Holidays!

Could it really be a year since Brian Cowen had a whale of a summer opening golf clubs while the economy colapsed? Is it a year since I started this blog? A lothas happened since I put up the statcounter on this blog. Over 5,000 visits have been made to the blog from all over the world but mostly Ireland. My youtube channel Menapia has had over 7,000 hits since Christmas.

We'd our last meeting of Wexford Borough Council last night. Tomorrow I'm away for a break so the blog will be on hold for a few weeks. Before you ask we're staying in Ireland.
There's good weather and as you can see form the pix it's a chance to share an ice cream with your friends in the good weather. I hope the weather is good where you are and that you get a good break.


See you after the hols!

Holy God, I’m stumped!

Set against a back drop of record unemployment, a hole in the public finances, corruption in banking and an uncertain future what do you think the country needs most? Yes you’ve guessed it a blasphemy act! And the act has arrived courtesy of a government guillotine in the Dail right on time for another wave of claims of supernatural religious phenomena.
25 years ago we also lived through a previous wave of social uncertainty and claims of Marian apparitions. Interesting the initial sighting of moving statues all those years ago was not too far from the town of Rathkeale at Asdee. The wheels were coming off Ireland in the mid eighties. The death of Anne Lovett, the Kerry Babies Tribunal, church state conflicts over abortion, contraception and divorce acted as the back drop to the last Marian sightings in Ireland. Most sightings were rural and south of the border despite an obvious need for divine intervention in the mind of northern Catholics who were engaged in a bloody tribal war.
In Rathkeale locals felling a tree in a church-yard with a chain saw claim that the shape of the vascular bundle tissue of the heart wood of the felled tree is the outline of the Mother of God holding an infant. They also claim that this coincidence has a supernatural meaning and are holding candle light prayer vigils late into the night.
I don’t believe that there is anything supernatural about the coincidence but I’ll admit to being a sceptic about all apparitions. It’s easy to file this story as the silly season. Ballinspittle for the new millennium. Limerick is traditionally regarded as the most conservative county in Ireland. Rathkeale is about 15 miles from the city. 100 years ago the city’s Jewish population were run out of town after a pulpit inspired pogrom. I remember Jim Kemmy being witch hunted out of office because he supported abortion. Frank McCourt chronicles the hard lives led by the working class in his work and the religious repression. The city is at present the site of a turf war between some of the most vicious drugs gangs in the country. Rathkeale is unique in the country having the highest percentage of settled travellers. Travellers have a strong tradition of religious devotion. Famously it is said of the town that of all the places visited by Daniel O’Connell it was only Rathkeale where he found it impossible to get a woman!
I go to church most Sunday’s. I believe in respecting another’s right to hold a view no matter how incredible it may seem. This doesn’t make it true nor does it put you beyond ridicule when you claim that discolouration of a tree’s heartwood probably caused by a bacterial or fungal infection has a religious significance. The phenomena of these sightings was hilariously sent up by Dermot Morgan in Fr Ted who filmed about 40 miles away from Rathkeale. I’ll put my hand up to being a practising A la Carte Catholic. It’s got to be the scientist in me. If you cannot record or monitor and get measurable evidence then you cannot substantiate claims. Second hand evidence or something you cannot check don’t count in my book. So in short it’s a case of move along there’s nothing to see but lots to explain. I hope I’ve tried! I'll reurn to the Blasphemy Act another time, that's if I haven't been rounded up based on the above seditious thoughts!

Just a little prick that won’t hurt!

Those are the reassuring words that down through the years associated with an injection. You knew who was in charge and you know you could trust the nurse or doctor. H1N1 is a strain of a flu virus. Flu viruses have the ability to jump the species barrier. They’re often found in poultry, commonly in the Far East but this latest strain is interesting as it has been developing in Mexico in pigs for the last 10 years. There has been sporadic outbreaks of swine flu in the last 30 years. Swine flu is significantly different to the avian flu that dominated the headlines recently. Earlier this year an outbreak in Mexico and California of swine flu killed over 200 people and suddenly the rest of the world woke up. The symptoms of swone flu are similar to other flus and it is difficult to specifically diagnose swine flu without a laboratory test.

Ireland has been relatively untouched by the swine flu outbreak about our case rate is 20% of the UK total. 6 people have died in the UK. In all fatal cases the flu was a secondary infection to an initial condition. The possibility of large numbers of fatalities from such a pandemic is very low. There is however enormous potential for infection from human to human. Good hygiene, social distancing and strict management of access to pig production units will see little transmission form pigs to humans. Already a vaccine is being developed.
The infection is contagious for the first 5 days of infection but in children it can be contagious for double that. Typically flus peak during the winter months but this pandemic could be spread earlier. For most who’re unfortunate enough to suffer the illness it’ll mean a week off work in the bed and no more. Most cases are mild. Most cases are found in young people, elderly, pregnant women and those already weakened by another illness,
Which makes the decision by the government to spend over €80M on over 7M doses of vaccine to vaccinate the entire country against the virus quite bizarre. Even more curious is the plan to prioritise key decision makers for early vaccination. Even though Cabinet Ministers aren’t young, elderly, pregnant or ill they’re first in line for the jab. 9 months ago the government said they couldn’t afford the €8M to vaccinate young girls against cervical cancer even though 180 cases are diagnosed every year and many can be fatal. Now however the money can be found to vaccinate those key decision makers (i.e ministers who’ve deferred any corrective decisions on the economy until October!) before the rest of usIt used to be the case that key decision makers in the context of life and death used to say women and children first when it came to a seat on a lifeboat. In the modern post boom economy Fianna Fail and the Greens have obviously decided that the pandemic can be best directed from a position of immunity, just as the bankers have been firewalled against the real world the government have gone one step further to ring fence themselves against a viral threat ahead of real vulnerable groups.

Ireland 2009, Reds still under the beds

Last week I was in my local newsagent. One particular headline grabbed my attention. The Catholic Voice asked was Labour anti-catholic. The newspaper has only recently started but the title is well known from religious publishing in other countries. A quick glance over the main story and I quickly saw that that august organ was setting out its concerns at Ruairi Quinn’s view that the non-denominational patron Educate Together should be permitted to become patron of more schools. As someone who is a member of another patron Co Wexford VEC, I don’t know why a catholic newspaper has no problem with my secular patron body but is concerned enough by Educate Together to use it as a stick to beat the Labour Party with.
Thankfully not everyone in the Irish catholic church doesn’t share the concerns of the “Catholic Voice”. Dr Diarmuid Martin, Archbishop of Dublin seems to be of the view that its not in the interest of the catholic church to hold on to patronage of schools where many parents do not subscribe to catholic values. On the face of it I don’t see a huge amount of difference between the effect of what Dr Martin proposes and the reality that Ruairi Quinn points out that new schools need to be built in expanding communities and these have to have a patron and if a Christian church is not available then who plays that important role. It’s not as if potential patrons are knocking on the department’s door everyday! Ruairi has recently highlighted the penchant of Opus and Knights for departments with a social role that give them control over Irish society.

The article has more of a hint of a red scare about it. Appropriate that it targets Labour almost 40 years on from the 1969 General Election where the Irish right smeared Labour candidates. The then Agriculture Minister mohair clad Neil Blaney said” labour members ranged from pseudo-intellectual Marxists, Maoists, Trotskyites and the likes who have emerged from the sidelines to pick off the flesh of the Irish people”.
Local Government Minister Kevin Boland concerned at the gutting his cabinet colleague Charles Haughey was getting at the hands of Connor Cruise O’Brien said Labour wanted to seize peoples property, savings and land. Justice Minister Michael Ó Morain who subsequently quit a day before the arms crisis broke said “Brendan Corish was a mere puppet of the modern Marxist elite and of the new left wing political queers who have taken over the Labour Party from the steps of Trinity College and RTE”. Sean McEntee, ironically the Cruiser’s father in law said “Labour stood for the red flames of burning homesteads in Meath”. A Mayo candiate said Labour would permit abortion, divorce and it would be “great for the fellow who wanted a second wife every night”. A Sligo candidate said Labour would tear down every crucifix in the state.
Lynch distanced himself from all of this by canvassing every convent in the country, re-assuring rural and traditional Ireland that FF could be trusted with the important decisions. As a teenager I remember walking home from mass after the 1977 election rout in the company of my father and a FF supporting neighbour. The conversation quickly turned to politics, the delight of Lynch’s victory was only surpassed by the eclipse of Labour in particular the defeat of our local Labour TD Justin Keating who I was informed was a “card carrying communist.” In retrospect I suppose there was no point being a communist unless you had the card to prove it! Keating had been over whelmed in the media by rising prices. He was also singled out by FF supporting miners and prospectors over the Bula affair and his strict conditions on developing any hydrocarbon fines.
It worked then but it won’t work anymore. The population are better educated but also who remembers communism? Red scare is a waste of breathe and that’s a problem for our opposition. They cannot dismiss Labour nor our ideas. They cannot use the tactic to obstruct useful developments like schools nor accountability on matters such as industrial schools. So buy the Catholic Voice, any Labour member should take this type of attack as a compliment and a glimpse back to another age.

Ryanair pigeon holed once more at High Court

It’s a hard life being Michael O’Leary. Michael is best known for who he dislikes; politicians, disabled, employees who want to join a union, bolshie passengers and bloggers have all felt the sharp end of Mullingar’s most famous taxi-man’s tongue. Mick is back in the courts this week as he continues his anti-union campaign. His target once more is a Captain Goss. There’s history there already; a few years ago Captain Goss was in the courts with his employers because Goss was victimised when he tried to organise a union in Ryanair. As part of these proceedings Goss sought the jailing of O’Leary on grounds of contempt. However prison is hard enough so inmates in Mountjoy were spared the misery of O’Leary’s nonsense on that occasion. Today Captain Goss is back in court against Ryanair. Ryanair has disciplined him for putting election literature last December in staff pigeon holes. The election literature related to internal staff elections to elect staff member to a negotiating committee for which Goss was a candidate. It’s Ryanair’s view that this constituted an abuse as the pigeon holes were only for company business. But is not the election of a staff committee to negotiate with the management company business? Given that his main rival Aer Lingus recognise and negotiate with unions what’s the problem? Has the case more to do with style of management? Is it not the case that O’Leary believes that no one is going to tell him how to run the company in the interest of his shareholders, and that means regulators, unions, politicians or airport authorities? That’s what he thrives on and I suspect that many people like his style. Being anti-union is now popular in a key sector of enterprise. The economic slump is now seen as the environment to undo much of what has been achieved in my lifetime. Unions are seen as regulation and a brake on the economy and the entrepreneurial spirit that is needed to re-boot our economy. Partnership is now passé. ISME and IBEC want to roll back much of what was achieved on the basis of affordability; minimum wage, welfare, benefits, union representation. About a year ago I debated the minimum wage with an ISME rep on South East Radio and the audience reaction was strongly supportive of me. Its now at the point where workers rights are a luxury for the good times and the first thing to go when management screws up. I wonder now if the debate was held how the audience would react given how unemployment has rocketed? I sincerely hope that Captain Goss wins his case. Its at times like this that constitutional rights of association long established as the basis of union organisation need to upheld in this state and that companies need to be told that workers rights aren’t just what the company may decide to grant but are entitlements that every worker has regardless.

3 Long days journey into night ends but what have we learnt?.

Relief at last! 3 days and over 2 hours after the polls closed the campaign is over. The long wait ended in success. I think I’m the last Labour councillor elected in the country in the local elections of 2009. Dun Mhuire Theatre in Wexford has seen many’s a drama down through the years but there’s been little in the last few days to compare with the ebb and flow of political fortune as votes for Wexford Borough Council were counted at Dun Mhuire.
On Sunday evening Davy Hynes was elected Wexford’s seventh councillor. After midnight on Tuesday morning I was elected as the 8th member. There’s 4 more to join me. The picture shows me being hoisted up by Labour supporters.
It was a biter sweet moment for me as my election was only secured off the back of transfers from my running mate Theresa Walsh who was eliminated after 2 re-counts. This took over 24 hours to establish.
Theresa had fought long and hard and I was very sorry to see her go out. She can be rightly proud of the campaign she fought and the work she did. Theresa lost a week canvassing early on due to a heavy cold. She put in a great performance in the local radio election debate. She’s a great candidate and she’ll be back. The picture of the box shows the moment when her transfers to me actually put me above the quota. Someday, it'll be Theresa getting the votes needed to elect her.

The obligatory shoulder hoist was captured for me by my sons who I’m delighted to have at the count. Being elected to any body once is an honour and privilege. I think the officials tried their best but it’s clear that the town has outgrown the unitary ward model and that we need wards back again. There were too many candidates and too many seats. The ballot paper was so big that I saw it slide off a narrow ledge in a polling station. In those circumstances how could you see my name on a ballot paper as I was third last alphabetically and what chance had the voter to see Walsh, the last of 23 names when the ledge is so narrow?
There’s another side to the long count, the officials who’re still counting on as I type should be in work Tuesday doing the business that they normally do. Instead they’re trying to make the unworkable work. I believe that its time to return to wards within Wexford. Only Wexford, Kilkenny and Clonmel have 12 seat constituencies. The effect of our boundary extension brings extra voters, more candidates and more time wasting. Perhaps going back to the past may solve a problem for 2014? In the meantime spare a thought for the remaining 5 candidates I left beihind in the wee small hours to battle it out for the 4 remaining seats.

Wexford counts and counts and counts…….

Candidates for Wexford Borough Council can look forward to at least another day of counting at Dún Mhuiré. Day 2 has just ended and we’ve elected just 7 candidates. There remains 5 more seats, one of which I’m a contender for. On Saturday I shuddered when I heard one candidate had a surplus of 1 as it brought back memories of 2004. In that election the one vote fell to my colleague Tommy Carr who won by a single vote on the Tuesday morning. Wexford Borough was the third last count to conclude in 2004 and true to form the count is progressing slowly. To be fair to the officials, they have not just to be fair but to be seen to be fair.
The Green Party has brought a barrister to scrutinise the count. He arrived Sunday morning after the Greens announced on RTE Radio that a recount was in progress in Wexford. This is because the party is anxious to be seen winning something, or at least, having something to fight for at a time when the Green Party is imploding. Deputy Leader Mary White is on hand also. The Greens may reflect a later stage as to where the party hierarchy were during the campaign as they could have raised their candidate’s profile.
The count has reached a crucial stage. 3 candidates are involved in a tussle. DoDo Lawlor, (Ex-Labour), Danny Forde (Green Party) and Theresa Walsh (Labour) are within a few votes of one another at about 360. Whoever is the lowest will face elimination. One of the trio will benefit from the transfer and possibly be elected. At about 440 stands Fianna Fail’s Paddy Nolan. Next come 2 Fine Gael candidates and finally myself on 552 just 45 votes short of the quota. Tonight we had a re-check of the candidtes votes.
I was asked if I had any hurry out of the theatre as they’ve a booking for a play in Thursday next and I replied that they didn’t need a play because they’ve a drama running at the minute! The hall is booked until Wednesday so I’m expecting the interest in this one to run.

Check out my Youtube Channel Menapia1 for video of Town Clerk Pat Collins giving the first count

Wexford Decides 2009, Labour gains

This morning in Dun Mhuire the ballot boxes were opened and the counting started. I was there for 9 and the first of the votes tumbled from the boxes. The tallymen set to work with their forecasts as to how the result might pan out. The picture is of counting and checking in progress. Last night after polls close the Labour candidates met to pour over how things went. I thought turnout could have been better. On our analysis the newer parts of town didn’t come out to the same extent as older more established parts.
On the available tallies today I’m happy that I’ve increased my vote beyond 2004 and that I’ll be re-elected. What really excites me is that George Lawlor will top the poll and that he will also take a seat in the County Council. Even better news is that Pat Cody will certainly take a seat on Enniscorthy Town Council and Bobby Ireton is looking good for a County seat in Gorey. Ollie Sommers is polling well in New Ross but there’s still a long way to go there. I hate to say I told you so but if you look at my blog I did forecast these results. Theresa Walsh also looks set to take Tommy Carr’s seat. This has been a remarkable election for Labour, its likely that we may come out of it with a minimum of 3 county councillors and 9 Borough or Town Councillors. Lets see what happens on later counts.