That ‘independent’ security review panel: worth every penny, right?

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Hey ho, hey ho, it’s off to work we go…I’m referring, of course, to the panel of three people appointed by Theresa Villiers to put together a report on paramilitary organisations here.

The first thing that strikes me is how well embedded they are in the establishment. Lord Carlile of Berriew – you could almost learn all you need to know from the name alone. He’s a Lib-Dem lord, he’s a practicing barrister and he’s done this kind of thing before – reviewing British national security. Oh, and he’s got a CBE.

Then there’s Rosalie Flanagan, which is better than being Ronnie Flanagan, I suppose. She’s a top civil servant, has worked at the department of Finance and Personnel, and was director of Executive Services (whatever that is) in the office of the FM/DFM. You don’t get to the top of the civil service by being a strong independent voice, I’m guessing.

Finally Stephen Shaw, another practicing barrister who has acted for banks, public companies and private businesses.

So what are these three amigos going to do for us? Well, they’ll study the existence and/or level of threat from paramilitaries. That’d be unionist paramilitaries as well as republican paramilitaries, but you don’t need to be a weatherman to know which way the investigative wind will blow. Jim Allister was on the telly last night and it was as if the loyalist paramilitaries wouldn’t even feature.

And where will the three amigos get their information? Why, from the police and the ‘security services’ – the spooks. They’ll put all that together, blank out the bits that refer to spies within various paramilitary organisations, and then present it.

But…Isn’t assessing existence of paramilitary organisations and the level of threat  – isn’t that the police’s job? It is indeed, which is why the three amigos will get their info from the police and from the security ‘services’.

But…hasn’t Chief Constable George Hamilton already told us that the IRA exists and was involved in the killing of Kevin McGuigan? That’s what kicked off this squawkfest in the first place. Indeed that is true.

So the three amigos will be taking their info from the police. How likely, then, is it that their report will contradict the Chief Constable’s statement? Highly unlikely, since the Chief Constable will be the one passing them the information in the first place. In the second place does anybody think there’s a cat-in-boiled-oil’s chance that the three amigos will publish a report that would in essence call the Chief Constable a liar?

So we’ve got a three-person committee, doing work that is the duty of the police, receiving its information from the police and related bodies, producing a report that can’t possibly be at odds with the statement of the Chief Constable? That about sums it up all right.

The only question left is how much. No, not how much time – how much money? There are two barristers and a civil servant in this little group. I don’t know what top civil servants make – plenty, I’d guess – but I do know that top barristers count their take-home pay in the hundreds of thousands. They kind of start at half a million and work up from there.

And why are we paying them so much of our money? Because they’re worth it.

 

 

19 Responses to That ‘independent’ security review panel: worth every penny, right?

  1. giordanobruno September 23, 2015 at 8:11 am #

    Jude
    It’s great to be able to see into the future and maybe you have it right.
    On the other hand maybe we should actually hear what they have to say before we judge?

    • Jude Collins September 23, 2015 at 8:15 am #

      So – do you believe they’ll contradict George Hamilton? And if so, are you offering me odds??

    • Jude Collins September 23, 2015 at 8:31 am #

      PS Come to think of it, it’s impossible for them to contradict George Hamilton: he’s said the IRA is now an exclusively peaceful organisation and that members of the IRA killed Kevin McGuigan. No matter what they come up with they’ll be agreeing with him…

      • paddykool September 23, 2015 at 9:10 am #

        So , then again, why are we paying them then? Anybody could be recruited to say ” I agree” with that …for a whole lot less. The circus continues…… and still no evidence and no case for us all to pick through…..Are we just all just really mad ? Have they corralled all us little lunatics into a corner of this small island off the edge of Europe without hinting that it’s the very best place to keep us in safety from the rest of the world’s population…a little island lunatic asylum….someone out there is feeding and caring for us but we’re as isolated as an Amish community living in some other state of mind.

      • giordanobruno September 23, 2015 at 12:05 pm #

        Jude
        Its called keeping an open mind. As it happens I think you might be right, so I cannot offer any odds on this occasion.
        And don’t start with that contradiction stuff from the CC again. It should be clear by now that individuals can act without the sanction of the organisation. Not rocket science.

        • Jude Collins September 23, 2015 at 12:30 pm #

          The least – and I do mean the least – the CC could have done was given a link between ‘The IRA has long ceased to engage in violence and is committed to peace’ and ‘Present members of the IRA killed Kevin McGuigan’. How about ‘However, what was the IRA cannot control individual acts of criminality among those who were its members. The death of Kevin McGuigan is a case in point’? Then we’d have all saved time and money. Except the unionist parties would have found ways to throw a hissy-fit over that too?

          • giordanobruno September 23, 2015 at 2:28 pm #

            Jude
            He has said there does not appear to be any sanction from the organisation.
            I presume he cannot say that with %100 certainty. You want him to just say it anyway?

    • jessica September 24, 2015 at 6:06 am #

      It is hardly independent if the state forces are not included in the investigation.

      I would like a few questions thrown in there more of the like.

      Are they still recruiting and paying informers for information?

      If intelligence is now based on their word, what is the pedigree of the individuals remaining in these very changed times, especially as we have seen the political consequences. God forbid it is based on dodgy intel.

      Is the state still turning a blind eye to ex IRA criminality to protect their moles as has been past practice?
      If so, the state is more responsible for any resulting criminality than sinn fein.

  2. PJ Dorrian September 23, 2015 at 8:51 am #

    I know I shouldn’t be surprised but…the unionist response to Kevin McGuigan’s murder makes it seem as if it happened out o the blue. They quite conveniently ignore that it was a follow up to the murder of Jock Davison. That murder, the dogs say, was because he was a thorn in the flesh of drug dealers. He was shot with a gun that had been brought from Eastern Europe.
    Just this week there have been arrests of heroin dealers in Belfast, an arrest and charges laid against a man from Lithuanian for allegedly shooting some people in Newry. Yet there has been no jumping up and down by loyalist politicians demanding the police do something. Very strange. Could there be linkage between all these occurrences?
    I bet a hole has opened in a road somewhere and police are looking into it.

  3. Emmet September 23, 2015 at 9:10 am #

    What a waste of money, I can give them the report now.
    P IRA -not involved in violence, structures disband allow members still have contact
    UVF/UDA/UFF- Still involved in murder, intimidation, violence, drugs, still have extensive contact with ‘security forces’ and various unionists politicians.
    Dissidents- a small but growing threat.
    Security forces- still involved in recruiting, murders and running agents. Involved in various dirty tricks and misinformation.

    • paul September 25, 2015 at 3:00 pm #

      Emmett that is a concise and IMO accurate view of the state of affairs in the north of Ireland today. The PSNI does not represent both communities, again IMO. Armed house raids, a constant stream of arrests and detentions of republicans/nationalists, yet hardly a whisper about loyalists threats and violence.

      It is very rich to hear the FM whine about unsubstantiated allegations considering the DUP is the leader in that department. The DUP is not interested in powersharing. They want the halcyon days of old back.

      As for politicians and security forces, Ken Magennis, Douglas Hogg… Politicians and loyalist gunmen. Trimble and Billy Wright, Paisely and P Robinson had the THird Force, Ulster Resistance and others. Willie McCrea, well he has an OTR letter doesn’t he. The hypocrisy and lack of shame is amazing

  4. Sherdy September 23, 2015 at 9:17 am #

    Do we know whether these Three Stooges will be employed (and paid) until they present their report next month or will they be on a rolling contract?
    Westminster is continually telling us there is no more money available for NI, but for a pantomime like this is concerned, money is no object.
    As you say Jude, even though their report has already been written for them by Georgie Boy, they will be very well paid indeed.
    And you will wonder why, after the unionists throwing such childish tantrums, they will mildly accept this fairy tale report which will mean they can traipse back into ‘business as usual’ in Stormont as though the past couple of months had never happened.

  5. billy September 23, 2015 at 9:41 am #

    ah,the establishment looking in to friends of some other establishment members,ime sure they can come up with summat to keep the gravy train chugging along.

  6. Jim Neeson September 23, 2015 at 9:51 am #

    Remember the IMC. Members were Lord Alderdice(True Brit)John Grieve (Met Special Branch and Nationa lcoordinator of Anti Terrorist Squad) Joe Brosnan(Sec GeneralDept of JusticeFree State Failed Anglo Irish Agreement) Dick Kerr (ex CIA serving on Private Security Agencies in Iraq) Fine body of men!!!! Even they said there was no fear from a disarmed IRA.
    The Three Amigos are a farce from the start but we the taxpayers only employ the most expensive EEJITS!!!

  7. Jim Lynch September 23, 2015 at 12:00 pm #

    As usual the British and unionists are playing the game with a stacked deck.
    Hell, they can’t lose.
    However, democracy and decent law abiding citizens, lose.

    The same British and unionist hypocrites talk about British justice, more like British injustice!

  8. Perkin Warbeck September 23, 2015 at 12:31 pm #

    No, doubt, Esteemed Blogmeister, you will be disappointed to hear that for once your take on things tallies with the take of the Mandrakes of the Foreign Affairs Dept of the Free Southern Stateen.

    In this instance your welcome for the Troika of Truth-seeking Sleuths.

    The Mandrakes’ leader, of course, is one C. Flanagan who has, mirabile dictu, a namesake of his own, one Rosalie Flanagan among the Troika.. She’s the one who plays Miss Marple to the other pair, Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes.

    And it may not only be the commonality of surnames which centrally heated the welcome of Charlie ‘Je Suis Charles’ Flanagan. According to the latest carbon-dating findings the Foreign Minister of the FSS (for whom Norneverland is as British as Fincheley) was born in the (gulp) Mid-Fifties.

    This is odd: for Flanagan Major whose seat Flanagan Minor inherited in the Queen’s County, is on record as saying that ‘sex only came to Ireland with the Late, Late Show’ (which hit the screens in the early Sixties).

    However, the appointment of a Rosalie to the Troika indicates that the mid-Fifties’ reading of the carbon dating process might well be correct. For it was in that particular mid-century window in time that the name Rosalie last featured on the lips of both the Mitch Miller Ensemble and the hoi polloi of Hibernia alike:

    ‘You may talk about your Clementine and sing of Rosalie
    But The Yellow Rose of Texas is the only girl for me!’.

    Say no more, Seymore. Except to say los muchachos south of the Tex-Mex border might not be quite so enamoured of the historical figure who was the Y.R. of T.

    Ach sin, sceal eile / That’s a story for another day.

    Perke’s inner poetaster is particularly positive about the carefully crafted line up of the Troika which seems to represented the three prevailing Classes:

    (l to r) The Working Class, The Dworkin Clann and, erm, The Porking Class.

    Indeed, so positive is P’s inner poetaster that he has been, erm, ‘hurt into poetry’ or somethiny like that:

    An Cheist

    I mbliana sa Ghaeilge san Ard-Theist
    Dob i, gan dabht, an mhor chruacteist
    ‘An ar mhuin na muice
    No, i mbeal na muice
    A shaigh Daithi C a mhici aka a pheist?

    (Translation, loose)

    Hailsham fellow, well met

    In monolithic bogs both North and South
    Rumour is rife re the Dead Hogg’s Mouth
    Which jolly fellatio, then
    Did take D’s number 10
    Was it Squintin Quintin slaked d’drought?

  9. billy September 23, 2015 at 2:34 pm #

    might need another member added to the panel to look at crooks in high places,jamie is naming names.

  10. joe mc Caffery September 23, 2015 at 3:28 pm #

    I really need someone to tell me why Sinn Fein are letting this farce go on, why do they put the nationalist people through this total waste of claptrap the unionist mla’s are pouting about.

  11. Séamus Ó Néill September 24, 2015 at 7:56 am #

    Joe, I would like some clarification myself. I maintained from the outset of this pantomime that NAMA was behind this subterfuge and that Unionism was running for cover. After Wee Jimmy’s revelations yesterday (as yet unproven) I’m reminded of the adage ,” Tell the truth or someone will tell it for you ! ” I also had a little smirk at Peter’s angry rebuff ,” “The scripted performance was little short of pantomime. It is outrageous that such scurrilous and unfounded allegations can be made without providing one iota of evidence.”….pity he didn’t seek one iota of evidence from the CC !