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PIPS COLLAPSE NOT FOR POLITICAL GAIN |
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Open Letter from Cllr. Brian Collins
Caithoairleach Kells Town Council
Dear Sir,
As the local elections approach some candidates short of imagination on how to move our communities forward in these difficult times or lacking a true sense of vision for this County have resorted to smear, innuendo and fear mongering to garner a few votes. One of these candidates has now decided that to gain further political advantage and a few headlines they intend rake over the muck of the pyramid scheme known as PIPS (People in Profit Scheme). I was told at the time I would be foolish not to invest in it. I immediately decided that anything that paid 2% interest per day was too good to be true and stayed clear of it. It collapsed a few months later.
I do not intend to rehash all of the details of the scam. I know that it cost some families dearly. I know the hurt has divided people in our community that were once close and thrown a suspicious cloud over others. The reality is that Bryan and Sharon Marsden were the people who devised this scam and have since faced numerous charges as well as the hospitality of the Malaysian authorities.
The raw nerve that still exists in some quarters is to whether some Kells people in the summer of 2005 scam realised it was all just numbers on the screen and set up their own sub-scam. After the collapse of the scam the town was rife with rumours and allegations. I publicly called upon people to go and talk to the Gardaí. I believed that a full investigation would stop this hurt from becoming a septic poison that ran through the town for decades to come. Those who had lost money would know for certain where their money had gone and those who may have had false allegations thrown at them would have had the benefit of having their names cleared. Truth would clear the air, prosecutions would sweeten it.
However, having had discussion with a senior officer in the Fraud Squad I realised that our law was very much out of date and had not adjusted to the possibility of internet based fraud. Documentary evidence would have to be produced by any complainant and this appeared to be non-existent. Mary Upton of the Labour Party put down a private members bill in the Dáil to modernise our laws on the matter but the Government voted down the legislation pending their own bill. The Council wrote to the Minister seeking the necessary changes in the law but received no response. My understanding is that some people did go the Gardaí but I don’t know what happened after that. The only things we know for certain is that the money is gone and it isn’t coming back.
And there the matter lay. Until a candidate for Kells Town Council who didn’t even live in Kells at the time and only got interested in the issue after his selection started to rake over the whole mess. Stirring up peoples hopes of vengeance or cruelly raising their hopes that their money may be returned is not in the best interests of anyone except a candidate desperate for a bit of traction with the electorate. It is most definitely not in the best interests of Kells. His claim that if 20 people give a signed statement to the Gardaí then charges can be laid is simply not true. 20,000 people could sign such statements but without evidence nothing will come of it. His claim that much of the money can be recovered is disingenuous. People have been conned once, they don’t need to be done a second time.
I hope that somewhere out there, there is a smoking gun, a piece of documentary evidence that could settle this matter for once and all. However even if it costs me votes I have no intention of telling people what they want to hear. A scam was conceived, the law was outdated, a very few people made a lot of money, most people lost a lot of money. Welcome to Ireland.
Justice and the truth are unlikely to emerge at this juncture. I know it is a bitter pill to swallow, but the best advice I can give is that unless you have some documentary evidence it is time to let sleeping dogs lie. Sometimes politicians like investment schemes can be too good to be true.
Yours faithfully,
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Cllr Brian Collins
Cathaoirleach
Kells Town Council |
