The Spin to Newry

Yesterday’s one day public service strike was according to RTE a bonanza for traders in the border town of Newry. RTE news claimed tailbacks of 3 miles on the southern approaches to the town and blamed a sudden influx of southern shoppers mostly on strike for the gridlock. Anyone who read my recent post on the fascination within RTE for the Healy Raes will understand that the state broadcaster has a pavlovian urge to ditch balance when it comes to stories reflecting the government agenda. A year ago, a minor contamination of pork products was hyped by news management, to take the Education demonstration off the front pages.

This year George Lee inferred as he was going out the Montrose door that suits don’t like it when he speaks his mind. Even today Derek Mooney warned his guest Eddie Hobbs not to criticise the government lest those upstairs would give him a carpeting. Newstalk’s Eamon Keane says that he cannot get cabinet ministers on his show because he won’t agree to play by the rules. The evidence is there that the state broadcaster doesn’t want to rock the boat with the government.
But there is a difference between rocking the boat and crossing the line. Reluctance to rock the boat suggests the crew want to maintain control of their craft. Crossing the line on the other hand suggests to me that you stop becoming objective and start becoming a player in the events that you should be covering objectively.

Yesterday morning there was an accident on the A1 south of Newry. That and the ongoing road works (until 2010) at the roundabout for Forkhill caused a tailback quickly. Both incidents are noted on the reliable website aaroadwatch.ie. Strangely RTE attributed the gridlock caused to strikers who were absent from work. While RTE had crews available to cover the floods nationally (as is fitting) the only crew available for coverage of the effects of the strike outside of the Dublin area was the Belfast crew who were sent to Sainsbury’s in Newry who filmed a youth from Dublin pointing to a man off camera claiming he was a striker. The reporter also filmed a parent leading 2 young children around the shopping centre.
Things get even more curiouser and curiouser! There are no media reports of ASDA at Enniskillen or Strabane being overrun with southern shoppers, well no more than usual. Are we to conclude that strikers living close to the M1 are more prone to slip across the border on a day off than those who live in Sligo or Donegal?

Peter McLoone of IMPACT describes RTE’s claims as nonsense. I’ve never met Peter but he’s from Donegal and possible understands ordinary people better than Bryan Dobson because he works for them. I’ve previously posted my views on cross border shopping, it’s called the free market and I see nothing wrong getting value across the border if you cannot get it at home. Mary Harney told us to shop around, why should we be criticised for practising what they preached?
But this is not the real point of this post. Yesterday a spin was put on a small number of people who did go to Newry because their children were off school and a construction was put on it that large numbers of the 235K public service strikers were up in Newry. RTE owe strikers and the government nothing it does owe the country objectivity and the facts. Yesterday they failed the country and spun the spin to Newry rather than ask why cabinet ministers were unavailable to answer hard questions. RTE then has the neck to criticise the referee in the Ireland France match!

Even the ancillary workers came out in sympathy!

Today’s public sector strike has seen a significant show of support for the call by ICTU to oppose public sector pay cuts. The media has portrayed the strike as effectively shutting schools and hospitals. However the real impact has gone much further than that.
In Wexford Town government buildings in Anne St are closed. This means that the Revenue Commissioners, Probation Service, Department of Social and Family Affairs are shut. Round the corner on Crescent Quay, the offices of Wexford Borough Council are closed with a large picket in place. This means that those wishing to enquire about local authority housing cannot do so, fines can’t be paid, rent or rates cannot be collected and planning applications cannot be lodged or inspected. At the local authority depot in Whitemill Industrial Estate pickets since 7.30 AM have been in place. This means maintenance on houses won’t be carried out, streets won’t be swept nor roads repaired. Fro the first time in many years traffic can move down Wexford’s Main St as there’s no one to block it at 11AM.

At County Hall similar pickets ensure that bins won’t be collected, water bills cannot be paid nor any leaks in the system be fixed and Wexford is a county with regular problems in water supply. Environment, Planning and Enforcement are also closed meaning that any contravention of planning law can go unchecked today. At the Garda station the small Social Welfare office is picketed and while the garda are not on strike it was evident to me as I made my own way for picket duty at lunch time that gardaí were sympathetic to the strikers.
Yes, the schools were on strike and while second level teachers picketed their own schools the primary teachers picketed offices in the Cornmarket as did the NEPS employees. Co Wexford VEC was also shut with pickets at Ardcavan. Next door at the District Court and the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, pickets are also on duty. The office of the Department of Agriculture, at Johnstown Castle, was also shut by pickets. Wexford General Hospital also had a picket at the front gate although it’s relocation off a side road made the protest less evident. So the effect has been significantly more than kids not getting taught. Grants are not being processed by the department and routine operations are deferred at WGH.

By and large the response from the public has been supportive although I did notice one man who rolled down the window of his silver luxury Mercedes to tell us we should be ashamed of ourselves as we picketed. He returned 10 minutes later to tell us that he paid €40K last year in tax and that he paid our wages and that we should go back to work. Now given that the tax was €40K I reckon he surely grossed €180K in annual income. Strangely he didn’t say what he was going to contribute to get the state out of this slump.
That said, I’ve got to mention a parent that sent in a box of chocolates to the early morning picket. Much appreciated. I hope the chocs last as it seems likely that we’ll be on picket duty sooner rather than later.

Ali’s defence of developers is not up my alley

I’ve always had respect for Ali Hewson. She has in the past supported many noteworthy good causes. It’s easy to dismiss such work as an excuse to expunge your guilt feelings about wealth and use your concern as a vehicle to socialise among the elite. That may be the case for some who go to these society charity events but Ali has a genuine track record on issues of child welfare internationally. She may be expert on how to divert cash to causes but that doesn’t make her infallible. While her husband collects US Presidents, his missus it seems collects builders!

I fully understand that when you take up such work, you throw yourself into it whole heartedly and often can loose sight of the bigger picture. At least that’s what I’m hoping is behind her recent remarks.
Ali says that the media treatment of developers who frequently attended her charity bashes is unjust. She justifies this criticism of the media because the developers who attended the society bashes were generous to her charities and regulars at the celeb fuelled bashes!
It strikes me as though the masters of the universe who controlled our economy have had enough of the ordinary people who are now forced to bail them out. Last week AIB decided to make an inhouse appointment to the top job contrary to guidelines, Sunday saw NAMA signed into law by the President and this week sees a public service strike in protest at government cuts in public service pay. It’s quite sometime since the IBEC spokesperson on the radio last wowed me with their “We’re all in it together” line.
The cynic inside me says that those with wealth have had enough of the ordinary
person’s indignation. They desperately want to go back to their addictive old ways of speculating as it’s more profitable than anything else. It’s a bit like Lassie making its home! Nothing will get in their way, not even the market reality. Let me quote one of the creators of the slump in 2000, Mary Harney;
“What really makes Ireland attractive to corporate America is the kind of economy which we have created here. They find a country that believes in the incentive power of low taxation. They find a country that believes in economic liberalization(She spelt it with a “z” rather than an “s”!). They find a country that believes in essential regulation but not over regulation. On looking further afield in Europe they find that not every European country believes in these things….This model works.. And I say if it ain’t broke don’t fix it… There are some who want to create a more centralized Europe…I don’t think it would be in Ireland’s interests and I don’t think it would be in Europe’s interests either ”
You now this speech better as her Boston or Berlin speech. It’s nearly 10 years since she delivered it and it took just 7 years for her analysis to collapse. What is stunning is that the economic liberal right in Ireland have no other approach to reviving the economy . The attempt to take the nation down another cul de sac is under way,
For the Harney’s and Hewson’s of this world there can be no going back, no re-creating a second bubble. Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me.

Henry’s sleight of hand hands FF a diversion in time for Red C Poll.

It could only happen to the Irish! A bankrupt nation with amoral political leaders lecturing to the world about fair play. A full year on from Seanie Fitz’s sleight of hand, the ire of Eire is diverted away from those who ripped us off to Thierry Henry an overpaid diver who pulled a fast one.
OK I’m sorry that Ireland won’t be at the World Cup. I believe that it would have been the fitting last hurrah for many of our players. Surely it should be left to sports people to deal with it. There won’t be a replay, the French World Cup kit is for launch next week with the lucrative Christmas market on the horizon and with the pressures of premiership and champions league, there won’t be time for a re-match. The only re-match I want to see is the FF versus the people at a polling station. For some strange reason FF and their acolytes aren’t too anxious on that one..

Of course that didn’t stop Brain Cowen, Martin Cullen and Dermot Ahern calling for a re-run and sounding righteous about injustice. Of course their concern at injustice doesn’t extend to their own citizens who will face cuts in income, increased charges and lower standards of living while the banks sell Cowen, the newly discovered soccer pundit, a dummy on pay for top execs. The sight of Sarkozy embrace the triumphant Dominech in the tunnel after the match had all the spontaneity of Christmas Day, performed for the benefit of the cameras. Of course Sarkozy makes the fundamental mistake of mistaking the mood of the people. More than 88% of French people believe that Ireland should have gone through. Could a higher figure been recorded in Ireland? I doubt it!

Likewise Cowen misjudges the mood of the people. I strongly suspect he is attempting to seek the high moral ground to increase his standing in the face of the electorate. This will backfire too. By the week-end the premiership will be back on and fans will have more soccer to watch. If FF temporarily climb in the tracker poll that will be carried out this week, then the international incident around the match will have served FF and the Greens well. The suits in AIB likewise will smile that these events have taken them off the front of the pages. But in the long run Cowen should know that he’s finished despite all his platitudes. That’s why his spin on fair play won’t work.
Patriotism and nationalism is the last retreat for the scoundrel. When the budget is announced Ireland’s world cup exit will be a memory. Thierry Henry may be a cheat, but he didn’t undermine the banks, the economy nor set the public service against the private sector. The real cheats are Cowen, McCreevy, Ahern, Harney, Gormley and Lenihan. The real culprits need to take the rap!

PreFFabs sprout in the south east!

This week’s Wexford People carries an indictment of any Government TD who met any school board of management and reassured them that their school construction plan would be prioritised. €900K is spent each year in Co Wexford alone on renting prefabs by FF & the Greens. In my time I’ve spoken at meetings and indeed had to listen to the steady line of spin from FF TD’s with their spin carefully honed by the Department. In the past I’ve heard how construction was halted by everything from Foot and Mouth to 9/11. Needless to say the excuse has changed but the effect on school communities is still the same, more delays.

7 years ago, I served on the BOM of my children’s school. Then we were cynically set up during an election campaign by Fianna Fail and then discarded after the election. This leaves a bitter taste in the mouth. I well understand how any parent or teacher feels about prefabs. Lets look at the Wexford Town figures; 3 schools, CBS secondary, Kennedy Park & Scoil Mhuire all have prefabs that set the taxpayer back over €100K per annum. In the surrounding parishes Barntown, Piercestown, Screen, Castlebridge and Crossabeg the prefabs there cost even more; over €110K! about 2 years ago an FOI request from me to the department revealed that rather than planning to get rid of prefabs FF and the Greens were planning to hold on to them as they compiled a database of prefabs in Ireland’s schools
One local principal says she wants a building not a prefab and is livid at the revelation that so much is being spent on prefabs. Its my view that the figures revealed are only the tip of the ice berg as it doesn’t include the cost of heating such energy inefficient buildings, cost of planning permission applications, construction of these glorified hen houses nor the cost of prefabs that were purchased by schools. It only applies to rental! The pictures on this page are all taken around the county at different primary schools, some are on the list published by the department, some are not.
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As Co Wexford TLC chairperson I worked with the INTO in the county on this issue. TLC was set up to campaign on the issue of school building. I found INTO on the ground in Wexford very effective at raising issue concerning the basic working conditions of teachers. This experience coloured my view of teaching colleagues and I strongly feel we’ve more that unites us than divides us.An in depth survey of all 100 schools in the county was taken and the results were shocking. Many of the schools on that list made no progress towards construction whatsoever. Kennedy Park, New Ross CBS and my own, where at second level we were promised a gym and associated classrooms along with the Asperger’s unit. The unit arrived courtesy of a fine prefab and no prizes for guessing that nothing else happened! If another survey was conducted now I believe that the result would be broadly the same. What’s more any incoming government will have their work cut out trying to tackle the backlog in school buildings even if the forecast is that we need 100,000 extra school spaces by 2020. .
I wonder about the capacity of the building industry to build that many schools but never doubt the capacity of FF or Green public reps to talk up their inertia and to pull the wool over the eyes of school communities

Lose your money but don’t lose your business.

Ben Dunne is a hard nose businessman. He know how to make money when times are good and even more he know how to make money when times are bad. In the last few weeks his various ads have hogged the airwaves and he’s been interviewed about the slump in the retail sector. He laughs at the suggestion that the consumers shouldn’t go north to get better value. What drives trade is the customer and competition. I wonder what he’d make of the call by a Wexford town businessman and councillor that Wexford people shouldn’t go shopping in Waterford to avail of reduced parking charges?

Ben sums up his credo as; lose your money but don’t lose your business! He criticises Irish business for failing to pass on the benefit of a strong euro to customers. A Forfas survey last year suggested that the real difference between prices north and south should be just 5%. Yet there’s plenty empirical evidence to suggest that the prices have not dropped as fast or as far as they should. Many people will ignore the advice of the good councillor and shop in Waterford, not because they’ll save much on parking but because they want competition and better prices.

Many people buy electrical items in the run in to Christmas so lets take as an example the price of electrical items. At a time of falling incomes retailers of small household electrical appliances actually jacked up prices in September 2009 by 0.4%! To underline the reality on how little some prices have moved, the cost of electrical repairs on household items like computers has only dropped so far this year by 0.8%, but the CSO kindly give the figures for the drop in price in items such as computers. They’ve fallen by 25% in a year. So where’s the incentive to have something repaired if the price to have something fixed remains high while the cost of replacement is dropping? Moreover where is the value and are there 2 economies in this country, the official one and another for the media?

Its time that those in business woke up and smelt the coffee and stopped whinging about how miserable their trade is. This sector constantly preach to the community about adapt or die. Has the time not come for them to practise what they preach? For the record the above picture is of a car park at a business park in Waterford last August. There’s no charge for parking and yet the car park is empty. The other picture was taken in ASDA in Enniskillen the same week-end. Ben Dunne laughs at his family’s logo; The difference is we’re Irish, and suggests “The difference is we’re cheaper” would be better.

Southern customers have no problem spending their hard earned and increasingly scarce euro when offered value. Why should many have to cross the border to get that value? Sense in the sectors identified above would surely keep some of the money at home. It's time for the councillor concerned to stop grandstanding and see what he can do about delivering better value to Wexford's customers! There's an old adage about business that the customer is always right. Perhaps some in the retail trade may reflect on this in the run in to Christmas and give customers a better deal.
To compare prices between British multiples with outlets in the north check out www.mysupermarket.co.uk

Ireland, the DDR of the 21st century.

It’s hard to imagine that 20 years have passed since the momentous events of 1989. The collapse of communism in Europe resulted in an entirely different geo-politics to that of the 1980’s. I visited Berlin twice, spending an interesting afternoon in July 1981 in East Berlin. It was how I imagined 1950’s Ireland to be; subliminal repression, nothing for sale and people itching for foreign currency and to get out. Steam trains, few cars and few foreigners were some of my other memories as I smuggled money in through Checkpoint Charlie to buy a few mementoes of Erich Hohnecker’s socialist paradise.

When I toured the Reichstag the guide showed the chamber that was being maintained for the sitting of the united German parliament, whenever that would be. I figured they’d be waiting and that Ireland would be united long before that parliament would meet. Never was I so wrong!

Nobody saw the collapse coming. I don’t credit Reagan or Thatcher with the collapse. Two ideological heavyweights sent communism down; Pope John Paul 2 and Mikhail Gorbachev. We now know that Thatcher opposed the reunification of Germany concerned at how a strong Germany would have more influence on the European and world stage. Gorbachev allowed the system to collapse because he felt it could be improved by reforming it internally in the USSR. What other Warsaw Pact countries did was their own business.
As Brian Cowen heads to Berlin to mark the anniversary he may reflect on how our own system is falling round our ears and the interesting similarities between Ireland now and DDR then. Both states share dysfunctionality. Both countries face economic ruin, parties in power that were past their sell by date, a new “leader” at the helm, cronyism, media parroting the party line, and an establishment deluding itself at its international status. To be fair to Cowen; Hohnecker also had an unsurpassable taste for a police state, a corrupt sports medicine programme and executing natives who wished to leave, all designed to keep him in power. Cowen on the other hand has stayed in power by a deal with the Green Party and the Bankers.
Where the DDR had a wall we have a glass ceiling ensuring that our oligarchies cannot be held to account. Ten months on from raids at Anglo Irish Bank, there’s no sign of charge against those who effectively thrashed the state. DDR cronyism saw Hohnecker’s wife appointed a minister. Disaffection among the people toward the elite and their inability to grasp what was happening meant Hohnecker believed the wall would last 50 year just 9 months before the DDR collapsed. Just as DDR referred anything controversial to Moscow, Cowen defers to the outside influence of the IMF, markets and bond holders. Cowen and Hohnecker never wanted to annoy the powerful outsiders.

Both states failing have been cruelly exposed rapidly during an international state of flux. Internally morale in each state slumped. The DDR lasted 40 years, our republic has survived for double that. Just as Hohnecker’s SED had his pets, Cowen’s FF has Bankers, builders and auctioneers. Hohnecker's state ignored the impact of its environmental destruction in pursuit of a more productive economy. Likewoe Cowen ignored the impact of his indutrial policies on society too.
There is nothing to suggest that Ireland will be any different and that if or more correctly when Eamon Gilmore picks up the pieces after Cowen, he’ll have one hell of a job to rescue this state from an amoral mass that it ha descended into under FF. If the corrupt DDR system can disentegrate could the same happen here?

ICTU spell it out to FF & the Greens

The ICTU rally in opposition to cuts in government spending in Waterford saw about 8,000 union members from the south east march in fine dry weather to let the government now exactly how they feel. Nationally almost 80,000 took to the streets to put Brian Cowen and Brian Lenihan on notice that they expect the government to pursue those who made most during the boom years to pay up when it comes to finding the money to keep public services going.

It’s unfair to describe the protest as a public sector protest about avoiding pay cuts. Notable in attendance were community workers from FAB in Wexford opposed to cuts in funding to the CDP budgets.
FAB is funded under the RAPID scheme and does valuable work within estates where unemployment is high and there is a huge reliance on social welfare and funding to maintain the community. These women were there because they know that funding cuts will set them back years while those who have made a fortune in this country will still hold on to their cash oblivious of the real need in their country. But it wasn’t just about workers it was about retired workers too, some of whom I met and spoke to.
I was delighted to meet so many of my Labour colleagues from around the region, Cllrs Denis Landy, Seamus Ryan and Tomás Walsh all marched behind the Labour banner. My ASTI colleagues were out in force as were INTO, IMPACT, UNITE, TUI, INO and of course SIPTU. I was delighted to see the entire Wexford SIPTU office at the rally afterwards at The Glen. Pleased also to see Rory, fellow Wexford blogger flying the Wexford flag and the red flag from the same pole.
Led by a band from The Glen, the march went along the Quays and back via Ballybricken. There was a strong show of firemen and ambulance workers to underpin the depth of feeling in the 24/7 group of workers. As I passed the garda station at Ballybricken I thought for one moment I saw the “Super” give us the clenched fist from his 3rd floor office! There was a clear message from the platform from ICTU, Mayor Halligan of Waterford and other union speakers that ordinary workers are being put to the pin of their collar and didn’t deserve what was being done to them. Those who run Irish society were setting worker against worker.
As one speaker from TEEU said; first it was self-employed worker against employed worker, then it was private sector worker against public sector worker, after that it was worker against unemployed and recently he’d heard someone try to divide the long term unemployed against short term unemployed. What’s next; young unemployed against older unemployed? Teachers have an unpalatable choice, oppose pay cuts and the government will sack your younger teaching colleagues and your working conditions will deteriorate. Accept a pay cut and the very colleague who you feel should keep their job will find the mortgage payments a difficulty. That’s the reality, just 2 years after being told by Bertie Ahern that anyone who was sceptical about the boom should commit suicide. Some Republic!