Financial Regulator’s secrecy and European law
by Anthony Sheridan

Continued from … Unbelievable: “Naming Bankster Thieves Not In The Public Interest”

In its refusal to disclose the names of banks that are robbing Irish citizens the so called Financial Regulator quoted Irish and European law as an excuse for its absolute secrecy.

I submitted a formal request to Europe Advice to check if such EU laws existed. Unfortunately, they were unable to help but did refer me to Europe Direct.

I spoke with an official from Europe Direct and am awaiting a reply.
http://www.publicinquiry.eu/

Central Bank’s secrecy could damage citizens interests

by Anthony Sheridan

The following is an update on the matter of the Central Bank’s refusal to disclose even the most basic information regarding the latest scams in the Irish banking sector.

Those scams were:

Banks had charged thousands of homeowners the wrong interest rates on their mortgages.

Banks had misled customers with money in deposit accounts by promoting term and interest rates that were later changed once people signed up for the accounts.

Banks had short-changed thousands of customers on (other) interest rates.

The so called Financial Regulator (The Central Bank) is refusing to disclose even the most basic information regarding these scams.

This type of state secrecy can have potentially very serious consequences for citizens who may have dealings with these institutions.

As advised by an official in the Public Contacts Unit of the Central Bank I wrote to the bank requesting the following information.

Is it official policy not to name financial institutions that are guilty of such activities?

Is the policy in writing, and if so, where can it be located?

If the policy is not in writing where and by whom did it originate and how is it communicated to Central Bank staff?

The Central Bank replied:

Due to the confidentiality requirements imposed by domestic and EU legislation which provides for confidentiality of information relating to ongoing supervision and limits disclosure to circumstances specifically provided for in the Central Bank Act 1942(as amended) we are prohibited from releasing supervisory information regarding any institution.

I would draw you attention in particular to Section 33AK of the Central Bank Act 1942 (as amended).

Yours sincerely

My response;

Dear…

I will give you the benefit of doubt and assume you are an intelligent person, a benefit you clearly do not extend to me judging from the content of your email.

You will be aware that Irish banks and other financial institutions have been plundering customers and state accounts for many decades with complete impunity.

Despite this fact not a single financial institution or official has ever been charged with a crime since the establishment of our state in 1922.

This can only mean that Irish financial institutions are among the most honest in the history of the world or financial regulation in Ireland is not seen as an integral part of democratic accountability as it is in real democracies.
A person with even a smidgeon of intelligence can see that the latter is the case.
Your organisation is refusing to name the institutions, the number of customers or the level of funds involved in this latest fraud on Irish citizens.
No other country in the world, not even the most corrupt banana republic, would refuse such basic information to its citizens.

Let me be blunt, your organisation is, effectively, protecting the thieving vermin that infest the Irish financial sector at the expense of Irish citizens.

I look forward to the day, hopefully very soon, when the people who make and enforce such Soviet style secrecy laws are stripped of their power and influence.

I have no doubt whatsoever that the great majority of ordinary Irish citizens are of the same view.

Yours sincerely
Anthony Sheridan

http://www.publicinquiry.eu/

Obama Signs in new legislation, to detain humans for life, even after they have been proven Innocent by a judge & jury.

No Western Government Has Ever Claimed The Power To Do This, Not even Hitler

Obama the Tyrant

Extract below from “Obama: A Modern Day Roman Plebeian Tyrant”
Aristotle warned: “Republics decline into democracies and democracies degenerate into despotisms.” The Federalist papers show us that the founding fathers understood this all too well. Just as the Roman Senate became more “democratic”, so to our own Senate changed from being indirectly elected to direct popular election in 1913. We were founded as a republic partly because democracies become weaker as they grow whereas republics can become stronger.

Yet we elect populists, like Chairman Obama, whose unaffordable promises and unconstitutional actions, after the manner of Tiberius Gracchus, Caesar, and Octavian, will be recorded in history as the beginning of the end of our republic. We slip further into a “democracy” of dependence on government and control by it. Inevitably, we too will degenerate into despotism and tyranny. This has already begun. From antiquity through the present, great thinkers like Aristotle and our founding fathers have warned us of the dangers of repeating the mistakes of prior civilizations. Those who survive us will learn how the selfish majority, at the behest of power hungry political elitists, accepted subjugation in exchange for benefits and thereby sowed the seeds (or acorns) of our destruction.

Barack Obama: Plebeian politician to Senator to Dictator wannabe. The USA: republic, to democratic dictatorship and then despotism. It not only can happen, but it will, unless we learn from history and prevent its repetition.

Who's really running the show in the U.S.

It’s not as mysterious as we may think!

Why does the CIA do the things it does?

Why do we support dictatorships all over the world?

Why do we undermine democratically elected regimes?

It’s not a mystery when you understand who really controls the levers of power and what their simple purpose is.

Part one of a two part series with the incomparable Lew Rockwell and John Perkins, author of “Economic Hitman.”

For 100s of uncensored videos go to: http://www.brasschecktv.com

Irish people still mad as hell over fat cats

Ireland Calling by John Spain

Fianna FAILure

There was a very minor, very brief, but also very interesting court case here last week.  It involved a journalist I happen to know, a work colleague of mine for many years.

My friend, the former Irish Press reporter Des Nix, had been caught by the Gardai (police) in Dublin driving at a little above the speed limit, and he had been issued with the usual €80 automatic fine.

Dozens of these fines are issued every month for parking violations and minor speeding offenses.  You get the penalty notice in the post and if you pay on time you don’t have to go to court.  That’s what most people do.

But Des, a law abiding, solid citizen in every way like the vast majority of people here, decided that he was not paying.  Instead he wrote back to the Garda office and said that he was returning the speeding ticket and that he was refusing to pay the fine.

He was refusing to pay, he explained, not because he was denying that he had unintentionally exceeded the speed limit, but because money going to the state was now being used as “a slush fund to pay gangster bankers.”

He said in his letter to the fines office that his refusal to pay was “an act of civil disobedience.”
Having failed to pay the fine on time, he was summoned to court. He appeared before the judge last week, but the prosecuting Garda (police officer) failed to turn up in court on the day so the case was dropped.

After his court appearance Des told reporters that he thought it was unacceptable that the government should act as the “bag men” for the bankers and bondholders who are taking money from “people who never had any dealings with them.”

Which is precisely how the vast majority of people here feel. They deeply resent the fact that ordinary taxpayers here are now being saddled with the vast bill for the IMF-EU bailout, and that most of the money is being used to pay back the foreign banks and bondholders who gambled on the Irish property market and lost.

A huge chunk of the money that is raised in taxes here — and in all other sources of state revenue like my friend’s speeding ticket — will in the future be going to pay back the massive bailout from the IMF-EU.  Even paying the interest on the bailout money each year is going to take a significant amount of state revenue.

As we have pointed out here before, the primary reason for the €85 billion euro bailout is to prevent an Irish default and to enable our now state guaranteed banks to repay all the money that was pumped in here by the German and French banks and the bondholders who all wanted a piece of the action in the Irish boom.

Most ordinary people here feel that this is unjust and unfair.  They deeply resent the fact that so much of their tax money in the years ahead will be used in this way instead of being spent on schools, hospitals and all the other services provided by the state which are in need of improvement.

They deeply resent the fact that so much money is going to be sucked out of the Irish economy every year at a time when we desperately need it at home to get things moving again.

In fact resentment is far too mild a word to describe the feelings of the majority of people here about what is happening.  A better description would be seething with anger.

People here mistakenly believed that the new government would be able to offer an alternative solution to the deal negotiated by the previous administration.  Now they have woken up to the truth.

Now they realize that the new government is not able to offer any alternative to the economic crucifixion of the country.  And they are boiling with rage as a result.

Talk to anyone here right now and that fury comes pouring out.  Some people talk about leaving the country rather than staying and seeing their taxes being used to pay off the billions the banks owe.

But others — a small but growing minority — talk about staying and refusing

…..read more here >>>