A Thaoisigh, a chara
I read the Guerin report with interest,
noting the same sequence as here; repeated complaints to the proper
authorities by whistle blowers being stonewalled, followed by
incessant letters to the Taoiseach finally bringing results. However,
it is appropriate for me to say that I do not ask you, nor have I
ever asked any government official, to bring influence to bear in my
unfair dismissal case. That is still being appealed.
I would, however, ask you to consider
whether it is a good precedent that DCU was allowed have an illegal
disciplinary statute on its books for a decade. This is particularly
the case given the documented illegal employment contracts issued by
DCU post 1995, and its compromised accreditation. Minister Quinn has
been given documentation of all of this. It is also worth noting
that, post accreditation, O'Hare made no attempt to appoint qualified
people to key positions; the “secretary” (chief admin) of DCU
came from the local tech, and did not have even a H.Dip; the head of
HR was a lowly admin assistant. I ask you to consider, in view of the
many billions and the credibility invested in DCU, whether this was
in the interests of Ireland.
Nevertheless, it all pales into
insignificance in the context of this question, if a state body like
DCU could use an illegal statute to force citizens to come to
meetings (as it did, sacking them when they refuse to “arrange'
those meetings), what is the status of any law or other compulsion
issuing from the Irish state? In short, is the claim of Rialtas na
hEireann on the Irish people no more valid than that of the Real IRA
and its political wing?
There is a growing perception among the
Irish people that successive governments are part of the same system
and do not have the interests of the Irish people at heart, instead
serving a neoliberal elite. While I leave this question open, after
publishing two books (2012-2013) exploring it, I do wonder at the
rampant criminality you have allowed at DCU. In particular, the
practises at DCU made a mockery of industrial relations itself, let
alone social partnership.
Let me explain, though this is not my
job, and the state should have appointed a visitor to DCU (as the
1997 act demands) and suspended governing authority there long ago..
There are of course illegal contracts at DCU; there was no valid
accreditation; there was an illegal disciplinary procedure in place
2001-2011 which was replaced by another illegal disciplinary
procedure in 2011, inaccessible to the public who paid for it on the
website, and guaranteed to ensure more litigation. The goal was
always direct control of a state institution through an executive
allowed to act outside the law, and without reference to the
government. In pursuit of this end, summary dismissal was introduced.
None of this has been resolved; that is your job.
What I do have a right to do is seek a
remedy for the numerous illegal actions visited on my partner Melanie
O'Reilly and myself with state connivance. Please do not claim
statute of limitations for the illegal dealings of such as CBM “Ltd,”
DCU, Record services “Ltd” – our complaints were made in time
and then delayed in the Irish state bureaucracy.
In her case, that remedy should be a
sizable cash sum as the Irish authorities failed her and she had to
take a case in 2 foreign countries, both of which cases we paid for
from our tiny resources. Of course, we won; however collecting the
money is another matter, and the Irish state should help her and
other musicians do this. It should also compensate her and them for
the refusal to act against dissolved companies, despite many
complaints in writing, and the aborted prosecution.
Let us note that Melanie and myself
have brought huge credit to Ireland in many countries through our
work and could bring much more with state help or even neutrality as
distinct from the opposition we have felt. I most recently ran this
conference ( http://foundationsofmind.org/)and follow-up workshop
(including fri 9 mar 2014) at UC Berkeley, the premier public
university in the world. As I mentioned many times, we can resurrect
my language engineering degree to fill 1,000 job vacancies in Ireland
at tiny state cost.
Melanie is world-famous as a Celtic
jazz diva; you, the Taoiseach have her latest CD and are in a
position to know what she could do for the image of Ireland abroad.
Happily, aer lingus will have her “Jazz on the Bay” program on
transatlantic flights from June 1.
My own case is rather different, as I
was a civil servant. I ask only for a remedy for the many flagrantly
illegal activities of DCU and other state authorities and will
proceed to the circuit court for the unfair dismissal case if we get
a court date; otherwise I will go to the ECHR. I note they state;
““ARTICLE
13
Right
to an effective remedy
Everyone
whose rights and freedoms as set forth in this Convention are
violated shall have an effective remedy before a national authority
notwithstanding that the violation has been committed by persons
acting in an official capacity”
In the first place, I prepared a High
court summons, only to hear from the Tanaiste's office (042039TAN)
that this conflicted with the unfair dismissal case. As it turns out,
that was incorrect; yet partly as a result my unfair dismissal case
case was held up for 12 years to date.
Secondly, in 2005, I wrote a letter to
then minister for labor Killeen showing that DCU's Smeaton, Pratt,
Walsh and Conry had committed fraud at the LRC. This is apart from
their illegal disciplinary procedure, thrown out at great expense at
the supreme court. I got an acknowledgment; no action. This is apart
from my own complaint to Whitehall Gardai at the end of 2001 (Det
McCarrick I think) which never got acted on even after a dail
question in 2002.
Thirdly, I never got any of my personal
possessions back from DCU despite representations both from me and
SIPTU. It included valuable software suites written outside DCU that
they had guaranteed in 2002 to return as my “personal effects”.
They never did so, and members of their staff used them to get
personal advantage in my absence.
I
shall therefore instruct my lawyer to prepare a case for the ECHR, in
the absence of a circuit court date, noting;
“3.
Freedom to exercise the right of application
13.
The
right to apply to the Court is absolute and admits of no hindrance. “
and
“14.
The
domestic authorities must refrain from putting any form of pressure
on applicants to withdraw or modify their complaints. “
In particular, I note “The majority
of Convention violations that the Court finds today are excessive
delays, in violation of the "reasonable time" requirement,
in civil and criminal proceedings before national courts “. My DCU
case has now taken 12 years and has yet to see a real court. Melanie
was not allowed criminal proceedings against those who destroyed her
career.
It is also worth pointing out that one
of the allegations against me by DCU was due to my whistle blowing on
the failure rate in the 1999 computing degree intake at DCU. 305
started in first year in 1999; only 91 made it though their exams in
summer 2001. When I pointed out in public that over 50% of the class
had failed (it was actually more like 70% ) I was told this clashed
with the HEA figures. At the EAT, Prondzynski admitted that he had
faked the HEA figures. He also admitted that the charges against me
of hiding consultancies were without foundation as I had met him, by
his own account, in Jan 2001 and revealed all my activities, leaving
him a CD and video.
As for the final, vexatious allegation
– that of not being on campus – the computing year 4 class rep
gave sworn evidence at the EAT in 2009 that I was there. Not only
that; my students won the prize for best project that year with a
software idea of mine, suggesting perhaps that maybe my work pattern
is to be emulated. That is particularly the case as we had an NDA
with Stanford, also lodged with the president of DCU. Incidentally,
the same computing year 4 class rep was bullied egregiously by then
had of computing, Joe Morris; Prondzynski giot the complaint and
refused to act.
Of course, there is money for Arthur
cox law firm in continuing to appeal. So what the state is
countenancing is a public service in which the mere fact of being
accused of something, even using a procedure that is illegal,
guarantees summary dismissal with neither right of reply to
allegations that turned out to be both false and absurd nor return
of personal effects. A Czech called Kafka wrote a book about that; as
it happens, the Irish are less compliant than Joesph K was
Dr. Ó Nualláin
PS Good luck explaining the necessity of paying water charges to the citizenry while a state university gets away with breaking the law for 25 years
