted NO for a reason. Ask again and we will vote NO again. And lets ask the UK to vote too shall we, in this brilliant "democracy" that is the EU. And all other countries.

As for Primetime and its sinister claptrap about the funding of a civic body which has chosen to campaign against a referendum - which we would asume would be a democratic right - I look forward to an investigation on the funding of the Stickies who dominated the Primetime ( Today Tonight as was ) roster in the early eighties.

Who? Whom?

The Raven.

asdasd wrote: »

This sounds like a left wing and Establishment witchhunt. I voted no because I don't agree with the provisions of the Lisbon treaty. Which I have read. Libertas had no input into my decision.

Regardless how much money Libertas had, against the No vote were: the Catholic church, most other religions, all political parties, the business groups, all trade unions, the State and most of the Newpapers. This shows just how unbalanced the thing was and, yet, still the YES vote lost - as they would have lost in most other countries had it been put to a vote.

I agree with this. I am still puzzled as to why it wasn't put to a vote in the other countries. Maybe someone could explain to me why this is the case.

The fact that controlled puppets, who did what they were told by the Establishment to do, now have to audacity to turn around and accuse those of us who made independent decisions of being influenced ( and by the tiny player that is libertas) shows the extent of their controlled minds.

And we voted NO for a reason. Ask again and we will vote NO again. And lets ask the UK to vote too shall we, in this brilliant "democracy" that is the EU. And all other countries.

I'm would imagine that a large percentage of the Yes voters were influenced by the Establishment, but I think one must give the benefit of the doubt to others, who made up their own minds.

As for Primetime and its sinister claptrap about the funding of a civic body which has chosen to campaign against a referendum - which we would asume would be a democratic right - I look forward to an investigation on the funding of the Stickies who dominated the Primetime ( Today Tonight as was ) roster in the early eighties.

Who? Whom?

Sadly a lot of their funding came out of our pockets.

What's with the 'Who? Whom?' ?

javaboy

The Raven. wrote: »

I agree with this. I am still puzzled as to why it wasn't put to a vote in the other countries. Maybe someone could explain to me why this is the case.

Because it didn't need to be put to a vote according to their law. Just like so many decisions in Ireland don't need to be put to a public vote. Most decisions are made by elected public representatives.

Bob Z

The Raven. wrote: »

I agree with this. I am still puzzled as to why it wasn't put to a vote in the other countries. Maybe someone could explain to me why this is the case.

Yea as javaboy said above You cant change the Irish Constitution without having a referendum.

turgon

asdasd wrote: »

Libertas had no input into my decision.

You are probably one of a small group. I saw past there shìt too, but Id imagine a lot of other people didnt.

asdasd wrote: »

all political parties

Except Sinn Fein which probably got a good few working class No votes, because "de treeties bad fer de green ile".

asdasd wrote: »

This shows just how unbalanced the thing was and, yet, still the YES vote lost - as they would have lost in most other countries had it been put to a vote.

Mere speculation.

asdasd wrote: »

And we voted NO for a reason. Ask again and we will vote NO again.

They probably said that after Nice too. Nothing like a recession to make us savor the EU. There will be another vote, and it will more than likely be Yes. At the end of the day its not that huge a deal that our lives will be changed hugely either way. The way some people talk youd think the result of the vote could spell and apocalypse.

The Raven.

javaboy wrote: »

Because it didn't need to be put to a vote according to their law. Just like so many decisions in Ireland don't need to be put to a public vote. Most decisions are made by elected public representatives.

Bob Z wrote: »

Yea as javaboy said above You cant change the Irish Constitution without having a referendum.

Thanks, Javaboy and Bob. I'm aware of these facts, but I'm looking for more information as to how it is that Ireland seems to have a more democratic approach compared to other EU countries. This could change if Enda Kenny has his way, although I could be mistaken. I know there is another thread on this.

I'm reading an interesting article in relation to the issue and I will get back to this later.

Bob Z

The Raven. wrote: »

Thanks, Javaboy and Bob. I'm aware of these facts, but I'm looking for more information as to how it is that Ireland seems to have a more democratic approach compared to other EU countries. This could change if Enda Kenny has his way, although I could be mistaken. I know there is another thread on this.

I'm reading an interesting article in relation to the issue and I will get back to this later.

Its not just issues to do with Europe Things like divorce had to be decided by Referendum. I think there other things like the bail laws and proportional representation that cannot be changed by legislation and have be decied by referendum.

The politicians dont hold referendums because they want to give people the choice but because they have to

turgon

The Raven. wrote: »

Thanks, Javaboy and Bob. I'm aware of these facts, but I'm looking for more information as to how it is that Ireland seems to have a more democratic approach compared to other EU countries.

A number of years ago a man called Raymond Crotty took a case to the Irish Supreme Court arguing that the Single European Act impacted on Irish sovereignty, and thus was in a way incompatible with the Irish Constitution. The Court held that because of this that any European treaty would have to be ratified with an amendment to the Constitution directly permitting it. Thereby becoming compatible and overriding any other inconsistencies. As we all know, an amendment to the Constitution is only permitted by a nationwide referendum.

I thinks thats how it went, wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crotty_v._An_Taoiseach

If you can understand legal terminology, or have a good grasp of English, you could wade through the court decision on the case at - http://www.bailii.org/ie/cases/IESC/1987/4.html

Also helps to have the Constitution open when reading it - http://www.taoiseach.gov.ie/attached_files/html%20files/Constitution%20of%20Ireland%20(Eng).htm

melekalikimaka

dlofnep wrote: »

Oh I see. You were out talking to them were you? I leafletted for the no campaign and out of the hundreds of people I spoke to, the majority of them didn't want to vote yes because they didn't want Europe to dictate Irish affairs.

.

i would disagree from personal experience... but sure what would i know, i voted yes based on informed knowledge, i'm sure no folk were all in the same boat yeah :rolleyes:

turgon

Further to the reasons Ireland hold refernda, the last judge made a good statement summarizing it at the end -

J Hederman, Irish Supreme Court wrote:

The State's organs cannot contract to exercise in a particular procedure their policy-making roles or in any way to fetter powers bestowed unfettered by the Constitution. They are the guardians of these powers -not the disposers of them. For the reasons already stated I would allow the appeal.

SO they Irish people must give permission for governmental power to be given out side the national government.

ShooterSF

javaboy wrote: »

I mentioned this idea on another thread on the same topic. If Libertas' funding comes from legitimate sources, why doesn't Ganley claim the €10,000 himself and make a publicity stunt out of it?

I guess all the free publicity he's still getting would be worth more than 10k.

Oh and another +1 on banning posters, not one from either side was informative at all.

Scofflaw

turgon wrote: »

Further to the reasons Ireland hold refernda, the last judge made a good statement summarizing it at the end -

SO they Irish people must give permission for governmental power to be given out side the national government.

Hmm - no, I'm afraid not, primarily because our dealings with the EU do not involve handing over sovereignty from the national government to someone else. They involve the Irish government negotiating joint solutions with other governments according to Irish interests - something which is the case in every international treaty, which you'll notice we don't have referendums on.

The specific piece of sovereignty that formed the basis of the Crotty judgement was the agreement in the SEA that Ireland would consider the interests of the other member states as well as its own in deciding Irish foreign policy. That is a constraint on policy formation and Irish sovereignty which is simply not found elsewhere.

You have to bear in mind that while Crotty put forward 5 reasons why he felt Irish sovereignty was abridged by the SEA, only that one was accepted by the court. The others were dismissed, with a reservation that movement of issues from unanimity to QMV might in future form the basis of another such judgement - almost certainly foreign policy issues.

I'm sure this will surprise some people, but sovereignty is a legally definable concept, not simply a synonym for acting unilaterally in every aspect of government.


cordially,
Scofflaw

Bob Z

turgon wrote: »

Further to the reasons Ireland hold refernda, the last judge made a good statement summarizing it at the end -

SO they Irish people must give permission for governmental power to be given out side the national government.

Certain aspects of Irish Law can only be changed by referendum. . It doesn't matter if these laws are devised in from Europe or not. The Irish constitution was drafted year before the EU was even thought of

asdasd

What's with the 'Who? Whom?' ?

Who benefits. To whom are they subject.

etc. Bascially a Cui Bono. i couldv'e left that out, it was silly.

ShooterSF

turgon wrote: »

Originally Posted by asdasd
Libertas had no input into my decision.

You are probably one of a small group. I saw past there shìt too, but Id imagine a lot of other people didnt.

People are influenced, not all but there's always some. Why else would business pay fortunes for advertisting?

However what I always notice here is that Libertas Choir and SF influenced people into voting no but no one seems to consider that FF FG and Labour influenced people with their warnings that we'd be left out in the cold or that the EU was always good to us so we should just sign it into voting yes.

I'd suggest that plenty of yes and no voters were influenced by their respective sides while others made up their minds themselves.

I don't like the suggestion that only the no side was influenced by the parties involved.

John_C

ShooterSF wrote: »

I don't like the suggestion that only the no side was influenced by the parties involved.

Is there any real suggestion of that? The various parties and groups are allowed to try to influence people, that's what free speech is all about. The only question is whether any of them broke the rules in doing so.

If Libertas are found to have acted wrongly it won't be the first time funny money made its way into Irish politics. They can only stall the ethics committee for so long so we'll find out soon enough whether every thing's above board.

ShooterSF

John_C wrote: »

Is there any real suggestion of that? The various parties and groups are allowed to try to influence people, that's what free speech is all about. The only question is whether any of them broke the rules in doing so.

If Libertas are found to have acted wrongly it won't be the first time funny money made its way into Irish politics. They can only stall the ethics committee for so long so we'll find out soon enough whether every thing's above board.

Can anyone tell me what the rules were at the time for a company to spend money trying to influence the decision then?

Edit: Maybe I've read it wrong but I've felt from other's posts that they felt only the no side were influenced by parties not the yes side. I may have misread them though.

kmick

If Ganleys theories on Lisbon are lies and propaganda then why are the political establishment gunning for him so badly? Is it just that they can deflect their own incompetence in explaining the unwieldy mess that is Lisbon. In no way could the government of the time be seen to have provided the pros and cons - it was yes all the way - no plan b. In fact plan b was run it again sam.

asdasd

If libertas is a civil group, not a party, why cant it spend all and every cent it has on anything it likes?

John_C

ShooterSF wrote: »

Can anyone tell me what the rules were at the time for a company to spend money trying to influence the decision then?

I'm no expert but I think that any company can donate 5,000 old pounds per year to a political campaign.

asdasd wrote: »

If libertas is a civil group, not a party, why cant it spend all and every cent it has on anything it likes?

The short answer is because the law says otherwise. No person or company can donate more than £5,000 to a political campaign, this is to stop the rich from having a bigger say in politics than the rest of us.

Whether we agree with the law or not, I think it's fair to expect all the different groups campaigning to operate within it.

Scofflaw

John_C wrote: »

I'm no expert but I think that any company can donate 5,000 old pounds per year to a political campaign.

The short answer is because the law says otherwise. No person or company can donate more than £5,000 to a political campaign, this is to stop the rich from having a bigger say in politics than the rest of us.

Whether we agree with the law or not, I think it's fair to expect all the different groups campaigning to operate within it.

There's a cap on all donations for political purposes - it was £5,000, as you say, and is now €6,350. That cap is an ongoing limit for political parties, but there's a rather large loophole for third parties in a referendum.

Third parties can have any amount of money in them before a referendum campaign starts, and can spend as much of that money as they like during the campaign. What one can do is to set up a company in advance, and loan it money - this being a perfectly reputable business practice (not so much the other way round) - which it can then spend on the campaign. The company then pays you back your loan according to whatever schedule you dictate, assuming you are the director. Unless the company is wound up still owing those loans, it would be very difficult to characterise them as donations.

This is what appears to have been done in the case of Libertas. Ganley's 'admission' that 'first loan' he gave Libertas was €200K suggests that this was the source of most of its funding.

cordially,
Scofflaw

ShooterSF

John_C wrote: »

Is there any real suggestion of that? The various parties and groups are allowed to try to influence people, that's what free speech is all about. The only question is whether any of them broke the rules in doing so.

If Libertas are found to have acted wrongly it won't be the first time funny money made its way into Irish politics. They can only stall the ethics committee for so long so we'll find out soon enough whether every thing's above board.

Scofflaw wrote: »

There's a cap on all donations for political purposes - it was £5,000, as you say, and is now €6,350. That cap is an ongoing limit for political parties, but there's a rather large loophole for third parties in a referendum.

Third parties can have any amount of money in them before a referendum campaign starts, and can spend as much of that money as they like during the campaign. What one can do is to set up a company in advance, and loan it money - this being a perfectly reputable business practice (not so much the other way round) - which it can then spend on the campaign. The company then pays you back your loan according to whatever schedule you dictate, assuming you are the director. Unless the company is wound up still owing those loans, it would be very difficult to characterise them as donations.

This is what appears to have been done in the case of Libertas. Ganley's 'admission' that 'first loan' he gave Libertas was €200K suggests that this was the source of most of its funding.

cordially,
Scofflaw

So it's pretty clear they didn't break the rules as above.

BlitzKrieg

So it's pretty clear they didn't break the rules as above.

Well not fully

Scofflow wrote:

[This is what appears to have been done in the case of Libertas. Ganley's 'admission' that 'first loan' he gave Libertas was €200K suggests that this was the source of most of its funding.

Since Libertas has not revealed where its full funding came from.

ShooterSF

BlitzKrieg wrote: »

Well not fully



Since Libertas has not revealed where its full funding came from.

But it doesnt matter where they got the money (unless he was selling drugs or something).

Third parties can have any amount of money in them before a referendum campaign starts, and can spend as much of that money as they like during the campaign.

oscarBravo

ShooterSF wrote: »

But it doesnt matter where they got the money (unless he was selling drugs or something).

According to the letter of the law, yes. But that completely ignores the spirit and intent of the law.

BlitzKrieg

But it doesnt matter where they got the money (unless he was selling drugs or something)

its not so much where...but when.

Scofflaw

ShooterSF wrote: »

But it doesnt matter where they got the money (unless he was selling drugs or something).

Indeed not - I consider the whole obsession with how Ganley earned his money entirely beside the point. My only interest in it is what it tells us about Ganley himself - his politics, his contacts, his likely interests, his 'angle' as it were - but I doubt there's a single bit of wrongdoing in there. I do, however, think that when someone spends an awful lot of money asking us to subscribe to his point of view on something, it's fair to question his motives.

Libertas' funding, on the other hand, is something that should come under a good deal of scrutiny. It is fairly clear, I think, that they stuck to the letter of the SIPO legislation, while pushing an enormous amount of cash through a loophole. The reasoning behind the SIPO donation caps in the first place is to prevent the substitution of wealth for popular support, and clearly the legislation failed in this respect. It also failed in respect of transparency - it was not, and still is not, clear, where Libertas derived its funding. I appreciate that is a charge that has been levelled at the main political parties, but in fact the sources of their funding are quite traceable compared to that of Libertas.

In turn, that lack of transparency meant that Libertas could go directly against the spirit of the SIPO caps in PR as well as practice - and pretend that its funding came from wide popular support. Much was made by Libertas of its "donation-funded campaign", whereas it was clear from the existence of a planned media strategy that the group was not reliant on donations coming in by dribs and drabs.

I don't think Yes voters are alone in thinking that Libertas' motives and methods deserve some scrutiny, although there is obviously slightly more motivation for No proponents not to look a gift horse in the mouth - it's still worth doing, in case the inside is hollow and full of Greek warriors.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Bob Z

if libertas is put under scrutiny about their funding do you think the politicians willl too? Dont they get a lot of donations that are just under the limit so that they dont have to register them?

Scofflaw

Bob Z wrote: »

if libertas is put under scrutiny about their funding do you think the politicians willl too? Dont they get a lot of donations that are just under the limit so that they dont have to register them?

Hmm. The limit over which the donations must be disclosed is only €127, and for that size of donation to add up to something there have to be a lot of them. 10,000 people donating just under the limit would make a sizeable impact, but the kind of national drive you'd have to run to reach that kind of level would be extremely noticeable. There would also be little or no benefit in it for the individual donors.

In addition to donations, they have the various draws and raffles they run, State funding, party membership fees. A good deal of that is traceable, but like any organisation, it would take time and work to build up a complete picture.

Personally, I would prefer that any organisation that campaigned in public - and I think most of us have a reasonable idea of how we might define such organisations - should disclose all its funding.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Bob Z

Scofflaw wrote: »

Hmm. The limit over which the donations must be disclosed is only €127, and for that size of donation to add up to something there have to be a lot of them. 10,000 people donating just under the limit would make a sizeable impact, but the kind of national drive you'd have to run to reach that kind of level would be extremely noticeable. There would also be little or no benefit in it for the individual donors.

In addition to donations, they have the various draws and raffles they run, State funding, party membership fees. A good deal of that is traceable, but like any organisation, it would take time and work to build up a complete picture.

Personally, I would prefer that any organisation that campaigned in public - and I think most of us have a reasonable idea of how we might define such organisations - should disclose all its funding.

cordially,
Scofflaw

i read somewhere in 2006 or 2007 that no major party had recieved ANY donations. I cant remember wher i read it but i found this link

http://www.village.ie/Politics/Government/Ethics_watchdog_criticises_party_funding/