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THERE WILL BE a by-election for a vacant seat in the Seanad next month where the result is, barring something untoward happening, a foregone conclusion.
Labour candidate Mairia Cahill, an abuse victim who has been an outspoken critic of the republican movement, is set to take the seat vacated by Jimmy Harte.
But why is that so and who else is technically in the running? Let TheJournal.ie explain all…
Why is there a by-election?
Labour senator Jimmy Harte formally resigned his seat on the Seanad’s Commercial and Industrial Panel last month. The decision came two years after he sustained a serious head injury following a fall in Dublin.
The Donegal politician has spent the last two years recuperating but decided that he was not well enough to return to Leinster House and the vacancy he leaves has triggered a by-election.
How does that work?
If you thought it was unusual that only the Taoiseach, councillors and certain university graduates can elect people to the upper house, then you’ll be amazed that the electorate for a by-election is even smaller. Only members of the Oireachtas, i.e. every TD and Senator, can vote in a Seanad by-election.
Who are the candidates they can vote for?
As we outlined above, Labour has put forward Mairia Cahill. She has become a prominent figure in Irish public life over the last 18 months after she spoke to the BBC about the abuse she suffered in the republican movement and the botched handling of her allegations by senior figures, including Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams.
For its part, Sinn Féin has put forward Meath county councillor Sinead Burke, a former mayor of Navan, to contest the by-election. Fianna Fáil has nominated Mayo-based GP Keith Swanick.
There’s also a familiar name among the candidates in Jerry Beades, a former Fianna Fáil member and spokesman for the New Land League, who is running as an independent.
Without the backing of a party, Beades needed the support of nine Oireachtas members. He got nominations from senators David Norris, Ronan Mullen, Feargal Quinn, Seán Barrett, Fidelma Healy-Eames, Mary-Ann O’Brien and Averil Power, as well as TDs Mattie McGrath and Michael Healy-Rae.
What about Fine Gael?
Given it was a seat occupied by a Labour senator, Fine Gael has said it is not putting forward a candidate and the party will instead throw its support behind the Labour nominee Cahill.
This is why her election is likely to be a foregone conclusion assuming all of the government TDs and Senators support Cahill in the secret ballot. It would be a bit embarrassing for the government otherwise.
Speaking of embarrassment, didn’t Fine Gael screw this up last year?
That’s right. You might recall the McNulty-gate scandal which concerned Fine Gael’s botched efforts to fill the seat vacated by newly-elected MEP Deirdre Clune.
The party nominated Donegal shop owner John McNulty for a vacant seat on the Cultural and Educational panel. However the failed Donegal local election candidate was placed on the board of the Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA) at the last minute in order to boost his qualifications for the panel in question.
This led to accusations of cronyism on Fine Gael’s part and put particular scrutiny on new Arts Minister Heather Humphreys – who had appointed McNulty to the IMMA board – and the Taoiseach Enda Kenny.
The controversy ran for weeks and saw McNulty eventually withdraw his candidacy and the Taoiseach was forced to apologise (sort of).
However, McNulty still appeared on the ballot papers and in the end, the reluctant candidate only narrowly lost out to independent Gerard Craughwell who now sits in the Seanad.
Cripes. So, what happens this year?
Nominations have now closed, there are four candidates and ballot papers will be delivered to TDs and Senators on 30 October.
They have a fortnight to decide who to vote for before the deadline of 13 November when the ballot papers will be collected, counted and a result declared.
What’s likely to happen?
It is a secret ballot, but given Fine Gael and Labour are publicly backing Mairia Cahill, it seems a dead cert that the new Labour party member will be sitting in the Seanad come the end of next month.
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Can I funnel my tax through Luxembourg?
Yes if you have a Luxemburg registered limited company – however you would need to be very careful regarding legislation in your country of residence (Ireland I assume).
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Basically, what you need is your Irish Limited Company which will employ you and pay a minimum wage and your Luxemburg Limited Company which will invoice the Irish company for services rendered (assign all of your accounting to Luxemburg).
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That’s basically it in a nutshell, but the cost/savings analysis makes it relatively unproductive for a sole trader of services (labour).
… and what about the Journals Luxembourg roots .
we still haven’t got to the bottom of them yet
Sorry, Dave – but what are you talking about??
Don’t take the bait Susan !!
Thanks Frank, but I’ve heard this question a few times (most recently shouted at one of my colleagues as he covered a water charges protest) and I’m trying to get to the bottom of it.
Journal Media Ltd is an independent company which is funded solely by the two brothers, Brian and Eamonn Fallon.
We have never been to Luxembourg, although I believe Dudelange is beautiful this time of year.
Susan, The Journal is an independent company?
With the amount of pro-SF comments, you’d think it was the English language version of An Phoblacht.
By the way, if you use the word “independent” they’ll think it is part of the “billionaire DOB FG donor media empire evil death star” :-)
Ah Susan!!! you are a journalist who claims she wants “to get to the bottom of the Luxembourg links” Tiger Holdings Five SARL should help your stonewalled investigation.
Let me repeat it one more time for you in the back there, Peter.
Journal Media Ltd has zero investment from anyone other than Brian and Eamonn Fallon.
The facts – should you wish them to come in the way of your conspiracy theories – are there in black and white in our company records, publicly available from the CRO. Check them out.
Hi Susan. Looks like he was very much right. Whilst you may never have been to Luxembourg, I think that the owners of your parent company do regularly.
http://www.irishtimes.com/business/economy/irish-companies-linked-to-further-luxembourg-tax-disclosures-1.1991514
Hi Diarmuid,
The Irish Times is totally erroneous on that score – they have not checked the company records at all. TheJournal.ie has nothing to do with that investment group, and never has been.
We are currently speaking to the Irish Times about a clarification and removal of this false information.
I have no idea why their experienced reporters have not bothered to check the CRO, but if they had, the information would be there for them.
Thanks, Susan
I did point out the parent company connection in my msg to you after my twitter account was somehow no longer able to post comments. At least my name has been cleared as a “conspiracy theorist” and actually someone who knows a bit about the finance/business world. Personally as the Journal is a 100% subsidiary of Distilled Media and it’s Distilled media that has the fund backers in Luxembourg I think the I Times are correct in what they report. But that’s just my take
It absolutely is NOT a subsidiary of Distilled Media – AND the Irish Times have been forced to remove their erroneous reference to TheJournal.ie in that article today.
Check the link you yourself posted, and then stop repeating untrue statements, thanks.
Fat cat wallets getting fatter and households getting shafted.
The mind boggles.
All companies based here should pay here or fcuk off
And who would you work for then?
C’mon Daniel, where will they flock to?
Has anyone found the theme of today’s news ‘Blame Ireland and they’ll take the fall lying down’ it’s time we stood up to the EU and say simply enough is enough.
to be fair, thes corporate tax loopholes should never been created in the first place and the EU should keep the pressure on the gov’t to close all other loopholes and tax anomalies.
How is that ‘to be fair’???
Ireland should have refused to close the Double Irish until there was a written commitment to close tax loopholes throughout Europe.
A worker paying 51% while a corporate paying 2% is ok? Something wrong there. To my knowledge, no other European country (apart from Ireland) allows this. The point was that Adam apparently thinks it’s okay to keep these corporate tax loopholes (which the worker is subsidizing through higher taxes) while new taxes are being imposed on people elsewhere.
ITS,
You have very limited knowledge…
We are the only country that has the lowest effective corporate tax rate in Europe.
ITS,
What are the rates in Cyprus(12.5%), Bulgaria(10%), Macedonia(10%), Montenegro(9%)….
And while we are talking about other peoples money….
We tax our poorest the lowest and our richest some of the highest…
http://www.taxinstitute.ie/Portals/0/Effective%20Income%20Tax%20Rates%20Ireland%20v%207%20competitor%20countries.pdf
Ah, here now, Cowboy Ted, don’t you know the comments section is not the place to bring up facts. It is, rather, the place to bring up all sorts of made up stuff starting with “I’m sure…”, and “probably….”.
Go and take your well researched facts somewhere else, please. Honestly, the nerve of some people.
Sorry Chin, will never do it again…
Feel stupid now, Didn’t know actual popular opinion…
So how do corporations pay effective 2% corporation tax in Ireland? There are Irish tax loopholes that were created by successive governments. These are the problem – not other countries. Therefore, the EU (and others) should keep the pressure on this government to bring these into line with other countries.
Transfer pricing, Patent Royalties, Subsidiary rules should be changed, to name a few. A corporation setting up in Ireland for “R&D” purposes gets a tax break – something very wrong with the Irish tax code.
Just read that report Cowboy Ted, Cowboy is right. The report only compares to “competitor” countries. Ie. Hand picked countries designed to fabricate a point. This report has all the hallmarks of bias and cherry picking of stats
Thank you for telling us journal investigating team. Good work there.
We already know companies avoid tax in perfectly legal ways and perhaps it is more than time to change the legal system.
People paying taxes is so much easier for the rich and they should not be having tax relief but the poorer sections of communities should.
I think this pursuit of money, this wild greed has become worse than ever and these people have no conscience for what they do is at the expense of others where a very small amount of money is critical.
These miserly hoarders could not even touch the interest in 500 lifetimes….are they ill with greed?
It’s an AFP article.
What hate i about this is very few out ther beleave or see the con we living,
We are all working our backs off paying taxes, all long side other chagers.
Our govermets say we need the money to pay for & improve services.
This a con so these big compaines don’t have to pay up.
We need to forget water protest we need.
FAIRER TAX PROTEST
If these compaines paid just a little more, over night our whole country could have better health care, water, education, quailty of life ect….
All of us workers wheater you student, middle class worker, or earning a bit more.
All our tax rates could be cut, thus releaseing more free money into our economy which would help make more jobs, reduce crime, sucides, stress. And goverments, bankers, big corps would still make.
But no it cant be cause the modren world dose like a fairer system.
Maybe some day if more people relize…
JustMade, what was that? Something about tax, blah, blah. Too many spelling and grammar errors, almost impossible to read.
This is why spelling is important.
So what is your life that pathetic like so many out that you have to troll the internet to pick on someone with a learning disable, “ just to make yourself sound important.
Would you say to someone who cant walk properly, this is why walking is important!!
Burned!
JustMade, you see? You can spell correctly when you make an effort. It’s not that difficult, especially with modern technology.
Owned.ie
Don’t tell the French government
Don’t tell the vested interests who oppose paying their fair share of tax.
This is why Ireland should support tax harmonisation in Europe and financial transaction taxes.Even the 12.5% was too onerous for these corpoations understandably as a corporations only motivation (despite p.r. guff about corporate citizenship etc) is profit.they must be strictly controlled by governments or we become slaves to them.
To late. We are slaves to them already.
Tax harmonisation simply does not work when you have so many varied economies. The idea of currency harmonisation has already proven to be a bust as the EU has so many different economies with their own strengths and weaknesses.
Tax harmonization is a good idea because it would mean more money for public services when corporates have nowhere to hide. It would also enable better health services, social programs, road building, public transport, etc.
Buy Irish, support Irish jobs. Love Irish food! Thank you for supporting Irish. Now we are going to filter the money through Luxembourg to avoid paying tax in Ireland. Thank you. Glanbia.
The keyword in the article is legal
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