Fred is baffled!  We have a war in this country at the moment in relation to illegal drugs and Gangland.  In the last three days alone we have had two shootings in Lucan and Darndale yesterday evening.  Both people are in a critical condition in different hospitals.  We have the feud in Drogheda and in Longford and if the truth be known, we probably have feuds all over the country which are not being reported on – not forgetting Sligo.  Now, we have above – a Garda male model or may I say a part-time male model, who looks the part.  He is unemployed at present and yet he was handling hundreds of thousands of euros in different bank accounts in this city.  We have to point out for legal reasons that it is only allegations until a court verdict is reached.  At present he has been charged before Judge Michael Walsh and he has to adhere to strict bail conditions. 

What baffles me about this country is that at the moment we have a crisis in our nursing homes and what jumps to mind now is THE FAIR DEAL.  This is where elderly people literally have to put on the table all their bank accounts, their income, their assets and every scent they own, including their property and where it came from.  All this is done as demanded by State (HSE) for elderly vulnerable people to get a bed in a nursing home in the winter years of their lives.  It means that their loved ones might not receive any money after their death, yet the same elderly people paid their taxes all their lives and abided by the law of the land and helped the Irish economy grow. 

For all of this, they get really nothing but contempt at the end of the day.  In some cases, in the farming community, there is a rising anger because some siblings are saying they have to sell part of their farms to make sure their parents are eligible for the fair deal scheme.  I say to Charlie Flanagan today and this Government as a whole, it is mind boggling, astonishing and unbelievable that you have no problem monitoring the monies of our elderly and vulnerable to benefit the coffers of the State not forgetting the private nursing home profiteers who are making millions on the backs of vulnerable. 

Then let’s walk across the legal avenue or may I say the criminal road and we have well-known people who don’t work or may I  say never worked a day in their lives, driving around in top of the range flash cars sporting Rolex watches and Prada handbags with foreign holidays seven times a year while our keystone cops are not capable of gathering evidence to do a clean sweep and freeze their assets.  Yes, people will tell me that the Criminal Assets Bureau are doing a decent job but if you really get down to the forensics of the finances that come from crime and drugs in this country, the CAB are just seizing and freezing lose change because the criminals have a free main road in laundering their money through so many sources, our cops are unable to keep up with these well organised criminal operations.  It is not rocket science to figure out that Christy Kinahan is worth in the region of £500 million. 

Now we have Interpol, the Spanish police and our own cops and surely it is not impossible to take in well trained forensic accountants to test the waters and then freeze his assets.  As I said before, Follow the Money, find the trail and then move to the sources.   Today yes I am questioning if this Government has the balls to tackle organised crime and more importantly those in their designers suits and offices who launder their money.  To conclude:  I doubt if the above male model will be advertising pink socks at the next Fine Gael Ard Fheis.  Fred