This post has been in draft form for some time but only getting round to posting it now.
Four weeks ago Denis O'Brien, the media and mobile phone tycoon, held a series of interviews with Sunday newspapers. It was a weird situation knowing this fella was talking to three other papers all coming out on same day. My brief was to make sure I got the best line (news angle) from him. "Don't get scooped," basically.
After a bit of probing early in the interview he told me the 1996 license award had been found to be "illegal" and there were 60 findings against him personally. That stood out to me as the best line anyway. Mark Coughlan had a good look at what the other papers reported.
The tribunal had asked that no one report on its provisional findings "while they remained private" but that moratorium effectively ended when the Mail on Sunday and the Village put some of the key findings out there. Then O'Brien decided to get out some of his own bad press. O'Brien is obviously trying to get his retaliation in first but it's unlikely to change Moriarty's mind. He has something else planned too. You wonder what that could be.
We were going to put the transcript of the whole interview online but by the time the lawyers finished with it there wouldn't have been much left.
The tribunal has not looked kindly on these interviews or our report. It seems to think O'Brien has acted illegally in giving the interviews. More on this to come I'm sure.
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Monday, July 20, 2009
IRMS and Bolivia
Recently Jim Farrell, head of IRMS security, gave me a brief interview in Glengad, Co Mayo, where I got a chance to ask him what he knew about so many IRMS staff getting involved in the alleged Evo Morales assassination plot in Bolivia.
Unfortunately he didn't shine too much light on this topic.
Farrell told me that for command and control reasons his staff operated in groups of six. These teams are called Alpha, Bravo etc.
“Close to 100 people lost their job here at the end of last year,” said Farrell. “This is seasonal work. Some fill the gap by going home to see their families in Poland while some do training. Some of Mike’s (Dwyer) group spoke about doing a close-protection course. He was trained as an engineer. So he was more qualified to get other work when that course didn’t work out and he decided to stay (in Bolivia). Who knows what happened then, as we lost all visibility of him when he left us.”
The IRMS boss said it was “unacceptable” that Tibor Revesz, who travelled with Dwyer to Bolivia, had been selling military-like badges commemorating security operations on the Shell project on his personal website. He said Revesz had passed all security and other checks before IRMS employed him. He gave me the impression that Revesz was forced to leave the company over his selling of these badges on his personal website earlier this year. Farrell insisted there was nothing sinister involved.
“We would never allow anyone to wear insignias on the job,” he said. “I think they were trying to create mementos and it was as innocent as that. It was schoolboy stuff but it’s not acceptable.”
There are many unanswered questions about what Dwyer and his friends from IRMS thought they were getting involved with in Bolivia. Edit Toaso, the sister of one of those arrested in the police raid, told me Revesz emailed her to say the group were not in Bolvia to assasinate anyone. There was no cogent explanation of what they were planning though.
She insists the group weren't terrorists but admits she doens't really understand what her brother was doing in Bolivia.
Edit said she was bemused by the portrayal of the Szekler Legion group as right wingers. She said the Legion was more a "survival group" involved in hiking but that explanation doesn't really wash either.
Much has been made of this apparent right-wing link to IRMS by anti-Shell activists. As Michael Clifford in the Sunday Tribune points out much of this is distasteful and jumps to conclusions about Dwyer and others.
Until Revesz or any of the other eastern Europeans involved decide to talk about what they were doing then we are left relying on the Bolivian authorities for any substantial information about their activities South America.
Unfortunately he didn't shine too much light on this topic.
Farrell told me that for command and control reasons his staff operated in groups of six. These teams are called Alpha, Bravo etc.
“Close to 100 people lost their job here at the end of last year,” said Farrell. “This is seasonal work. Some fill the gap by going home to see their families in Poland while some do training. Some of Mike’s (Dwyer) group spoke about doing a close-protection course. He was trained as an engineer. So he was more qualified to get other work when that course didn’t work out and he decided to stay (in Bolivia). Who knows what happened then, as we lost all visibility of him when he left us.”
The IRMS boss said it was “unacceptable” that Tibor Revesz, who travelled with Dwyer to Bolivia, had been selling military-like badges commemorating security operations on the Shell project on his personal website. He said Revesz had passed all security and other checks before IRMS employed him. He gave me the impression that Revesz was forced to leave the company over his selling of these badges on his personal website earlier this year. Farrell insisted there was nothing sinister involved.
“We would never allow anyone to wear insignias on the job,” he said. “I think they were trying to create mementos and it was as innocent as that. It was schoolboy stuff but it’s not acceptable.”
There are many unanswered questions about what Dwyer and his friends from IRMS thought they were getting involved with in Bolivia. Edit Toaso, the sister of one of those arrested in the police raid, told me Revesz emailed her to say the group were not in Bolvia to assasinate anyone. There was no cogent explanation of what they were planning though.
She insists the group weren't terrorists but admits she doens't really understand what her brother was doing in Bolivia.
Edit said she was bemused by the portrayal of the Szekler Legion group as right wingers. She said the Legion was more a "survival group" involved in hiking but that explanation doesn't really wash either.
Much has been made of this apparent right-wing link to IRMS by anti-Shell activists. As Michael Clifford in the Sunday Tribune points out much of this is distasteful and jumps to conclusions about Dwyer and others.
Until Revesz or any of the other eastern Europeans involved decide to talk about what they were doing then we are left relying on the Bolivian authorities for any substantial information about their activities South America.
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Chocolate expenses
It's not quite a duck island but a lawyer working at the Moriarty Tribunal has claimed for a couple of Belgian Chocolates on her state expense account.
Most of the tribunal's expense claims, released through Freedom of Information, were fairly run of the mill but there was another lawyer who claimed for a Toblerone bar. Strangely the Belgian Chocolates were approved but the Toblerone wasn't. A bit of chocolate inequality there.
98FM's Toll Trolls did a funny piece on this story on Tuesday. I'd imagine Denis O'Brien, the station's owner, had a good chuckle over that.
So much so that he has decided to take out a series of newspaper adverts to highlight this story and the high cost of the Moriarty Tribunal.
Two Moriarty tribunal lawyers have already shown to benefit from a typo which has given them €1m extra in salary payments than other tribunal lawyers since 2002.
There are basically two types of tribunal stories. One shows the ridiculous costs of the tribunals to the state. The other variety is on the long awaited findings.
We know already that Moriarty has found against O'Brien, Lowry and the civil servants in his premliminary findings but the whole thing is dragging on, at a cost of over €300,000 per month, as people try and get the judge to change his mind.
Accross Dublin Castle, Judge Alan Mahon, in the planning tribunal, did not make the same committment as Judge Moriarty to give those he made findings against a chance to make submissions on premliminary findings.
Owen O'Callaghan, the developer, is challenging that in the High Court but if he is unsuccssful it looks like Mahon will beat Moriarty to the punch and have his report out by Christmas.
Most of the tribunal's expense claims, released through Freedom of Information, were fairly run of the mill but there was another lawyer who claimed for a Toblerone bar. Strangely the Belgian Chocolates were approved but the Toblerone wasn't. A bit of chocolate inequality there.
98FM's Toll Trolls did a funny piece on this story on Tuesday. I'd imagine Denis O'Brien, the station's owner, had a good chuckle over that.
So much so that he has decided to take out a series of newspaper adverts to highlight this story and the high cost of the Moriarty Tribunal.
Two Moriarty tribunal lawyers have already shown to benefit from a typo which has given them €1m extra in salary payments than other tribunal lawyers since 2002.
There are basically two types of tribunal stories. One shows the ridiculous costs of the tribunals to the state. The other variety is on the long awaited findings.
We know already that Moriarty has found against O'Brien, Lowry and the civil servants in his premliminary findings but the whole thing is dragging on, at a cost of over €300,000 per month, as people try and get the judge to change his mind.
Accross Dublin Castle, Judge Alan Mahon, in the planning tribunal, did not make the same committment as Judge Moriarty to give those he made findings against a chance to make submissions on premliminary findings.
Owen O'Callaghan, the developer, is challenging that in the High Court but if he is unsuccssful it looks like Mahon will beat Moriarty to the punch and have his report out by Christmas.
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Mayo and Shell
I was down in Mayo last week for a focus piece. I got to give the much reviled pipeline a kick on Glengad beach. It's hard to imagine that the fairly thin metal tube coming up that beach is the focus of so much controversy.
I also did an interview with Jim Farrell from IRMS security. Farrell spoke to me about Tibor Revesz, an interesting charachter who is linked with Michael Dwyer, the Tipperary man shot dead in Bolivia last April.
Because of space constraints we didn't get to publish all of Farrell's quotes in the Sunday Times story about Farrell's take on the Pat O'Donnell and Willie Corduff incidents. I'll type up the rest of that interview and post it up here later this week.
I also did an interview with Jim Farrell from IRMS security. Farrell spoke to me about Tibor Revesz, an interesting charachter who is linked with Michael Dwyer, the Tipperary man shot dead in Bolivia last April.
Because of space constraints we didn't get to publish all of Farrell's quotes in the Sunday Times story about Farrell's take on the Pat O'Donnell and Willie Corduff incidents. I'll type up the rest of that interview and post it up here later this week.
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
The scoop that never was
Freedom of Information (FOI) requests require journalists to be very careful with the question they ask if they want to get something useful back.
If there is a hint of ambiguity in the request you'll get a load of bland policy documents and emails back but definitely not what you were looking for.
FOIs are a useful tool for journalists but sometimes even asking the right question isn't enough. After the judges and Revenue agreed to establish a voluntary pension levy scheme last May 1st I decided to wait three weeks before sending in an FOI.
I asked for all documents to do with the establishment of the scheme and how many judges had signed up.
After four weeks the Revenue package arrived with the responses to my questions. Unfortunately the way the system works means the FOI response only covers information held up to the date the request is received. So four weeks later when the reply is issued the information is a month out-of-date.
Revenue decided they couldn't have out-of-date information on the sensitive issue of the judges' pension levy going out so its press office issued a general press release stating that 19 judges had signed up for the levy - a whole 10 greater than had volunteered to sign up when my FOI went in.
Needless to say that buggered any chance of an exclusive on the figures from the FOI. The Revenue documents did reveal exactly how much the judges are required to pay along with some other interesting detail.
I didn't know judges are exempt from making PRSI payments for instance.
Thanks to a request from the Chief Justice the voluntary system includes a "reminder" for those judges who forget to pay up.
One email shows a High Court judge, despite the apparent apathy from his colleagues, decided to hand over a lump sum of €10,620.61 (a year's worth of levy) just over a week after the system was established. (Although he managed to underpay by 1 cent!)
Another email from a Supreme Court judge shows even the highest judges in the land don't understand the Irish tax system. The judge sent an email saying Revenue's "ready reckoner" figures were all wrong. Except they weren't.
Let's hope that judge doesn't have too many cases on tax law to adjudicate on.
If there is a hint of ambiguity in the request you'll get a load of bland policy documents and emails back but definitely not what you were looking for.
FOIs are a useful tool for journalists but sometimes even asking the right question isn't enough. After the judges and Revenue agreed to establish a voluntary pension levy scheme last May 1st I decided to wait three weeks before sending in an FOI.
I asked for all documents to do with the establishment of the scheme and how many judges had signed up.
After four weeks the Revenue package arrived with the responses to my questions. Unfortunately the way the system works means the FOI response only covers information held up to the date the request is received. So four weeks later when the reply is issued the information is a month out-of-date.
Revenue decided they couldn't have out-of-date information on the sensitive issue of the judges' pension levy going out so its press office issued a general press release stating that 19 judges had signed up for the levy - a whole 10 greater than had volunteered to sign up when my FOI went in.
Needless to say that buggered any chance of an exclusive on the figures from the FOI. The Revenue documents did reveal exactly how much the judges are required to pay along with some other interesting detail.
I didn't know judges are exempt from making PRSI payments for instance.
Thanks to a request from the Chief Justice the voluntary system includes a "reminder" for those judges who forget to pay up.
One email shows a High Court judge, despite the apparent apathy from his colleagues, decided to hand over a lump sum of €10,620.61 (a year's worth of levy) just over a week after the system was established. (Although he managed to underpay by 1 cent!)
Another email from a Supreme Court judge shows even the highest judges in the land don't understand the Irish tax system. The judge sent an email saying Revenue's "ready reckoner" figures were all wrong. Except they weren't.
Let's hope that judge doesn't have too many cases on tax law to adjudicate on.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
