Irish Freedom Party President Hermann Kelly wrote to RTE recently highlighting a discrepancy in the figures they were reporting for Ireland’s contribution to the European Union’s coffers. Here is his letter and RTE’s response is below.

Dear Sir

In an article online entitled:

Government resisting EU ‘grab’ of corporate sector profits (Updated / Friday, 15 Sep 2023 20:00) by Tony Connolly (reference: 1)

It states in paragraph 7: “According to one calculation, if the mechanism were approved, Ireland’s annual contribution to the EU budget could increase by €1.5 billion from the current amount of €2.6 billion” and again under subhead “Alarm at idea” the article states: “Under the proposed formula of 0.5%, that would mean an extra €1.5 billion on top of Ireland’s existing gross national contribution, which stood at €2.6 billion in 2021.” The Department of Finance is quoted very extensively in the article.

On the contrary, Ireland contributed 3.5 billion euro to EU budget in 2021, not €2.6 billion as per Tony Connolly article.

Indeed RTE has recently done an article based on official Government statistics, “Ireland has been a net contributor to the EU since 2013, according to the Comptroller and Auditor General’s report” (reference: 2).

In conclusion I state that article implying our national contribution to EU budget in 2021 was 2.6 billion euro is incorrect.

Therefore, I would ask that the Tony Connolly article above is updated to 3.5 billion euro as per official Department of Finance statistics.

Kind regards

Hermann Kelly

Irish Freedom Party

Reference 1

https://www.rte.ie/news/europe/2023/0915/1405522-eu-budget/

Reference 2

https://www.rte.ie/news/business/2023/0929/1408128-ireland-eu-budget-cag/

Reference 3

Dept. of Finance figures.

In response to Hermann Kelly’s letter, RTE have replied as follows:

Dear Mr Kelly,

I refer your email below

The position is as follows:

There are different ways of measuring a country’s contribution to the EU budget.

There is the contribution based on Gross National Income (GNI) and there are the contributions based on the VAT and Customs receipts that a member state collects on behalf of the EU.

According to an official at the European Court of Auditors, which issued its 2022 report this week, “The majority of [Ireland’s] contribution is a GNI based contribution (% of our GNI). In 2022, this amounted to €2.6 billion euro”]

That is, the contribution that does not include VAT and Customs receipts, which will bring the total up to roughly €3.5 billion.

Furthermore, contributions to the EU budget are offset by what a member state receives in EU funding.

Ireland received €2.4 billion in 2022.  By referring to Ireland’s gross contribution, our Europe Editor was indicating it did not take account of what Ireland received in EU funding.

The fact he referenced Ireland’s GNI-based contribution was entirely deliberate and significant.

His report was about the fact that the European Commission has proposed that member states make an extra contribution based on the Gross Operating Surplus (GOS) of a member state’s corporate sector, i.e., the amount of corporate profit left over once salaries, production costs and other overheads are stripped out.

Ireland has the highest proportion of GOS to GNI in the European Union, which is central to the government’s concerns.

That is why the report mentions the figure of €2.6 billion: that is the GNI-based contribution to the EU budget, one which does not include VAT and Customs receipts.

Contrary to any notion that our Europe Editor, or RTE, is deliberately downplaying Ireland’s contribution, his online report on the Court of Auditors annual report this week is below and it includes Ireland’s contribution as per the GNI part and the VAT / Customs receipts part:

https://www.rte.ie/news/europe/2023/1005/1409110-eu-spending/

In that online report, he quoted the figures provided by the Court on Ireland’s contribution to the EU budget, this time for 2022.

“According to the ECA, Ireland contributed €3.4 billion in 2022, and received €2.4 billion, mostly from CAP payments, meaning a net contribution of around €1 billion.

“In 2021, Ireland paid in €3.4 billion and received €2.7 billion, meaning a net contribution of €0.7 billion.”

Again, on this occasion, the Court’s figures included VAT and Customs receipts meaning that they were the gross amount.

RTÉ stands over the report you refer to.

Yours Sincerely,

Brian Dowling

Consultation – Submission on Gender Equality referendum on behalf of The Irish Freedom Party.

by Party President Hermann Kelly

The Citizens Assembly on Gender Equality, in its final report to the Oireachtas in June 2021, made recommendations for amendments to Articles 40 and 41 of the Constitution. These were that:

·     Article 40.1 of the Constitution should be amended to refer explicitly to gender equality and non-discrimination

·     Article 41 of the Constitution should be amended so that it would protect family life, with the protection afforded to the family not limited to the marital family

·     Article 41.2 of the Constitution should be deleted and replaced with language that is not gender specific and obliges the State to take reasonable measures to support care within the home and wider community.

The Irish Freedom Party submits: 

In the late 1990s, two well-known physicists Alan Sokal and Jean Bricmont wrote a critique of sociologists’ abuse of scientific words. The book was called “Fashionable Nonsense: Postmodern Intellectuals’ Abuse of Science.”

Clearly fashionable nonsense has not gone away, so basic facts must be stated:

Sex is a biologically and genetically based reality, which can be observed and examined.

The language and concept of Gender is a system of make-believe, thought up in the late 20th century and given pseudo-scientific respectability by a sexologist John Money. If you research the ‘Twins Experiment’ of John Money you will find that he sexually abused two young boys, forcing one to dress and behave as a girl against his will. He used the 2 boys as guinea pigs to falsely base his theories but eventually both young men committed suicide in their 30’s.

His so-called findings were based on a complete lie, indeed, they were built on failure and abuse.

There are only 2 sexes. Humans are dimorphic and exist as male or female.

Men are adult human males. Women are adult human females.

Men and women are identical in value and dignity but different biologically and psychologically.

Men and women are physically complementary but are not interchangeable. Only sexual intercourse between a man and a woman can form a child.

Marriage in the Irish Constitution is held in high regard and its original natural law and biologically based notion should be maintained.

Only sexual intercourse between a man and a woman has the potential to pro-create a child. The child is best growing up in a stable environment or a committed life-long marriage with its mother and father so the child is aware of its identity and is brought up in the safe environment of its parents.

The Irish Freedom Party are pro-natalist, pro-family and pro childbirth. Our society has no future without children and our culture as well as a society and political entity must do everything possible to facilitate and encourage Irish men and women, Irish families to have children so that our society, our culture, our names and our history are passed on into the future.

The Irish Freedom Party believes that removing the words “woman” and “mother” from the Irish Constitution, art 41.2 in the only time that is used, is an act of political, legal and linguistic misogyny.

Inserting language about a make believe concept such as gender, based as it is, on cultural stereotypes which are constantly open to change and interpretation is a legally irresponsible act.

Therefore we hold that retaining articles 40.1 ; and article 41 is better than changing it.

Upholding the biological and genetic reality of sexual identity is important to society.

Introducing the concept of Gender into our legal system would devalue the family based on marriage which is the best locus for sexual intercourse capable of the reproduction of children.

Introducing the make believe language of gender also increases the chances of allowing the dangerous practice of putting sexually intact males into spaces which are and should remain reserved for women, such as women’s toilets, changing rooms, women’s refuges and prisons.

Introducing the concept of gender also encourages and facilitates the indoctrination and physical mutilation of children with gender dysphoria.

For these reasons above,

The Irish Freedom Party supports the retention of the current version of articles 40 and 41 of the Irish Constitution.

Hermann Kelly,

President,

Irish Freedom Party,