Ivor Callely

I had not known this bit. It changes my attitude to sympathy for him.
But these are the reasons he should have gone to jail, not because he was a politician and a not very nice person.

Breach of trust

When Judge [broken link removed] sent the former junior minister and senator down for five months, it wasn’t the piffling four grand he diddled from the State that did for Ivor, but rather the “significant breach of trust” that had been placed in him as a public representative.This case has been going on for years, but Callely didn’t admit his guilt until he was in court in March. He maintained his innocence up until then, lying to the Garda and to the Standards in Public Office Commission in the process.
When he did come clean, noted the judge, the defendant didn’t give the court any explanation for his actions apart from “an excuse of entitlement to the monies.”
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Sunny said:
I think Purple was pointing out the irony (probably not the right word!) of the situation....
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Yes, that was my point. I'm glad Callely got a custodial sentence but I am amazed and sickened that Mick Wallace is in Leinster House and not in prison.
In my opinion he is the worst example of a TD, and as a TD, that we've ever had.
 
Purple said:
Yes, that was my point. I'm glad Callely got a custodial sentence but I am amazed and sickened that Mick Wallace is in Leinster House and not in prison.
In my opinion he is the worst example of a TD, and as a TD, that we've ever had.
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Wallace definitely has his faults alright, but in my view he has largely redeemed himself by being instrumental in bringing down Shatter, now there was the worst example of a minister for justice we've ever had.
 
blueband said:
Wallace definitely has his faults alright, but in my view he has largely redeemed himself by being instrumental in bringing down Shatter, now there was the worst example of a minister for justice we've ever had.
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Really? What did Shatter do that was worse than tax evasion, taking money from his employees that should have gone into their pensions, gifting a half million euro villa in order to avoid creditors and burning small suppliers to the tune of hundreds of thousands of Euro?
Shatter was and probably still is an arrogant man who abused his power for petty political purposes but he was an excellent legislator and a social liberal in a conservative centre right party.
 
TarfHead said:
Ask your parents about a certain Fianna Fail TD who held that office in the 1980s. :rolleyes:
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fair point, and im old enough to remember that, so I guess it only makes him the worst minister for justice in over thirty years, my apologies..
 
Worse than Brendan Smith, Brian Lenihan, Dermot Ahern, John O'Donoghue, Padraig Flynn, Nora Owen, Michael Mc Dowell and Maire Geoghegan Quinn? Hmmmmmmm
 
Sunny said:
Worse than Brendan Smith, Brian Lenihan, Dermot Ahern, John O'Donoghue, Padraig Flynn, Nora Owen, Michael Mc Dowell and Maire Geoghegan Quinn? Hmmmmmmm
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Maire Geoghegan Quinn did some good work but then again so did Shatter.
I can't see any way it could be said that Smith, O'Donoghue or Flynn were better than Shatter. The rest had their good and bad points.
 
Purple said:
Really? What did Shatter do that was worse than tax evasion, taking money from his employees that should have gone into their pensions, gifting a half million euro villa in order to avoid creditors and burning small suppliers to the tune of hundreds of thousands of Euro?
Shatter was and probably still is an arrogant man who abused his power for petty political purposes but he was an excellent legislator and a social liberal in a conservative centre right party.
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Excellent post, very well put.
 
To be fair to Brendan Smith, he was Minister for Justice for only a few weeks in the dying days of the Cowen adminstration, and would never have had a chance to do anything of note in the role.
 
Purple said:
What did Shatter do that was worse than tax evasion, taking money from his employees that should have gone into their pensions, gifting a half million euro villa in order to avoid creditors and burning small suppliers to the tune of hundreds of thousands of Euro?
Shatter was and probably still is an arrogant man who abused his power for petty political purposes but he was an excellent legislator and a social liberal in a conservative centre right party.
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Shatter abused his office, that is worse than tax evasion etc surely? He also did not act correctly in relation to the whisleblowers, the bugging of GSOC is still not clear to me, and his department, of which he was supposed to be in charge sounds to be in total disarry.

I agree he was socially liberal.

Disagree that he was an excellent legislation as the Insolvency legislation is already known to be flawed.
 
Ivor being discussed now on Joe Duffy.....Joe's being talking to the locals in Clontarf and mostly the feeling is sympathy for Ivor and they feel his sentence and being sent to Muntjoy was too harsh
 
Bronte said:
Shatter abused his office, that is worse than tax evasion etc surely? He also did not act correctly in relation to the whisleblowers, the bugging of GSOC is still not clear to me, and his department, of which he was supposed to be in charge sounds to be in total disarry.
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The extent to which a Minister abuses their office determines how their misdemeanours compare to other crimes. While the full story on Shatter's tenure and resignation remains yet to become clear, the fact remains that there is no evidence that Shatter benefitted financially from any decision or action he took while Minister, while Wallace has definitely benefitted financially from some of his more contentious actions.


Bronte said:
I agree he was socially liberal.
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Being socially liberal is an outlook. It is not a virtue any more than being a conservative should be seen as a virtue.

Bronte said:
Disagree that he was an excellent legislation as the Insolvency legislation is already known to be flawed.
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The Insolvency Service fiasco was patently clear to anyone who studied the legislation in any detail. How much this folly is attributable to Shatter is debatable as it followed the same general template as each major State quango that has been established in the past 5-10 years.
 
blueband said:
Wallace definitely has his faults alright, but in my view he has largely redeemed himself by being instrumental in bringing down Shatter, now there was the worst example of a minister for justice we've ever had.
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I would be more impressed by Wallace if he paid back his debts to the Revenue.
 
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