Charlie McCreevy 'breached ethics rules'

ei.sdraob

yee all remember that primetime episode about bankers?

well The Times has this on McCreevy

Charlie McCreevy failed to declare ownership of a €1.5m property in the K Club on his official register of interests in the European commission, in an apparent breach of ethics rules.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/ireland/article6974074.ece

so what happens now? a slap on the wrist??
oh and thanks to everyone who voted NO at first Lisbon referenda, thanks to yee this guy gets to keep his job

Liam Byrne

Given his party membership, are you surprised ?

Hopefully he'll be fired; at least that way we'll know that the EU doesn't tolerate a lack of ethics, even if the Dail does.

Byron85

It was nice of them to state the ****ing obvious. :rolleyes:

jimmycrackcorm

Does it really make a difference if he declared it or not? It's not that he was not allowed to own the property, only that it wasn't listed in the register. It's nowhere as serious as bringing in a twig into OZ without declaring it on the form....

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jimmycrackcorm wrote: »

Does it really make a difference if he declared it or not? It's not that he was not allowed to own the property, only that it wasn't listed in the register. It's nowhere as serious as bringing in a twig into OZ without declaring it on the form....

Yes it does make a difference.

The mortgage McCreevy got breeched the FNBS' own internal rules for mortgages. This breech was personally approved by the CEO of the firm. There is absolutely no way that an ordinary member of the public would have even been considered for such a deal, yet McCreevy was. Hence, the special deal he got was in effect a "sweetheart deal".

McCreevy as a Commissioner had the responsibility for introducing regulations on banks, investment firms etc. He ignored repeated calls from many MEPs to do so - basically adopting the attitude that the banking industry was capable of self-regulation, an attitude that we can all see was totally misguided.

Hence, we know that the Commissioner responsible for regulating the banks was in receipt of a "sweetheart deal" for a mortgage from this building society. We also know that he failed to declare the resulting mortgage.

Does it matter?

Yes, because by failing to declare it meant no questions could be asked by MEPs in the EP about this. Questions, such as:
i) How come a Commissioner responsible for regulating the banks got a "sweetheart deal" for a mortgage from a bank?
ii) Were there other "sweetheart deals" from other banks?
iii) Was there a relationship between McCreevy's failure to introduce legislation and his receipt of a "sweetheart deal" (or "deals")?
iv) How come McCreevy missed that one of the other Commissioners - Siim Kallas - has spent the last 5 years working on ethics and trying to improve transparency?

The answers to these questions might be very simple and straightforward, but it does matter that they should have been asked, and weren't, as a result of McCreevy's failure to declare his interest.

jimmycrackcorm

But it's still speculation that there was something amiss...

deadhead13

I think the more interesting part of the article is - "In 1997, McCreevy while in opposition, tabled an amendment to the Central Bank Bill, seeking changes that would allow Irish Nationwide to demutualise....Fingleton had been lobbying politicians to introduce legislation allowing for the building society to be floated a year previously."

nesf

Eh, you people seem to be missing the key element:

While commissioners are under no obligation to declare properties for use solely by themselves or their family on the register of interests

He's not required to register properties that are for private use. It's not the case that he was required to register all assets to his name etc.

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nesf wrote: »

He's not required to register properties that are for private use. It's not the case that he was required to register all assets to his name etc.

The Commissioner's Code of Conduct says a Commissioner does not have to register a property if it is for personal use only. All other properties (i.e. non-personal use ones) must though be declared.

To quote the news report from the Times (ref the OP's link):

...documentation broadcast by Prime Time suggested that the property was to be “fully let”.

Hence, that documentation, which presumably came from the FNBS, would appear to indicate that the property was not for personal use. Therefore, it should have been declared in a new declaration.

Had a new declaration been filed, that information would have been public information and the EP would have been notified of it as standard procedure. This could have opened the mortgage deal to public questioning.

However, no new declaration was filed and, hence, no questioning could occur about the mortgage.

A rather fortunate error it would seem...

nesf

View wrote: »

The Commissioner's Code of Conduct says a Commissioner does not have to register a property if it is for personal use only. All other properties (i.e. non-personal use ones) must though be declared.

To quote the news report from the Times (ref the OP's link):



Hence, that documentation, which presumably came from the FNBS, would appear to indicate that the property was not for personal use. Therefore, it should have been declared in a new declaration.

Had a new declaration been filed, that information would have been public information and the EP would have been notified of it as standard procedure. This could have opened the mortgage deal to public questioning.

However, no new declaration was filed and, hence, no questioning could occur about the mortgage.

A rather fortunate error it would seem...

Do we know it was being let though? Was that part of the report mistaken? Perhaps it was let but not now it isn't? Etc.

Podman

Was there ever a case of one of these fat cats being held accountable, or being punished for bad deeds?
All the evidence "goes missing" anyway.

nesf

chompy wrote: »

Was there ever a case of one of these fat cats being held accountable, or being punished for bad deeds?
All the evidence "goes missing" anyway.

Yeah occasionally tribunals make something stick to someone. Occasionally. Hard to prove something wasn't for family use though unless you actually catch them in the act of letting it out.

ei.sdraob

Liam Byrne wrote: »

Given his party membership, are you surprised ?

no

T.W.H Byron wrote: »

It was nice of them to state the ****ing obvious. :rolleyes:

notice how this was printed in a UK newspaper, people there might not be aware how corrupt he and FF are (oh yeh the Blashpemy Act ), while irish papers are quiet about

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nesf wrote: »

Do we know it was being let though? Was that part of the report mistaken? Perhaps it was let but not now it isn't? Etc.

It is explicitly stated in the Commissioner's Code of Conduct that property must be declared unless it is exclusively for personal use. Hence, if it was once let, it must have been declared.

Even if it is a case that it was once let and now no longer is let (i.e. is now for personal use only) then, at best, this means that a initial declaration should have been filed when it was let and a subsequent declaration should have been filed when it reverted to personal use.

As it is, the last Declaration filed by McCreevy pre-dates this mortgage as it is from 2005 as can be seen here http://ec.europa.eu/commission_barroso/interests/mccreevy/interests_en.pdf

As for the report being mistaken, that is possible, but the article from the Times says about McCreevy:

... he has indicated that he will update his declaration for the sake of “completeness” in the coming days

If - as claimed by McCreevy's in the article - the property was always intended to be purely for personal use, then this is not something he would have needed to do either then or now. As such, making the declaration retrospectively is akin to volunteering to pay a speeding fine even though you weren't speeding.

Also, even allowing for Chinese Whispers, it is really hard to see how McCreevy saying to the FNBS about the property "It'll be for my personal use" could end up in the FNBS' documentation as "property will be fully let".

Annasopra

ei.sdraob wrote: »

oh and thanks to everyone who voted NO at first Lisbon referenda, thanks to yee this guy gets to keep his job

I don't understand - what do you mean? He is leaving his job because the term has ended

ei.sdraob

Johnnymcg wrote: »

I don't understand - what do you mean? He is leaving his job because the term has ended

if Lisbon passed back then he wouldn't have a job since the number of commissioners would have been reduced