PHIL HOGAN NEEDS TO RESIGN.

Psychiatric Patrick

Happydays2020 wrote: »

Yes an EU parliament meeting and he was sitting there scratching himself as well. Admitted he did not know the difference between portrait and landscape.

Ah Jaysus, I thought like maybe he lost track and stood up or something.

I keep getting sick in my mouth when reading threads.

Please tell me somebody in the conference put a stop to it early on?

SnazzyPig

Deleted User wrote: »

unbelievable level of bitterness and begrudgery.........if you're so angered why don't you apply for a government job? Its open to anyone? See how you get on with today's social media witch hunts? Your entire life is pulled over like a dead carcass and examined under a microscope as though none of us have ever put a foot wrong! All these insecure, bitter, outraged , frustrated keyboard cowards! Go for it yourself, put yourself up as a local representative in the next local election and go from there,you could eventually become EU commissioner too !! No qualifications needed. Let us know how you get on.

The level of bitterness in this post probably exceeds that expressed in the rest of the entire thread.

Phil Hogan oversaw the debacle of Irish Water and was rewarded with a cushy posting in the rrarified atmosphere of the EU bureaucracy and managed to los that position because of his own dishonesty and recklessness.

There's only one person to blame for that and when Phat Phil looks in the mirror he'll be looking at that person.

Hawthorn Tree

Happydays2020 wrote: »

Dara “resigned” from his new EU post.

Oh I just saw that from Google.

Mr Murphy abruptly stopped working in the Commissioner’s cabinet in mid-June after just seven months in the post, and he has moved into another position within the Commission where he will work on research and innovation until his notice period ends in September.

“By mutual agreement Dara Murphy has left my Cabinet. I am very grateful for his contribution from the beginning of the mandate,” Ms Gabriel told The Irish Times. “I wish Dara all the best for the future.”

He has been busy too.

A consultancy firm set up by "absentee TD" Dara Murphy to handle payments from his Brussels-based job while he continued to earn around €145,000 a year in the Dáil made a profit of over €60,000 last year.

Newly filed accounts for Epecon Limited show the company recorded profits of €60,438 during the 12 months to the end of June 2019 - during which time Mr Murphy was also a Fine Gael TD.

The people of Cork elected a dud there.

bertiebomber

put a devil on horseback and he will ride to hell!

Hawthorn Tree

SnazzyPig wrote: »

The level of bitterness in this post probably exceeds that expressed in the rest of the entire thread.

Phil Hogan oversaw the debacle of Irish Water and was rewarded with a cushy posting in the rrarified atmosphere of the EU bureaucracy and managed to los that position because of his own dishonesty and recklessness.

There's only one person to blame for that and when Phat Phil looks in the mirror he'll be looking at that person.

The Irish Water setup costs were astronomical. Massive overspend.

Fergus O'Dowd (FG TD) is the only person to tell the truth about it. He was involved in setting it up.

“We were told the total set-up costs of consultants would be less than €20m,” said Mr O’Dowd. “That’s the truth. And what happened? It was over €200m. They went crazy with consultants, they spent money left, right, and centre and they left people like me, who set up the company and who fully supports what you are saying here today in terms of a single utility, with egg on our faces and created trouble up and down the country.

“People lost their seats over this. We acted in good faith but we were told untruths, it is appalling what happened there.”

Some people made very easy money when Hogan was in charge of setting up the superquango. It was supposed to bring in efficiencies. Imagine all the leaks that could have been fixed for all that money to create a HSE Mark II. Putting in the meters actually created more leaks that ever before.

LawBoy2018

LawBoy2018 wrote: »

It's quite the opposite, actually. Finally, our crooked politicians are being held to account by a relentless, untiring new generation of journalists, as it should be in a functioning democracy.

I don't want a government job as I'm a trainee solicitor, but never say never as they say I'd be far more qualified than some of my predecessors. The point is, nobody is above the law. We're all equal, despite our day jobs and financial resources.

Why would anyone set out to defend Hogan? Do you think he'd do the same for you?

Surprised a trainee solicitor would post such a fundamental misunderstanding of due process. Sure, if that's the case, why defend anyone etc.

Ultimately the only law Hogan broke was using his phone while driving.

AMKC

I think Helem McAntee would be a very good replacement for European Trade Commissioner.

Billgirlylegs

Psychiatric Patrick wrote: »

Sorry you misunderstand my point - I didn't make it clear at all actually.

Yes, the population went to the brink of revolution because it was asked to pay for water.

A hospital for sick kids in a complete shambles and we do nothing.

What are we like?

IW was set up to provide a gravy train.
They were handed possibly the most significant and valuable resource in the country and the intention was to use it to make a profit. They were preparing to privatise it fully( ie float it on the stock exchange)

FG lackeys were appointed and were paying salary bonuses to one another from the moment they got in the door.

There was Zero attempt to even repair leaks, let alone upgrade the network.
Spare funding allocated to salaries and bonuses.

That is what prompted the protests.
All designed by Phil the master negotiator. He had previous form for messing up local services/property tax.

He got the Euro gravy train gig because he made such a balls of his Ministry that he was a liability to FG/Lab Government who had a massive Dail Majority.
They reckoned he couldn't do any harm over there.

The notion that competence or ability are the criteria for getting the job is laughable.
Previously PFlynn and Charlie McCreevy were despatched to avoid problems for incumbent Government here

RandomViewer

AMKC wrote: »

I think Helem McAntee would be a very good replacement for European Trade Commissioner.

It won't be a FGer,

RandomViewer

Could the reticence in naming all the attendees be that some of the attendees were escorts there to entertain some of the guests?

Hawthorn Tree

Billgirlylegs wrote: »

IW was set up to provide a gravy train.
They were handed possibly the most significant and valuable resource in the country and the intention was to use it to make a profit. They were preparing to privatise it fully( ie float it on the stock exchange)

FG lackeys were appointed and were paying salary bonuses to one another from the moment they got in the door.

There was Zero attempt to even repair leaks, let alone upgrade the network.
Spare funding allocated to salaries and bonuses.

That is what prompted the protests.
All designed by Phil the master negotiator. He had previous form for messing up local services/property tax.

He got the Euro gravy train gig because he made such a balls of his Ministry that he was a liability to FG/Lab Government who had a massive Dail Majority.
They reckoned he couldn't do any harm over there.

The notion that competence or ability are the criteria for getting the job is laughable.
Previously PFlynn and Charlie McCreevy were despatched to avoid problems for incumbent Government here

Spot on. How do people forget this stuff? It was and still is a costly scandal. A lot of the dodgy contracts and appointments have never been investigated.
FG felt completely untouchable back then until the people reminded them who they work for. Phil represented that arrogance.

Believe it or not, I was a card carrying member of Fine Gael for over a decade!

But wrong is wrong is wrong. I guess my blinkers fell off.

It seems I am now a Shinnerbot. Only logical explanation for criticising FG.

The EU want a woman and a man nominated to succeed Hogan. RTE are saying its to take over the Trade portfolio but that isn't what she said at all.
There's no way they are putting a newbie in charge of Trade during Brexit negotiations. And rightly so.

fly_agaric

Hawthorn Tree wrote: »

Spot on. How do people forget this stuff? It was and still is a costly scandal. A lot of the dodgy contracts and appointments have never been investigated.

Yes setup was handled badly and yes FG (and to a lesser extent FF) ideology suggests some in the party may like to privatise bodies like Irish Water [along with likes of Dublin Bus, Irish Rail etc etc]. Doesn't stop people voting for them all the same (even if they don't want to see such state bodies privatised or undermined by private competition).

Back in the mists of time I recall an actual (rather than a theoretical) bad privatisation that went through without a whimper + was cheered on with great gusto. Telecom Eireann. The difference was people got some money put into their paw out of that (edit: this is incorrect as no free shares were issued and share price rose initially but went down permanently soon after). Not govt. reaching into their pockets for new sources of revenue.

So forgive me if I'm a bit cyncial about the whole thing + the "principled" objections to Irish water/water charges.

Gregor Samsa

RandomViewer wrote: »

Could the reticence in naming all the attendees be that some of the attendees were escorts there to entertain some of the guests?

Or maybe there was Satanic child-sacrifice at it, and they don't want us to know that the re-animated corpse of Aleister Crowley provided the mid-meal entertainment.

jm08

Hawthorn Tree wrote: »

The Irish Water setup costs were astronomical. Massive overspend.

Fergus O'Dowd (FG TD) is the only person to tell the truth about it. He was involved in setting it up.

Some people made very easy money when Hogan was in charge of setting up the superquango. It was supposed to bring in efficiencies. Imagine all the leaks that could have been fixed for all that money to create a HSE Mark II. Putting in the meters actually created more leaks that ever before.

The problem is that they had to put in the meters to discover where the leaks are.

Plumbthedepths

Ursula showing some displeasure towards Phil's poor judgement. I suspect PH told her a few porkies and was invited to resign. No loss, maybe his replacement will take note. No one is too big to fail.


https://www.rte.ie/news/politics/2020/0827/1161588-phil-hogan-resignation/

Gregor Samsa

fly_agaric wrote: »

Back in the mists of time I recall an actual (rather than a theoretical) bad privatisation that went through without a whimper + was cheered on with great gusto. Telecom Eireann. The difference was people got some money put into their paw out of that..

No they didn't. People had to buy the TE shares (€3.90 a share). Anyone who sold them in the few days after the flotation would have made a bit of money when they reached a high of €4.80 (very few people did so), but everyone else (the vast majority of people - over half a million small investors) lost money once the share price dropped a few days later, and it never recovered to go above what people paid for them in the IPO. Pretty much everyone (as in the general public) lost out on that venture.

RandomViewer

Gregor Samsa wrote: »

Or maybe there was Satanic child-sacrifice at it, and they don't want us to know that the re-animated corpse of Aleister Crowley provided the mid-meal entertainment.

It wasn't a reanimated corpse it was just Terri Prone, easy mistake

LillySV

walshb wrote: »

Bad form this..

Says more about you than him..

Hard luck fanboy , your idol is no longer commissioner. Why don’t ya contact him for a game of golf... he now has lots of time on his hands

RandomViewer

jm08 wrote: »

The problem is that they had to put in the meters to discover where the leaks are.

Doesn't explain the Yoga or the fleet of Audis.Does a Kango even fit in an Audi?

ShamNNspace

Billgirlylegs wrote: »

IW was set up to provide a gravy train.
They were handed possibly the most significant and valuable resource in the country and the intention was to use it to make a profit. They were preparing to privatise it fully( ie float it on the stock exchange)

FG lackeys were appointed and were paying salary bonuses to one another from the moment they got in the door.

There was Zero attempt to even repair leaks, let alone upgrade the network.
Spare funding allocated to salaries and bonuses.

That is what prompted the protests.
All designed by Phil the master negotiator. He had previous form for messing up local services/property tax.

He got the Euro gravy train gig because he made such a balls of his Ministry that he was a liability to FG/Lab Government who had a massive Dail Majority.
They reckoned he couldn't do any harm over there.

The notion that competence or ability are the criteria for getting the job is laughable.
Previously PFlynn and Charlie McCreevy were despatched to avoid problems for incumbent Government here

And to cap it all they put that lad Tierney in charge of IW the largest body in the history of the state, a guy who left a trail of destruction and court cases in his wake in his previous roles, and then off he saunters when its all over with more than half a million payment in his pocket, not a bother on him

fly_agaric

Gregor Samsa wrote: »

No they didn't. People had to buy the TE shares (€3.90 a share).

Fair play, I'd actually forgotten that people didn't get any free shares.
I was just remembering (badly) all the excitement/fuss at the time about the shares being issued as a result of the privatisation + idea of making money off them etc. I could not recall anyone complaining much about the privatisation at the time.

Gregor Samsa wrote: »

Anyone who sold them in the few days after the flotation would have made a bit of money when they reached a high of €4.80 (very few people did so), but everyone else (the vast majority of people - over half a million small investors) lost money once the share price dropped a few days later, and it never recovered to go above what people paid for them in the IPO. Pretty much everyone (as in the general public) lost our on that venture.

Yes I do remember it did not work well at all for most people + share price went down later on.

Hawthorn Tree

jm08 wrote: »

The problem is that they had to put in the meters to discover where the leaks are.

Only partially true. The council have many ways to detect leaks and they know where they have major leaks already. The meters do help in detecting smaller household leaks. If the councils got the billions that the IW setup cost, they would have fixed a lot of leaks and treatment plants. Ireland was losing roughly 40% of drinking water through leaks before IW was even thought of, they have not improved that figure in any substantive way and probably made it worse. Their own numbers don't stack up.

Now, in some other news....

https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-30621776.html

Dublin City Council has reportedly spent €136,000 fixing leaks caused by the installation of water meters.

According to a report in the Irish Times, contractors working for Irish Water have damaged pipes outside one in every 50 homes.

https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-20442858.html

Cork County Council fix 375 leaks at new water meters and replace 80 faulty meter boxes.

The news has led to claims some Irish Water contractors installing the meters and connections to them were guilty of “shoddy” workmanship.

This happened all over Ireland.

Muahahaha

markodaly wrote: »

Bit of an own goal but the mob had to be appeased. Damaging for Brexit for sure, especially the farmers, in fact Justin McCarthy from the Irish Farmers Journal called this a disaster.
Cutting off your nose in spite your face.

The Fine Gael-ness is dripping off this post, the default FG position is always to play the victim and try to shift the blame elsewhere. Just like Phil and his blaming the hotel, the IHF, the HSE regulations and anything else he could grasp onto to avoid taking personal responsibility for his own actions. This is all on him and he talked himself into getting sacked with that car crash interview with Tony Connolly.

If Ireland lose the trade commissioner post then thats on Phil Hogan and Fine Gaal. Leo Varadkar called on him twice to explain his position and he didnt. Nine statements we had from him in total, first they were telling lies by omission and then later statements were just plain outright lies. Phil Hogan did all this to himself, not your imaginary mob who you are now trying to shift the blame to.

Sawduck

Why are people defending him, is Ireland turning into America, where people defend politicians simply because they support that politicalions party?

stockshares

Hawthorn Tree wrote: »

Spot on. How do people forget this stuff? It was and still is a costly scandal. A lot of the dodgy contracts and appointments have never been investigated.
FG felt completely untouchable back then until the people reminded them who they work for. Phil represented that arrogance.

Believe it or not, I was a card carrying member of Fine Gael for over a decade!


But wrong is wrong is wrong. I guess my blinkers fell off.

It seems I am now a Shinnerbot. Only logical explanation for criticising FG.

It was this scandal that set Shane Ross on the road to the Dail.

He lost money in this and questioned them repeatedly at the AGM iirc. I think there's footage on Reeling in the Years of it. He started by attacking Cronies like Spring and O Rourke from his column in the Indo.

Ger Roe

murpho999 wrote: »

I'm all in favour of keeping our politicians to a high standard but I fear that this si turning into something of a witch hunt.

Hayes for example is not a politician anymore, he's now Banking & Payments Federation Ireland CEO. So you want him to resign from that role?

I don't understand the mentality of people complaining about every single politician as it's the Irish people who elected them.

Hayes was doing exactly what the banking fed would expect of him, wining and dining, wheeling and dealing. They will have no issue with that. The actual pertinent question is why was he afforded that opportunity? We were told that the days of the Galway tent privilege of political access and influence, were long gone - it seems not.

The Irish people elected their most recent reps on the assurance that it was a new open and transparent era in politics. FF in particular atoned for their cardinal sins and proclaimed that they had been born again in the blinding light of truth and honesty. Leo and Micheal both have a job to do yet in making that point known to their party members and an even bigger job now in (re)convincing the electorate.

This whole mess has been a bad step back to the old days of cute hoors playing at politics and ignoring the rules.

Hawthorn Tree

ShamNNspace wrote: »

And to cap it all they put that lad Tierney in charge of IW the largest body in the history of the state, a guy who left a trail of destruction and court cases in his wake in his previous roles, and then off he saunters when its all over with more than half a million payment in his pocket, not a bother on him

Correct.

That's how Ireland works. Reward utter incompetence with bigger/better jobs. Tierney's track record was appalling (e.g. Poolbeg incinerator). He got an astronomical pension for years of financial disaster.

1641

People seem to be conflating two things.

Hogan behaved very badly by not isolating properly and by going to the golf event. Even worse was the way he handled in subsequently. He has always come across as arrogant. For his behaviour he deserved to go.

But, leaving personalities and party politics aside, this is definately a big loss for Ireland at this point. He would not have landed the Trade Commissioner job had he not been highly regarded within the Commission. The job is stragetically important to us - particularly as regards Brexit, but aso the US trade talks and trade conflicts.To say it doesn't matter what nationality has the job is rubbish. Sure they represent everyone, but every commissioner is also cognisant of his/her countries national interest. For example, would it matter if we didn't have a commissioner at all and instead there were two French or two Poles?

It is very unlikely our replacement will get the trade job - there will be many jockeying for it now and the boss is likely to want an experienced bod in the role. In the unlikely event we did retain it it would take some weeks for the appointment to be ratified and several for the person to read themselves fully into the role - never mind build up the key personal relationships. Their influence on the Brexit discussions will be minimal, if any at all.

stockshares

Muahahaha wrote: »

The Fine Gael-ness is dripping off this post, the default FG position is always to play the victim and try to shift the blame elsewhere. Just like Phil and his blaming the hotel, the IHF, the HSE regulations and anything else he could grasp onto to avoid taking personal responsibility for his own actions. This is all on him and he talked himself into getting sacked with that car crash interview with Tony Connolly.

If Ireland lose the trade commissioner post then thats on Phil Hogan and Fine Gaal. Leo Varadkar called on him twice to explain his position and he didnt. Nine statements we had from him in total, first they were telling lies by omission and then later statements were just plain outright lies. Phil Hogan did all this to himself, not your imaginary mob who you are now trying to shift the blame to.

It was their(FG) collective stupidity that lost them their man in Brussels not the baying mob.

Ignoring the stupidity and callousness of the individuals who attended, the Party handled it badly after the story broke.