I table a motion to censure the Dáil.

There is something very wrong in Irish politics (not that that is a shocker) when the party pushing the censure is one whose every leader for 35 years has resigned in disgrace, has had several leaders that were large scale crooks and fraudsters. Who fills the papers on a regular basis with its members and their travails with the fraud squad and tax man.

A party that is not making a complaint to the Gardaí fraud squad over massive theft of donations from it coffers exposed in Mahon, due to fear that the rest of the crooks in the party are exposed, thefts that occur at all levels of the party from elected to cumann chairs.

Wallace should resign but there are many others that should as well. Clearer sanctions and higher standards, should apply to all even if the person is not a big 2 TD.

When is someone going to charge this joker with VAT fraud?

the longer and nastier this gets the more names will be implicated hopefully

It’s quite simple, there have been no motions of censure because they live by the motto of people in glass houses should not throw bricks!
It’s a disgrace that Wallace is potentially able to get away with this while hard working tax paying citizens like Paul Begley are sitting in mountjoy prison having paid back half of what he owed with an arrangement in place to pay the rest whereas Wallace has already admitted that the 2.1 million that his company owes will probably never be paid. Mr Begley will cost the state about €540,000 to keep him locked up for his full sentence, let the man home to his family and give Wallace & Bertie & co his cell to share, it’s all they deserve!

The Garda need hard evidence eg like a dead body to say they found a body. Wallace saying he did it is not enough and the revenue saying he did it is not enough. Mind you the guy who broke into Shatters house was refused bail and I bet he does time for his crime. How many Garda were involved in his case? Also I bet there will be no errors in his arrest or his detention. He won’t get off on a technicality. Mr Shatter is very quiet on this one. Mind you I wouldn’t believe a word he says and he took an oath.

Can ask a question? Where did the 2 million go? The guy is broke.

So it either went to Governemt in income tax, the banks (same as Government) or paid his other creditors(staff, subbies). You can’t draw blood from a stone… unless he has 2 million quid under matress.

So the guy under huge stress lied to the VAT man and paid someone else…

While I don’t agree with his actions, I do understand what he was thinking at the time. People do funny thinks under stress.

Guys, can anyone clarify this for me? is it possible to censure a sitting TD for their actions before winning a seat?

What Wallace did is wrong, but who here can honestly say they never paid ‘cash-only’ for a job to be done or when selling/purchasing an item where VAT is chargable/payable? I’d say very few can honestly be counted as having paid VAT on every service or purchase. Perhaps on an individual basis not as dramatic as the €2m liablitiy Wallace’s company has to strump up. But on a collective basis €2m would be peanuts! I know I’ve paid cash-only for several jobs to be done on my house, for me it’s the difference of affording to get the job done or not. I also know several civil servants who pay cash-only where they can too. So in effect we are all defrauding the VAT man of what is due!

On one hand I have sympathy for Wallace, but then on the other what a feck’n idiot. He would had been better off keeping his mouth shout, his enthusiasm to be an ‘honest’ politician is to be applauded, but it has just landed him in shite. As a director of a limited company he has limited liability, however, that limited liability is gone when found to knowingly committing a fraud. It is rumoured the revenue wanna prosecute (more like make an example), and he has just given them the loaded gun to go after him personally. He has admitted to fraud therefore cannot any longer enjoy the limited liability of his company!

For the haircut alone he deserves to go to jail

what is the difference, each and every person with a name td is a liar, and a thief, so one got into trouble before hand, he is sitting with the best, leave him sit next to the one who steals from travelling expenses, ink, selling land, building frauds, he is with the best so leave him be, at least we know who and where to find them, leinster prison for the corrupt,, only stupid thing he did was be honest and file,,, eejit,,,,,,, and enda up there spluttering as he cant tell the truth,,,,, oh well at least we are under german thumb now it may get better,, they sold us cheap, but a 100 years of freedom was to much for the irish to hold onto,, britain, germany, think china next,,,, if britain have 6 counties, how many will the germans claim,,, so much further from 32,,, sorry but our government of school teachers and psycologists are such a let down, we need a government of people who know economics, banking and not bring them in to pay 500,000 for a consultation after the damage done, we need to vote them in, not what we got, men filling their daddys position,,, its a joke , and as long as it continues, they are allowed to steal and thieve

Mick –
don’t let the bastards grind you down. You’re not the worst.

Wallaces actions – doubling the salary he paid himself and his son was a calculated move by a shrewed businessman. This guy is no fool. His decision to with hold the VAT was most likely done on the basis he would get away with it. His concern for staff excuse is at odds with the amount of cash he was stripping out for himself. It could have paid a number of peoples salary for a year. Wallace has to go. Wallace has to face the consequences…

I have no respect for those that sit in their comfy chairs while the rest of us struggle, that lecture about paying tax while they feather their own nests with outrageous salaries and pensions that the rest of us will never see

if this is the case, how do you respond to wallace’s own behaviour in this field whose money was he helping himself and his family to?

it begggars belief that posts like this are being made. crookedness in business is ok? jesus, i give up

I lol at the myth of wallace not paying tax so he could keep people employed.. he is a political insurgent and he only wants to make fools out of the public

Why isn’t the DPP preparing a file for Mick Wallace’s prosecution? The Troika is looking on in disbelief at the Banana Republic of Ireland.

The more I read and hear on the radio of the Mick Wallace affair the more I despair for this country. I despair not because there are TD’s and people in business making dodgy tax returns but because there is no understanding in the Dail of the reality of trying to keep a business alive in this country today.

In business, in politics, in life you have to make choices, sometimes there are good and bad options, for lots of business people nowadays there are only bad options. When you only have bad options to choose from it is impossible to do the right thing. I can understand the position Mick Wallace found himself in when sales started falling through, when the banks turned the credit business’s in a normal economy can rely on off and people’s wages still had to be paid.

I can put myself in his shoes where the decision was to buy time by underpaying a VAT bill or to stop paying the wages and to close the door. I can also understand the bond between a business owner and their business. When you have fought long and hard to bring something into existence, spent long days and nights nurturing and growing it then you do not give up. You do not let it die without fighting for it, and fighting dirty if you have to. You cannot sit in that meeting with your accountant and detach yourself from the emotional involvement you have with your business because in many ways it is you.

I can respect a man for fighting for something he believed in. I have no respect for the hurlers on the ditch that make up the Dail and that sit in sanctimonious judgment of Mick Wallace. I can also respect a man that can admit; in plain language, that he did the wrong thing.

I have no respect for those that sit in their comfy chairs while the rest of us struggle, that lecture about paying tax while they feather their own nests with outrageous salaries and pensions that the rest of us will never see. I have no respect for them because they reward their own failed civil servants with massive EU jobs for billion euro blunders all the while calling for the heads of those that make mistakes on the other side, the working side, of the fence. I hear our politicians calling for an end to Limited Liability, for the bills of a defunct company to fall on the heads of its directors and I despair. If the cost of their bad choices fell on our politicians in the same way as it falls on us maybe it would be OK, maybe we’d get better decisions out of them, but the costs don’t fall on them, far from it.

I, along with many friends and family that are self employed and formerly self employed in this country struggle and do whatever it takes to survive because we have no other choice, no safety net, no pension for us if we lose our business’s, no soft landing out here. Sometimes the only choices we have out here on the frontline are bad choices.

I realize our political betters don’t understand the world I live and work in at all, and if they don’t understand it, don’t understand the problems I and countless other small and not so small business’s in the country face and struggle with every day then how are they going to fix our problems? I think Mick Wallace probably understands how difficult things are better then most of them, nothing teaches you like experience.

The Dail is meant to be reflective of the people of Ireland, to have teachers farmers, shop workers and business people that understand the country, what its like to live here, to do business here. If the Dail doesn’t understand what its like to run a business with a bankers hand in your left pocket, the tax man’s hand in your right, a load of debt behind you and no customers in front of you then it is not representative of this country. It will not lead us out of this mess it led us into because the Dail still does not really understand just how bad the mess is.

I hope Mick Wallace survives this witch hunt because then we will still have at least one TD in the Dail that understands what its like for those of us out here that are trying to keep our business’s afloat any way we can. It is all well and good for Enda and co to act like scolded children in our dealings with the EU but we are fighting for survival out here, and maybe if we had some fighters in the Dail that knew how to fight a little tougher, and if necessary fight a little dirtier then we’d all be a little better off.

A little better off would be a good start.

So they’ve set up a committee to investigate? To investigate what the Revenue Commissioners have already investigated… Seriously???

We really do have spineless parliamentarians.

Of course not. One rule for them and another for the rest of the country. And who is going to foot the bill for this committee? YOU the taxpayer….. No Thanks!!!!!

There is no VAT man. There is a tax man. There is one revenue. There is one pot into which all the revenue of the state goes. Article 11 of our Constitution states that all revenue forms one fund.

Mick Wallace defrauded the state of 1.4 million euro in VAT. He is not above the law. He must be punished.

By letting him off, we only set a dangerous precedent. It leads to vicious descending cycle where people refuse to pay their share of taxes. It leads to a situation where we have a fake property boom and where a third of our revenue comes from tax receipts related to this property boom. It leads to a situation where we require a bailout and supervision from the EU/IMF/ECB after the phoney property boom runs out of steam.

We should take responsibility for our own actions and inactions and stop blaming Ze Germans. Believe or not, we are a sovereign state.

He is one of the elite,so nothing will happen to him.One law for them,and one law for us.

While the likes of Lowry, Stagg and Mitchell to name but 3 remain in the Dail after their “indiscretions” it’s a bit rich any of the political parties going after Wallace, it’s starting to come across as bullying of someone who isn’t a party hack. Who has most to gain if he does quit the Dail and politics? FF or FG. I wasn’t a bit surprised at the guy from the Wexford newspaper on drivetime yesterday saying he thought Wallace would be re-elected if he ran again, that’s the way it’s been with Irish politics for as long as I can remember.