On Returning

I returned at last,
not understanding why,
to the place of hard days
lost, altered, angry,
splintered times.
Memories frozen.
This was never home
or a harbour shining
through the mist.
Now I take comfort in
the twilight of shadows.

Can Anyone Explain This?

In a letter (circa 1940s) to the Religious Order managing [an Institution] the Education Minister states that [he] is ….

quote:gravely concerned at the evidence which has been reaching him for a considerable time of the malnutrition of children in [the Institutions], particularly those for girls and junior boys.

The letter meanders a bit but then goes on to propose to have a course in institutional management and goes on to describe the course:

quote:It would deal with the fundamentals of institutional cookery as applied to industrial school needs. Practical training in essential {processes} and dishes would be given and particular attention would be paid to methods of serving large quantities of food. There would also be lectures on the economic planning of menus in accordance with dietetic needs, on costing, storage, and preparation of foodstuffs. In addition, the Department’s Medical Inspector would avail of the opportunity to give some lectures on balance in diet, hygiene, etc,.

The 3 main points of contention were;

(1) Inability to provide adequate quantities of food;
(2) Failure to do so owing to parsimony; and
(3) Failure to provide a properly balanced diet (even when the quantity is adequate) owing to lack of training in the management of institutions for children and ignorance of fundamental dietetic principles.

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

This letter was sent to a Religious Order that owned and managed:
1. Hospitals
2. National Schools
3. Secondary Schools
4. Boarding Schools

In addition to owning & managing the above they also owned & managed:
1. Magdalene Laundries
2. Mother & Baby Homes
3. Industrial Schools

Yet it was only with the pregnant women, pregnant children, babies, infants & children in the second list that this particular Religious Order had a ‘problem‘ that required an Institutional Management Course.

Can anyone explain this?  

The Black Edge

The Black Edge

Sinister and cloying
near the light
untransformed fear
near the light
Intenseness!
near the light

And in the dark
the fuminous dark
the poisonous dark
the graves exhumed

the devil must rise
defiant
blurring at the edges
no words left

and in the dark
how long the victims
asked away
within the ground
within the dark

those opaque hungry souls
unlearning the past
and all these wounds
now so near the light.

I waited
under the tree
in its speckled shade.
where figures danced
and were consumed
only to reappear again.
different and the same.

I sat for a while
resting my back
against the bark
of the ancient oak
yielding to its strength
its aloneness

It waits too.

 

Fund ‘abandoned’ thousands of victims

A state agency responsible for paying redress to survivors of institutional abuse has been accused of acting beyond its authority by incorrectly sending letters to thousands of people telling them that their case was closed. The victims which Caranua was set up to help have accused it of substantial failings in submissions sent by their representatives to the Oireachtas education committee.

In the documents, seen by The Times, Caranua is accused of misleading survivors and warning them that they could be reported to the gardaí for fraud. It is also accused of causing them to miss medical appointments by failing to send cheques in time. Catherine Connolly, the independent TD and member of the Dáil’s spending watchdog, told The Times that she had lost all confidence in the agency.

“I believe it is completely not fit for purpose. I am horrified at the way survivors are being treated and I think the management of Caranua have serious questions to answer,” Ms Connolly said.

The agency, which was set up to divide a €110 million redress fund between survivors of institutional abuse, accepted last September that it was wrong to send the letters to 2,500 victims but has since done nothing to rectify the error. Board records show that Caranua had also considered stopping its outreach events — public meetings with survivors of abuse — if they continued to show what it claimed was “aggression” towards Mary Higgins, its chief executive. When the Dáil’s Public Accounts Committee requested a copy of minutes from the same meeting, the reference to cancelling public meetings was not included.

In 2015, the agency noticed that it had already spent €25 million of its €110 million fund by allocating large amounts to a small number of survivors. It has now emerged that in July and November of that year it wrote to survivors, many of whom were still waiting for payments, and told them that their case was closed. The letter stated that Caranua would be prioritising first-time applicants.

The victims which Caranua was set up to help have accused it of substantial failings in submissions sent by their representatives to the Oireachtas education committee. In the documents, seen by The Times, Caranua is accused of misleading survivors and warning them that they could be reported to the gardaí for fraud. It is also accused of causing them to miss medical appointments by failing to send cheques in time.

Catherine Connolly, the independent TD and member of the Dáil’s spending watchdog, told The Times she had now lost all confidence in the agency. “I believe it is completely not fit for purpose. I am horrified at the way survivors are being treated and I think the management of Caranua have serious questions to answer,” Ms Connolly said.

The agency, which was set up to divide a €110 million redress fund between survivors of institutional abuse, accepted in September 2016 that it was wrong to send the letters to 2,500 victims but has since done nothing to rectify the error. Board records show Caranua had also considered stopping its outreach events — public meetings with survivors of abuse — if they continued to show what Caranua claimed was “aggression” towards Ms Higgins. When the Dáil’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) requested a copy of minutes from the same meeting, the reference to cancelling public meetings was not included.

A submission to the committee by Fionna Fox, a solicitor representing 40 survivors who are experiencing difficulties with Caranua, claimed that it was acting beyond its authority in prioritising new cases and discarding older ones. “This is a serious matter affecting a huge number of applicants,” Ms Fox said. She added that Caranua had not attempted to remedy the situation and that the Department of Education had been informed of the issue.

Caranua did not comment on the letters or its failure to write back to all the survivors. The agency’s appeals officer opened an investigation into the letters and sought a meeting with Ms Higgins over the matter. The Times has seen agency correspondence in which the appeals officer was told that the letters were an “oversight”. There was no promise to write to the applicants affected to put the matter straight.

Anne Marie Crean, an advocate for survivors and academic based in Cork, told the PAC that dealing with Caranua had been difficult for many survivors. “The Caranua experience has been mostly negative and at times detrimental to their overall health,” she said.

In June Caranua imposed a €15,000 limit on payouts to guarantee the fund’s “sustainability”. It said that the new limit would apply to applications from June 1 last year, but that applicants who had submitted before the deadline could choose to have their payouts limited. This newspaper has seen evidence that Caranua was attempting to impose the limit retrospectively on unresolved applications received well before the deadline. “The changed amount allotment to €15,000 has created a sense of wrongdoing, injustice and disgust. It has had a profound negative impact on many survivors,” Ms Crean said.

In many cases, survivors were phoned by Caranua and told their application had been refused. As the refusal was never put in writing, it could not be appealed. Last year Caranua changed its criteria booklet. It removed references to “togetherness,” “respect” and “empower” and instead created a new section dedicated to “fraud or false information”. “This section discusses the reporting of suspected fraud to the gardaí as well as the disqualification from receipt of further supports. This, rightly so, has been taken as a direct threat by a number of survivors,” Ms Crean said.

Both submissions to the committee noted the impact of delays on survivors. Several survivors reported having to cancel medical consultations because they had not received their cheques in time. The revelations follow reports in The Times that Caranua had used €2 million of its redress fund to pay agency staff and almost €100,000 of an expected €800,000 to a counselling service run by the Catholic Church. It had also used the victims’ money to redecorate its office despite knowing that it was shortly going to move premises. At least €820,000 of the fund will be spent on the new offices, including parking spaces for its staff in Dublin city centre.

Caranua was set up to distribute money provided by religious orders to survivors of abuse at industrial schools. They can apply for financial help based on their health, housing or educational needs. It has been operating without a board of management since March. The public accounts committee has heavily criticised the agency over a lack of financial control and it only hired a financial adviser last summer despite operating since 2014.

The Times has spoken to several board members who raised concerns that the minutes for certain Caranua meetings did not accurately reflect what had been discussed. In some cases, two different sets of minutes are available for the same meeting. The minutes given to the Oireachtas public accounts committee for April 22 last year stated that “it was felt there was a higher level of aggression from survivors directed towards the CEO than at previous outreach events” and that this should be reviewed.

The original minutes, posted by Caranua online, stated that “the aggression at outreach events is not acceptable and that they should be discontinued if this is the general experience”.

Caranua did not comment on claims that its board meeting minutes were inaccurate. In its response, it said it welcomed feedback and defended its work for survivors. “Caranua is committed to putting the needs of applicants at the heart of everything we do and to taking a flexible approach to the interpretation of our guidelines in order to maximise our responsiveness,” a spokeswoman said.

The Insolence of a Child

A DAY IN THE LIFE 1958 : There is nothing these nuns hate more than the insolence of a child. Over their CHILD GULAG they had a Latin phrase which translated meant: I WILL TEACH YOU THE FEAR OF THE LORD. Of course all that Latin bullshit was beyond me as a five year old – well most of it – the bit that I could grasp told me that this Lord was a bullshit artist. I mean how could a child be expected to say a prayer before a meal which consisted of slop – green mash, GREEN FUCKING MASH!!! and these fucking nuns wanted me to say THANKS TO THE LORD for it!!!

NO WAY – I’d quickly say PRAYERS for the food them fucking nuns were having but not for the slimy slop THEY were dishing up to me. At my first opportunity I broke into their kitchens (yes kitchens) and stole a huge can of beans – now we’re talking huge here because this can was of catering size and by God a catering can of beans in the hands of a five year old is some big bazooka of a bean feast. Being five of course I didn’t have the sense to also steal a fucking TIN OPENER; So I went from hero to zero in about 10 seconds flat in the eyes of me other starving chum – but necessity being the mammy of intervention we took turns in jumping on this can until it was almost squashed as flat as a pancake – not really true that but you know what I mean. The can was all crumpled and was actually beginning to leak out some of it’s luscious tomato sauce. We sucked away at it till one of us had the really brill idea of dropping the can from the top of the fire-escape stairs.

By gum that worked a treat for the can exploded magnificently. Beans explode all around the place and DID WE FEAST? You bet WE DID. Of course our little adventure didn’t go unnoticed by the nuns and when we heard one of them screaming at us we took off to hide. But me being me I wanted as much of the beans as I could fit into me little belly (I mean I might not get another chance at such exotic food for a long time) and I continued to stuff the beans into me mouth and me pockets, me socks and wherever I could fit them. Naturally the nun caught me and asked WHAT ON EARTH ARE YOU DOING? I replied honestly (I did, I did) that I was EATING and as I said earlier Nuns just don’t like insolence in a child so she battered me to Hell and gone, I was laid up in bed for about a month after that.

What the fuck did these nuns expect from someone they called the spawn of the devil?

ARCHIVES: Secret deal to protect Anglo Irish Bank, writes SIMON CARSWELL

ANALYSIS : Taxpayers are facing a loss of €300m over the secret deal to protect Anglo Irish Bank, writes SIMON CARSWELL

WHAT STARTED as an attempt to protect Anglo Irish Bank and its volatile share price at a time of severe financial instability has ended with taxpayers facing a potential loss of €300 million on a secret deal involving 10 of the bank’s wealthiest customers. Following heavy falls in the bank’s stock over the St Patrick’s Day weekend last year, the Financial Regulator pressed Anglo Irish to change how its biggest investor held his interest in the bank. Businessman Seán Quinn held an indirect stake of 25 per cent which had left the bank exposed to short sellers who were making big money betting on the stock falling in value amid the uncertainty surrounding Anglo’s stability. Quinn agreed to change his interest in the bank but only took a direct shareholding of 15 per cent. This left Anglo with a 10 per cent stake which if sold on the market over a short period would lead to a collapse in the bank’s share price.

This had to be avoided at all costs given how the dramatic declines in the stock in March 2008 had raised wider concerns and led to substantial withdrawals.

Senior Anglo executives assembled a group of 10 long-standing clients of the bank who would buy the 10 per cent stake remaining following the unwinding of Quinn’s indirect position in the bank. The bank agreed to lend the money to the customers and agreed that only 25 per cent of the borrowings would be recourse, meaning that the borrowers would only be held personally liable for a quarter of the loans. The remaining 75 per cent was “non-recourse”, meaning it was secured on the shares. The transaction was completed in June and Quinn announced the following month that he had unwound his indirect interest in the bank through contracts for difference (CFDs), a type of share derivative, and taken a direct shareholding of 15 per cent.

Fast forward six months and following a series of controversies, the Government decided to take the bank into State ownership in mid-January 2009.

This effectively made the bank’s shares worthless.

The following month the bank said it was taking a bad debt charge of about €300 million against the loans to the 10 clients due to “the permanent diminution in the value of the bank’s share price following nationalisation”. Anglo documents – seen by The Irish Times – show that just before the bank’s nationalisation the 10 customers owed amounts ranging from €9.7 million to €56.5 million. These were listed in Anglo’s records for December 2008. The bank described the loans as “personal” in its records and noted that the value of the security backing the loans had declined, referring to the value of the shares supporting some of the loans. The State-owned bank has said it intends to recover as much of the loans as possible. A spokesman for the Department of Finance said that it supported the bank’s “efforts to recover all debts”. Anglo Irish Bank’s records list the identities of the customers and their outstanding loans at December 2008.

The Irish Times can confirm the names of the Anglo 10 today; the individual debts owing at the start of this year are also outlined here.

1 Jerry Conlan (Mount Carmel Health Group) €56.5 million – MR CONLAN, a property developer and large-scale investor in healthcare, is best known for his sale of a large tract of land known as Millennium Business Park, which he co-owned, next to the M7 motorway in Naas, Co Kildare. The 400-acre landholding was sold for €320 million in 2006, making it one of the largest land purchases of the recent Celtic Tiger era.Living in Naas, Co Kildare, Mr Conlan established the Mount Carmel Medical Group, which owns a maternity hospital in Rathfarnham, south Dublin; Aut Even Hospital in Kilkenny and St Joseph’s Hospital in Sligo.Mount Carmel was one of the groups appointed by the health service to build private hospitals on the grounds of public hospitals as part of the Government’s “co-location” strategy.

2 Patrick Kearney (PBN Property) €46.6 million PATRICK KEARNEY, whose investment in the Anglo Irish Bank share deal was a personal transaction, is one of the largest property developers in Northern Ireland through a number of companies. Based in Gibraltar, Mr Kearney is most prominently involved in the Belfast-based business, PBN Property, with a number of partners. The company, which specialises in commercial and residential development, owns Carryduff shopping centre in Belfast, the Clarion Hotel in Carrickfergus and The Shore, a 110-acre development site, also in Carrickfergus. PBN is also developing shopping centres and retail parks in Glasgow, Middlesbrough and Eccles in England. The company was established by Mr Kearney with Neil Adair, a former regional director of Anglo Irish Bank in Belfast, and businessman Brian McConville. Neither Mr Adair nor Mr McConville are involved in Mr Kearney’s investment in Anglo’s shares.

3 Seamus Ross (Menolly Homes) €46.4 million Mr Ross is the principal behind Menolly Homes, which is one of the largest housebuilders in the country and thought to be the biggest in Dublin. The company has built more than 20,000 properties since it was established 30 years ago, including large housing estates in Lucan, Blanchardstown and Kinsealy in Co Dublin. The company had an estimated turnover of €250 million in 2006, a year that marked the height of the decade-long property boom. Mr Ross has diversified into hotel development and the Menolly Group’s properties include Dunboyne Castle in Co Meath and the trendy Dylan hotel, located near Baggot Street in Dublin. Menolly has been involved in a long-running dispute with construction materials’ providers Irish Asphalt and the Lagan Group over the use of pyrite, a substance found in infill building material that can cause walls to crack.

4 Gerry Gannon (Gannon Homes)

€46.4 million

GERRY GANNON is well known as a co-owner of the K Club golf resort at Straffan, Co Kildare, with businessman Michael Smurfit. The two men acquired the resort for €115 million in 2005 from the then Jefferson Smurfit Group.

However, Gannon is best known as a builder and property developer through his company Gannon Homes which he founded in 1984 and developed by building small residential projects in north Co Wicklow and on the outskirts of Dublin.

Originally from Co Roscommon, Mr Gannon has been an active developer in north Co Dublin, building schemes in Malahide and Swords.

He acquired the 200-acre Belcamp College site in Dublin in 2004 for €105 million. He was also behind the Robswall development in Malahide and the Capital North project in Dublin 13.

Mr Gannon is a substantial investor in property. In 2006 he acquired 12 Allied Irish Banks branches for about €100 million.

5 Joe O’Reilly (Castlethorn Construction)

€43.4 million

JOE O’REILLY’S best-known investment is the Dundrum Town Centre in Dublin, the largest shopping centres in the country.

Originally from Longford, Mr O’Reilly is the principal behind Castlethorn Construction, which is involved in the development of Adamstown in west Dublin.

The company, which is most active on development in the Greater Dublin Area, acquired the

20-acre site on which the Dundrum Town Centre stands in mid-1990s for a sum of about €10.2 million.

Among the company’s most prominent residential developments are Avoca and Carysfort in Blackrock, Dublin, Rathborne at Ashtown near the M50, Belarmine at Stepaside

in south Dublin, and Woodbrook in Castleknock, west Dublin.

The most recent Castlethorn property scheme to come on to the market are houses on the Killeen Castle golf estate in Co Meath.

6 Brian O’Farrell (N1 Property Developments)

€41 million

AN AUCTIONEER and developer based in north Dublin, Brian O’Farrell is the owner of the Northside shopping centre in Coolock and the founder of the auctioneering firm, O’Farrell Cleere, which is based in Malahide, Co Dublin.

Mr O’Farrell has planned to build a much larger shopping complex on the site of the Northside centre. His company, N1 Property Developments, is looking to demolish the 37-year- old centre in Coolock and build a 800,000sq ft complex in a €1 billion redevelopment.

Last year Mr O’Farrell paid Treasury Holdings, the development company owned by Johnny Ronan and Richard Barrett, and AIB Investment Managers €100 million to resolve a dispute over the ownership of the property.

O’Farrell Cleere is selling the home of former Anglo Irish Bank chief executive David Drumm on the exclusive Abington estate in Malahide.

7 Paddy McKillen (Developer, businessman)

€38.9 million

BELFAST-BORN entrepreneur Paddy McKillen is best known for his redevelopment of the former hospital on Jervis Street into one of Dublin’s busiest shopping centres. He co-owns the centre with businessman Pádraig Drayne.

He has also been involved in property partnerships with businessmen Ronnie Delany, Liam Cunningham and Paul McGlade and solicitor Ivor Fitzpatrick.

Mr McKillen moved to Dublin after leaving school to work in the family business, DC Exhausts, before moving into other areas of business such as clothing.

He has worked with Johnny Ronan of Treasury Holdings developing the Temple Bar Hotel, the Treasury Building and the Pepper Canister office block in Dublin. He also invested in a number of retail and restaurant ventures including the Wagamama in Dublin. He has invested overseas in businesses in Vietnam and owns a vineyard in France, which he is redeveloping.

8 Gerry Maguire (Parolen)

€31.7 million

GERRY MAGUIRE is the property developer behind the Laurence Town Centre in Drogheda, where tenants include retailers Marks & Spencer and Boots, and Carroll village in Dundalk, Co Louth.

Mr Maguire’s main development company, Parolen, had work-in-progress projects valued at €93 million at the end of March 2008, up from €79 million a year earlier, according to public accounts filed by the business.

The company had retained losses of €4.2 million at March 2008.

Another of Mr Maguire’s firms, Parolen Group (Holdings), had investments valued at €7 million at the end of March 2008.

The company is a substantial borrower with Anglo Irish Bank for its various property development and investment projects.

Efforts to contact Mr Maguire for comment on his investment in the Anglo Irish Bank share deal proved to be unsuccessful yesterday.

9 John McCabe (McCabe Builders)

€31.6 million

FOUNDED IN 1972 by John and Mary McCabe, the building company that bears their name is one of the largest in Leinster.

McCabe Builders has worked on a number of major developments, including the Heritage Centre in the Phoenix Park, the €12.5 million Ardmore Hotel in Dublin and the Marriott Hotel in Ashbourne, Co Meath.

Mr McCabe more recently become involved in backing a development project in Sarasota, Florida, led by businessman Paddy Kelly, another substantial borrower from Anglo Irish Bank.

John Walsh, a long-time investment partner of Mr Kelly, was also involved in the project.

The main bankers to the Tallaght-based McCabe Builders ware Allied Irish Banks (AIB) and Anglo Irish Bank.

The company made a profit of €2.2 million on a turnover of €110 million in the financial year to the end of August 2007, the most recent year for which accounts are available.

The company had work-in-progress projects valued at €172 million and investments valued at €60 million at August 2007, according to accounts filed by the company.

10 Seán Reilly (Alcove Developments)

€9.7 million

MEATH-BASED housebuilder and property developer Seán Reilly has been behind some prominent projects in recent years, including the Cisco Building in East Point Business Park and the Watermarque building in Dublin 4.

His companies, Alcove Developments and McGarrell Reilly Homes, have built houses in Co Meath, Co Louth, and in the greater Dublin area.

He bought a large tract of land near Maynooth, Co Kildare, from members of the Kavanagh family who ran the grain merchants business in the town for more than a century.

The Reformation will not be Televised

Source: The Reformation will not be Televised

Rising Remembered

Very violent among the pillars

Quiet here along the street
ensnared in the silence
dream-like graves below the dark
unbecoming and brilliant

The seduced bright delusions awoke

But the end felt good, they tell us
Very violent among the pillars
then entombed
missing
hidden
locked-away
in the long night

Then flickering awake
a long, long way from home

Economics as if People Mattered

Wheels of Ire

The recession gave the Government ample opportunity to reach for their favoured weapon when faced with hard decisions: outsource the advice. To independent consultants. All with serious credibility. Of course, in translation this means nothing less than appointing consultants whose world-view happily coincides with the current order. After all, would you expect the hired help  to jeopardise future lucrative assignments by giving you a result you didn’t expect?

Oh, and we  get to pay for it. So do our kids,and probably our grand-kids too.

So to cover for the fact that there is a total lack of accountability in our civil and public service tradition, a tradition which ensures we have expensive Official Inquiries which fail to point fingers, which can be guaranteed to enrich loads of lawyers whilst failing to  find anyone actually responsible. For anything. Ever.

Of course, the State has form in this area: witness the dreadful…

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Who was the pirate?

Rolling Stones Kids. Painted by Sebastian Kruger (Acrylic painting on board) (118 x 68 cm)

Source: Who was the pirate?