We all know that the French can be a right shower of bastards when they want to be. Just ask the New Zealanders. Back in 1985, they sank a Greenpeace ship, the Rainbow Warrior, in Auckland Harbour, drowning a photographer in the process. Ten years later, they started testing nuclear weapons in the South Pacific, blowing the shit out of a number of atolls in the region.

Judging by the hysteria in the media today, you would swear that the French navy had steered a nuclear submarine into Irish territorial waters and started sinking Irish fishing trawlers. Dermot Ahern has called for the game to be replayed. A senator from Wexford was on The Last Word suggesting that we take legal action against the French. Brian Cowen is going to raise the matter with Nicolas Sarkozy.

As Harry Enfield's Scousers used to say - "Eh! Eh! Calm down! Calm down!"

I love me sport as much as the next man, but that's what it is - sport. Unless you make your living from it, and you stand to lose out as a result of us not qualifying for the World Cup, then in the overall scheme of things, it's not that important. Certainly it's disappointing that our team's Herculean efforts were scuppered in such an unsporting manner. Having played so well over the course of the qualifying campaign (and having to play both of the finalists of the last World Cup), it is heartbreaking for the players, the management and all backroom staff to have been cheated out of their place in the World Cup.

But it doesn't warrant the acres of newsprint and the hours of airtime that have been expended analysing the nitty-gritty of what happened. And as for the politicians jumping on the bandwagon - two thoughts come to mind. One: there is nothing like The National Grudge for uniting the people. For years, the National Grudge was all about those perfidious Brits. But now that We Have Grown Up As A Nation, we can look beyond the white cliffs of Dover to see others who might do us down. We like our National Grudge. We like to take it out of its box every now and then, especially when times are hard, stroke it, feed and water it. What happened last night is perfect food for the NG. We were wronged. FIFA didn't want us going to South Africa anyway. They can all go and shite, so they can, we're off to the pub to sulk and pick at our scabs.

Secondly - this is s perfect diversion to keep the people's minds off the recession, the public sector strikes, the queues in the hospitals, the unemployment, the budget, NAMA, and everything else that makes up the utter clusterfuck¹ our government has led us into. Formal intervention on this issue by any politician is populist bullshit. I have no problem with them voicing their opinion on the matter from a personal point of view, but this nonsense of Cowen raising the issue with Sarkozy is just loo-laa.

The people who are responsible for complaining about this matter on an official level are the FAI. Let them raise the issue with FIFA, and the politicians can get back to doing what they're supposed to do.

¹ I first heard this word used by Sgt Jay Landsman in The Wire, and vowed that one day I would use it in a post.

RTÉ - Nepal govt to meet on Everest

Nepal is to hold a cabinet meeting on Mount Everest to highlight the impact of global warming on the Himalayas ahead of next month's climate change talks in Copenhagen.

The entire cabinet will travel to Everest base camp at an altitude of 5,360 metres for the meeting, to be held later this month.

The announcement comes just weeks after the government of the Maldives held an underwater cabinet meeting to focus global attention on rising sea levels ahead of the key UN summit on December 7-18.

And next week, Brian Cowen and his Cabinet colleagues will hold a Budget meeting in a specially-constructed meeting room, deep inside a slurry pit on a farm near Tullamore.

After the debacle of June last year, the Irish electorate came good and ratified the Lisbon Treaty by a decisive margin on Friday. The final result was over two-to-one in favour of the Treaty, a massive turnaround from the 53-47 rejection last year.

Some No campiagners were saying yesterday that this was a 1-1 draw, but it would be better to look on it as a fixture played over two legs, decided by the aggregate score. On that count, the Yes side win decisively with a total vote over the two referendums of 1,966,719 versus the No side's 1,457,021.

The Treaty was rejected last year because the politicians, government and opposition parties alike, were caught napping. They thought that they could use the referendum campaign as an opportunity to introduce their local election candidates to the electorate. They completely underestimated the dedication, ability and resources of their opponents, and allowed them to set the agenda. By the time they had come up with a strategy to counter-attack, it was too late.

This time they approached it with the hard lesson learned. They did not allow the pace to be dictated by the opponents, and they managed to skilfully and calmly refute the arguments of the No campaign. The civic society groups played their part, bringing people onside who might otherwise have been tempted to use the referendum to register a protest vote against the government.

There are many who should be singled out for praise, but I am going to name a few that I think made a difference:

Michéal Martin, who was the main face of the goverment's campaign. Always well-briefed, he was able to get the point across without ever allowing himself to be dragged into a slagging match.

Enda Kenny and Eamonn Gilmore, who persuaded people that this referendum was not an opportunity to take a pot-shot at the government.

Marian Harkin, MEP for North-West, who helped raise awareness that this was a pan-European issue, and not just about Ireland.

The civic society campaigns, such as We Belong and Generation Yes, who reinforced the notion that this issue was bigger than politics.

Michael O'Leary, who gave us all a laugh, especially the full page ads in the Irish Times, exhorting us to vote yes so that we would "p*ss off Joe Higgins, Sinn Féin and Patricia McKenna."

Now, it's all over, so let's get back to the serious business of getting the country back on track.

In my second Thoughts on Lisbon piece, I referred to elements within the No campaign who sought out to portray Lisbon as part of a grand conspiracy. "They" (the EU) is seeking to impose "their" will on "us" (the Irish people), to "our" detriment.

I think it may have escaped the notice of some people on the No side of the house that the Lisbon Treaty isn't just about Ireland. When it comes into effect, it will have immediate effect on the 27 current member states, and will also apply to those who join in the future. While it's true that we are the ones who have to safeguard our own national interest, we need to realise that there is a bigger picture.

Who, or what, is the EU? Is it a cadre of bureaucrats, holed up in Brussels, seeking to stick their noses into our business at every available opportunity? Is it a clique of mostly foreign politicians who seek to progressively strip our nation of its sovereignty?

No. We are the EU. Ireland is the EU, along with the 26 other member states. Half a billion people inhabiting a continent stretching from Belmullet to the Black Sea, from the south of Spain to the north of Finland. It is from us that the institutions of the EU derive their powers.

The EU is unique in the history of mankind. It is neither a state, nor an empire nor a kingdom. It is the coming together of a number of like-minded states (many of which have been in existence for centuries), who choose to pool a limited amount of sovereignty for the common good. Unlike the empires of old, there is no single seat of power. No state was forced to join the union.

It is not perfect by any means, nor will it ever be. Twenty seven states means that there are many opinions, partisan interests and strategic alliances. That we managed to agree as complex a treaty as Lisbon at all is something of a minor miracle. There are parts of it that will not suit us, and in those cases we need to ask ourselves if we can live with these compromises in the interests of the common good of the entire union.

Some oppose Lisbon from a strict idealogical point of view. I don't doubt Joe Higgins's sincerity in his opposition to the Lisbon Treaty, but then again I have never met the man or engaged in debate with him, so I can't truly judge it. However, Mr Higgins has a strictly defined view of how society should be run to socialist principles, and anything that is in conflict with that view, he will oppose. The economic basis for the EU is the principle of free trade, which will never sit with as rigid a world view as that of the Socialist Party MEP. Sinn Féin oppose it because of their crude brand of nationalism. Any party that calls itself "ourselves alone" is going to fall at the first hurdle when it comes to inter-state, multilateral co-operation. Cóir oppose it because Europe is crawling with Godless, homosexual, aborting, euthanasing foreigners. Declan Ganley and Libertas oppose it because… well, we don't really know why, do we? Patricia McKenna's opposition to the Treaty is like the approach of a mountaineer to a mountain - because it's there. She would oppose herself if she could.

Europe faces many challenges as we close out the first decade of the 21st century. If we reject Lisbon, we will have just added another one to the list, one that is completely avoidable and unnecessary. Let's demonstrate to our fellow EU citizens that we have the interests of the team at heart. Let's show our commitment to the EU and prove that we truly belong to this great family of nations.

This Friday, let's go out there and Vote Yes.

[Series concluded.]

One of the laziest reasons I hear in favour of voting No in the upcoming referendum is to do with the fact that we voted on Lisbon once before.

"No means No!", "What part of No do you not understand?", and "It's an abuse of democracy to ask us to vote again!" are the cries that go up from the nay-sayers.

My first question is - when was there a law passed that prevented a question being asked a second time? Good God, if that was the case, poor Mrs Doyle would have been hauled off from Craggy Island to Mountjoy Women's Prison a long time ago. It's not as if we have never had this happen before. We voted twice on the Nice Treaty, and also on divorce. We have had three referendums on the subject of abortion, and it has yet to be resolved satisfactorily. We had two general elections in 1981.

The No vote last year was not ignored. The question we were asked was if we should amend the Constitution, so that the Treaty could be passed in the Dáil. There was a significant body of opinion at the time that suggested that we didn't actually need to amend the Constitution at all, and shouldn't have bothered with a referendum. In that case, the bill to ratify Lisbon would have been referred to the Supreme Court, who may well have ruled that the Treaty was compatible with the Constitution as it stood. After the referendum, the government could still have done that, and at least one columnist in The Irish Times (can't remember which one) suggested that the government should have gone for broke and tried to force Lisbon through that route. If they did, that would have been undemocratic, and totally contrary to the spirit of the referendum exercise. But they didn't do that.

What they did was to commission research in order to pinpoint exactly why the electorate refused to allow the Constitution to be amended, and by extension rejected the Treaty. Having gotten the results of that research, they went back to their colleagues on the Council of Minsiters and asked for the Commissioner issue to be resolved, and also for legally binding assurances that specific areas of concern (such as neutrality, tax policy and certain social issues) were not affected by the Treaty. Having secured these, they went back to the people again.

They couldn't renegotiate the Treaty, as it would have meant going back to the table with all the other 26 member states, and then forcing them to go through the ratification process all over again. Besides, there would have been no point, as the Commissioner issue was able to be resolved outside of the Treaty and the other specific areas of concern weren't even in it!

So they didn't try to force the Treaty through the Dáil and the Supreme Court against the will of the people, and neither did they just say "Fuck it, lads, let's just run it again, as is."

Just as importantly, they didn't just go back to their EU colleagues and say "Sorry, the people have spoken. No means No. We'll have to rip it up and start again." Given the amount of work that went into it, and the dealings and compromises hammered out through almost eight years of protracted negotiations, it deserved to be given another chance.

One other nonsense argument from the No side that particularly irritates me - "It's too complex to read and understand. If you don't understand it, you should vote No."

This is a multilateral Treaty that covers the reform of an institution that is unique to human history. Of course it's a complex legal document. It's not a page turner. Just because we had Bertie Ahern negotiating the thing on our behalf doesn't mean that he managed to get his daughter Cecilia to write it. I would ask anyone who raises this objection the following: Have you read Bunreacht na hÉireann in its entirety, along with all its amendments? Do you read all Bills that pass through the Oireachtas, especially those that will have a direct impact on you, such as the annual Finance Bill? Do you read the EULA of every piece of software that you download onto your computer? Do you read from cover to cover the instruction manual of every piece of electrical or electronic equipment you install in your home? Do you study the list of ingredients, the nutritional information and the allergy warnings of everything you eat from a packet?

The Referendum Commission published a booklet that explained the Treaty from a neutral point of view, and sent it to every household in the country. They read the Treaty so you don't have to.

Like many Mac users, I upgraded my machine to Mac OS X Snow Leopard recently. Normally an upgrade to OS X brings with it a slew of new features, such as Time Machine that came with Leopard, or Spotlight that  came with Tiger. While Snow Leopard does have a lot of new features, most of these are "under the hood". Several apps have been completely rewritten in order to clean up the code base and allow for future compatibility.

Why, you may ask, am I blathering on about a software upgrade in a post that is ostensibly about the Lisbon Treaty? Next Friday, the Irish electorate will be asked to approve what is in effect, an upgrade to the system that runs the EU. Like Snow Leopard for the Mac, Lisbon has some important new features, but no great show-stoppers like the single market or the Euro.

Even though the No camp has generated significant media coverage as a result of their campaign, the opinion polls are suggesting that the Treaty will be approved this time around. The specific concerns that the electorate had last June twelve months have been addressed. The economy has gone into freefall in the last year, and people realise that we really cannot afford to have such a cavalier attitude to the EU, and our place in it, any more.

Much has been made of the question of honesty on both sides of the campaign. The No campaign point to posters with 'Yes to Jobs' on them and point out (quite rightly) that there is nothing in the text of the treaty that promises a single new job for Ireland. This is true, but no-one on the Yes side is claiming it to be the literal case anyway. It is equally true that if we reject Lisbon we are demonstrating our unwillingness to play as part of a team, and that our commitment to the EU only lasts as long as there are subsidies and structural funds available to us. That detached attitude to Europe could have a detrimental effect on our ability to attract and retain quality jobs in the future.

But the real, glaring dishonesty is on the part of several elements of the No campaign. Most parties involved are not just opposed to the Lisbon Treaty, but to the EU itself, and Ireland's continuing membership of it. They claim the Treaty will make Ireland's constitution subservient to the EU, even though a similar form of words has been in every EU treaty since Maastricht. The lies about the minimum wage, abortion, workers' rights, EU militarisation etc. all add up to the same thing - a fundamental hostility to the ideals of the EU. The Joe Higginses and Patricia McKennas of this world would like to see Ireland transfomed into a socialist workers' Utopia, while Cóir would like to see us back under the jackboot of an authoritarian Catholic hierarchy. Neither of these fanciful delusions would be remotely compatible with our membership of the EU, so even if there was provision for a pet puppy for every child in Ireland within the treaty, they would still oppose it. They are Eurosceptics, and they should at least have the honesty to admit that. The same goes for Sinn Fein.

(As an aside, the most bizarre anti-Libon poster I have seen so far was one I spotted on the Rochestown Road in Cork over the weekend. "Keep Interest Rates Low - Vote No!" it advised.)

Incidentally, true Eurosceptics should be in favour of the Treaty, as it has within it the mechanism by which a member state can withdraw from the union. Up to now, this had never been formally allowed for. Now that it has been, Eurosceptics should embrace it and start a formal campaign to have Ireland secede from the EU.

The bottom line is that we have nothing to fear from this Treaty. It's not like the treaty that established the single market or the treaty that created the Euro. It simply makes Europe more efficient and more capable of meeting the challenges of the 21st century. If we reject it again, the issue of EU reform will continue to fester and occupy the attention of the governing bodies of the union and the member states. This at a time when we need them to be looking after our interests in an increasingly uncertain world.

Let's just say 'Yes' and move onto the issues that will actually have a bearing on our everyday lives.

With less than two weeks to go till polling day, it's still all to play for in the Lisbon Treaty campaign. The polls are showing a fairly consistent lead for the Yes campaign, but this does not mean that there can be any room for complacency. The Don't Know category is still quite substantial, and a big, gloves-off offensive from the various No factions could yet see them over the line.

Following the No side of this campaign demonstrates (well, to me at least) that the traditional left-right political divide isn't linear but circular. The further you go out to either extreme and the more likely you are to find similar arguments from the supposedly opposite extreme. Often they are coated in a veneer of crude nationalism.

Overall, I find the various arguments on the No side to be various shades of one great big conspiracy theory. Vote No or else Big Bad Europe will:

• Erode workers rights
• Cut the minimum wage
• Force Ireland to introduce abortion
• Take control of our tax rates
• Turn us into an outpost for a miiltarised EU superstate
• Rob us of the independence that Pearse, Connolly, et al won on our behalf
• Do away with our neutrality
• Etc., etc., etc.

There have been some richly ironic posters , though. Sinn Féin's poster warning of encroaching EU militarism is a gem, coming from an organisation that fetishises physical force republicanism.

I await with anticipation the arrival of the literature from UKIP, due this week to every household in the country. Is anyone taking their intervention seriously? UKIP couldn't give a damn about Ireland, and are just using our referendum as a way of furthering their own campaign to have the UK withdraw from the EU. If Ireland rejects Lisbon again, the treaty will still be unratified when the Conservatives return to power in Britain next year. One of their pledges has been to hold a referendum on Lisbon and campaign against it. The likelihood in that situation is that the UK would also reject Lisbon, and that would be it - game over. (The further likelihood of us ending up as a sort of client state of the UK hasn't really sunk into Sinn Féin yet. Or indeed Cóir, whose posters remind us who won our freedom.)

Declan Ganley is going to make a comeback

The poll in this morning’s Irish Times would have made very sobering reading for the pro-Lisbon parties, and Fianna Fáil in particular. The Yes side has shipped seven percentage points since the last IT poll in May and is now at 46%. The only redeeming feature of this situation is that most of the slippage was into the Don’t Know category, with the No side gaining only one percentage point.

The referendum should pass this time, but that doesn’t mean it necessarily will. There are a number of ways where it could be lost - scaremongering by the extremes of left and right, abstention, or a desire to wound the government, could all scupper the Yes side.

There has been a lot of debate in recent days about scaremongering from the No campaign, especially regarding Cóir’s contribution to the debate, so there is no need to go over it again. Another danger is that some of the ‘soft’ Yes vote from last time around could stay at home on 2 October. If this was to happen, and in sufficient number, it could have a bearing on the end result. The pro-Lisbon parties cannot afford to assume that everyone who voted Yes last time around will do so again. Those votes will have to be won all over again.

What is really scary, though, is the notion that a significant proportion of the electorate would be prepared to use the Lisbon referendum to try to force a general election. It has been suggested in several quarters that if the referendum is lost, the government will collapse. I don’t necessarily believe this to be the case.

Back in June, Fianna Fáil and the Greens took a ferocious beating in the European and local elections. Once the dust had settled, they just went about their business as if nothing had happened. I can’t see it being any different if Lisbon Mk II goes down the pan. I reckon the only way it would happen would be if the Greens have a crisis of conscience and decide to pull out of the coalition. But if they did, they would be obliterated in the subsequent election, losing probably all their seats. It could take a generation for them to get back to the point of being a credible potential party of government again. OK, they are probably going to take a hiding in 2012 in any case, but at least by then they will have had the opportunity to get more of their policies into law. Why pull out now and give that up, when it could take twenty years or more to have the chance again?

Would Fianna Fáil decide to go to the country if Lisbon is lost? It is often said that FF have no principles, but to be fair to them they have at least two. The first one is to get into power, and the second is to stay there, come what may. It should also be pointed out that all the major parties in the Dáil, except Sinn Féin, support Lisbon. Those facts alone would suggest that FF will sit tight and brazen this out.

However…

A more cynical person than myself might suggest that FF could use this opportunity to finish Fine Gael off for good. Here’s the scenario - Lisbon is lost, the economy is still in freefall and the whole Nama business is up in the air. FF call an election, knowing they will lose, and in the process throw the incoming FG/Lab coalition a mother and father of a hospital pass. Enda and Eamonn now have to make all the difficult decisions, and FF wait in the wings for a term, happy that FG and Labour have done the dirty work for them. At the next election, they step over the carcasses of Fine Gael and Labour and back into power, just as the economy is starting to pull out of recession.

Tags: lisbon treaty

Picture from the Irish Times web page today:



Full story

There was an interesting development today from the Yes side of the Lisbon Treaty referendum campaign, with the launch of We Belong.

From their launch press release:

A new modern and engaging organisation for Lisbon was launched this morning in the chq in Dublin’s Docklands. The group which will engage with thousands of Irish people across the country over the next two months is being supported by many well known figures from different areas of Irish life.

Listed are a number of well-known names and others who are not so well-known. The aim seems to be to bypass the politicians in spreading the pro-Lisbon word. That’s not a bad idea, given the unpopularity of all politicians at present, and also the hames the political parties made of the previous campaign.

It will be interesting to see how they get on.

Tags: lisbon treaty

Richard Greene - Yes vote on Lisbon could open door for abortion - Irish Times, 14 July 2009

And so it starts again. The scaremongering, the bullshit, the blatant lies. Richard Greene absolutely outdid himself in today’s IT, with his claim that “a Yes vote on Lisbon could open the door for abortion.”

The chances of this happening are so remote that they don’t bear a second thought. Social issues like abortion have always been competencies of national parliaments, not the EU. If anything, the Lisbon Treaty actually increases the role of the national parliaments in overall EU decision-making.

Do Greene and his fellow travellers in Cóir (aka Youth Defence) honestly believe that there is a secret conspiracy in Brussels and Strasbourg to force Ireland to legalise abortion and euthanasia. I can see it now, a secret bunker under the European Commission building, staffed by faceless bureaucrats with James-Bond-baddie accents: “Ve vill make zeeze Irish comply vizz our orders, ja! Zey vill haff to haff abortion, and zen ve vill force zem to haff euss-in-asia as vell!!”

A yes vote on Lisbon is about as likely to open the door for abortion in Ireland as it is to open the door to Sharia Law in Ireland, or open the door for Ireland to be taken over by giant space ants.

Hang on, do we know what is our putative new insect overlords’ position on abortion?

Tags: lisbon treaty, fud

The counting is pretty much done and dusted and the results in. So how did my predictions for the Euros stand up?

Dublin: I had Mary Lou retaining her seat at the expense of Eoin Ryan. In fact neither of them retained their seats, and Joe Higgins snuck in for the final seat. Two out of three.

East: McGuinness, Childers and Aylward. 3/3.

South: Crowley and Kelly x 2. 3/3 again.

North West: Not yet formally declared, but it will be Gallagher, Higgins and Harkin. 3/3 again.

That makes 11 out of 12. Dammit, it’s a pity FaceTheBall.com doesn’t do elections.

The big story across both elections is of course the hammering taken by Fianna Fáil and the Greens. FF lost a pile of seats at a local level and their MEP in Dublin. The Greens were wiped off the map in Dublin and only managed to win three local authority seats. Their two Euro candidates, Senators Deirdre de Burca and Dan Boyle both performed dismally. If there was a general election tomorrow, it would be hard to see a single Green TD retain their seat.

There are a couple of other stories worth noting too. Loopertas disappeared in a puff of smoke overnight. Never before has so much money been spent on so inept a campaign. Caroline Simons could only manage a paltry 3.3% in Dublin, while Raymond O’Malley managed 1% more in East. Declan Ganley benefitted from the dearth of Galway-based candidates from the major parties to gain a respectable 13.7% first preference share in North West. Sadly for him, that wasn’t enough, and so he went to the presiding officer to point out that some of his votes may have been allocated to another candidate. As it turned out, he had actually benefitted from the error, and his raising the issue cost him about 3000 votes. He conceded defeat earlier this evening and promised to bow out of politics. With his going, hopefully that is the last we will see of Loopertas on the Irish political scene.

Incidentally, in their initial blaze of glory phase, they claimed they were on course to win over 100 seats across Europe. They managed one.

The other story is Sinn Féin. This election was tailor made for a protest party like SF. Mid-term, hugely unpopular government - just the sort of situation where Sinn Féin could and should profit. What happened? They hit the buffers, that’s what. Their share of first preferences was almost identical to 2004, they made no gains in council seats, and failed to win any European seat. The party brass will have to look closely at what happened, particularly in Dublin. They lost four council seats in the capital and their golden girl Mary Lou McDonald lost her European seat. If she had lost the seat to Eoin Ryan, that could be explained away by the fact that Dublin had gone from four seats to three, but they both lost out to Joe Higgins. SF should have been able to mop up the disaffected voters in Dublin, especially those from the left, but instead these voters put their trust in Labour, the Socialist Party and the Ideology Before Reality Alliance. Add to the fact that SF lost a TD in 2007, and this is a party that is going nowhere fast.

So overall, it was a satisfactory result, especially in the Euros. Only one anti-Lisbon candidate got elected MEP, and the two that were there both lost out. By and large, we have a group of MEPs that are actually interested in representing our interests in Europe, and are supporters of the European ideal.

Contrast this to the UK, from where 13 UKIP and two British National Party MEPs will soon be booking their flights to Strasbourg.

At least we haven’t got that to contend with.

Tags: elections

The first count is in for the East constituency, and as expected Mairéad McGuinness has romped home (as she did in 2004), and is the first candidate to be deemed elected across the whole country. Nessa Childers of Labour came in a very creditable second and pushed Fianna Fáil’s Liam Aylward into third place on first preferences. The second Fine Gael candidate, John Paul Phelan, took fourth place. Thomas Byrne of Fianna Fáil is fifth, followed by the two Sinn Féin candidates in sixth and seventh, while Raymond O’Malley of Loopertas could only manage eighth.

There was no Green candidate in this constituency this time around, and it looks like Nessa Childers was the beneficiary of their absence. Almost all of the other parties flatlined, but Labour’s 5% increase in vote matched almost exactly what Mary White of the Greens won in first preferences in 2004. Mind you, the way the Greens have been performing overall in both the locals and the Europeans, it could be argued that the presence of a Green candidate this time out would have made little difference in any case.

So it’s looking like Childers will take the seat left vacant by Fine Gael’s Avril Doyle, and Aylward will hold his for Fianna Fáil.

There are close calls all round in the other constituencies. Will Joe Higgins hold off Mary Lou McDonald and take Eoin Ryan’s seat in Dublin? Can Alan Kelly elbow ahead of Toiréasa Ferris in the South and take Kathy Sinnott’s seat? Will Declan Ganley deliver the shock result of the night and land the third seat there for Loopertas? We shall have to wait and see.

In the locals, here in the Emo LEA of Laois County Council, Fine Gael won two seats (Tom Mulhall and James Deegan), Fianna Fáil won one (Ray Cribbin) and independent candidate Paul Mitchell held his seat.

The best election coverage is to be found on all the main media outlets, and also IrishElection.com

Tags: elections

It seems like we have been living with those wretched election posters forever, so it’s comforting to know that they will all be gone by Friday week. The local and European elections aren’t quite as meaty as a general election, but there has been some drama along the way nonetheless.

Polls up to now have pointed to a potentially disastrous election for Fianna Fáil. They stand to lose several council seats and at possibly one Euro seat as well. If, as the polls suggest, they end up in second or even third place in terms of votes won, it will be a huge boost for the opposition parties. However, it will matter not a jot, as the coalition will still have a majority in the Dáil. Can you imagine Brian Cowen appearing on the steps of Government Buildings on the evening after the count, announcing a general election because he feels that the government no longer have the confidence of the people? No, me neither.

The only way this government could fall is if FF lose Dublin South and the Greens decide to walk. That is unlikely too (the Greens walking, that is - FF probably will lose D South), as John Gormley and his colleagues know that they will be annihilated in the ensuing election. Fianna Fáil will never be shamed into calling an election if they can still cobble the numbers together. Their arses are much too comfortable in their ministerial Mercs.

Much as I feel I should take part in the national witch-hunt against the government parties, I am going to resist. As anyone who would have been reading this blog at the time of the Lisbon Treaty campaign will know, I was and remain a staunch supporter of the notion that passing the Treaty is vital for both Ireland and the EU. I cannot see why it would be in Ireland’s interest to elect MEPs who are hostile to the EU, whether they be from Sinn Féin, Libertas or independents like Joe Higgins in Dublin or Kathy Sinnott in South. Therefore, in the Euro poll, my preferences will go to pro-Lisbon Treaty candidates and parties only. And that will include Fianna Fáil.

In the locals, I admit that I am still somewhat undecided. Local politics are very different to national, and I know that there are some very fine candidates available from all parties and also standing as independents. While I would never countenance voting for an independent candidate in a general election, I have no such qualms when it comes to local elections. Of all the candidates I have met since the campaign began, one independent here in Port has impressed me most and will probably get my Number 1. I will continue well down the ballot paper for my subsequent preferences.

So, some predictions for the Euros:

East: Mairéad McGuinness, Liam Aylward and Nessa Childers

Dublin: Pronsias de Rossa, Gay Mitchell and Mary Lou McDonald just pipping Eoin Ryan for the third.

South: Brian Crowley, Séan Kelly (taking Colm Burke’s seat), and either Alan Kelly or Toireasa Ferris taking Kathy Sinnott’s seat. (What was that? Call it? OK then - Kelly - just.)

North-West: Pat “da Cope” Gallagher, Jim Higgins and Marian Harkin.

What I would like to see:

Eoin Ryan prevail in Dublin over Mary Lou McDonald.

Kathy Sinnott to be told by the people of Munster that her services are no longer required.

Libertas to be humiliated.

Tags: elections

The incompetence of this Government is absolutely astonishing. It’s hard to believe that Fianna Fáil is the most successful political party in western Europe (in terms of number of years in Government). They say that politics is the art of the possible, but the artist in this case has hands of lead. Here are just a few epic fails from the last little while.

Allow Encourage the economy to balloon on the basis of an unsustainable housing boom, funded by a barely-regulated banking sector handing out huge loans to developers. Fund a huge and wasteful expansion in public spending from the proceeds of said boom.

Once the boom ends, proceed to plunder the incomes of hard-pressed middle-income earners to continue funding the out-of-control public spending, instead of making meaningful cuts.

Lose the Lisbon Treaty to a rag-tag coalition of utopian leftist micro-groups, fundamentalist Catholic nutjobs, shady neo-liberal conspiracy theorists with unexplained funding and backers, and Sinn Féin.

Bring Budget forward by six weeks. See it become completely redundant by the beginning of the financial year. Attempt to take medical cards from over-70s without first putting out feelers as to how this might be received, or even bothering to tell the junior minister in charge of senior citizens’ affairs. Introduce a “temporary” income levy on all income above a low threshold. Withdraw a cervical cancer vaccine for pre-teen girls for the want of €10m - five hours of public borrowing. Increase VAT and some excise duties and watch as shoppers flock to Northern Ireland.

Introduce a “supplementary” budget six months after the original failed one. Double the income levy and make it permanent. Add more tax to the already onerous burden on the people who are still actually creating wealth for the economy. Announce the abolition of long-service increments for TDs and pensions for former cabinet ministers who still serve as TDs. Roll over when backbenchers revolt and hide behind the excuse of legislation requirements. Set up NAMA to soak up the toxic debt from the boom era, exposing the public finances to further risk, instead of just just going the whole hog and nationalising the banks.

Dither over the fate of Eircom, as the former state-owned telecoms company (and owner of the vast majority of the state’s telecoms infrastructure) is disembowelled by a succession of corporate asset-stripping vultures.

Make a big song and dance about reducing the number of junior ministers from twenty to fifteen. But instead of choosing the remaining 15 from the original 20, drop seven and bring in two backbenchers, thus necessitating the payment of two extra severance packages at a cost of €106,000. Also sack John McGuinness, one of the few members of this useless, hapless Government that actually talks a bit of sense.

The list goes on and on…

So, as predicted we’re all worse off after today.

RTE has a summary of the main points, here.

From my own point of view, our household will lose because of the increased income levy, the increased health levy and the halving of the Early Childcare Supplement. More pain will come down the line next year, when we will lose the ECS altogether, Child Benefit will either be taxed or means-tested and the property tax comes in, along with the life assurance policy levy. The loss of various tax reliefs will probably affect us as well, but I don’t really know to what extent.

We don’t smoke and the family car is petrol, not diesel. Overall, it’s not really any worse than we expected.

From a professional point of view, the decision to leave excise duty on wine alone is welcome. The increase in duty last October was a major pain in the hole, as it meant we had to reprint all our price lists. It was also a major job getting some of our customers to accept the duty increase, not to mention the loss of business to cross-border shopping.

Much of today’s budget was a touch-kicking exercise. Whether or not Lenihan has kicked out on the full from outside his 22 remains to be seen. However, knowing that there are further, as yet undefined, tax increases to come will not help to encourage confidence in the domestic economy for the remainder of the year.

And so to the fudge. I don’t think enough was done to tackle waste and inefficiencies in the public sector. With the increased health levy component of PRSI, we are paying a huge amount per person for a third-rate health service. That’s not the fault of those working on the front line of the health service, but rather a failure of this government to make tough decisions on health service reform. Also, don’t forget that 52% of the population are paying for private health insurance in addition to what the government takes from them to fund the public health service.

As for my own predictions, I got some right, but most of those had been well-telegraphed beforehand in any case. The suit was maybe a bit too light to be considered charcoal grey, and the tie was brighter than expected. I didn’t see the speech, so don’t know how many sips of water he took, nor how many times the Ceann Comhairle called the House to order. I don’t recall Michael Ring being chucked out. Oh well, at least I wasn’t making my predictions on FaceTheBall.com

What I reckon is going to be in Brain Lenihan’s bag of tricks tomorrow:

Definitely:

Increase in the income levy, probably a doubling of the rate.
Widening of the 20% tax band to bring more into the tax net.
Abolition of the Early Childcare Supplement.
Excise duty increases: petrol 20c per litre, wine 60c per bottle; ciggies 50c a pack, minimal increases (if any) on beer and spirits.
A new Sneaky Tax on something or other.

Possibly:

Increase in Motor Tax for pre-July 2008 cars
Reduction of pension contribution tax relief entitlement
Reduction, or maybe even abolition of mortgage interest tax relief for first-time buyers.


Unlikely:

Public sector redundancies
Another increase in VAT (he can’t be that stupid, surely?)

Plus he will wear a charcoal grey suit and a sombre dark blue tie, and take fourteen sips of water as he delivers his speech. The Ceann Comhairle will call order eleven times in all, and Michael Ring will get chucked out of the chamber.

This Modern World bids a fond farewell to its hero, the great misunderestimated George W Bush. (Click on the image to see the whole cartoon.)

There’s lots of talk these days about a second referendum on the Lisbon Treaty. The No side is none too pleased, and wants the result of last June’s vote cast in stone.

Listening to some of the debate over the last few weeks, several contradictions have arisen. Declan Ganely of Libertas wants to halt the march towards a federal Europe and have the Lisbon Treaty replaced by a more concise 15-20 page document, more like the US constitution. However the US constitution is concise precisely because it is for a single, federal, sovereign country. The EU is a collection of sovereign states, which has evolved over the last fifty years or thereabouts.

The No side bemoan the “unelected beureaucrats” of the European Commission, yet are appalled at the idea of “losing our commissioner.” Lisbon proposed maintaining a 15-member commission, with each state appointing a commissioner for two five-year terms out of every three. If we keep the “one member state, one commissioner” model, we will have twenty-seven commissioners. Doing what exactly? The extra twelve commissioners will have to have offices and staff, thus increasing the number of unelected bureaucrats in Brussels poking their noses into our business.

The No side say that a new referendum would fly in the face of democratic principles. “What part of No do you not understand?” being their stunningly unoriginal mantra. Does democracy mean that you can never change your mind? We have precedents for this. The Nice Treaty had two goes before it made it through. Believe it or not, I voted No to Nice first time around. I can’t even remember why I did, but by the time the second referendum came around, I realised that I had made a mistake and I was glad to get the opportunity to put it right. We have had three referenda on abortion, and two on divorce in the last twenty-five years. Bear in mind also that a good chunk of the No vote last June was in protest at the overall policies of the government, which had been elected into office in May 2007. Many of these voters would have voted for Fianna Fáil in May 2007, and were using their ballots as a way of expressing their change of mind.

Tags: lisbon treaty

Graphic created using Google Sketchup

It’s bad enough having the country in a recession. But what’s worse is that we have a government which appears to want to stop us spending money within our economy altogether.

Ask Irish retailers what business is like and nearly every one will say that they are well down on last year. Those that are within an hour’s drive to the border will tell you that trade this year is a disaster. Go to Newry and look at the car park at Sainsbury’s - it will be full of southern reg cars.

Now you can easily point the finger at the retailers themselves and say “Good enough for them. They have been ripping us off for years.” While this may be true to an extent, it is by no means the full story. The cost of doing business in the Republic is much higher than in Northern Ireland. Staff costs, logistics, utilities, local authority charges, etc. are a much bigger share of a southern retail business’s cost base compared to a northern one.

Now that the downturn is upon us, the focus for shoppers is to spend less. With bargains to be had in Northern Ireland (and a Euro that is 27% stronger against Sterling than it was eighteen months ago) it’s no wonder shoppers are flocking over the border in their thousands. Any sensible government would by now have put in place measures to keep these shoppers’ euros on our side of the border, but what has happened is that they have done the opposite.

In October’s Budget, Brian Lenihan raised VAT to 21.5%, applicable from 1 December. So rather than encouraging shoppers to spend in this economy, he is actually enticing them to look elsewhere - i.e. in the North. And then today, Alistair Darling, UK Chancellor of the Exchequer has brought UK VAT down to 15%, making Northern Ireland even more attractive for southern shoppers.

The other factor that is slowly strangling retail in the Republic is the banking crisis. Banks have stopped lending to small businesses, which has completely messed up the cash flow of thousands of retailers. At this time of year, cash flow management is crucial, and if the banks turn off the tap and cancel the overdrafts, then there will be a huge number of retailers in big trouble in the coming weeks. There is potential for a vast number of perfectly viable businesses going to the wall, with thousands of jobs lost. Meanwhile, the government dithers about what to do to stabilise the banks. Answer: look at what others have done, and do something similar.

Brians Cowen and Lenihan have made an almighty hames of this recession so far. They can’t seem to make any timely decisions, and when they do, invariably make the wrong one. But we’re stuck with them for another four years, unless the Greens decide enough is enough and walk out.

Complete, utter, epic FAIL.

I don’t wear a hat, but if I did, I would take it off to Gavin, who called it for Obama back in January of this year (twice), and again in April.

02 January: In a piece entitled “Predictions for 2008”

I’m not going to make any, yet anyway. Dan Drezner does. The biggest surprise? Obama for president. I have a funny feeling he may be right.

Two days later:

Obama, I think, will be in the White House in 2009.

And then on 22 April:

My two cents: Obama will win the primary. He will then go on to win in November. I am considering going to Washington for the result. Though it will be an eventful night no matter who wins.

Well done, sir!

Tags: US Election

The revolution was televised. It was also reported in print, broadcast on radio, live-blogged, vlogged, YouTubed and Twittered.

In your lifetime, you see events unfold in the news that you know will be recorded as turning points when the history books are written. Some are horrific, such as the events of September 11, 2001. Others are joyful, like the release of Nelson Mandela from prison in 1990.

The events of 4/5 November 2008 will be remembered in the latter category. The USA has turned to Senator Barack Obama to repair America’s battered economy and society, and to restore her tarnished reputation in the wider world.



His task will not be easy. Promises are easily made on the stump, but implementing them may not be so easy. A phrase I heard more than once today on radio was “You campaign with poetry and you govern with prose.”

After 9/11, the USA had the goodwill of the rest of the world to count on as it tried to come to terms with what had happened and what it would do in response. President Bush and his neo-con goons ended up squandering that goodwill.

Messages of congratulation are pouring in to the US from all across the world, and this renewed goodwill for America’s new president will give all of us hope for the future.

President-Elect Barack Obama. Dammit, but those words sound good. They will sound better when the “-Elect” bit no longer applies.

Tags: US Election

Take this poll: Gallup Poll Daily tracking from Friday through Sunday finds Barack Obama with a five percentage point lead over John McCain, 50% to 45%, in the presidential preferences of likely voters using Gallup's traditional model.

Look further down, and you’ll find that the margin of error is +/- 2%. So that means that in reality, Obama is no more than 1% ahead of McCain, which is in itself within the margin of error. And that’s before the Bradley Effect is taken into account. Go McCain!!

Believe it or not, Matt Drudge of The Drudge Report makes a living peddling this sort of crap.

Tags: US Election

Paddy Power have already paid out on Obama.

This may well be a bit early to call the whole thing. If a week is a long time in politics, three weeks is three times a long time. Anything can still happen. The Republicans will throw as much shit as possible at Obama in the hope that some of it will stick, and some of it just might. Osama bin Laden might appear in a new video wearing an “Osama 4 Obama ‘08” t-shirt.

But the balance of probability is that Obama will close out the deal. The Republicans are trying to keep the focus off the issues that concern Middle America, and on what they see as the flaws in Obama’s character. Sarah Palin has been doing what she does best, and has the rednecks a-whoopin’ and a-hollerin’ and a-death-threatenin’ whenever she mentions the name of Barack HUSSEIN Obama. But the rednecks aren’t going to be the game breakers in this election. Any Republican who fails to get the redneck vote, especially when the Democrat candidate is black, shouldn’t even bother getting out of bed in the morning.

The issue exercising Middle America these days is not that Obama once stood next to some former 60s radical in a mens’ room in Chicago, exchanging small talk while they both took a piss. People are afraid that they will lose their jobs, their homes and their savings, and will elect the guy most likely to assuage that fear. At the moment, that guy is Barack Obama, who has appeared the more presidential of the two candidates.

Eight years of President Stupidhead W. Idiot has left the USA in a terrible mess. Mired in two seemingly impossible wars, and with a failing economy and a huge budget deficit, it is a huge ask for any single person to sort it out. But can you imagine if a year into a McCain presidency, he becomes incapacitated and Hockey Mom has to take over? It doesn’t even bear thinking about.

Here’s an interesting snippet from the New York Times (Yes, I know. Part of the latte-sippin’, gun-controllin’, creationism-suppressin’, abortion-promotin’, troops-not-supportin’, tax-raisin’, terrorist-appeasin’ East-coast liberal media elite.) If you invested $10,000 in the S&P stock market index in the periods under either Democratic or Republican presidents exclusively since 1929, your investment would have been six times better off under Democrats than Republicans. And that excludes Hoover’s Depression presidency. If you include Hoover, you would have made nearly 30 times the gains under Democrat presidents. [Spotted at Daring Fireball, where John Gruber commented “Facts continue to hold a liberal bias.”]

Tags: US Election

Yup. Osama - I mean Obama (heh!) - is a terrorist alright. It’s his name, see.

[via 23/6]



Also, read this from Bock

Tags: US Election

There is a great quote from Bob Herbert in yesterday’s New York Times regarding the cult of personality that has grown around Sarah Palin:

"For those who haven't noticed, we're electing a president and vice-president, not selecting a winner on 'American Idol'."

Ever since she burst into the world’s consciousness a fortnight ago, Sarah Palin has done exactly what she was supposed to do - keep the focus on the personalities in the race, and away from the issues.

The media love her, even the Eastern Media Elite. Entire forests have been consumed whole to supply the newspapers full of the latest details about her family, her dress sense, her love of guns, etc. And as long as the media continues to concentrate its focus on her, it means that there is less time to talk about the issues facing the USA. This is precisely what the Republicans want to do, because when it comes to policies, the GOP’s cupboard is bare. Up until Palin made her debut, Barack Obama was all over the media and making the poll numbers. He was doing this without having to denigrate his opponent. (Of course, there is a cult of personality around Obama too, but it has almost vanished in the last fortnight.)

During the week, Obama made use of the expression “lipstick on a pig”. At the time, he was talking about the policies of the Republican ticket, and how little they differ from the failed policies of George W Bush. The Reps immediately picked up the “lipstick” reference and spun it as an insult to Palin, thus bring the focus back from issues to personalities - and in particular, that of Sarah Palin - and thus back onto firmer ground for their campaign.

With just under seven weeks to go until polling day, Barack Obama and Joe Biden have a big fight on their hands. Right now, the Republicans are winning the media war hands down, and this all comes down to Sarah Palin. The airtime and column inches she is getting are keeping the Dems off the airwaves and out of the papers, and brings to mind one of Oscar Wilde’s famous sayings:

“The only thing worse that being talked about is not being talked about.”

Tags: US Election

Immigration is a touchy subject at the best of times, and it doesn’t take all that much to have people jumping up and down, pointing fingers and screaming “Racist!!” at political opponents.

It is a serious issue that merits a wide-ranging and open debate, but sadly this has little prospect of happening, because of the tendency for hysteria to drown out rational discussion. It is only in the last ten years or so that we have seen a shift from net emigration to net immigration, and in that time, the number of so-called “non-nationals” (or “foreigners” in the old money) living here is now roughly 10% of the population. Anyone who says that this isn’t an issue for Irish society clearly has their head in the clouds.

A poll published in detail in De Paper today (and touched upon in others) shows that people have concerns about the issue of immigration, with 66% wanting a clampdown on future immigration. Now does that make us a nation of racists? Hardly, given that 54% believe that the immigration experience for Ireland so far has been a largely positive one.

Fine Gael TDs Brian Hayes and Leo Varadkar have both found themselves in hot water recently by airing opinions on the issue. I’m not going to comment much either way on the merits or otherwise of their proposals. The mistake both men made was to use clumsy language. They both used words that have such negative connotations that it immediately brought opprobrium upon both their heads. For Hayes, the offending word was “segregation” and for Varadkar it was “repatriation.”

Segregation is a word that is associated with apartheid in South Africa or with the open racism of the southern states of the US up until the 1960s. But what Hayes was suggesting was that children of immigrants who arrive in a new school in Ireland with little or no English, should initially be given intensive and exclusive teaching of English before they join the mainstream school curriculum.

The word “repatriation” conjures up images of the National Front or the BNP in the UK, demanding that immigrants and even British-born children of immigrants be forcibly sent back to the country of their birth. Leo Varadkar’s proposal was a voluntary scheme for unemployed non-nationals, similar to the one in operation in Spain. Fianna Fáil have jumped upon it and have accused the Dublin TD of racism. Mary Hanafin came to the conclusion that Varadkar had it in for “the Africans.” Her logic was that as it could not apply to immigrants from the EU, then the target had to be “the Africans” and therefore, it was racist.

If we can’t allow ourselves to have a mature and open debate about immigration, without the attendant hysteria, then the issue will fester, as it has done in several European countries already. Here in Ireland, we have the luxury of being able to learn from the mistakes of our EU partners. However if we choose to ignore the lessons that are there to be learned, then we risk making the very same mistakes ourselves. This will benefit nobody, not least the immigrants living among us, and those who will come here in the future.

For observers of the Presidential race in the US, last week was the real high point so far. We had Barack Obama’s coronation at the Democratic convention in Denver, topped off with a fine acceptance speech by the candidate himself. But you can always depend on the GOP to try to steal the Dems’ thunder, and they did just that with the announcement that Sarah Palin was to be John McCain’s running mate.

Straight away, the pundits, amateur and professional were on hand to call the election. Those of a Republican bent were quick to claim that the selection of Palin for VP was a masterstroke and that the McCain/Palin ticket will hoover up swathes of disaffected Hillary Clinton supporters. Democratic-minded analysts pointed out that Palin’s lack of experience, coupled with McCain’s age, would be the Achilles Heel of the Republican campaign. A VP who two years ago was mayor of a town of 6000 people would be a heartbeat away from the most powerful political job on earth, and a 72-year-old heartbeat at that.

This is all too simplistic by far. The Republicans’ hopes of converting hordes of Clintonistas meets one considerable obstacle - Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin may have their gender in common, but they have precious little else. Clinton is a blue-state liberal and Democratic Party royalty, while Palin is a red-state conservative and was hardly known outside of Alaska until last Friday. Equally, the Democrats would be wise not to point too much at Palin’s lack of experience, as it might reflect unkindly upon the lightweight CV of their own main candidate.

But the main reason that this election cannot yet be called with any certainty is because there are nine weeks to go and anything can happen. Revelations can come to light that could undermine either of the camps. We saw that today, with the news that Mrs Palin’s 17-year-old unmarried daughter is five months pregnant. (She is, we are told, going to marry her boyfriend. Mommy’s lifetime membership of the NRA presumably makes access to the necessary shotgun somewhat easier.) You can be sure that the attack dogs in the right-wing media and blogs will be sniffing around for anything that could knock the wheels off the Obama chariot. Expect to see wingnut pols and hacks being interviewed and making slips like “Well, according to Senator Osama - I mean Senator Obama (heh) himself…” etc.

One thing’s for sure. It’s going to be a dirty fight.

Over at Irish Election, in a comment from some dude called ‘Future Taoiseach’:

A once democraric union of cooperating nation states has crossed the line into coercion and dictatorship. As in Mugabe’s Zimbabwe, your vote is not respected unless you vote ‘the right way’.

Indeed. Why, only this evening, I saw a marauding gang of veterans of the Maastricht and Nice campaigns burn a family of “No” voters out of their home in Bracklone Street here in Portarlington.

Tags: lisbon treaty

The result of the referendum was not unexpected, but it is still depressing all the same.

The usual clichés were being trotted out on the airwaves all day:

“The people have spoken and we must respect their decision…”
“Now is not the time for recriminations or assigning blame…”
“We must now reflect on what the people have said…”

Blah, blah, blah.

Two things swung this referendum result - ineptitude on the Yes side and lies on the No side.

The No campaign was well under way before the political establishment got its act together. By the time they shook off their ennui, the best the Yes crowd could do was to try to fight an EU referendum campaign assuming that Ireland’s enthusiasm for the EU from times past was still intact. How wrong they were. Their posters were crap, ranging from bland platitudes to “get to know you” opportunities for the candidates in next year’s local and Euro elections. In debates they were forced onto the back foot by a No campaign that had no compunction about lying repeatedly. Then there was the infighting, with public squabbles between the various pro-Lisbon parties.

What they should have done from the outset was pool their resources and establish one strong Yes campaign, with the focus on the issues and not the personalities. The treaty was always going to be a difficult sell, as the issues involved didn’t resonate with people’s everyday lives. The Yes campaign failed to make the treaty relevant enough to the electorate to motivate them to vote for it.

In contrast, all the No campaign had to do was to raise as many spectres as it could to sow seeds of doubt in the minds of the electorate. It didn’t matter how they did this, as the end justified the means. So they presented a campaign that ranged from what could be called “creative interpretation” of the treaty to outright lies. Tax, neutrality, abortion, worker’s rights, etc., it didn’t matter - just keep spreading the shit and some of it would eventually stick.

What’s disappointing is that no-one on the Yes side had the balls to nail these lies at source. Rather than getting bogged down in technical arguments with sloganeering opponents, it might have been more productive to just call the lies as they emerged. Rather than trying to explain the ins and outs of QMV, or the Maastricht protocol or whatever, it might have been more productive to just say to the naysayer: “We have explained time and time again that the concerns you raise have been addressed. Why do you persist in repeating these unfounded misrepresentations/lies?” Forcing them on to the defensive and making them justify their point of view would have stopped their lies in their tracks.

But that’s all the realm of “what if” now. The referendum has been lost and we must move on to salvage something from the wreckage. Ireland’s political capital in the EU has plummetted in value, and it is now up to Brian Cowen and the rest of the government to restore our reputation as an enthusiastic member of the EU club. It won’t be easy. Neither will it be easy to explain to our EU partners why Ireland rejected the treaty. A lot of the critical detail of the treaty was actually won by the doggedness of the Irish negotiators on behalf of the smaller states, such as the rotating commission arrangement. Originally, the bigger states would have a permanent place on the commission, with the smaller states rotating. Irish intervention changed that to all states regardless of size having to share and concede time on the commission. (Not that it really matters anyway, as commissioners represent their portfolios within the EU, not the states from which they come.)

Still, we can always look on the bright side. At least the threat of the New World Order as outlined by Jim Corr has been averted. (YouTube audio link.)

Tags: lisbon treaty

Last night, I posted my reasons for voting Yes to the Lisbon Treaty this Thursday.

Since then the issue of renegotiating the Treaty has come up again, so I’m going to hammer a few more nails into this one.

As I said last night, if Ireland rejects the Treaty and is forced to go back to renegotiate it, this will have to be done by the very people who negotiated it in the first place. Some naysayers seem to think that we will be in a position of strength in this situation, given our requirement for a referendum in order to pass the Treaty into Irish law.

This is utter horseshit. If we do that, we will be sending our representatives back into the negotiating chamber on their knees. As far as our EU partners are concerned, our negotiators were satisfied with what they got last time round, especially given the fact that the bulk of the negotiations were done on our patch, during our presidency of the EU in 2004. Those opt-outs, protocols and clauses that we gained in the original round of negotiations were the result of hard bargaining, and not everyone was happy that we got them. So if we go back looking for more, we would more than likely end up with less than we had originally.

What is this “better deal” that Libertas, Sinn Féin, Kathy SInnott MEP, et al seem to think we can extract from our EU partners? The simple fact is that it doesn’t exist. The lake of goodwill in today’s EU is not particulaly deep and if we think we can send our horses to drink from it having first let them trample over everyoines else’s flowerbeds, we’ll soon find out that it has dried up.

Even in the best case scenario, whereby we actually come through a renegotiating process with a treaty that is no worse than the one we have now (we will not get a better one, remember), there is every likelihood that the very same hurlers in the ditch will come out and oppose that one too.

In simple terms - this is the best deal we’re going to get. Let’s take it and move on.

Tags: lisbon treaty

On Thursday, I will get up at some ungodly hour and make my way to Dublin Airport to catch a 6.30am flight to the UK for a meeting. I should be back in Dublin about 12 hours later, so there will still be plenty of time before the polling stations close to go and cast my vote.

And if you hadn’t worked it out by now, that vote will be a Yes. I’m voting Yes for several reasons:

• I believe that this treaty is a positive step forward for the EU.
• It brings reform to where it is needed.
• Ireland’s specific concerns have been addressed (even though I’m not bothered about one or two of them.)
• I am satisfied that Ireland’s sovereignty will not be compromised by this treaty.

Furthermore, I simply don’t believe the arguments put about by the various No campaigners. The tax issue is one. We retain a veto on the issue of Corporation Tax. It won’t change unless we agree to it.

The commissioner issue is nonsense. You would swear listening to the arguments that Ireland was the only state that was due to lose a commissioner in the rotation. It will affect every member state. Furthermore, commissioners do not represent their own states’ interests at the commission table. They are there to manage a portfolio without fear or favour to any member state, their own included. To say that each member state has to have a representative commissioner at all times is like saying that every constituency in Ireland has to have a representative minister in the Cabinet. Ireland’s interests will be represented by the Council of Ministers, The European Council (Heads of Government), and the European Parliament. All of these bodies are made up of people who have either been elected to their national parliaments, or directly to the European Parliament itself. Unlike commissioners, who are appointed.

Finally, there is the notion going around that if we reject the Lisbon Treaty, we can somehow negotiate a better deal for Ireland. This gibberish is being peddled by Sinn Féin and also by Kathy Sinnott MEP. So let’s say we do reject it. Who is going to have to go back to our EU partners to renegotiate it? One thing’s for sure, it won’t be the Shinners, or Kathy Sinnott, or any of the other naysayers. It will be the government, the very people who negotiated this deal in the first place, and who are trying to convince the electorate that this deal is the best Ireland can get.

If you can’t make up your mind, or if you feel you don’t understand what it’s all about, I would recommend that you read the Referendum Commission booklet that was delivered to every household in the State. If you can’t get hold of that, they have a website lisbontreaty2008.ie

Tags: lisbon treaty

This is class - The Treaty Of Lisbon, A Spoofer’s Guide To How Not To Vote No.

via Conor.

Tags: lisbon treaty

This sort of stuff is a piece of piss to do.

Tags: lisbon treaty

…is Bertie deliberately spinning completely bullshit stories to demonstrate his contempt for the Mahon Tribunal? I mean, come on - winning eight grand on some bag of bones in the 2.30 at Chepstow?

Double you tea eff, like?

Over the last week or so, I got the distinct impression that the tide has been turning in favour of the anti-Lisbon point of view. This evening that hunch has been confirmed, as a poll in tomorrow’s Irish Times shows that the No vote is five points ahead of the Yes vote.

If this follows through to polling day, it will be a disaster for both the government and the main opposition parties. So far they have allowed the No campaign to gain the upper hand and instil the necessary FUD into the minds of the electorate (well, those voters who are going to bother their arses to vote, at least.)

So where has it all gone wrong? They say that a lie gets half way around the world before the truth gets its boots on, and this is true in this case. The Yes campaign have not had a chance to fight this campaign on their own terms, as they have been forced to spend their time and resources denying the claims of the No side. Whatever the issue, be it taxation, neutrality, workers’ rights, the democratic deficit or abortion, the Yes campaign were forced to firefight. But it didn’t matter, because the seed of doubt has already been sown.

The treaty is a difficult sell for the Yes campaign, as it falls foul of the old maxim that all politics are local. The beneficiary of this treaty is the EU as a whole, and is is difficult to point to any aspect within it that is of direct benefit to Ireland specifically. But it is easy to spin a negative interpretation of it, and point to aspects of it that could possibly be to Ireland’s detriment.

To add to the Yes side’s woes is the general sense of apathy among the electorate. A common reaction is to claim not to understand the treaty (a seam well-mined by the No side), and thus not to bother voting at all. Given that the No side probably have a more motivated constituency, this will work in their favour.

Even taking into account the the difficulty in selling the positives of the treaty, the Yes campaign has been very wishy-washy. “Good for Ireland, Good for Europe” claim Fianna Fáil. Bland, bland, bland. Fine Gael and Labour used the campaign as an opportunity to introduce their candidates for the 2009 local and European elections. Labour’s campaign especially was a disgrace, as you really had to look closely for their message regarding this campaign. Where a lamp post had one poster with a photo of Eamon Gilmore making a profound political point, and another one claiming that we are going to pay more tax because of the Lisbon Treaty, there was only ever going to be one winner.

The Yes campaign have six days to turn this around. They need to promote this as a way of showing that Ireland is a team player in Europe. They need to definitively nail the lies from Libertas, Coir and the rest of the FUD-merchants.

I’m voting Yes and I hope that it passes, but my hopes are below my expectations.

See also Bock and Irish Election

Tags: lisbon treaty

The current Lisbon Treaty referendum campaign is turning out to be one of the dirtiest in years. On the one side we have all of the mainstream political parties, IBEC, Alliance for Europe, etc. On the other side we have all the perennial anti-EU treaty stalwarts like Sinn Féin, the Socialist Party, various trade unions; alongside newer and slicker organisations such as Libertas.

Whichever side of the argument you are on, it's going to be a hard sell. Few people are going to go to the trouble of actually reading the treaty itself, and those that attempt to do so will probably give up after page 2 or 3. It's not a page turner, it's a complex legal text, that is also an amending treaty to other already established treaties.

Now that the campaign proper has gotten underway, it would appear that both sides are trying to use FUD as a tactic to get their message across. The Yes campaign is trying to frighten us into believing that a No vote will isolate us from the EU beltway. their themes include threats to jobs and investment. All utter crap. If we reject it, the worst we will face is having to vote on it again, à la Nice.

The No side are tripping over themselves to paint the Doomsday scenario of an Ireland at the heel of a Euro superstate. There are posters and leaflets out there that are frankly disgraceful. Here's a selection, collated by blogging solicitor Simon McGarr. (The one used to illustrate this page is from that stream, published under a Cretive Commons licence.) Why bother trying to argue against what's in the treaty, when it's so much easier to spread the FUD with what's not in the treaty?

It's going to be a long few weeks, I think.

Tags: lisbon treaty

It had to happen. A local protest group has hitched their trailer to the anti-Lisbon Treaty wagon. Activists in Roscommon campaigning for the retention of hospital services in the county town have urged their supporters to reject the Lisbon Treaty as a way of getting the government's attention.

Now I am glad that Ireland has a written constitution, even when it means holding a referendum on something or other almost every year. However, it does leave us vulnerable to political gobshitery such as this. We are the only electorate in the 27-member EU who will have the privilege of voting on whether or not we approve of the Lisbon Treaty. Therefore we should cast our vote based on our opinion of the treaty, and that alone. Using it as a proxy to highlight a completely separate issue is immature and an abuse of the democratic right we are privileged to possess.

Tags: lisbon treaty

I got the news of Bertie's falling on his sword as I queued up for the Ryanair flight to Verona from Stansted. As a result I missed all the fall-out, as I had no internet connectivity except for my Nokia E65, and I wasn't planning on paying outrageous data roaming rates.

It was the right thing for Ahern to do, of course. But he should have done it ages ago and sorted out his dealings with the Tribunal away from the pressures of the office of Taoiseach. But it seems that he thought he could brazen it out, and if he kept stonewalling or running to the High Court to try to stymie the Tribunal's work, then it might leave him alone. But it was the evidence of Grainne Carruth that brought him down in the end.

So now, assuming I'm still living in Laois in 2012, and that the county will still be spliced to Offaly for electoral purposes, I'll once again have the opportunity to cast my vote for an outgoing Taoiseach in a general election, as I had in 2002. And didn't take up.

The longer Bertie Ahern allows his difficulties with the Mahon Tribunal to continue, the worse it becomes for everyone involved.

The by now familiar dance goes like this:

- Tribunal uncovers new evidence that appears to contradict previous evidence given by Ahern.
- Opposition parties, media commentators, etc. call for clarification of previous evidence.
- Cabinet colleague sent out to bat for Taoiseach, attacking Tribunal.
- Useful fools like Jackie Healey-Rae (Audio link to Morning Ireland interview) and Eoghan Harris offer their tuppenceworth in support.
- Ahern says he will clarify evidence the next time he attends to give evidence.
- A legal challenge to the Tribunal may feature at some point in the process.

This time it's more serious for Bertie, as now we are hearing the calls for clarification coming from his coalition partners as well as the opposition. We're also hearing more trenchant calls for his resignation, or at least for him to set a date, as the Irish Times did last Saturday.

Given that he won't be before the Tribunal again until May, waiting until his next appearance for clarification simply isn't good enough. What will show up next?

Des O'Neill: So, Mr Ahern, can you explain this substantial lodgement to your account on 14 June 1993?
Bertie Ahern: Well, you see, I won de-de-de-de-de Lotto around dat, eh, time…
O'Neill: And this one here a week later?
Bertie: …twice.

By allowing this charade to drag on, Ahern is undermining the office of Taoiseach, his government, his own party, the credibility of his ministers, and his own legacy. The referendum of the Lisbon Treaty is also in danger of being undermined, as it could easily end up as a referendum on Bertie. (We had an opportunity to vote in that particular referendum last year. It was called the General Election, and we fluffed it.)

He should go, so that this matter no longer distracts from the business of being Taoiseach. He's been in the job for almost eleven years. If he thinks he can present entirely innocent explanations for his varied transactions, then he should do it and get all of this sorted out. If he can manage to wriggle his way out of all of this, then he can be sure that a plum job in the European Commission or elsewhere will await him. If he can't, well that's his own doing. He should stop taking us for fools and move to sort his difficulties with the Tribunal as a matter of urgency.

By the way, if you didn't see the Late Late Show last Friday night, there was a wonderful moment when Eamon Dunphy nailed Eoghan Harris to the wall. I'm not a fan of Eamo by any means, but this was great.

Today, the third report in to the breast cancer misdiagnosis scandal at the Midlands Hospital in Portlaoise was published. The best Mary Harney (Health Minister) and Brendan Drumm (head honcho of the Health Service Executive) could do was say "Sorry". (When I heard that it reminded me of an episode of Father Ted, when Father Jack is ordered to apologise to Bishop Brennan for exclaiming "arse biscuits!" in his episcopal presence.)



The big problem with or health service is that it is a power struggle between competing vested interests, but the sector that relies upon it - the patients - are the ones with no power at all. The medical and administrative staff can withdraw their labour if they can't get what they want. The government and HSE can withdraw funding or close down services if they don't get their way. But what can the patients do? Sod all, in truth. They can't withdraw their illnesses and injuries. About the only thing they can do is try to shame the system and its people into doing what is right. But only so many people can talk to Joe. So for every misdiagnosed cancer patient that manages to scramble onto the radar of the national consciousness, there are dozens more whose voices remain unheard and whose health, or even lives, are at risk.

So sorry, Mary, I don't buy your act of contrition. You and your buddies in FF have had eleven years to sort this mess out. The only thing of significance that you have done is to create the HSE, whose only function seems to be as a convenient target of blame for shortcomings within the service.

In recent weeks, Tánaiste Brian Cowen (of this parish, sorta) has been sent out several times to bat in defence of Don Bertione. When answering opposition criticism of the Taoiseach, especially from Enda Kenny, he describes Fine Gael as a party that was "rejected by the electorate."

Let's examine this claim. In 2007, Fine Gael won 51 seats, up 20 from 31. Fianna Fáil won 78 seats, down three from 81.

What are Biffo's criteria for defining "rejected"? On the face of it, it looks like being simply unable to cobble together the numbers to form a government. So does that mean that the government parties have been decisively endorsed by the electorate? The PDs still have a cabinet minister, even though they only have two TDs now, having lost six of the eight that were elected to the 29th Dáil. Even the Greens didn't manage to increase their representation in the 30th Dáil, flatlining with six TDs.

The reality is that no one party was either decisively endorsed or rejected. Due to the fractured nature of our party political system, parties that have seemingly been endorsed by the electorate can end up in opposition; while those that have been rejected can end up in government.

The Irish Times motoring section led with a piece last week about the failure of the the Government and the Road Safety Authority to implement their much-vaunted speed camera project. Under the original plan, 600 speed cameras would have been installed on the country's roads. The installation and maintenance of the camera network was to have been contracted out to the private sector. However, it is believed now that the initial costs envisaged were radically underestimated, and so the prospect is much less tempting for any putative operator.

Needless to say, there has been great wringing of hands by the great and the good as a result. But to me, this is a victory for common sense. As evidence from other jurisdictions has shown, speed cameras are far more limited in their effectiveness at reducing road fatalities than we are led to believe.

"Speeding" can take one of two forms. It can mean (a) driving at a speed that is too fast for the road or the prevailing conditions (fog, ice, etc.), or (b) exceeding an arbitrary speed limit on a stretch of road. In some cases, an instance of speeding might be both of these combined, but usually it is one or the other. Situation (a) above is obviously dangerous, whereas situation (b) may not necessarily be. Yet speeding detection and prosecution is carried out pretty much exclusively on the basis of the latter scenario.

To implement a credible speed control regime on the national roads, the authorities must first sort out the speed limits themselves. They had the opportunity to do this in 2005, when we changed from miles-per-hour to kilometres-per-hour speed limits, but this was botched. Uniform speed limits are applied to non-uniform roads. If you drive from Cahir to Portlaoise on the N8, you will see what I mean. From Cahir to just north of Cashel, you have a dual carriageway, built to motorway standards. From then on, it is mostly a wide single carriageway, with hard shoulders. But once you get past Abbeyleix it is a narrow, twisting road, the sort you might expect to be designated as an "R" road. Yet for the entire length of that journey (stretches through towns, villages and roadworks excepted), the speed limit is a standard 100 km/h. Now, for some of that road, the speed limit is too low, and for other parts of it, it is too high. On the dual carriageway part, it is arguably safe to drive at 120 km/h (the arbitrary speed limit for a motorway in Ireland.) On the narrow, twisty part, driving at 100km/h is arguably too fast. However, you risk prosecution for the former, even though the latter is more dangerous.

Consider also, regional roads and their speed limits. Once again, we have a one-size-fits-all policy. There are a number of "R" roads that are former national routes, and are good wide roads and would be safe for 100 km/h. One that springs to mind is the dual carriageway between Naas and Newbridge, or long stretches of the old N1. Then we have roads that are little better than goat-tracks, some of which cannot accommodate two cars passing one another without one having to pull in. Whereas it is safe to drive on the former in excess of the prescribed 80km/h, it would be an act of unbridled lunacy to attempt the same speed on the latter. (The original version of the image above can be seen at IrishSpeedTraps.com)

Speed limits on all roads are fixed, irrespective of the prevailing driving conditions. 120km/h on a motorway with clear visibility may be safe, but in fog or torrential rain it is not. Last March, there was a multiple vehicle pile-up on the M7 in Kildare in which a young woman lost her life. Eyewitness reports told of drivers tearing along the motorway at speeds well in excess of what was safe, yet most of them would probably have been under the speed limit.

The other question that needs to be asked is how much exactly does excessive speed contribute exclusively to accidents. I would guess that it is a lot less than we are led to believe. Yes it is a factor, but it is often in addition to another factor, like intoxication or inexperience or fatigue. Several fatal accidents involve a single vehicle, late at night, with a young driver. Yes, he may have been going too fast, but he could have been drunk or on drugs, or have fallen asleep at the wheel, or just not have the experience to handle the speed he was doing.

Speed detection is done on the basis of whatever the prescribed limit is for the road in question. Whether the driver is driving safely or not is not considered. So you could happily drive at 120km/h on the Fermoy bypass (a motorway) without fear of prosecution, yet if you drive at that speed on the stretch of the N8 between Watergrasshill and the Dunkettle interchange you risk prosecution, even though the standard of the road is exactly the same as the M8.

The other major problem I have with the speed camera initiative is that it was to be installed and run by a private company. Private companies have two motives - to make a profit, and to have that profit grow each year. I'm not criticising that, as that is what private companies do. But the purpose of speed cameras is to reduce the number of people "speeding". So if fewer people are speeding, that means that revenues should be decreasing each year. To counteract this the company operating the cameras would have to install cameras at "softer" locations (like the aforementioned stretch of the N8 in north Cork, or on the N6 between Kinnegad and Kilbeggan, or on the N11 between the Glen of the Downs and Wicklow, or on the Gorey bypass, etc., etc.) in order to keep revenues up. Instead of prosecuting unsafe driving, they would be persecuting drivers who happened to be exceeding an artificially low limit, but were still driving safely. It would lose credibility very quickly.

The issue of speed and road safety is a lot more complex than is often presented. It requires a fine balance between credible speed limits and effective enforcement. Speed cameras, particularly privatised ones, are a blunt instrument, and we are better off without them.

Leinster House is to undergo some renovation work shortly, and to facilitate this, Seanad Éireann is to temporarily relocate to the Natural History Museum. The Dáil is to stay put, but if it happens that it is required to move, then I reckon its temporary home should be the Gaiety Theatre.

The Gaiety is a very traditional style of theatre, and I always think that it bears a striking resemblance to the theatre of The Muppet Show.

Which begs the question - which politician best matches the various characters in the show?

Kermit - Bertie (or possibly John Gormley, being Green and all that.)
Miss Piggy - Mary Harney
Sam the Eagle - Enda Kenny
Animal - Conor Lenihan
Gonzo - Willie O'Dea
Scooter - Pat Rabbitte
Beaker - John O'Donoghue
Thog - Brian Cowen

Any more suggestions?

In the meantime:

This was a headline in the news digest of Saturday's Irish Times:



What a brilliant idea! Build a new network of roads especially for non-nationals. Then they can drive on the right hand side to their hearts' content and it won't affect Irish drivers one little bit.

Oh. Hang on. Maybe not…

The Portlaoise cancer scandal just seems to be going from bad to worse.

The HSE announced today that a further 97 patients are to be recalled to have their cases reviewed. Mary Harney reiterated her apology to the Dáil. Her opposite number in Fine Gael called for her resignation.

That's another 97 women who will now have to go through a harrowing ordeal as their cases are reviewed. Ninety-seven mothers, wives, partners, sisters, daughters, friends…

We can call for resignations, but would it make any difference? If Mary Harney was to resign, someone else would have to take over as Minister for Health. No-one in their right mind would want to do the job, and even if anyone did, it's unlikely they would have the ability to sort out the mess that is the health service. Also, resignation would require the notions of principle and responsibility, both of which are completely lacking in this arrogant, self-interested bunch of wastrels we call our government.

Michael O'Leary of Ryanair was on The Last Word this evening and he pointed out that in effect, no-one is running the health service. And he's right. Mary Harney set up the HSE to replace the old health boards, but what she is doing now is to deflect any criticism of her handling of her portfolio onto the Executive itself. But the unions and the other vested interests go over the heads of the HSE to the Department, and when the shit hits the fan, Harney makes sure the fan is pointed in the direction of Professor Brendan Drumm & Co.

Does anyone remember the months that followed the 2002 election? The sneaky tax hikes? The rise in prescription charges and in the cost of visiting a doctor? The school building projects that were cancelled due to lack of funds? The way everyone was talking the economy down?

Of course we don't because it was aeons ago. Well, it's all happening again, so I suggest that this time, the Irish electorate takes note of all that has happened in the six months since the election. Things like the shafting of Shannon; the recruitment freeze in the HSE; the cavalier attitude of Bertie Ahern to the Portlaoise cancer affair; the provisional licence debacle; etc.

Once again the government is talking down the economy. Lessening people's expectations means not having to do anything about tax reform for a couple of years, at least not till the next election looms over the horizon.

The chutzpah of Ahern and his cronies is absolutely unreal. Today, addressing the social partners at Farmleigh, he and Brian Cowen advised that wage demands should be kept to a minimum as tough times were ahead. Just after they helped themselves to a 14% pay hike, paid for by you and me, Citizen Taxpayer.

Last week, the Irish Times published a poll which showed a sharp drop in support for the coalition. I'd imagine that this news was greeted at Fianna Fáil HQ in the way that a teenager would react to being chastised by his parents. A roll of the eyes and a "Yeah, whateeeever!" They couldn't care less if support for the government was at zero right now, because the next election is four and a half years away. By which time, the economy will have miraculously recovered, and everything will be just fine and dandy.

And this is why we should take note of all that is happening now. So that when these trolls come out from under their bridges looking for our votes in 2012, we can remind them of the cuts, the hikes, the lies, the excuses and the hypocrisy.

Many years ago in London, I worked with a right-wing looper called Seth. Well, Seth wasn't his real name, but he was reputed to resemble a character in some soap opera or other, and so that's what he was called. Anyways, Seth was your typical Sun-reading reactionary. His response to anything he found objectionable could be summed up in two words - "Ban it!"

The Notting Hill Carnival? Ban it!
Trade unions? Ban them!
Football 'ooligans? Ban them!

Etc., Etc.

I was reminded of Seth last week when I was reading A Tangled Web. (I made a vow last year never to visit that site again, but it's just one of those things. It's like watching an excruciating scene from The Office, through your fingers, from behind the sofa.) Under a headline "Ban the Koran?" a writer called "The Fulham Reactionary" discusses the idea of treating the Koran as a hate text, and banning it the same way as other hate texts like Mein Kampf. The first comment came from the blog's publisher, David Vance:


"I say don't ban the Koran.

Ban Islam."

Now, maybe David was being a little tongue-in-cheek with his comment, but you don't have to delve to far into his own writings to conclude that he may well be serious.

So just for one moment, let's imagine that this was to happen, and Britain did indeed "ban Islam." (A Tangled Web is a hardline unionist blog, so the context here would refer to the UK.) What would happen?

For a start Britain would be isolated by all the international institutions to which it belongs. The EU, the UN, the Commonwealth and Nato would all kick the UK out. Now some 'wingers would be delighted at the prospect of annoying Brussels or the UN, but the UK would soon find itself in a lonely place. The Arab League would boycott trade with Britain, which would have a detrimental effect on the supply of oil. Inflation would spiral out of control and the pound would go through the floor in an instant.

Domestically, the situation would be out of control within days. Hundreds of thousands of previously innocent, blameless people would be criminalised overnight. Bradford, Luton, Birmingham and any other town or city with a significant Muslim population would be in flames. The police would be stretched to the limit as they struggle to cope with the unrest as well as clamping down on all of Britain's now illegal mosques. Islam would be driven underground, and those Muslims that were previously abhorred by the actions of those who committed atrocities in the name of Islam would be driven to the margins of society. When something is banned unjustly, the reaction of those affected is not to acquiesce to the new law, but to fight against it. Moderates would become hardliners overnight.

Then of course, Britain would become a major target for an attack by international Islamist terrorists. Every ululating nutjob from anywhere on earth would start making his way to Britain in order to attain martyrdom and the attendant 72 virgins upon completion of his mission. The population would live in a constant state of fear, wary of congregating in crowds in case it attracted the attention of a jihadist.

Basically, Britain would collapse as a society within a couple of weeks. And that would be a good thing, eh, David et al?

This Modern World examines how the news works:

(click for full cartoon):

So there we have it. The Greens have endorsed the Programme for Government and Bertie will duly be re-elected Taoiseach tomorrow. If anything this coalition is even more "Rainbow" than the last "Rainbow Coalition" of 1994-1997, including in its ranks the representatives of free-for-all developers alongside environmentalists, not to mention the free market libertarians of the PDs.

Hopefully it will work, because political instability is not a desirable state of affairs.

Many on the (funda)mentalist wing of the Greens (and their buddies in the People Before Profit Alliance) are seething. Several of them were airing their views on the radio this evening. The issues that seem to exercise them most were the US military's use of Shannon and the co-location of private hospitals on public land.

The Shannon thing first. OK, so we all know that the US/UK invasion of Iraq wasn't a good idea, but they are in there now and are operating under a UN mandate. We can't turn back the clock, nor can the US just leave without clearing up the mess. Just deal with it.

Co-location: Now I'm not a fan of the PDs or anything, but I believe that Mary Harney has actually been doing a good job at Health. The problems in our health service will not be solved just by throwing money at it, but instead by using the resources we invest in the service more effectively. This means taking on the vested interests, tackling the inefficiencies, facing up to the unions, and enlisting the private sector in areas where they can do a better job than the public sector. Co-location is one of these areas. But the attitude from some quarters is that the private sector is intrinsically evil and must be kept away as a matter of principle. But if the way is made clear for the private sector to get beds onstream quickly, they will do it because demand for private beds is huge. And if private patients are in private beds, that means that public beds are freed up for public patients, leading to shorter waiting times. Locating private and public hospitals alongside one another also makes sense in that facilities can be shared, lowering the investment needed for the public service and also the cost to the private patients.

Tags: politics, fianna fail, greens, government, mentalists

I was chided by a commenter the other day for referring to Jackie Healy-Rae as a 'gobshite'. In truth, it was probably a bit unfair to single out JH-R, because I tend to consider all Independent TDs as gobshites.

Independents are a symptom of our clientilist political process. It is true that they are probably the hardest working politicians in the country, as they have to do as many favours as possible to as many constituents as possible in order to keep their snouts in the trough stay elected.

But we elect our TDs to Dáil Eireann to legislate for the whole state, not just for the constituency for which they are elected. And this is where Independents are at fault. During the 28th Dáil (1997-2002) the government sought to have Kerry included as an Objective 1 area for EU subsidy funding. They did this under pressure from Jackie Healy-Rae, who was supporting the minority government at the time. We lost a lot of respect in EU circles for that little stunt.

The Greens are insisting on a new form of chauffeur-driven transport if they are to coalesce with Fianna Fáil

Now that the election is over, the Mahon Tribunal goes back to work. Every day this week on Today FM's The Last Word, whenever Matt Cooper has covered the proceedings of the Tribunal, text messages flood in (no pun intended) saying "Leave Bertie alone! The people have spoken."

Does the fact that Bertie Ahern has more or less won another term as Taoiseach mean that no-one can question the source of his finances? That no-one has the right to query the inconsistencies in his account of how he bought his house? "Sure it was only small sums of money", seems to be a favourite theme.

What if more serious allegations had been made?

Let's say it was alleged he had mugged a pensioner. "Sure pension day is only next Tuesday, she'll manage till then. The people have spoken!"

Or if it was alleged that he went on a cocaine'n'whores bender in Brussels during an EU Heads of Government Summit. "He's a single man. Surely he's allowed to let off a bit of steam when he's away from home? Leave him alone!"

Tags: politics, Bertie, cocaine'n'whores

Well, it looks like we will have to endure another five years of Fianna Fáil in government. I hoped that we might get a change, but the electorate thought otherwise. The vote for both Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, and the seats won by both parties are well up on 2002.

Enda Kenny can hold his head high after this election. Fine Gael look like they will regain all the ground they lost in 2002 and more. There is a tendency in political parties when they are not elected to government for the leader to resign. I hope that Enda Kenny resists this path. He should remain as leader and build on the gains made in this election. Pat Rabbitte is the leader who should walk the plank in this election. Labour have stagnated under his leadership.

So that's the cloud, where is the silver lining?

Sinn Féin. They were going to win ten seats. They were going to call the shots on who would form the next government. Their poster girl, Mary Lou McDonald was going to take a seat in Bertie's own constituency. They got their holes kicked, big time.

Independents. Pretty much wiped out. Sadly, that gobshite Jackie Healy-Rae will be around for another five years, but most of the "hospital" candidates look set to lose out.

Still waiting on the first count from Laois-Offaly…

Tags: elections, politics

Adds Thursday 7.25AM: I have tidied this post up a bit, to add in the bits I forgot last night.

And so, tomorrow is "Make Your Mind Up" day.

After three weeks of claims, counter-claims, accusations, rebuttals, photo-ops, debates, soundbites, stunts, acres of newsprint and hours of broadcasts, we get to the point where we mark our preferences next to the candidates offering themselves for election.

I have given a lot of thought to where my top preferences will go. There is no doubt that FF and the PDs have managed the economy well, but at what social cost? House prices have risen exponentially in the last ten years, to the point that first time buyers are taking on huge amounts of debt over very long periods. Yet rising house prices are seen as a good thing. Many are forced to the outer limits of the commuter belt in order to find suitable housing that they can afford. Thousands of people doing daily 150km round trip commutes is not good for the economy, the environment, the communities within which these people live, nor indeed for the commuters themselves or their families. But as Bertie himself said in a Morning Ireland interview last Monday we should at least be "tankful" that these people are in Athy, Arklow and Portlaoise, and not in Baltimore (I presume he means Baltimore, Maryland, as opposed to Baltimore, Co Cork), Sydney or London. A superb "Let them eat cake" moment.

The health service is a mess, but to be fair, Mary Harney is at least making an attempt to straighten it out. Unlike her two predecessors, who were reluctant incumbents of the role. Micheal Martin presided over what was probably this government's most forward-thinking policy initiative - the ban on smoking ion the workplace - yet he did nothing about the nursing home crisis.

There is a potential time bomb down the road for the Education system. Provincial villages have become commuter towns overnight and their schools are reaching bursting point. There have been 2000 new houses built in Sallins, Co Kildare in the last ten years, but they still don't have a secondary school. They have to go the already overcrowded schools in Naas. We had the dreadful situation in Laytown, Co Meath, where there were no places for 90 school starters last September. Expect to see this happen more often within a semi-circle with an axis that stretches from Drogheda to Arklow.

Back in 1999, when the first National Development Plan was launched, we were promised motorway links between Dublin and all the major cities in the state by 2006. That has been revised back to 2010. The Dublin Port Tunnel was two years late, several million Euros over budget and one metre short in height. Two new LUAS lines were built in Dublin, but they did not intersect. Bordeaux built their "LUAS" at the same time as Dublin, and all three lines intersect.

Ten years into this government and still we rely on imports of oil for our energy. There has been sod all effort made at creating a policy on long-term energy security. We're lucky at the moment that the dollar is so weak. Can you imagine the price of oil if $1 was worth more than €1? This is a pressing issue and there has been virtual silence from all parties on it. We need to look at increasing dramatically our renewables, and at least talk in a rational way about the prospect of nuclear energy.

I'm going to vote for change. Ten years is long enough to be in government and get your policies implemented. After that, arrogance sets in. It's like that shit that comes out whenever a party has been in power for a long time - the opposition front bench don't have enough ministerial experience and therefore can't be trusted. Tony Blair had no experience before he became prime minister of the UK and he did alright (his role as Bush's bitch notwithstanding.)

There is also a local reason behind my decision. The party standing in Laois/Offaly after the 2002 election was FF 3, FG 1, PD 1. Four to one in favour of the current government. I don't believe that this accurately reflects the wishes of the Laois/Offaly electorate, and a 3:2 split would be more appropriate.

The policies of the various parties are broadly similar, so the decision is who is the most competent and trustworthy. FF and the PDs have produced some excellent ministers like Brian Cowen and Mary Harney. But they have also had some chumps like Noel Dempsey, Dick Roche and Martin Cullen. Hopefully FG/Lab/Greens will be a lot better at managing the country than FF/PDs. They can't be much worse.

Some might say that they can't be bothered voting, and that their vote won't make any difference. Seats have been won and lost on a handful of votes in the past, so every vote does count. I remember my father telling me about the count in Mayo last time round. I can't remember the exact details, but if a small number of votes had gone in another direction, Enda Kenny would have lost his seat and Jim Higgins would be challenging Bertie Ahern for the top job now. Instead, it was Higgins who lost his seat.

The time has come. Let's see what the other lot can do.

Tags: elections, politics

Thankfully.

No excuse, pols. We can't keep going to the courts every time a situation like this comes up. We have had several referenda on the subject of abortion.

Legislate, and be done with it.

I was 17 when the abortion referendum was passed in 1983. Obviously, I didn't have a vote, but I still vehemently opposed the amendment to the Constitution.

Today, another 17-year-old is having to live with the nonsense of the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution. Miss D, who was herself born six years after its passing, is being prevented from leaving the State in order to procure a termination of pregnancy. The foetus she is carrying has a condition that means it will die as soon as it is born.

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What sort of libel laws do we have where Monica Leech can be awarded €250k in her case against RTE?

If an RTE reporter stood outside the Department of Transport and made the allegation in question live on the 9 o'clock news, the it might be justified. But what happened was that a caller to Joe Duffy's Liveline made a lewd remark regarding Ms Leech and Minister Martin Cullen. The caller was cut off straight away, and Duffy and RTE distanced themselves from the comment immediately.

Were RTE at fault? Maybe, for not screening the callers. But as the person who made the allegation had no connection with RTE, then surely this award is excessive.

A few thousand at most would have been more appropriate.

File under "Whodathunkit"



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I was down Wicklow way earlier today, and spotted several more pre-election posters. The common theme running through all of them was that the candidates/TDs were "working for Wicklow." This goes back to the old maxim about all politics being local, but it also goes to the heart of the Irish electoral system.

When we elect TDs to the Dáil, we are supposedly electing legislators who will act in the overall interest of the country (well, that's the theory anyway.) But of course that is not the practice. Politicians usually find their way to Kildare Street having been chosen by their local electorate on the basis of their positions on local issues, like schools, hospitals, etc. In some cases, a politician may feel obliged to put the interests of their local constituents over those of the country as a whole, even if they think privately that the national interest is more important.

Take for example two adjacent towns, in neighbouring constituencies, both of which have hospitals. The HSE may decide that all acute care be located in one hospital in order to allocate resources more efficiently. You can be damn sure that the constituency in which the hospital that "lost out" will not be happy about this, and will rely on their TDs to articulate that displeasure. Now even if those TDs took a dispassionate look at the situation and concluded that the decision taken was the correct one in the national interest, they might think twice about voicing that opinion. There might be an independent "hospital candidate" waiting in the long grass in the constituency, and the risk of losing their seat will help them make up their mind as to where they should stand on the issue.

This is why we have never been able to sort out such pressing issues as waste management and self-sufficiency in energy. Can you imagine any one of our current crop of TDs voting to have an incinerator or a nuclear power plant sited in their own constituency? We can't even debate these issues properly, because the local vested interests and the NIMBYs are the ones with the loudest voices.

So what can we do? Nothing really, short of a radical overhaul of how we elect our government. Until then we will always be at risk of having the national agenda scuppered by local politics.

I've been doing a fair bit of travelling of late, and even though the election has yet to be called, there are political posters everywhere. Rather than the usual mugshot attached to a lamp-post, these are proper 48-sheet billboard ads.

I'd imagine this is because the parties and individual candiates expected that the election would have been called by now and booked the spaces in advance. Still, it makes me shudder at what is to come, when every lamp-post and ESB pole will be festooned with election posters. I hate the bloody things. And they will be going up just as we enter the tourist season.

Go here, now

The deal at Stormont was done. The photo that was carried all round the world said it all - Paisley and Adams, formerly implacable enemies, were making peace.

Yesterday, The Irish Times carried the expanded view of that photo. To Paisley's right were his two main lieutenants, Peter Robinson and Nigel Dodds, both of whom will be ministers in the new Executive. But who was alongside Adams? Martin McGuinness was there, naturally enough, as he is to be the Deputy First Minister. Gerry Kelly? Mitchel McLoughlin? Bairbre de Brun?

Nope. Mary Lou McDonald, that's who. And not only that, but she was next to Adams. But she is not an MLA and will take no part in the Executive. The elected office she holds is MEP for Dublin.

Now Sinn Féin will say that her being there is right and proper, as McDonald is Chairperson of the party. And that it is a 32 county party, etc. But of course this is all bullshit. The reason she is in the photo is because she is standing for Sinn Féin in Dublin Central in the forthcoming general election, and Sinn Féin want to maximise her media profile. They did the same in the run up to the European elections in 2004. Whenever Gerry Adams was making a statement to the media, Mary Lou was by his side. Once she got elected, you didn't see her so much anymore. But now, she's their great hope for picking up a seat in Dublin, and so the old tricks are coming out again.

You'd think that last Monday, being the historic day that it was, that they might put the cynical electioneering stunts to one side. But you'd be forgetting that this is Sinn Féin, the party with the sharpest political radar in Ireland.

Well, it all went quite well in the end. Ian said some nice things, Gerry said some nice things in Irish, and everyone toddles off for six weeks. But this six weeks thing puzzles me. Why not now? I mean, it's not like the DUP and Sinn Féin don't know one another's positions by now, given that they have been dancing around one another for the last four years or so.

This is a big gamble for both parties. For Paisley, he is doing what he said he would never do - go into government with Sinn Féin. He has clambered onto the high ground of unionism over the last four years, digging his hob-nailed boots into the backs of the Ulster Unionists on the way, by saying he would never countenance power sharing with Sinn Féin. Yet here he was today, sitting alongside Gerry Adams in Stormont. I know that many unionists are resigned to seeing this happen someday, but it will be interesting to see how the grassroots reaction unfolds now that it is - almost - reality.

For Adams, there is the risk that it might all unravel in the six weeks between now and 8 May. Will Paisley or one of his lieutenants try to introduce a new obstacle to the process, in order to raise the bar further for Sinn Féin? I'm sure that there are some in the DUP who would have been confident in the assumption that Sinn Féin would never either decommission their weapons or support the police. But both have happened, and so now the DUP have nothing left with which to stall the momentum. There's many a twist twixt cup and lip and all that…

And if it does get going, how long will it last?

Tomorrow marks the day where Northern Ireland will finally get executive it was promised almost nine years ago - or maybe not. The DUP have said that they aren't quite ready to go into power with Sinn Féin just yet and have asked for a further six weeks. What's six weeks when we have been waiting nine years, after all?

The DUP should be told on no uncertain terms that the deadline set for tomorrow is unchangeable. For too long the people of Northern Ireland have been promised "jam tomorrow" in respect of the devolution they voted to endorse back in 1998. The parties have played around, and deadlines have come and go, so it is only right that the gravy train should come to a halt.

It's time to piss or get off the pot. Devolved administration or direct rule. Make your minds up.

Whenever I'm in the car during "The Drivetime Slot" I tend to listen to The Last Word on Today FM more than most. A day rarely passes when The Last Word doesn't get someone from the Green Party on to offer us their predictable "Down With That Sort of Thing" analysis of any given subject, media whores that they are.

Today was no different, and Patricia McKenna was on to offer the party's line on the fluoridation of drinking water (predictably, this is a Very Bad Thing And Needs To Be Stopped.) I find the Greens pretty annoying and self-righteous at the best of times, but McKenna is particularly shrill. She came on and said her piece, explaining that fluoridation was the cause of several maladies and saying that parents were putting babies at risk by bottle-feeding them with formula made up with fluoridated water. Then Matt Cooper introduced another guest (who's name escapes me [Added 12 April: His name is Keith Redmond]), a dentist who also happens to be a PD election candidate.

This guest demolished McKenna's argument and left her floundering, and also accused her of advising parents not to have their children vaccinated or immunised. Cooper picked up on this, even though it was off-topic, and invited McKenna to respond to the accusation. What followed was pure gold. McKenna trotted out the old line about the alleged link between the MMR vaccine and autism. Cooper himself (who would normally play a disinterested devil's advocate role in a debate like this) was on her like a ton of bricks and vehemently pointed out that this theory was bogus and had been utterly discredited. More flapping from McKenna, as she desperately tried to validate her points, but by then it was hopeless.

Trevor Sargeant, if he was listening, must have been banging his head off a table at this point.

Hopefully Today FM will put it up as a podcast, and if they do I'll link to it.

Update, 12 April: Justin Mason has links to the audio file, and a transcript of the relevant part of the interview here

The PDs' new poster campaign (as it should really appear):

The Sunday Tribune tells the tale today of one JJ Barrett, whose father won several Gaelic football medals with club and county back in the 1920s and '30s. The medals are on display in the GAA Museum at Croke Park, and Barrett has written to GAA Director-General Liam Mulvihill, asking for them to be returned to him before the Ireland-England Rugby match at Croke Park next Saturday. He is doing this in protest at the playing of God Save The Queen as the English national anthem before the match.

Barrett objects to the "arrogant, war-mongering" lyrics of GSTQ and wonders why the English couldn't have come up with a compromise anthem, as Ireland did with Ireland's Call.

It was probably inevitable that a crank like Barrett would emerge at some point. Even though the removal of Rule 42 was carried with relative ease, such was the depth of feeling among the "antis", that it was certain that nonsense like this would happen in the run up to the Ireland-England match. There are some who see the presence of the English rugby team in Croke Park as a betrayal of those that were killed on Bloody Sunday 1920. They just don't see that for everyone else, Ireland has moved on.

And in a wearily predictable fashion, that bunch of antediluvian wankers "Republican Sinn Féin" have announced that they too will be there to protest at the playing of God Save The Queen.

Fer Chrissakes, will you all just get over yourselves? We have moved on.

The saga surrounding Minister Tony Killeen is disturbing.

He says that the letters making representations on behalf of a convicted paedophile and a convicted murderer, sent from his constituency office, were sent without his consent. He claims he did not sign the letter.

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The report concerning RUC collusion with loyalist terrorists by the Police Ombudsman of Northern Ireland, published this week, has brought the expected reactions from both sides of the sectarian divide. Nationalists are happy, and say that it vindicates everything they have been saying for years. Unionists are furious, casting doubt on the veracity and independence of the inquiry, and claiming that it vilifies the brave RUC officers who were at the frontline of the fight against terrorism down the years.

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This is a panel from last Friday's Doonesbury strip:



Does anyone know if this is true or just an urban myth?

Today marked the 300th anniversary of the Acts of Union between England and Scotland, when the Scottish and English parliaments were abolished to be replaced by a new parliament of Great Britain, sitting in Westminster. Some have celebrated this date, some have mourned it, and many more have asked if it is now time to revisit this relationship.

Firmly in the pro-Union camp is Gordon Brown, destined to be Britain's next Prime Minister, and MP for the Scottish constituency of Kirkcaldy. Over the last couple of years, Brown has been keen to promote an homogenous Britishness, although some suggest that this might just be a ploy to make his premiership more palatable to Middle England.
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BUPA's decision to pull out of the Irish market leaves the PDs, and Mary Harney in particular, with a lot of egg on their faces.

For a long time, the PDs have sold themselves as the champions of the free market, competition and deregulation. That a PD minister (and former leader of the party) could preside over the implementation of such an anti-competititve monstrosity as risk equalisation is a bad joke. That she should just shrug her shoulders when the main competitor to the VHI folds its tent and leaves, shreds her credibility completely.
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The PDs have launched a major poster campaign, in which they claim that by their doing, car insurance has fallen by 45%. They back up their claim by pointing to the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board, set up by Health Minister and former leader Mary Harney, and a more vague "streamlining" of court proceedings by Justice Minister and current leader Michael McDowell. Wait! There's More…

Today, I was out and about in the south-east, calling on some of my customers in Wexford and Waterford. As I had one call to do in Arthurstown and then go on to Waterford City, I decided to take the ferry from Ballyhack to Passage East. The alternative is to go back to New Ross and head into Waterford on the N25, a journey of 40-odd km, and a major pain in the hoop, as New Ross can get badly clogged up at this time on a Friday evening.

So ferry I did. There were only a few other vehicles on the vessel as we crossed over. When we arrived in Passage East, we were confronted by a phalanx of protesters, unhappy with the operation of the ferry.

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There was a letter in the Irish Times today from a correspondent in Belfast, bemoaning that fact that the Republic of Ireland lacks an honours system, and so could not bestow a meaningful honour on her most famous artist, Louis le Brocquy, on the occasion of his 90th birthday.

"If he were a British subject, he would probably by now have received a high honour of some sort."

[…]

"Why should the Irish Republic eschew a system of honours to recognise the acheivements of its citizens?"

Well, with the current "cash for honours" controversy in Britain, I'd reckon we're as well off without one. Indeed, my opposition to an honours system could be summed up six words.

Baron Archer of Weston-super-Mare.

The mid-term elections on the USA have given the Democrats control of both Congress and the Senate, a turnaround which begins the lame-duck phase of George W Bush's presidency. In two years time, there is every chance that the Dems will win back the White House, but what a poisoned chalice that will be. It is very unlikely that the Iraq situation will have sorted itself out by them, and whoever takes over at the Oval Office will have one hell of a mess to sort out.

Not that any of this will matter to GWB.

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Could the Irish language be saved…by banning it??

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