Stringfellow, Mcdowell and An Garda Siochana
Vincent Browne on Peter Stringfellow, tax exiles, Mcdowell and An Garda Siochana, ebay, and this week's events.
Stringfellow
Peter Stringfellow maintains faith in the sexual adventurousness of Irish people, despite the closure of his multimillion euro lapdancing club on Parnell Street only six months after its opening.
"I'm not going to judge Ireland on the basis of some people carrying placards," Stringfellow said from his yacht in Ibiza on 19 July. Commenting on the protestors who set up camp outside his club he said: "I noticed that when Eastenders was on, all of the protesters would go home. These are the people watching the raciest programmes on Channel 4 and protesting against me four nights a week.
"There's two Irelands if you ask me. A younger, more-European-minded Ireland who spent lots of money and had a ball at my place, and there's old Ireland, religious Ireland, the people carrying those placards. The only people in Ireland I didn't get on with, in fact."
Stringfellow, who licenced the club and chose its dancers, described the closure as a "major disappointment" and blamed its failure on "under-capitalisation" by its managing company, Sabley Taverns Ltd. "With all the negative publicity, a major investment didn't come in and that was that."
Stringfellow said the club's location on Parnell Street "might have played some part" in its failure to attract Dublin's big-spending corporate sector, but he had choice words for the local people who maintained a protest four nights a week.
"When there's a drug den or a down-market establishment or a brothel in their neighbourhood they leave it alone, but when it's Peter Stringfellow they get out their placards," Stringfellow said.
He described Stringfellows "as the most beautiful club ever built in Dublin". But Stringfellow insists he "loves Dublin and does not feel personally rejected by Dublin". He has not ruled out opening another establishment here at a future date.
Donald Mahoney
High flyers' tax bill could be huge
A significant number of hugely wealthy Irish people, who claim residency abroad for tax purposes, escape all liability for income tax here. These people can come in and out of Ireland on private aircraft and there is scepticism that any body is in a position to say how long they spend here and if they are indeed entitled to non-residency status for tax purposes.
Brian Cowen was asked about this in the Dáil on 7 July last and he said: "I am informed by the Revenue Commission that in the context of implementing import controls, Revenue's Customs Service monitors all flights and passengers, including passengers in private aircraft, coming into the country through Dublin Airport. This monitoring is done on the basis of risk analysis.
"In relation to the monitoring by Revenue of days spent in Ireland by individuals with an Irish domicile who claim non-resident status for tax purposes, the High Wealth Individual's unit of Revenue's Large Cases division have monitored a number of such cases, as part of their 2005 audit programme, for compliance with the statutory residence rules. I am advised that part of that exercise involved checking certain data available to Revenue in relation to the movements of private aircraft."
Translation: The Revenue Commissioners have no idea about the movement in and out of the country of these High Wealth Individuals and no idea, therefore, whether they are entitled to escape paying what would otherwise be huge amounts in income and other taxes.
McDowell's game playing
The number of gardaí could be increased at a stroke if an obvious reform were instituted on the retirement age of members of the force. At present members of ranks in the Garda Síochána, up to and including inspector, who were recruited to the force prior to 1 April 2004, must retire at 57 years of age. Members recruited after that date may serve until 60. Since nobody recruited after 1 April 2004 is eligible for retirement, the effective compulsory retirement age is 57. Since, clearly, there is no policy objection to extending the retirement age to 60, why is that not extended to all gardaí on a voluntary basis, thereby increasing the number of serving members by potentially 600 every year for 3 years – ie 1,800. No training time-lag, no additional training costs. At once nearly 2,000 extra experienced trained gardaí. What's the issue here, except that Michael McDowell is keeping this as a bargaining chip on the Garda Reserve. He says: "I see merit in considering an increase in the retirement age of pre-2004 members of garda, sergeant and inspector ranks from 57 to 60 to facilitate the supervision and mentoring of reserve members by members of those ranks." So an increase in the garda force by up to 600 per year is held-up because Michael McDowell wants to play games?
McDowell's inflated ego strikes again
Michael McDowell's claims to tower over his contemporaries in terms of contribution to national life centres very much on the introduction of a Garda Ombudsman Commission, which, incidentally, was first proposed by his predecessor, John O'Donoghue.
The Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commissioners were appointed by the president on 10 February 2006. Now, five months later, apparently the commission is in a preparatory stage. The commissioners – Kevin Haughey, Carmel Foley and Conor Brady – have visited their counterparts in Northern Ireland and the UK and had initial meetings with the outgoing Garda complaints board, Garda management, the Garda representative bodies and officials of the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform.
The staff of the outgoing Garda Complaints Board are coming over en bloc but there seems to be a hiatus over the appointment of other staff. The board said there are "ongoing contacts between the commissioners, my department and the Department of Finance in regard to staffing matters". There is no prospect the commission will be able to start its work until into 2007.
What you can buy on eBay this week:
A cursed jar: starting bid $6.66
eBay item no 110010118148
The owner of the jar claims his life has been miserable since coming into its possession. He wants it "OUT OF HIS HOUSE". There's a piece of parchment paper from 1815 inside the jar; to see what's written on it and why the owner's life "is a train wreck", bidders must watch the auction until the very end. If you don't believe it's cursed, says e8aynonceleb, "be the idiot that bids".
Nicola Reddy
Bouncers in the Blaskets
Tourists visiting the Blasket Islands in mid-July were again greeted by bouncers hired by local landowners to keep the visitors away. In July last year, tourists were prevented from walking upon the Great Blasket by "four burly security men". Only passengers brought out on the 'Peg Sayers' ferry, owned by An Blascaod Mór Teo (BMT), were allowed to alight.
In 1989, Charles Haughey, as Minister for the Gaeltacht, introduced An Blascaod Mór National Parks Act, allowing compulsory purchase of land for park development. Then in February 1998 BMT, the company consisting of the four main Blasket landowners, won a High Court action against the government's compulsory purchase order, claiming the act was unconstitutional.
On 8 July 2005, Dick Roche announced that agreement had been reached between the Office of Public Works (OPW) and BMT to purchase the land.
Despite Dick Roche's reassurances, in November 2005 the agreement between OPW and BMT became seriously compromised when An Bord Pleanála denied BMT permission for a new a services building on the island.
On 7 July 2006 the deadline for the OPW offer passed without uptake from the majority landowners. The OPW decided to extend it by a further two weeks to allow BMT to reply. But this July, tourists were again greeted by security men dressed in the regulation black and white when they arrived at the Great Blasket. The deadline for the extension expires on 21 July.
Jessie Collins
Almost all reported crime is small-time
Michael McDowell recently published the crime statistics for "headline crime" for the second quarter of 2006. He made a big deal of a fall of one per cent in reported "headline crime" in the second quarter as compared with the same quarter of 2005 (ie April to June), and an eight per cent drop in the crime figures between the first and second quarters in 2006, when, in reality, the changes were of no significance.
Of special insignificance was the reported drop in sexual crimes. McDowell was said to have "welcomed the continuing overall reduction in the five categories of sexual crime, of 28 per cent for the quarter and one per cent for the twelve months". Surely willful misrepresentation of the incidence of sexual crime, since it is well know the proportion of reported sexual crime is a small fraction of the incidence of sexual crime.
What is of most significance here is that the vast majority of "headline crimes" – 80 per cent - are small-time crimes: theft from the person, theft from cars, theft from shops, theft of bicycles, thefts generally, burglary. These are all crime that aggravate the victim but as compared with other criminality they are not significant crimes. Almost certainly the incidence of sexual crime is far in excess of the reported incidence of all criminality but nobody wants to confront that.
Events
20 July Critical Voices discussion, Galway www.criticalvoices.ie, www.galwayartsfestival.com
Mark Ravenhill, theatre director in public discussion with John Deeney at Druid Theatre
21-23 July Inishowen Summer Gathering, Co Donegal www.inishowensum mergathering.com
Music, dance, children's events, eco-talks and workshops
21-23 July Dublin Bicycle Festival www.dublinbicyclefestival.org
Tall Bikes, photography, city cycles, discussions, picnic , music
21-30 July Feile Iorras, Co Mayo www.feileiorras.org
International folk arts events, workshops in dance, film and music
21-28 July Boyle Arts Festival,
Co Roscommon www.boylearts.com Visual Arts festival, with classical musical events, theatre and comedy
22 July World Routes, National Concert Hall and Iveagh Gardens www.nch.ie
Toumani Diabate and his Symmetric Orchestra and the US Jazz trio The Bad Plus
22 July Vibes & Scribes Lee Swim, Cork www.corkmasters.ie
2km swim for all levels through the centre of Cork, starting from the Distillery Yard, North Mall