Cllr Joe Ryan's Blog

Ryan welcomes household charge waiver clarification

2012-01-10T22:13:00.001Z

Labour Wexford Councillor Joe Ryan says that residents who live in over 75 unfinished estates in Co Wexford will qualify for a waiver towards their household charge. Cllr Ryan say’s it is clarification for many who recently bought their homes and were disappointed when contractors didn’t complete the work. Homeowners in estates like Strandfield Manor, Ard Chuain, Cluain Aoibhinn and Ard Uisce in Wexford town will have the charge waived provided they log on and register at householdcharge.ie or visit the office of Wexford Borough Council at Spawell Rd. Cllr Ryan said he was surprised at how many estates in Wexford had these charges waived as these estates are not ghost estates builders have deserted with just a handful of residents in situ but estates with significant numbers of houses occupied that may have just a small number s of dwellings to be finished off.

Cllr Ryan also pointed out that exemptions also apply to those who rent from the local authority, are in houses owned by a voluntary housing association, live over a rateable premises or rent privately. Cllr Ryan also said that the charge only applies to property owners and that anyone renting a private property who was levied the charge by a landlord should immediately contact the Private Rented Tenancy Board and lodge a complaint. The charge for 2012 is €100 and results from conditions attached to the Memorandum of Understanding entered into by the last government with the EU/IMF/ECB troika that required a local contribution towards local authority spending. Troika loans needed to fund the exchequer until 2013.”

Cllr Ryan said that there has been much scare mongering about this charge and that house owners should firstly check whether they are in fact liable for the charge in the first place. Householders have until March 31^st to register for the charge. “I welcome the decision by Wexford Borough Council to make it easy for people to pay by setting up a standing order to pay just €25 every 3 months. I accept that household budgets are tight. A standing order will make it easier and less stressful to stretch the payment out over 12 months provided you register before March 31^st.”

Cllr Ryan ended “I hope that this clarification provided to me by the Department of the Environment will give certainty to homeowners. This money will be allocated to local authorities for the delivery of local services.

End of statement

Contact to verify 087-6149350

Note; Full list of estates in Co Wexford below

An Caislean Bridgetown South Bridgetown Wexford An tOilean Craanford Gorey Wexford

Ard Chuain Pembrokestown Wexford Wexford Ard Na Slaine Newtown Road Wexford Wexford

Ard Uisce Pembrokestown Wexford Wexford Ashfield Blackwater Enniscorthy Wexford

Aughermon Ballymitty Wellingtonbridge Wexford Aylesbridge Riverchapel Gorey Wexford

Ballaghboy Clogh Gorey Wexford Ballybeg Ferns Enniscorthy Wexford

Ballywilliam Ballynestragh Gorey Wexford Barnlands Ballynestragh Gorey Wexford

Barr na Haille Ballyaddragh Rosslare Harbour Wexford Bellville Mountgarrett New Ross Wexford

Berryfields Ferns Enniscorthy Wexford Carrick Bannow Bannow Wexford

Carrig Beg Danecastle Bannow Wexford Carrig Lawn Coolcotts Lane Wexford Wexford

Carrigmacogue Park Bree Enniscorthy Wexford Chapel Wood Kilmuckridge Gorey Wexford

Church Wood Kilrane Rosslare Harbour Wexford Churchtown Court Kilrane Rosslare Harbour Wexford

Civic Centre The Avenue Gorey Wexford Clos Na Ri Coolcotts Lane Wexford Wexford

Cluain Aoibhinn Clonard Road Wexford Wexford Cluain Dara Clonard Road Wexford Wexford

Coill Na Guise Ballytegan Park Gorey Wexford Cuan Aoibhinn Rosslare Strand Rosslare Strand Wexford

Cul Na Greine Kilrane Rosslare Harbour Wexford Daeglen Ballywilliam Gorey Wexford

Elderwood Ballytramon Castlebridge Wexford Fairfields Adamstown Enniscorthy Wexford

Fermoyle Manor Killanerin Gorey Wexford Glen Cove Glenrichards, Poulshone Gorey Wexford

Glenaoibhinn Riverchapel Gorey Wexford Glor Na Gaoithe Cleariestown South Cleariestown Wexford

Grange Kilmore Village Kilmore Wexford Grange Lough Rosslare Strand Rosslare Strand Wexford

Hollyfield Bridgetown South Bridgetown Wexford Hunters Green Creagh Demesne Gorey Wexford

Meadow Fields The Moyne Enniscorthy Wexford Oldtown Court Clongeen Village Clongeen Wexford

O’Rahilly View Gusserane New Ross Wexford Pairc Na Bearna Drumgoold Enniscorthy Wexford

Parkton Mews Parnell Road Enniscorthy Wexford Plan Ref 20012862 Poulmarl Taghmon Wexford

Plan Ref 20045011 Tombrack, Ferns Enniscorthy Wexford Plan Ref 20053131 (Old Forest) Clongeen Village Clongeen Wexford

Plan Ref 20053171 (Clonard Village Centre) Clonard Wexford Wexford Plan Ref 20053818 Cushenstown, Carnagh New Ross Wexford

Plan Ref 20054148 (Old Forest) Ryland Upper Bunclody Wexford Plan Ref 20060070 Kilbride, The Ballagh Enniscorthy Wexford

Plan Ref 20061947 Askamore Gorey Wexford Plan Ref 20063097 Templetown New Ross Wexford

Plan Ref 20064302 Kiltra, Bannow Wellington Bridge Wexford Plan Ref 20080033 St Martins Road Rosslare Harbour Wexford

Plan Ref 982651 (Hookless Village) Fethard – on Sea New Ross Wexford Plan Ref NR 03/53 North Quay New Ross Wexford

Portside Ballygillane Big Rosslare Harbour Wexford Ramsgrange Rathroe New Ross Wexford

Riverchapel Wood Ballintray Upper Riverchapel Wexford Sarshill Kilmore Quay Kilmore Wexford

Scholars Rest Hollyfort Gorey Wexford Shelbourne Place Campile New Ross Wexford

Shrule Kilcomb Gorey Wexford Sliabh Adharc Milehouse Road Enniscorthy Wexford

Starvehall Drinagh Wexford Wexford Station Court The Avenue Gorey Wexford

Stonebridge Paul Quay Wexford Wexford Strandfield Manor Spawell Road Wexford Wexford

Templar’s Way Clonlard Fethard on Sea Wexford The Oaks, Knockavootha Ballynestragh Gorey Wexford

The Rise Ballyminaun Hill Gorey Wexford Walsheslough Rosslare Wexford Wexford

Waterside Close Askamore Gorey Wexford Whitebrook Pembrokestown Wexford Wexford

It’s a funny old world

2012-01-07T23:27:00.003Z

I’m just back from seeing “The Iron Lady”. Meryl Streep’s portrayal of Margaret Thatcher in “The Iron Lady” is one of the most outstanding pieces of acting I’ve seen in a long time. Its an indictment of Hollywood that good roles for middle aged female actors are few and far between. “The Iron Lady” is a UK production and from the moment Thatcher slips her minder to go to buy milk and a newspaper in her local corner shop and as she stands unnoticed rummaging for her purse in her famous handbag with stooped frame and her blonde hair covered in a head scarf, Meryl Streep has you in the palm of her age wearied hand. She has the voice, the mannerisms, the sense of moral righteousness that Thatcher had in her day. Make up do a wonderful job at ageing Streep to look like an 80 year old Thatcher

If you are looking for a polemic on her reconstruction of the UK you won’t get one in the film. The relationship between Thatcher and Heath, Thatcher and Scargill or Thatcher and Reagan are not examined. There are a few historical inaccuracies but the bones of what made her the person she is are there exposed subtly for all to see. When Thatcher is asked by her neurologist has she ever been delusional , I smiled. When the father she idolised set out his view of inequity being a motivator, I remembered the PD’s. Other than the assassination of Airey Neave and the Brighton bombing, Ireland is by and large ignored. Her rise through the Tory Party, the 1983 and 1987 General Elections, Cecil Parkinson, Jeffrey Archer, Anglo Irish Agreement, the invasions of Grenada or Kuwait, the squandering of North Sea oil money all are not mentioned.

Where the film really scores is the strong sense that no matter how powerful or wealthy a person is we all rely on those around us. Thatcher is portrayed as lonely, missing her late husband, visited now and again by her only daughter, and getting a phone call now and again from her son in his new life in Africa, feeling disconnected from present day events and seeing everything in a knee jerk 1980’s response. Every person that she relies on is paid to do that work, personal assistants to organise hospital appointments, book sellers to bring her copies of her book to sign, police, doctors, you name it. Nothing done out of love for her. In this there is a much deeper moral than the winning or losing of an argument. Her famous quote “there is no such thing as society” is never mentioned, it doesn’t have to be. The entire film effectively sets out the type of relationships that exist where there is no society and there is a price on everything and it’s not a particularly nice place to be, no matter how many millions you make off a book.

Ultimately this is a film about the failure of Thatcher. Physically ageing, no longer self confident, nobody other than herself to talk to, her Britain no longer great but once more in social turmoil as the country sets it self aside from Europe, no longer a leader in world opinion, it’s once proud industrial base that led the world now sadly gone. Thatcherism failed because it elevated the market place and profit above all else. It inspired the Neo Liberal agenda so beloved of the multi nationals and moneymen. Loyalty to a community was not just anathema to Thatcher, it was ironically and ultimately her undoing as Tory MP’s in her final hours told her to her face that while they were happy to support her, they feared that other wouldn’t. Thence John Major’s more conciliatory and caring brand of Tory that packed her off to the back benches and stole the 1992 general election, but that’s another story.

Go and see Meryl Streep, you won’t see better all year.

The school tie

2012-01-04T18:21:00.002Z

I’m pleased Ruairi Quinn has announced an audit into fee paying second level schools spending of state cash. I’ve never heard of an audit being ordered into how the states money is being spent in this sector before. As a teacher I welcome the audit so that those of us who teach in the non fee paying sector will be assured that whatever monies there are, are being spent on education and nothing else. Fee paying schools in Ireland mostly draw their pupils from those who are advantaged. Since the demise of religious vocations in teaching orders the fees levied have increased exponentially. Add to that the fact that in some parts of the country wealthy parents who would otherwise have spent money putting their offspring through college will now spend that money on their second level education. This means that fee paying schools are still wells subscribed as one second level principal put it on national radio yesterday. Few of the schools charge less than €5k to attend. Indeed I’ve heard of cases where parents with pupils in school who haven’t paid the fee being taken to court by the school seeking payment.

I’ve long believed that this sector needs to have its state support reduced. I cannot understand why the state pays for either for a principal, deputy principal or career guidance counsellor in these schools. These teachers are not in a classroom. Why should the state pay someone to manage a private institution which is well able to independently provide for itself? In the last few years some of these private schools have been able to find the resources to bring in coaches for school sports teams and IT specialists to train teachers on an ongoing basis.

Private schools don’t get a capitation fee from the government but they can get capital support for extensions and all teachers salaries are paid by the state. In terms of savings its no real ongoing saving to say that you won’t grant aid construction since schools don’t build every year and may not need to build if they are selective enough and maintain numbers at existing levels. The real scope for saving is in terms of money earmarked for salaries. Pupil Teacher Ratio in fee paying schools is significantly less than in the rest of the second level schools. Many fee paying schools can afford to employ extra teachers that give the school an advantage over other non fee-paying schools. Check out some of these schools websites. They point out the advantage of lower class numbers.

There are other issues that are outside the remit of the minister but need to be answered by some of the orders and patrons and it’s this; What are some patrons who see their role as providing for the less well off doing as patrons of schools that are fee paying and catering only for the children of the well off? Ultimaltely these are bigger long term questions that we need to ask if we hope to have a better Ireland into the future.

The result of the audit will hugely influence Ruairi Quinn’s thinking in framing Budget 2013. I await the audit and I hope that Ruairi Quinn publishes the audit so that there will be transparency for all of us who teach to.

The right to know

2012-01-03T10:03:00.001Z

I’ve always started out the new year by publishing my expenses as a councillor from the previous year. This year is no different. Below are the details of all money I received after tax arising from my membership of Wexford Borough Council. The amount I received is significantly less than other years despite serving as Mayor for 6 months of 2011 when compared with amounts declared by me in previous years.

This is explained by a cut in allowances to councillors from Central government. During the year as Mayor I made one trip outside the country to the London Wexford Association’s annual dinner dance in Camden for which I received approximately €331. I attended 2 conferences; The Local Authority Members Association annual conference in Dundalk last April and the Borders Midland West Conference on the role of the culture in the economy in November. I received almost €417 for the April conference and €514 for the November conference. The amount I received after tax for the representational allowance was almost €6,651. As I am employed the tax is paid on all the allowance at the higher rate as well as USC and PRSI. The amount received from Co Wexford VEC was almost €473. Unless the committee member attends the meeting there is no payment by the VEC for expenses. In 2011 I attended all meetings of Wexford Borough Council and 10 out of 11 meetings of Co Wexford VEC. I made no application for phone expenses in 2011 in relation to my Mayoral duties as the Mayor benefits from a mobile phone.

So the total I received because I was a public representative in 2011 was €8,546.44 after tax. I know that other councillors in other parts of the country get more and some get less. I’m happy to provide this information, it’s the public’s right to know.

Eddie Hobbs, back in business!

2011-11-29T20:41:00.002Z

All of a sudden while watching Mary Lou MacDonald on RTE’s Frontline last night, I started to wonder where Eddie Hobbs is these days? Mary Lou has raided the Hobbs library and is now reheating some of the classic Hobbs line. In 2009 Hobbs called for public service pay cuts and protection for those public sector workers earning incomes of €30,000 or less. Up north Sinn Fein has frozen public service pay for those on over €27K and is setting about public service pension reform in a manner that has Eddie smiling from ear to ear! To that effect there is a public service strike there tomorrow in protest against the DUP/Sinn Fein medicine. With extraordinary hard necks, Sinn Fein are looking their own striking public servants in the eye and saying we back you!

Sinn Fein is proposing a cap on all salaries in the public sector of €100,000 while it has little to say about salaries in the private sector. I’ve no problem with an incomes policy provided it includes all citizens and all incomes. So why shouldn’t investments, property, earnings on property be included? But there aren’t too many public servants earning over €100,000. I don’t for one minute think that the amount of money SF believe is there to be saved can be found, (€265M) Last spring Sinn Fein had an interesting footnote in their manifesto, they opposed the introduction of tax on the family farm. They’ve gone 1 step further in their 2012 pre-budget submission; excluding farmland, business assets and the first 205 of primary value of residences over €1m, retain state funding for minority faith private schools while not forgetting the old Milton Friedman line of making tax credits refundable. Sinn Fein used to stand for an Ireland of Equals, so how can they justify subsidising private minor faith boarding schools while Catholic ones are cut? Earlier this year there was the off the wall suggestion to deal with the cuts all in one go and to return to the bond market in 2012. This would have destroyed the social economy while being extremely attractive to speculators hoping to drive costs rock bottom. Tucked away in the SF 2011 GE manifesto was a nod to this logic with a pledge to return to the bond markets in 2012 providing a bank resolution mechanism was in place.

What scares the hell out of me and most people who rely on the public purse for an income is that most SF TD’s have never worked in the public service and do not seem to understand the ethos of a public service. It’s their type of logic that panders to the anti-public sector feeling that is growing in the country, fanned by right wing economists and opportunist TD’s. Up north while Sinn Fein support this week’s strike the reality is that in the words of their Education minister last September when he announced his plan to rationalise schools “Education is changing from this moment on”. The words and their meaning on the ground are moving in opposite economic tectonic plates in Sinn Fein up north. In the Ireland of equals it won’t be long till the thoughts and actions here match the northern mood music.

I don’t want to work in a public service that resembles New Zealand where less than 2% of the countries workforce are paid by the state. It wasn’t always that way in the country where their first Labour Prime Minister (2^nd generation Irishman) devised the world’s first national health service but right wing governments have dominated New Zealand politics for 40 out of 50 years from 1949 onward with the resulting impact on public servants.

The flip side of what Eddie Hobbs said last year was that he felt confrontation had to happen and that industrial action on a par with the 1984 miners dispute by public sector workers would result. That’s one vision of where the intellectual analysis that is shared by Sinn Fein may well bring workers south of the border. In the meantime in the words of Ed Milliband I understand where the strikers are coming from in the North and in Britain.

For the time that's in it

2011-11-27T22:35:00.003Z

Rare to see a minister get a good reception on TV but that is exactly what happened last Monday night on RTE’s “Frontline” Roisin Shortall was setting out her views on how to tackle binge drinking. Roisin is the minister responsible for the drugs strategy and she is seeking to reduce our addiction to alcohol consumption. She has a hard job however she set out in a positive way exactly the extent of the problem our society ignores. Absenteeism on Fridays or Mondays due to late night drinking is part of the €1.5B bill attributed to absenteeism in the workplace. It’s not too long ago since a local supermarket in Wexford gave a free case of beer when you bought one case.

Casual violence and vandalism adds to the damage. A few years ago a local garda told me that he was looking forward to his retirement as he’d spent enough Saturday nights in the company of enough of Wexford’s drunken youths to last him a lifetime. Alcohol contributes significantly to our levels of mental health. We’ve always tolerated the problem however it now seems that enough is enough and Rosin is looking at the volume of alcohol that is purchased here. Add to that the % alcohol content of alcopops and continental lagers, significantly stronger than the usual pint of plain. As a generation we’re storing up a problem of diabetes for the future. The health needs of the generation damaged by the over consumption of alcopos will have to be met somehow. Minister Shortall committed to ring fencing revenue raised for dealing with addiction. If a fraction of what she proposes comes through, it’ll be a good dasy work.

Lets deal with the potential downside. Cross border traffic for alcohol tends to be slightly older people who are not targeted by the alcopops manufacturers. There is little in the difference in price between many spirits here available on offer and the price across the border. Would you be bothered going to the north if the bargains aren’t there anymore? That’s not to say that some people will not go for variety and novelty. However the reality is that like the smoking ban which the north copied, any move that works on reducing alcohol consumption will in time make its way into law elsewhere. If a reduction of consumption in cheap youth orientated alcohols is Shorthall’s vision then I hope she succeeds and she deserves the support of all.

God protect us from all harm!

2011-11-23T10:19:00.002Z

Last Saturday morning I listened to an interview with the editor of the Irish Catholic, Gary O’Sullivan where he warned of the aggressive secularist agenda and made pointed references to how the Labour Party should be more honest with its agenda. Having attended Labour Party conferences down through the years, I’ve never spotted any motion setting out the agenda that The editor of the Irish catholic believes is now at work in Iveagh House, but [perhaps it popped up on a Sunday morning session when I was at worship, but I doubt it! During the interview Gary confused the closure of Ireland’s embassy with ending diplomatic relations with the Holy See. Gary suggested that the decision not to reappoint an ambassador and close the embassy was effectively Ireland ending relations with the Holy See. He specifically described the closure as a juvenile response which was motivated by the Cloyne Report without presenting any evidence to support this. In fact Ireland has not ended its diplomatic relationship with the Holy Sea at all, despite what Gary suggests

In fact the previous Irish ambassador to the Holy See retired earlier this year and has not been replaced for some months. The embassy that serves the Holy Sea is the property of the Irish state while the embassy that serves Italy also in Rome is a rented building. Costs in relation to that rental alone are about €250K while 2 separate staffs are required to serve 2 full embassies. It is not possible to continue paying this at a time when within our own country fundamental changes in work practices in the public service are being implemented and our population is faced with stringent cuts in income. Why should duplication of diplomatic services by a small country continue in Rome? I understand that it is proposed that the present Holy Sea embassy building serve as the embassy to the Republic of Italy.

Closure of embassies by Ireland has happened before in other states and where that happened relations were maintained through assigning another ambassador to that country. Ireland’s ambassador to Italy also fulfils duties to the Irish community in other countries particularly North Africa. Indeed many countries also assign their UK ambassador to Ireland and these ambassadors deal directly with the Irish government on matters of mutual interest.
I understand that the Holy See will accept credentials from an Irish ambassador assigned to it and that will be done in due course. The ambassador could also be the Irish Ambassador to Italy if that is acceptable to the Holy See. In the meantime the Nunciature in Ireland still serves as a fully credited embassy and is entitled to its mission. The papal nuncio is entitled to do his valuable work linking the Irish hierarchy to the Roman Catholic Church. The position between Ireland and the Holy See is exactly comparable to that between Ireland and Sweden. The Swedish embassy in Dublin closed while the Irish embassy in Stockholm remains, Sweden’s ambassador to Ireland is assigned from London.

Interestingly, Britain only established formal links with the Holy See under John Major’s government. The absence of a full relationship didn’t prevent a visit by Pope John Paul 2 to the UK in 1982. The editor’s complained that the Vatican was being compared with Iran for closure as both were announced at the same time. I think that comparison is pretty juvenile myself! Iran after all is a rogue state that persecutes its minorities and where women are second class citizens.

Gary justifies the Irish embassy on the economic grounds as playing a role by referring catholic business people to invest in Ireland. I would however ask Gary, Is that not the role of Enterprise Ireland, The IDA, Department of Enterprise Employment and Jobs, or Irish ambassadors accredited to the countries where these business people actually live? Irish Ambassadors to countries with strong Irish communities which tend to be catholic have extraordinary networks through business communities there. Indeed few countries enjoy the type of access that Ireland enjoys to Capitol Hill and the White House especially around St Patricks Day. Other than Brazil few of the emerging economies like China, India have significant catholic business communities and the clear interest of this government is to sell produce into these markets; notably foods for business already established here.

At the end of the day, cutting back on ambassadorial numbers is a hell of lot easier than most other cuts that are being floated at the minute. That is the bottom line.

When clear blue thinking is a smokescreen

2011-11-06T23:33:00.002Z

I’m quite surprised that the Minister for Environment Phil Hogan has decided that he’s other priorities than introducing a climate change bill. The climate change bill was considered important enough to put into the programme for government. 6 months later little has changed in terms of the seriousness of the issue of global warming but for Phil Hogan the immediacy of the matter has sadly slipped down his list of priorities. There remains a long time to go until the next election and the time is there for the commitment to be lived up to. It’d be a shame if some Fine Gael ministers were not interested in democratically agreements so perhaps Phil is thinking about moving on when the inevitable reshuffle occurs?

I believe that the problem of global warming is real and complex. The threat to coastal communities of inundation and erosion exists however more importantly the potential for destruction in the world’s poorest communities especially in low lying parts of the world cannot be underestimated. Per head Ireland is one of the worst offenders based on pre-slump figures. Ironically the last minister John Gormley claimed credit for a fall in carbon emissions in Ireland which resulted from the closure of cement production, reduced demand for power and other signs of an economic slow down , “Green policies were working” is how he proudly told us.

To be fair to Gormley he understood the immediate problem of flooding caused not by global warming but by bad planning, the rise in sea levels caused by melting of ice as the world heated up and he accepted that we should do something about that. Where he had a difficulty was that the EU policy of encouraging competition forced up electricity prices as his colleague Eamon Ryan responded by expanding the market share against a backdrop of reduced consumption and price rises. Add to that carbon taxes that were originally intended to be revenue neutral but in the end were just price increases. It’s hard to be taken seriously by people about world issues when they see you tightening the screw.

Now he is gone and it seems that Phil Hogan wants to decontaminate the Custom House of any sign of Green policy. This would be a mistake. The greens may have been a naïve anachronism but that doesn’t make their policies rubbish. Forget the lobbying spin and believe the chemistry; Carbon dioxide is a green house gas, so too is methane which is also a valuable resource that we waste. These problems present an opportunity to our economy not a threat. Emissions are mostly from transport, agriculture and industry. The claim of food security was made to justify doing nothing in agriculture. I’ve no reason to doubt the minister but the lobbying by economic interests in agriculture does go on. Expediency 10 years was the retention of one minister after lobbying by the industry.

The problem of emissions from agriculture has ignored the need to develop genetic engineering as a solution to reduced emissions. Livestock with better meat or milk yield producing less emissions could be engineered here if there was the vision of Ireland as a world leader in Genetic Engineering.

That’s why I hope that we get an Environment minister with vision who will make that connection and a Jobs or Science minister who will see the technological advantage of developing a strong genetics research dimension to our economy.

I give you Michael D Higgins 9th President of Ireland

2011-10-28T12:36:00.004+01:00

I’ve just been down the Wexford count to watch votes being counted. It’s not as hectic as a Dail or local election as the candidates aren’t there. The boxes I saw tell me that Sean Gallagher has done well in rural parts of Wexford but urban boxes have yet to be counted. Michael D Higgins is doing much better than expected. In one box I saw from Adamstown the votes were effectively divided between Gallagher and Higgins on a 60/40 basis with 10% for all other candidates. There are over 200 boxes here and the majority are not yet open. Votes have to be separated from referenda ballots. The count will not finish tonight. Given that the Wexford boxes have yet to be openend I beleive Michael D will top the poll in this constituency.

Michael D has a strong local link. I was delighted to see Paddy McKiernan and his daughter. Michael is a brother in law of Paddy’s wife. Michael D’s niece is Paddy’s daughter, both pleased and clearly proud of the national trend and the clear indications from Co Wexford. Their moment is coming. The Irish presidency is the one political office that has retained respect because of the integrity of the office holder. Voters believed that a Sean Gallagher presidency would damage that. That is why Michael D Higgins is going to win in Wexford and also nationally.

I am surprised that Gay Mitchell hasn’t performed well as there is a strong Fine Gael vote in Wexford. I understand exactly why FG members nominated Gay. No party member likes head office telling them who to select. No TD likes to be sidelined by head office who do not run for election. Sinn Fein will have achieved the scalp of Fianna Fail. Beating Fianna Fail is what Sinn Fein wants. They want to be the main opposition and nothing will stop that project. Any hope Fianna Fail has of reviving its moribund organisation is now in tatters. I didn’t see anyone that I recognise from Fianna Fail at the count in Wexford. When did that last happen? Not even the tea is boiled in a Fianna Fail kettle in Wexford anymore.

Sinn Fein may reflect on this election as a missed opportunity when the dust settles. I’d have expected them to perform better than what I’ve seen in Wexford today. As for the other candidates there is little in Wexford to cheer them up. Mary Davis, David Norris and Dana all doing poorly here. Another notable achievement is passing under the radar. Patrick Nulty is winning the by-election to replace the late Brian Lenihan in Dublin West. This is significant as one more constituency will now have 2 Labour TD’s. Not since 1982 has a government won a by-election. This is great achievement for Patrick and his supporters in Blanchardstown. Well done, a great day for Labour. We’ve held our place in the polls and are now winning seats. At the end of the day that’s what counts.

With the greatest respect M’lud, I differ

2011-10-24T19:17:00.003+01:00

Today’s papers carry a letter signed by 8
former Attorney’s General in relation to the forthcoming referendum on the
right of the Oireacthas to make findings of fact as part of their inquiry. Our learned friends have been motivated by
what they see as the right to protect a citizen’s good name. They are worried that Oireachtas committees
will start asking a few questions that some people may be reluctant to answer.
A few of the signees have a few good reasons to be wary of anyone kicking over the carcass of the Celtic Tiger and asking questions. Dermot Gleeson served as Attorney General to the Rainbow government in the mid 90’s. That’s the same Dermot Gleeson who doorstepped Brian Lenihan to get the infamous bank guarantee scheme about 3 yearsago that has trashed the states finances.
Another signee is Harry Whelehan who has experienced the rough end of an Oireachtas committee following his disastrous handling of the Fr Smyth extradition case. Interestingly Whelehan's successor as AG is conspicuous by his absence from the list.

Goldman Sachs man in this republic is Peter Sutherland, attorney General to Garrett Fitzgerald’s
coalition in the mid 80’s and former FG candidate in Finglas. There are those who regard the collapse of the world economy in 2008 as engineered by Goldman Sachs for the benefit of
Goldman Sachs. Recently Suds as he’s known to his friends suggested we front
load austerity. God help the power divil, where has he been since 2008?

David Byrne who served as AG to that fine leader Bertie Ahern became competition commissioner in the EU. While he had no role in banking, one would
think that completion requires openness and accountability. I could go on but you get my drift!

This type of intervention makes me cynical. The net beneficiaries of any tribunal have been lawyers. We have no more money to pay out however it is now more crucial than ever that we get answers to some of the worrying matters that have damaged our country. I believe there should be a committee to examine the collapse of the 3 main banks.

It will strengthen our democracy
if politicians are seen to this competently as they did in the case of the DIRT report. The ideal vehicle to do this is through an Oireachtas Committee. There exist a number of reports like the Nyberg Report where the investigation work has already been done to provide any committee with the where with all to ask people like Peter Sutherland or Dermot Gleeson to explain why they did what they did and why they expect the irish taxpayer to shoulder the burden they now
do.

It’s the least we can expect of those who have been lucky enough to serve in the highest legal position in cabinet.
Company law already allows the appointment by the Minister of an investigator under the companies act. Greencore, Telecom scandals all investigated on the cheap effectively about 20 years and we all know what happened. Yes there were people who went off to the
courts in relation to the findings at the time and what is proposed differs little in process other than it’s the Oireachtas committee and not the minister who decides. The key thing is that cost
is significantly less and the time period is shorter. It seems that for 40 years one law is good enough for companies and accountants but is not good enough for Barristers.
To quote one eminent lawyer Dr Wynne Jones the citizens right to the high court still exists and any changes in the constitution still are in the context of that provision. That’s why I’m voting yes, I want TD’s to be able to act as legislators and representatives not as poodles.

Sola says goodbye

2011-10-01T20:22:00.002+01:00

It’s been a while since there was as significant a jobs loss for Wexford. Unfortunately yesterday Carl Zeiss or Sola Lenses as they are better known here announced the end of production at their factory in Whitemill. Over 80 jobs will go as decades of production will end and the company retains its back office facility for Ireland with just 20 jobs as opposed to the hundreds that worked in the factory when Sola was at its peak. The production will be transferred to China. I really feel sorry for the workers who are losing their jobs, some of their children teach, some of the workers I’ve taught in the past. Some will never work again as age and skill sets are against them. It’s a really sad and worrying time for families.

I’m really sorry that Carl Zeiss have made this move. It’s clear to me that the real decision was made some time back and that the company in the end ignored even requests to take even a phone calls relating to the company’s plans. The factory has been in wind down mode for sometime as work was sent outside the country in the last few years to other low wage economies. However when Carl Zeiss finally shut the doors and leave we are still left with a town where unemployment is going up and an economy still fragile and lacking in confidence. Coming this week after the successful Wexford EXPO which provided a forum for local enterprise, it’s another indicator that the road back to a successful economy will not be easy in any circumstances

Add this to the loss of Wexford Electronics and rapidly Wexford’s technological base is disappearing with no promise of a replacement. To be fair Coca Cola has arrived in town and there are high end jobs there, but the cold wind of economic prioritisation of major towns for jobs is leaving Wexford behind. Recently we had a motion at Wexford Borough Council that asked the IDA to pinpoint jobs for the town. The suggestion was that the Ida was only interested in places like Waterford. However when Talk Talk announced its departure from Waterford the clear suggestion was that Waterford was being by-passed by Cork for jobs. So Waterford jumps Wexford and Cork jumps Waterford. That leaves us in the third division when it comes to the IDA. The IDA believe that major job packages look for a large city with an airport, university and skill sets and that’s where they see their focus so all the regions are going nowhere.

It’s time for the IDA to wake up to the reality of Ireland beyond the college wall or airport terminal. Wexford has a high quality MANS fibre optic cable which is underutilised, a decent quality of life and very affordable housing for workers. Add to that the convenience of Rosslare Port with land provided for industry by Brendan Howlin, a good road and rail network there is the basis for industry if the IDA was prepared to push for the county. For sometime the IDA has ignored the town. This cannot be allowed to continue.

An inappropriate app!

2011-09-28T23:46:00.002+01:00

The technological revolution knows no bounds. There’s an app for everything these days as your mobile phone or android can bring a whole world to your fingertips. Many useful but some are utter tosh. I was emailed about one app that you can download for immediate use on your android phone. This will one tell you if your child is gay!

It works it seems by asking you a series of questions about your child and based on your response it will give you a diagnosis. For instance it asks if your son prefers football to musicals or is your son careful when choosing outfits! Is your son a fan of Diva’s like Madonna or Brittany Spears? Most worryingly it seems that one of the tell tale signs is that your son takes a long time with his hair. Presumably the creators of the app have never had to worry about removing nits from a child’s hair? The question reflect more an interpretation of a simplistic cultural perception rather than an in depth assessment of how a child feels and relates to those around them. In my view it is dangerous and grossly in accurate. In a simple quiz similar to those of teenage magazines of the 70’s or 80’s the boxes are electronically ticked and a prognosis offered. Hey Presto!

What you are then supposed to do about it, I’m not so sure, perhaps there is somewhere a subsequent app that will sort that for you. However, I question the value of such an app. Why would someone not talk to their child? Can a parent not talk to their child and ask them how they feel? It’s a sad reflection on how lifestyles and values have changed when an app is seen as a replacement for real communications. The instantaneous nature of technology may be fine for processing a financial transaction however we’re talking about the human mind here, not a machine. A persons feelings are something deep that no app can get to the heart of.

I think that this type of simplistic questioning panders to ignorance and peddles stereotypical myths. Some may call this app homophobic. I don’t know whether it leads to prejudice against gays but it certainly doesn’t make for better relations between a parent and their child if a parent is stupid enough to take this type of advice above all others with something as important as their child’s sexuality. This app adds further ignorance which may well compound the initial ignorance of how a person’s child feels. Will it make a child feel better and resolve any doubts a child may have, (which is what I think is the key question about this app?) No!

Why Michael D is the man for me!

2011-09-25T09:27:00.002+01:00

It’s almost 30 years since I first heard Michael D Higgins speak. It was in the political cauldron of Labour’s 1982 National Conference in Leisureland Salthill. Michael D was party chairman who opened the conference with a passionate analysis of Ireland’s economic difficulties and a critique of our social conservatism. He was delighted that the party conference had come to his own city. He ended with a passionate plea to those who shared our desire for change to join Labour and change our society.

Labour in 1982 was a very different place to where it is at now. Politically threatened from the left, internally riven with personalised rivalries and hosting a virus called Militant Tendency, Labour was not in a position to radically transform an Ireland in thrall to the constitutional crusade or GUBU politics. That conference ended Michael O’Leary’s tenure as Labour leader and you could cut the political tension in the air.

Almost 30 years on the issues may be different but the passion for empowerment of people is still the same. That’s why Michael D will make an outstanding president. What separates Michael from the other candidates in this election is his analysis of how we can have a better country. We have a passive society, where the expectation of the populace is that something is done for them regardless as to whether there is an entitlement or not. It is a curious aspect of the Irish mind that we feel that the need to have another individual solve matters for ourselves. That’s not to write off our society, we’re second to none in our concern for other people who are suffering.

Add to that societal changes in media and values which emphasise the ego. A recent survey of children showed that jobs now considered desirable are pop singers, soap actors and models. A huge change from the fireman or train driver, occupations of service to society, that predominated a generation or 2 ago. Society is now heading in a direction that values celebrity not participation. I find these changes worrying for many reasons as they exclude swathes of society. An exclusive society will produce a stratified Ireland. The flirting with celebrity in this election is another indicator that rather than confront the societal changes some parties are pandering to it.

Michael D Higgins believes in something fundamentally different. Where a society engages with its citizens outcomes are much better, society more stable and participation improves. Active citizenry is a very democratic idea. It is inclusive and has the potential to transform our damaged society to a better place. It encourages all regardless of income or sex, age or ability. It is enormously positive at a time when people need to hear something that will give them hope. It marks Michael out uniquely as a candidate that appeals to all citizens, it can help bridge that gap through which in the last 14 years citizens have slipped.

I mentioned earlier that we as a nation are generous to those worse off. Ironically through our generosity especially to 3^rd world countries we have helped societies where participation is more active than here in Ireland. If we can make the difference abroad we can make that difference at home too. Its just a month to the Presidential election. Michael’s analysis is the reason why he is attracting more support in terms of first and second preference than the other candidates. It is the single positive message of this campaign and it is why when all the controversy over letters and NI is over and the votes are counted he deserves to win.

The issues may be changed but the passion and values of Michael D still stand out.

Don't mention the war

2011-09-20T21:24:00.005+01:00

So Martin McGuinness is the latest candidate to get a nomination for the Presidential Election. Martin is not the first republican to run in such an election. I haven’t met anyone yet who thinks he will win. Most people think that his candidacy is about Sinn Fein replacing Fianna Fail as the main opposition party. The hype behind McGuinness is about creating the impression that only Sinn Fein has an alternative to the government. At one fell swoop the ULA have been marginalised by SF as they set about the task of peddling the myth of Martin the man from Damascus, while his namesake Micéal watches from the sidelines. McGuinness will add Fianna Fail and some independent support to his own and will probably get about 25% of the vote.

Martin is not one for deep thoughts. Derry is not the hotbed of left wing radicalism that West Belfast likes to portray itself as. McGuinness’ Ard Fheis speech was a folksy, Uncle Martin ramble, the last remaining Chuckle Brother still managing to smile back. Derry is fundamentally a place of established socially conservative nationalists, McAteer, Hume (who genuinely did the state some service and has been deliberately marginalised by SF & FF) and now the teetotaller McGuinness. The journalist Suzanne Breen tells a story of how McGuinness attacked her publicly for writing about the sexuality of Pearse and Roger Casement. When the past is mentioned Sinn Fein now are only looking forward and want to talk about the future deal. Expect the SF campaign to adopt the Basil Fawlty defence of don’t mention the war.

Ironically the campaign will attack all other candidates as establishment ignoring the realities of Catholic Derry politics where nationalism has been the established force and driver for the last 40 years. In Derry Eamon McCann was the anti-establishment candidate at the 2011 Assembly elections. However SF won’t let facts get in the way of presidential spin! The disastrous underpinning of clapped out banks through the bank guarantee scheme which SF so enthusiastically supported in 2008 didn’t happen. When the party could have done Ireland some service by staring at the political spot on the wall in Leinster House, they jumped in with 2 feet first to wave the green flag defending the banks.

In northern politics election time means 2 elections, a green one and an orange one. This election will be a double election also. There will be one for heading the poll between Michael D and Gay Mitchell and the other one for dominating the opposition. SF are in a one horse race in that. I expect the 3 party candidates to pull away from the independents. Second preferences will mean that Sinn Fein will have to appeal to the business types who back Sean Gallagher if he wants to remain in the race. This reality has yet to strike home with Sinn Fein. It is a sobering reality as it will mean that Sinn Fein will have to appeal to voters who are well beyond their core. That’s why there’ll be no mention of the war. The more that Martin’s past is raised the less likely it is that his candidacy will be successful.

We are where we are

2011-08-14T20:13:00.006+01:00

100 years ago Wexford was a fundamentally different place. Most males worked in the foundry industry in Wexford town. The best known is Pierces but there were others in Selskar and the Star. In 1911 the employers locked out their employees as they wanted to join a union. In this case the ITGWU. Richard Corish was the main shop steward who worked at the Star Foundry in William St. Together with Connolly and Larkin he worked tirelessly to ensure that workers could be
represented by the union of their choice. The lock out resulted in immense hardship for many houses in Wexford. In those days foundries closed at Christmas and wouldn’t re-open until March. For many families managing on limited means was the order of the day. The lock out meant that for over 6 months most families had no income in Wexford during a long cold dark winter. During that period Michael O'Leary a local man going about his business in the street was baton charged by the RIC during a riot. He died as a result of injuries received.

It is difficult to imagine the type nowadays the restricted lifestyle people led. Families coped with the hardship because they understood that when it was over that things would be better and that the sacrifice was worth it. In those days few families paid tax, nor had bank accounts simply because incomes were so low. Wexford’s foundries dominated the Irish production of farm machinery. To this day ploughs survive restored by their owners as a testament to the skill of the craft of ironwork in a by gone day.

Indeed the metal industry in Europe has been undermined by changes from globalisation and many of the major producers of farm machinery from that era are now consigned to history. However it makes us what we are today and the social history of the lock-out has shaped the social structure of this town.

The next 6 months will see a number of events marking the centenary. Mayor Davy Hynes officially opened the road which appropriately contains SIPTU’s Wexford HQ. Peter O’Leary grandson of Michael, spoke of his pride at the opening of the road. Many of the O’Leary family were there and it was great to see a good turn-out in the community to mark a hugely significant piece of Wexford history.

The St Patricks Fife and drum band played marches and tunes under a lovely blue sky. It was an evening for the ordinary people and a great start to the centenary of the lock out

Rebranding Fianna Fail? It started on the Late Late Show!

2011-08-10T09:37:00.004+01:00

Gay Byrne is an outstanding broadcaster who has through the years effectively been the standard against whom all others are compared, not just within Ireland but among Irish people everywhere. An inner city boy done well. He’s credited with bringing sex to Ireland as his Late Late Show allowed the forum for 60’s Ireland to discuss issues like relationships, womens rights, and sexual liberation against the backdrop of Vatican 2. Gaybo was always seen as being a closet FF supporter as indeed many of those in the entertainment business were in the 60’s. He has a sharp nose for good TV, allowing Terry Keane speak about her affair with Charlie Haughey, something we all knew for years before, Gerry Adams’ first TV interview and who can forget his hour long interview with Annie Murphy the mother of a child fathered by his friend Bishop Eamon Casey. All were key moments in Irish broadcasting. Gay was viscously opposed to the Garret Fitzgerald government who banjaxed the country in view. He forced a climb down of too by using his radio programme and massive audience to great effect. He hasn’t been above mis-judging his audience as I remember from the time he tried to campaign against a decision by Telecom Eireann to rebalance phone charges which subsequently fell flat.

Who better to rebrand Fianna Fail? Fianna Fail is a party that no one trusts. Gay Byrne real skill is that he naturally relaxes his audience and he is someone you can trust. A good president? His predecessor worked in RTE too and like Gay Byrne she was close to a few bishops in her time, an outstanding legal brain who in my view would have been a very good minister if she could have been elected to the Dail. She was an inner city girl who had done well too. So the spec for Fianna Fail president is there in the safe in Mount St. You don’t have to be a card carrying member to be Fianna Fail as any Seanie Fitz and many of his type who were put on state boards by FF in the last 14 years will tell you to be of the tribe.

I welcome his entry to the presidential race. I just wonder though if after retirement and the end of the last decade but one whether his name really means anything to anyone under the age of 35 as he’s spent much of this time in retirement. It’s interesting that the poll for 4FM a semi national radio station aimed at the over 40’s shows Gaybo doing well. But what about those who listen to the youth radio? Another problem he will have will be that Fianna Fail already have another TV celebrity Sean Gallagher in the race and presumably as his campaign tanks on the back of his association with the most toxic party this side of Syria there is a desparate need for Fianna Fail to have something to shout about. That’s what’s in it for Fianna Fail.

The big problem Gay will have to shake off is his support from Fianna Fail and yet his claim that he will still be independent. I always thought that you couldn’t be slightly pregnant. You either are or you’re not. So if he’s not Fianna Fail’s candidate I presume he’ll tell us the names of the other political parties that are supporting him too soon. Otherwise the race will become all about Gay Byrne and not about the presidency and the country. To achieve this would be an outstanding feat on the part of Fianna Fail.

Fianna Fail is a cancer that has the potential to destroy this nation. Most people who suffer cancer believe when they enter remission it’ll never come back again. But it can and when it does it comes back more dangerous and pops up in parts of the body that were previously healthy. Ultimately it eats away at the body ending all hope. Let’s see if there is still any hope for this country.

Jeremy Kyle’s Britain hits the road

2011-08-09T17:46:00.003+01:00

I never watched Jeremy Kyle’s TV show until this Summer holiday. Kyle hosts a show where family members outline their personal domestic dilemma. There is a common theme to the disfunctionality Kyle daily hosts. Individualism trumps responsibility, greed and consumerism beat generosity or community hands down. Part of what has happened to Britain since Thatcher fundamentally rebooted society is now being played out nightly. Thatcherism never went away you know! It’s all back with a bang.

The investment in communities that Hessletine oversaw after the riots of 1981 was effectively a sticking plaster. Communities have fallen apart not because of a lack of money but because of society has left young males mostly black behind. Societal changes in terms of skills set necessary to get on, the value of education, the need for a sense of responsibility both in terms of family and in the wider community have left some sub sets behind. Where there’s a vacuum alternative values will take off as a sub culture where new values that dictate power and esteem within peer groups seem alien. Young males seem to be at the bottom of the pile in Britain and even within that sub group, young West Indians seem to be even further down the pecking order.

Deploying extra police and scrambling COBRA to deal with the issue as if those responsible were Al Quaida members won’t really achieve as much as a good rain shower. The old fashioned right wing analysis of conscription or short sharp shock is as obsolete as the left wing analysis of community neglect by local and central government. After 1981 Michael Hesseltine did see that housing stock was updated, that communities did get the investment needed in terms of leisure centres, educational supports and youth projects. These communities have much more than many that I know in Wexford but such investment cannot make up for a societal value change.

Society has changed greatly, the looters are to organised mobile phones, blackberries seem to be the first thing to rob, followed by the top brands in sports wear. Then there are the designer clothes that can be sold on the black market, the plasma screens, the branded products and of course there’s the alcohol. The 21^st century rioter cares for the planet, recycling the empty bottles as petrol bombs. For the 21st century rioter it is all about power. I find it interesting that young males in the bond markets are playing havoc with the euro and company stocks. The young generation seem to be saying to older generations you haven't got the power you thought you had once.

David Cameron last year said he didn’t believe in the importance of multi culturalism. This is an enormous mistake Any society that ignores the warning signs is in trouble. If you want an insight to the mentality of those presently at the heart of this tune into to Jeremy any day.

Ireland is no longer a single culture society and we should carefully watch what is happening in the UK. Our minorities are smaller, they are more dispersed throughout the country and more integrated. However for us there also remains the real possibility that if societal values were to change here the result would be no different. There’s a real fear

August is a wicked month

2011-07-30T15:28:00.002+01:00

So wrote Edna O’Brien. A truism that David Norris may well soon discover. While the controversy about him gained him popular support, the resignation of key team members may well prove fatal to his campaign. I’ve blogged before that I feel he has the right to stand for president but it would be astounding given the internal disarray in his team if he can now attract the additional support that he needs to cross the line at the end of the race. His own team members who’ve stood by him in the past are now tweeting their resignations and distancing themselves from his campaign.
Polls have shown that Michael D Higgins is more transfer friendly than any other candidate. The shredding of closet Fianna Fail Dragon Sean Gallagher on this week’s Pat Kenny radio show reveal deep dislike for his failure to address his past membership of the FF National Executive and his continuous obfuscation on why he left Fianna Fail amid suspicions that he never left at all. This in time may prove as corrosive to his campaign as Norris’s failure to clarify his past. Gallagher will act as a sweeper for disillusioned FF voters giving them a reason to vote and will transfer well to the official FF candidate.
David Norris may well try to continue his campaign but it’s unlikely that he’ll get 4 county councils to nominate him now and he still needs 5 extra Oireachtas members to help him get his name on the ballot paper in October. About 10 years ago then PD minister Bobby Molloy saw his political career end after it was revealed that he’d made representations to have a man convicted of sexual assault get out early. According to what I’ve heard it is alleged that David Norris used Oireachtas stationary to make a clemency plea to an Israeli judge in respect of a man convicted of the sexual assault of a young boy. There are clear similarities between the 2 cases in my mind. Will he get his name on the ballot paper now? If he succeeds it’s unlikely he will win now. Just as the 1990 Presidential election degenerated into a FF/FG fight about the Lenihan affair and whether Jim Duffy was right to release his tapes, this election may well become about David Norris and not about the office of the presidency.
If David Norris cannot command the support of his election team, how can he command the support of the entire people if he actually won? Where ever President Norris would go the international media would dwell on this controversy. Would that not get in the way of his hope that he would represent another positive image of Ireland? How would press fixation on this matter help improve our international image? ULA and Sinn Fein attempted to get Bobby Ballagh to run however he turned down their advances. It seems that Fianna Fail may well use the presidential election as a way to divert attention from the forthcoming Mahon Report into the man who at one time wanted to be their candidate Bertie Ahern. Brian Crowley for some strange reason feels he has what it takes for this job although he will be an also ran.
Michael D Higgins is well placed to attract support when more people focus on the nominated candidates. I amazed at his energy in covering the country from Donegal last night to Waterford tomorrow but not by his enthusiasm or vigour. He has an outstanding record on issues such as human rights and international development. In time the Norris controversy will be in the past and Higgins will go on to be an outstanding President. The people rarely get elections wrong. That why there has never been an election in the month of August, it is a wicked month!

On our knees

2011-07-15T15:48:00.001+01:00

I agree with Aodhán Ó Riórdaín Labour TD for Dublin North Central when he says it’s time to end the prayer at the commencement of each day in the Dáil. It’s only around since the 1930’s and suggests to me subservience of the business to Christianity. That is not how a republic should do its business. No offence intended to anyone who believes in Christianity, I’m one myself who goes to church regularly. It is in the interest of each church that there is a separation of church and state. The Catholic Church will be the biggest beneficiary of any separation.

Churches do not need the state to comply with their values for a church to develop. The latest census shows that the evangelical religions are the ones showing the largest increase in membership within the state. When I went to school, some teachers would start class with prayers and others wouldn’t. I’ve never started a class with a prayer preferring a role call. Maybe a roll call should be held at the start of each day’s business in the Daíl?
I was hugely surprised to hear that some local authorities start their monthly meetings with a prayer too. Glory be seems the prayer of choice in Castlebar. I’ve never said a prayer in Wexford Borough Council and never would simply because it is not what I’m elected for. We start each monthly meeting with a vote of sympathy to anyone in the community who has an association with the community who has died since the last meeting. The we stand I silence, some members join their hands in prayer, others like me stand in silence and put their hands by their sides. Curiously the minute always ends with one particular member blessing himself and sitting down! Each respects the deceased in their own way, in the absence of any death the meeting proceeds as per the agenda with no reflection. I’ve always assumed that other local authorities behaved the same.

I don’t see any problem with that, I’ve asked in the past that the minutes silence remember people that I’ve known who’ve died and I’ve included the victims of the famine when there used to be a National Famine Commemoration Week. Sinn Fein has used this to remember dead hunger strikers. There’s more important things to be discussing than prayers but in the week that the Cloyne Report effectively undermined the Catholic Churches hopes at credibility in the area of child protection it may well be best now to encourage the Catholic Church as the main Christian church to go its own way. Ending public prayer to a Christian concept of God may well be a symbol that we’re all moving off our knees.

Mick's kettle calling the pot pink

2011-07-13T18:25:00.002+01:00

Its only months since the General Election. Few new TDs have made an impact like Mick Wallace. Mick regards himself as a national politician who said that issues such as hospitals are not for him. Mick’s flamboyant straight talking style has now caught him out. Sitting along one TD who’s a hedge fund manager and another who cuts turf, they cut straight to the point when discussing a FG TD’s attire during a Dail vote.

I’ve no problem with his clothing and whatever he want’s to wear. But I draw the line at his double standards. Today’s papers are full of the group sexism the three men engaged in. He’s right when he says today that he’s bang out of order. Another issue he’s bang out of order on his concern for the future of JLC’s and the Sunday premium.
Last week in the Dail he said “I employ 52 people in the restaurant industry and can assure the House that JLC rates are not my problem. I have other problems in that the position has been very difficult for restaurants in the past couple of years”.
Mick went on “An employer cannot complain about Sundays. A Deputy on the other side of the House claimed that only Friday, Saturday and Sunday are busy days in this country. That is not true. I can tell her that Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday are more lucrative days than Sunday in Dublin and Wexford.”

My eye is drawn to these remarks as its only about a year since a local paper in Wexford reported he was instructed to make settlements to his restaurant workers for not paying Sunday premiums under the exact same JLC agreements that he says he now has no problem with! While Mick Wallace may not have a problem now with the JLC rates, a year ago he was up to his neck in it and it ended up at an employment appeals tribunal after a worker who insisted on being paid these was sacked!

It’s not so much a matter of the clothes he wears but the reality that on this one issue of protecting low paid workers, Emperor Mick Wallace hasn’t a stitch on him! His election posters said that he stood for new politics. I’m not so sure anymore about that. There’s the element of do as I say but not as I do on this one.

If Mick had also paid his sub contractors there is the chance that there’d still be enough revenue to support the SNA’s that work in my classroom? In the past I’ve sympathised with Mick Wallace when his companies were placed in receivership. Mick has to understand that sympathy is not a one way street and soon people will run out of time for him. Even those on low pay have their limits.

We’re on the one road

2011-07-11T15:58:00.005+01:00

Not in my years has there been so much anticipation. The decision of the proposed route of the new Oilgate to Rosslare N11 was finally announced today to councillors. Originally there were 8 different routes listed as possible. Now it is down to one preferred option. I know that most people will scratch their heads and wonder where will the money and traffic come for this project given the mantra that we are where we are!
The proposed route bypasses Oilgate to the east and rejoins the N11 until Newcastle where it will branch off west of Ferrycarrig Bridge before rejoining the alignment a the Barntown Roundabout. There is a new bridge proposed over the Slaney near the Irish National Heritage Park. Next it continues to Drinagh along the present bypass and curves away before the Drinagh roundabout to follow the course of the already agreed routé of the Wexford Rosslare road provided for about 10 years ago. In comparison to what could have been its minimal in its delineation,

Lets deal with that one about money. The criticism of the M50 roundabouts at Red Cow intersection was that it was designed and built when usege was low and that the time to do the spade work on any infrastructural expansion in a better economic environment in the future is now. The second point that makes it sound more realistic is that the project can be built bit by bit as there are several intersections with the existing national primary roads where the routes can re-join.
My initial fear was that the preferred route would take the road away from Wexford town in the direction of the N25 with the consequent bypassing of the town and the likely bypassing of New Ross, I reckoned Dungarvan would be the first town that the tourist would meet on the way to Kerry. That fear has come to nought. I’d hate to think of Wexford as being one more sign post on the way to somewhere else. Now I’m reassured.
A word of the actual preferred route. The maps provide for a 300M strip wide within which just 100M width of land will be ultimately used. If you look at the map and see your house in the line of the road it doesn’t necessarily meant that the road will go through your house. Indeed it will probably give the planers the leeway to avoid knocking any house and incurring extra cost. I know that when people look at the Whitford House and Clonard Village will see the land in the 300M zone however there is no certainty that there will be an intersection here, My view is that there will be just 2 intersections, one at Drinagh and another at Barntown with a linking distributor road collecting local traffic to these junctions.

It will take many years before the design and planning permission stages are over. There will be an oral hearing and the matter will go to An Bord Pleanála direct as it is critical infrastructure. It could be 20 years before it is built and given that its 10 years since the preferred route of the Enniscorthy bypass was agreed and still land hasn’t been purchased then it’s not a case of holding ones breath. Not so much a giant step today but a baby step but a step it was!
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Being part of the problem

2011-07-07T16:22:00.003+01:00

I’ve just got an email in relation to a protest next week about the reduction in SNA posts. It’s an issue I put a motion to Wexford Borough Council last October asking that SNA’s be retained. Despite the motion the 2011 budget cut the funding and when Ruairi Quinn became Education Minister he accepted the FF Green plans. When schools closed for Summer some SNA’s were let go. A circular letter from the Department said that schools would get 90% of their SNA allocation before the Summer and the 10% balance would be re-assessed in September. In the intervening period there exists the uncertainty for an SNA as to whether they will ever get a job again doing what they love. On the other hand there is the cap of 10,575 full time equivalent posts, a reduction of 200 posts on 2010.

Why is it so that so many parents are exercised? Not so much that all the parents believe that they will lose a SNA completely, they clearly won’t. More because we have a record in the country of not providing for children with learning difficulties. More because many parents have learnt that the only way to get something is to fight for it. There is a fear there among parents. The reality of that fear bonds these parents together and ironically for the Department of Education makes them a greater lobby than if the department had funded the SNA and learning intervention historically. The National School system was founded on a premise in 1832 of “If it can’t be efficient make it cheap, and if it can’t be cheap make it efficient”. Any minister in the department needs Dr Who’s tardis to understand this department’s century old policy. It was the original social department of the state, predating social welfare, health and outlasting Lands and the Gaeltacht. Inspectors for the department visited children in the care of religious orders at residential homes and some were concerned at what they knew but the department turned a blind eye. I always suspect being a member of the Knights of Columbanus was central to getting on in some government departments like Education.

It seems to me that Wexford is worse affected by the reduction in SNA hours comparatively more than anywhere else. Why? The matter was raised at a VEC meeting where we were given the Departmental press release that blamed the increase on numbers qualifying for SNA’s on pressure by parents on professionals to produce reports that would result in the child getting an SNA. Professionals buckling at the prospect of parent power? That’s a new one on me, one that I find hard to swallow as it conflicts with what parents in Wexford told me when I visited a school here last year. Parents were concerned that there child was been given a 10 minute assessment in a classroom situation after which a decision was made on the application for an SNA. Questions were asked about the consistency on a national level of decisions on similar applications and the inconsistency of qualifications of those deciding on who got an SNA. Rather than parental pressure being the cause of the upsurge it strikes me that the pressure was downward from the department on those deciding on applications for SNA’s.

The department has seen it all before and will see it again, The department will survive and endure. That’s the problem. Education come’s pretty far down the department’s list of priorities. Time moves on and the world is a different place. That proves true for everywhere except in Marlboro St. For parents of children relying on SNA’s challenging the economic orthodoxy is one thing but taking on the mandarins at the Department of Education may well be a step into the unknown. In the past they’ve pursued a sex abuse victim of the principal convicted of these offences as she had the temerity to seek compensation from the Department. Cutting striking teachers pay in Christmas week didn’t cost this Department a second thought.

As a department it’s dysfunctional but can’t be abolished, how else would we provide for education? Ruairi Quinn has a job of work to make the department human. I wish him well and I hope that when the remaining SNA hour4s are reviewed in September that the matter that affects Wexford is resolved.

Back on Civvies Street

2011-06-28T14:06:00.005+01:00

In the end it only took 20 minutes to bring down the shutters on my year as Mayor. As someone who was not from the town it was a completely different experience to what I had expected. I pointed out last night that our town is a number of communities, geographic, cultural, artistic, sporting commercial and racial. Its only when you get to be Mayor that you really appreciate the interactions between these. Yes there is a lot of hardship but we’re not a place on a map in the south east corner of Ireland, we’re a community regardless of how wealthy or poor we are economically. These values remain strong and that is what makes us as a town.
The role of Mayor has changed and is now more about motivating and encouraging rather than using sole discretionary powers to shape people’s lives. That doesn’t mean that there wasn’t the occasion when you intervene on your own initiative. There was. Legally the officials could well send you packing however politics means that the official should listen to you in the interest of explaining why you feel they could have made a better decision. No table thumping, No shouting, just straight talking and then a resolution. Usual stuff in most councils.
Into the future you wonder about how many discussion in a council will be about finding someone to do something as opposed to should we do something ourselves. Volunteerism, outsourcing, rationalisation, privatisation, cutting services. All options that change the nature of the debate. It pits the council and the market as providers of services as opposed to providing for community’s needs. And who is in that market space and what should the response be if one of the providers is also state owned. Where does the local authority stand in the context of Croke Park?
Being Mayor was a great experience, Key public events are the return of the victorious Wexford Camoige team, Barry Day and Opening night of the Opera, the All Ireland Drama Festival and the St Patrick’s Day parade. But it was events that were low key where you meet small numbers of people that really struck home, meeting a group from a marginalised community in Wexford who exchanged with Latvia, watching the opening of Coolcotts Community centre, speaking at the opening of an exhibition in the Arts Centre. And meeting a real hero John Giles or Vincent Brown!
So now it’s all in the past. As one Labour colleague remarked, you’re better off leaving office having regretted not saying something rather than leaving regretting something you’d said. And yes there were the monthly meeting and the chairing of the councillors and arriving at decisions… eventually in some cases. During the time I’ve tried to blog on topics that were outside of local issues within the town. On reflection that was the best course but now it’s back to civvy street. Next meeting in the chamber is Monday next and its back to the usual seat on the Labour benches, a lot has changed but a lot is still the same.

Secure and guaranteed

2011-06-08T08:39:00.003+01:00

Nothing goes to the core of an Irish community more than the delivery of health care. Rarely is the health service out of the news. In the 80’s Fianna Fail shut many hospitals and the future of Wexford hung in the balance. That was until Brendan Howlin became a minister in 1992. In the new General Hospital facilities were greatly improved. However the advent of licensing for hospitals and changes in working time directives for doctors means that there is a growing pressure to change the hospital model for service delivery.
League tables of performance are the other side of waiting lists as the Irish love of medicine for profit and the consultant follows the money sees an inequity in access and outcomes in what is still one of the wealthiest countries in the world. So it was with a smile on my face that I left Wexford General Hospital last Friday. The occasion was the launch of the new CAT scanner which is one of only 4 in the country that will assess soft tissue in 64 different views! Not since the birth of my last child have I left the hospital in better form.
The reason? Brendan Howlin had once more done the impossible. He had saved the local hospital by announcing the injection of €20M into the hospital. The money will see extra beds for Accident and Emergency as well as a new maternity wing. This effectively secures the future of the hospital and allows the hospital do what it should be doing namely get on with providing first class health care to the people of Wexford.
As I pointed out to hospital management when staff are hit by salary cuts as well as lay offs the least that they should be entitled to is that hospital’s future is secured. It puts to bed the issue of the hospitals future and there are clear time lines. Tenders to be advertised and breaking ground by Autumn on a 30 month building project that will be opened in early 2014. Fair play to Brendan Howlin, he gave the commitment during the election to save the hospital and now he has delivered.

The race for the race for the Park

2011-05-30T23:07:00.006+01:00

In October we will have our first presidential election this century. A lot has changed in Ireland since the last president was elected in 1997. A presidential election is a different type of election. I’ve always regarded it as a statement of how we feel about ourselves in an international context and how we visualise ourselves as a nation. Mary Robinson represented a modern aspiring pluralist state that had something to say on the international stage. Mary McAleese is a more spiritual president who makes us feel comfortable. So what does the future hold for us now? Do we need a president who will re-build our self esteem as a community and if so to what end? Suggestions that the President should perform a role in reviving the economy miss the reality of the last decade that the economic growth didn’t reach everywhere. That suggests a President for a few and not for all. That’s the risk with celebrity TV candidates. How can they connect with the marginalised? I’m out!

Before you can run you’ve got to get a nomination. I’ve always transferred my vote in the past for David Norris in a Séanad elections. He’s an outstanding senator but would he make a president? If he’s nominated I’d certainly transfer to him but can he get nominated? The arrival of other independent candidates like Mary Davis and the Dragon make the process of getting nominations from the county councils harder as each candidate needs 4 and who’s to say that there are enough councils inclined to nominate? What if a political party decided to ask councils to nominate their candidates for them as they have every entitlement to do? Cats, pigeons and setting among come to mind.

That leaves Sinn Fein, Labour, Fianna Fail and Fine Gael. I think Sinn Fein will nominate a candidate. Their 17 Oireachtas members plus help from a handful of like minded TD’s could see a candidate, perhaps Gerry Adams, with an eye to the 2016 centenary of the rebellion. Fianna Fail will run a candidate in the hope of a reasonable performance and picking up transfers on later counts. I expect Brian Crowley will be their man. Fine Gael may nominate Mairead McGuiness who will poll well in rural areas and outside Dublin. Which brings me back to Labour. We have 3 very able people declared as contenders; Michael D, Fergus Finlay and Kathleen O’Meara. It’s hard to say no to someone but it’s got to be done. Finlay and O’Meara are outstanding advocates in the area of health and welfare, 2 issues Labour has always been strong on. But I think the bold and imaginative candidate would be Michael D Higgins.

He has so many strings to his bow. Poet, Lecturer, former Arts Minister, philosopher, Galway via the Banner and Limerick and a journey through TG4 included. Potential support for Michael exists not just in these geographical areas but well beyond. He is a strong candidate who has a lot to offer and what’s more you could visualise him having a lot to say about our society and as to how national regeneration could be fairer, better and more sustainable than what went before. He’s done that for years in or out of office. That’s what I want a president to represent and to be. Michael D is the man who ended Section 31 and his appeal will bring in transfers and support beyond the Labour’s core vote. No one can win without that. He’s regarded by everyone as an outstanding orator and motivator.
Mary Robinson was challenged by Noel Browne for the Labour nomination in 1990. When Mary won that nomination we all set about winning the election around the slogan “A President with a Purpose”. That meant something then to me and it still does. It’s time to be bold and have a purpose. That’s why I hope Labour nominates Michael D Higgins as its candidate for the presidency next month.

Bruton’s beeline for Labours red line?

2011-05-28T12:04:00.003+01:00

In each department the line minister is the ultimate decider of policy. The Duffy/Walsh report into pay rates was ordered by the outgoing Enterprise Minister Batt O’Keeffe. The report was agreed as part of EU/IMF/ECB bail out. For weeks there have been suggestions in the media and business circles that the report would roll back the regulation of pay in sectors such as hospitality, restaurants, etc. paving the way for lots of extra jobs. At least that what IBEC would have us believe. Their idea was to cut premium payment for Sunday work and streamline other allowances and rates dividing greater Dublin from the rest of the country, making it easier to take on extra workers at a lower rate. What you might ask about the consumer? Was there not a suggestion that charges could drop in these sector as dramatically as proposed? The straight answer was; No!

The reality for many trying to get to work on a Sunday is that public transport is non existent in rural areas on a Sunday morning, child minding impossible. Many people still regard Sunday as a day of observance or a family day. There is a need to cover these expenses on the part of the employer. Is it likely that the Minister comes into work on a Sunday in his office with or without any allowance using public transport?

It must have come as a huge disappointment to the suits when the Duffy Walsh Report made no such recommendations for sweeping change. Indeed the report highlighted the importance of having agreement in the sector about how wages could be decided to avoid having differentials between businesses. However Jobs Minister Richard Bruton has indicated his own view that JLC rates should be cut any way. It is merely his own view and not a Labour view and not the National Government. This time last year Richard called the Fine Gael leadership wrong. He was out of step with his own party and was dismissed as a man who eats his dinner in the evening, presumably in one of the restaurants he now wants to see pay their workers less. What is more interesting is that few FG back benchers have supported his call for pat cuts for those on low pay.

In this rush of blood to throw out the Duffy Walsh report one wonders who would bother preparing a report for his department in the future? If the detailed work is going to be summarily dismissed because the minister has decided otherwise? I don’t believe for a minute that the minister will get the changes he wants, it’ll never come to that. However the difference between Labour and Fine Gael or more correctly Richard Bruton should be dealt with before the matter is publicly aired. That’s what programme managers used to do. As I’ve blogged before we do need them badly to get agreement on how issues should be addressed. I’ve always regarded John Bruton as antagonistic minister to Labour but an outstanding Taoiseach. Perhaps Richard should have a word with his brother before he changes low pay into no pay?

Wallace's New Politics runs into an age old problem

2011-05-24T21:31:00.005+01:00

The news that MSJ Wallace Ltd owned by Mick Wallace TD have gone into receivership is a great sadness to those who worked for Mick as well as himself. Nobody takes any pleasure for a receivership. Following the collapse of Celtic Bookmaker this is a further blow to business in the county. Recently I’ve noticed Mick Wallace as an ever present in the chamber of the Dáil and I wondered how it was that he had so much available time to debate as many issues as he could at a time when his companies were in difficulty. One political cynic said to me that he should enjoy it while it lasts for him and that the posters should be stored for the winter. Speculation on his future as a TD is very premature, I can think of a few TD’s whose companies collapsed in the past and they never had to resign. But I don’t want to kick someone when they’re down.

I sensed during the week that there could be difficulties when I listened to Mick Wallace warn on local radio that unless more support his soccer team Wexford youths that the team couldn’t continue as it is. It didn’t sound like his usual optimism. One of the protections that builders in NAMA have is that they have the strength to negotiate with their Irish banks as the banks need these assets to work their way through and realise some money for them on an ongoing basis so that they recoup something. As a result they have sacrificed their triple A rating status. Not so with the foreign banks that Mick Wallace relied on. Foreign banks owe you nothing, they will protect themselves first. Whatever patience Rabobank had with him is now gone. Mick Wallace has lost control of the companies that Rabobank funded and now the bank will dispose of those to realise something now. Mick has maintained a low political profile since he was elected in Wexford Town, I've yet to meet him at a function or meeting in the 3 months since the General Election but I look forward to meeting him before I step down as Mayor next month.

I support Wexford Youths and do go to watch matches when I can. This year the attendance has dropped significantly as the teams home form has dropped. As one wag pointed out to me “Youths haven’t won a home match since the IMF came to town”. The 2 home games I’ve attended this year have seen poor performances. All credit to him for what he has done for soccer in Wexford in terms of his personal commitment down through the years. There are players from Co Wexford who’ve had a chance to play at a higher level who could otherwise not achieve that. I’ve listened of criticism of him from people in political circles who will say that it wasn’t his money actually it was the banks money all along. This misses the point that there is no money to be made in Irish soccer and if he had invested the banks money elsewhere he would almost certainly have been in a better financial position to deal with his creditor banks. As a soccer fan I'm worried about the teams future in League of Ireland Soccer given the collapse of Sporting Fingal

Unlike the Celtic collapse where outlets were bought and the chain saved, there doesn’t seem to be many interested in buying property right now. To complicate matters further there are loans from other banks elsewhere. How will these banks respond to Rabobank if Rabobank are seen to get the lions share realised from the receivership? I hope that the final whistle hasn’t blown on Mick Wallace.

Ireland of the Welcomes!

2011-05-22T23:39:00.002+01:00

Life in Ireland is resembling a mood swing. From depression to delight and all points in between. The visit last week of Queen Elizabeth was analysed to the nth degree rightly from the perspective of how we can build a relationship with our nearest neighbour into the future. Interestingly the language used is fundamentally different. No more mentions of “the mainland”, No fake Hollywood shamroguery or leprechauns. It’s been all quite civilised as Ireland benefits from positive exposure on the international stage. Europa League Final and Queen Elizabeth. It’s reported that the number of enquiries about Ireland as a tourist destination has increased greatly.

There’s more to come as Barak Obama will share the stage with the European Rugby Champions Leinster. Given the low value of the Euro against the dollar and sterling and the reductions in price in Ireland the tourist industry will get a boost. Nowhere better able to capitalise than Wexford. I was at the launch of the new portal website for Wexford a few weeks ago in the Opera House and it strikes me that it is up and running a the right time. www.wexford.ie with its tourism theme of “So Old So New” combines business tourism, local business and local administration. Wexford does have an advantage in promoting its tourist product as there are 3 images that the county has nationally; beaches, strawberries and Opera. Providing a strong internet presence will only help.

My own comments at the launch was that few counties had done what we’d done. Local authorities get stick often but in this case Wexford County Council who sponsored the site are due credit. Given Wexford’s location and all it has to offer it’s the first port of call through Rosslare. The need to develop transport links out of Rosslare is outside the local authorities control. During the volcanic ash crisis Bus Eireann objected to the temporary extension of a license for Wexford Bus to allow the collection of foot passengers at Rosslare. If state companies want a turf war rather than to provide a service then the state is missing the point. As once again a threat of a new volcanic ash cloud hangs over aviation Rosslare could once more play an important role. So where’s the railway connection to Waterford and beyond?

I hope that the forthcoming tourist season see more people come to Wexford to see Johnstown Castle, JFK Arboretum, The Irish National Heritage Folk Park, the 1798 Centre and the re-opened museum in Enniscorthy which by all accounts is wonderful. And don’t forget the Opera, and the beaches and of course the strawberries!
Lots to come to, Lots to see!

Never ask a question unless you know the answer first!

2011-05-15T22:05:00.004+01:00

I would have loved to have gone to Arbour Hill today to mark the 95th anniversary of the execution of James Connolly but for family reasons I was otherwise detained. I wonder what Connolly would have made of Ireland (well this part of it!) almost a century after his death. Connolly believed strongly in strength and unity. I’m sure he’d weep if he knew that the successor to his ITGWU was being picketed in Wexford by the self-proclaimed successors to Pearse. Many of James Connolly’s family were there at Arbour Hill to see his direct successor as leader of the Irish Left Eamon Gilmore speak today. A century on a lot has changed but a lot remains the same.

Connolly was an able man who showed that it was always necessary to cut a deal so as to protect your interests. No better example than the Wexford lock Out, the centenary of which falls later this year. The object was that the workers would be represented by their own Irish Union in their case the ITGWU. Connolly visited here during the strike, I have a copy of a letter from him in Corporation St Belfast to Richard Corish in Wexford around that time. I showed Nessa Childers MEP the step from where he spoke almost a century ago. Connolly accepted compromise to end the lock out just as he did in Dublin in 1916 to prevent further suffering. He knew that eventually his objectives would be secured. The SF picketers posed the rhetoric question “What would Connolly say?”, Well here’s your likely answer

Wouldn’t it be great if some of those who organised the picket at SIPTU in Wexford actually joined a union and perhaps read up on Connolly’s life? In the re-conquest of Ireland Connolly said “If the old political parties must go so to should the divisions in Labour, we should work to for the obliteration of all divisions in the forces of Labour in the industrial field.” What may surprise some of those who proclaim Connolly as their inspiration is his belief in co-operation for the purpose of common regeneration! He talks about replacing suspicion and mistrust and difference in attitude between those who claim pity and those who are strong and self -reliant to enforce respect. Connolly was also critical of the gombeen men and their kind with their loud mouthed assertions of patriotism. The Re-conquest of Ireland was published over 100 years ago but is as relevant for the days we live in now as it was back then.

The logical follow on seems to me that perhaps its time to stop wallowing in misery and start uniting behind a policy? The backdrop to the lumpen detachment of Mayday are reports of children arriving hungry in school while parents cook by candle light in homes that are the subject of repossession cases at courts. Earlier this month the Master of the High Court criticised banks for pressurising some of their customers over repayments which in some cases were contributory factors in suicide.

Strikes me that James would have very little time for those in Wexford who used Mayday as a self seeking publicity stunt. Perhaps they would have been better off coming up with an alternative that would contribute to getting our country out of the mess it was left by the wealthy insiders, the sort of person who a century ago kept the country in penury. A century on a lot has changed but a lot stays the same.

Anyone for the last of the semi-states?

2011-04-14T21:33:00.004+01:00

It reminds me of Croke Park when the hustle is on to sell the last few choc ices. Rather than be left with a soggy mess that was worth nothing the hucksters got more vocal, desperate to flog off the last ice cream.
It may be just April but already there is the hint of action in the air as a state of panic seems to be breaking about price of semi states and as to whether enough of them will be sold to keep the market analysts happy.

A few years ago Colm McCarthy produced his own hit list of public services that should be either ended or sold off so that the state finances would remain stable. If only the destruction of our state by the Greens and FF had ended at that by now we could at least be trying to reconstruct the country, but No.
Colm McCarthy is back this time recommending that €5B can be raised by flogging off the family silver; ESB, An Bord Gais as well as Bertie’s mates in Coilte are lined up while the big land bank belonging to CIE in Dublin Port will attract some speculators. How did we get here? Well lets look at some of the previous privatisations and see what was learnt.

The elephant in the room is the FF practice of packing state boards with directors with interests in property. They’re everywhere that there’s land. The former state owned shipping line Irish Ferries has a share value that exceeds a value you’d expect as the board members who again are property magnates bring their expertise to bear on the potential for asset stripping. Asset stripping is not just a FF core value. The former state owned sugar company’s CEO just happens to be the brother of the Agriculture Minister. Greencore closed its sugar producing arm at the height of the bubble and accepted compensation to morph into a property company. We now know the information used to arrive at the closure decision was wrong but will the company do a U turn and re-enter sugar production? Extremely unlikely.

So what will we do when one of the soon to be privatised companies takes a decision that is not in the countries interest but is most definitely in the interest of the company? As it is there’s at least one semi state board where already that happened anyway and little was done about it. I’m thinking of Irish Rail where Rosslare Harbour has been effectively mothballed by its owner. Rail services disconnected and ended, recently shipping lines seem to have indicated that they will end foot passenger services as the facilities in terms of onward connections have been axed by CIE. All this happened under the previous governments watch.

So whether a company is state owned or privatised seems to matter little to board members who rarely see themselves as having a culture of serving the public. As a result I would shed no tears if Rosslare Harbour was sold out of state ownership provided the new owner was interested in investing to compete with Dublin or Cork and restore rail and bus services. It would matter little to many in Wexford if the directors fees were paid out of the private purse rather than state coffers already depleted by the speculator class. In fact if a private company was committed to the port in the long haul there would be few politicians in Wexford who would shed tears for Irish Rail such is the poor level of service and investment.

Follow the money in Ireland's casino capital

2011-03-23T00:05:00.005Z

After 14 years at last Justice Moriarity has concluded his investigations on the behaviour of once Fine Gael Minister, Michael Lowry. So let’s remember the scandal in their own words; Michael on John Bruton; “Best friends for ever” , Michael on Semi States; “I’ll go through them like a knife through butter, I’ll smash cosy cartels” on own his financial affairs “All my tax affairs are in order” Michael on his own motives “If I had wanted to evade tax I would have used an offshore account” John Bruton to an FG aid re a £50k donation from one investor “Leave it where it is”, Denis O’Brien to ESAT’s Barry Moloney;“ I gave Lowry £100,000”.
Moriarity on Lowry “conferred a benefit on Mr Denis O’Brien a person who made payments to Mr Lowry, Mr Lowry was …a far from disinterested minister whose sole anxiety was to secure a competitor to Eircell, Exhibited an appreciable curiosity about the substantive process and was provided with information by members of the project group… many meetings with no documentary records…and exerted an insidious and pervasive influence on the process who thereby not only influenced but delivered the result…What was contemplated and attempted on the part of Mr Lowry and Mr Dunne was profoundly corrupt, to a degree that was nothing short of breathtaking."
If you blink you miss it. Suspend reality while the masters of the universe shuffle their money form one offshore account to another regardless. No suggestion of any need to declare any donations for tax, the fact that then Minister Lowry could happily skull pints with Denis O’Brien on the night of the All Ireland football final without any suggestion of potential conflict of interest says all that needs to be said about Irish crony capitalism. To make matters worse for Lowry, Ben Dunne who hides behind the defence that he had psychological issues in the 90’s today sees nothing wrong in the Minister who was the then shareholder in Telecom Eireann ringing the telco company to direct them to pay more rent to the landlord at one of their properties who just happens to be Mr Ben Dunne. Clearly this wasn’t a case of Dunnes better value beating them all, at least for the tax payer. Whatever friendship existed between Bruton and Lowry is now clearly in the past since its clear from the report that Lowry misled Bruton and Spring as well as his cabinet colleagues.
So where is all at? I’m glad to hear Pat Rabbitte the new minister say he is going to refer it to the DPP to see if the Gardaí should investigate aspects of this worrying report. Hopefully it will not be too long before the matter is before the courts. But in the meantime Michael Lowry remains a TD. He helped keep the worse government that we’d had for many years in power. Lowry is at present touting for a casino in his own constituency that will rival Las Vagas, if you believe his spin. Before the last General Election, Denis O’Brien sent FF, FG, Labour and the PD’s each cheques of €50,000. Pat Rabbitte who was the then Labour leader returned the cheque sent to Labour to Mr O’Brien. We don’t know what happened to the other 3 cheques.
So what happens next? 2 of the defeated applicants are pursuing the state for compensation, the bills for the 14 year tribunal process have to be met. Once more the taxpayer will carry Michael’s burden while Denis O’Brien remains as a tax exile in Malta sitting on the huge profit he made when he disposed of the company about 10 years ago to BT now O2.
The only wry smile on my face was when Micheal Martin pursued Enda Kenny on the matter. If only Micheal had tackled Bertie Ahern or Ray Burke or his own early patron Charlie Haughey in their day. Still the lord loves a trier! Despite the report there exists embarrassment in the 2 establishment parties as to how their fundraising can be exposed in this way. I believe that their inclination will be to ignore the scandal. That would be wrong. Our country deserves transparent politics and decision making. Pointing up errors in accountability in banking is useless unless politics is run in a transparent manner. That is the ultimate challenge of today’s final Moriarity Report.

Would you like a pay cut with that?

2011-03-16T19:11:00.003Z

Never let a good crisis go to waste was the maxim of Rahm Emanuel, Barak Obama’s chief strategist. Well it seems that the Irish fast food industry are as much West Wing fans as chicken wings when it comes to increasing their profits! Today in the Supreme Court some key players in the fast food industry are challenging the Joint Labour Agreements and other legislative protection for workers in the industry.
I’m gobsmacked that this highly profitable industry is trying it on . Average wage in the business is about €350 per week while NERA reckons nearly 4 in every 5 operators already ignore minimum wage and other employee protection. Despite the high rent paid by many chains such as Supermacs, Burger King and Eddie Rocketts profits in the business have never been better as fast food replaces a meal out for many trying to make less money last longer on a night out.
I have sympathy for anyone trying to stay in business at the moment. As Mayor I am conscious of the difficulties. I know that rent and rates are often cited as difficulties and I can understand that someone can have problems implementing legislation when costs can be out of control however this is not such a case. In fact the plaintiffs are concerned that the present legislation damages their property rights! It seems that property is more important to some people in Ireland.
I believe that others who are in the retail or food business are being done no service by the fast food industry and that it would be better if these business were told preferably by IBEC or that wonderful man in ISME who always seems to want a level playing pitch for small business that they should stop taking advantage of a collapse in consumer confidence elsewhere in business so as to maximise their sectoral profits.
Or could it be that there may be some who would like to see the protection of minimum wage and conditions eroded and have a sneaking regard for the fast food industry pulling a fast one on its workforce?

Our word is our bond!

2011-03-08T23:12:00.002Z

Remember John Bruton? John was the last non FF Taoiseach who in his short period in office who led the Rainbow Government. John spent most of the last decade as EU Representative in Washington. Now on the eve of the ousting of the Fianna Fail government, John has spoken about the economic crisis that this new government faces from day 1. Strange that it seems to be the prerogative of former Fine Gael leaders to put their successors on the spot, Alan Dukes fronts up a banking pariah, Garrett Fitzgerald supported some aspects of Fianna Fail and Green banking policy while Michael Noonan ditched the Fine Gael economic stimulus plan as soon as he was appointed Finance spokesperson.

John reminds us that our word is our bond as a nation. Implicit in this is the suggestion that credibility is only something that a nation should worry about. So we should stand by our EU partners in the commitment to pay interest rates that will strangle our economy. I don’t agree with John Bruton, he’s wrong. A country that enters into agreement to pay what it cannot afford has no credibility. Our word and our bond have been devalued. I don’t like when someone puts on the green jersey to appeal to us about saving the country when in fact they prefer to save the economy.

While I don’t suggest that you should randomly burn bond holders the sooner some subordinate bond holders understand that they will not get their bonds cashed for some considerable time and that the effective value of what they think they are owed may not be what they expect and that they should plan accordingly for their own black hole in their accounts wherever they are, the better for everyone. Reputational damage happened long ago, there’s no such thing as a reputational transplant!
What people wanted in the General Election is a straight up honesty from the new government. First in line for realism should be the sub-ordinate bond holders and the ECB. The people will accept honesty and what it entails if they see those who could have done something been told a few straight facts. But let’s not forget our own Sir Humpreys in the Central Bank and the ex Regulator who failed to do their jobs. I hope that one result of the new government will be that the facts of how Fianna Fail and the Greens crashed the economy can be set before the people. Honesty doesn’t cost much and if that’s all we as a country can afford then it’ll be a sobering day for all.

Your vote counts!

2011-02-26T18:43:00.006Z

Well elections always bring surprises and this one is no difference. It’s a long time since Brian Dowling forecast a few days ago that a Fine Gael majority was a foregone conclusion. Not now. More like Big brother Brian Dowling than pol cor Brian Dowling.
Wexford has turned up a surprise in the way that Mick Wallace has topped the poll, not so much a huge shock that he got a seat but more the style of his victory. An important soccer match delayed Mick’s arrival at the count but he was there when the returning officer declared him elected. Brendan Howlin has an astounding number of 11,000 votes up by 10% since the last General Election and Brendan will get the second seat.
Seán Connick is very vulnerable and may be eliminated, another elimination that could prove key is that of ULA’s Seamus O’Brien and SF’s Anthony Kelly. The destination of their preferences will determine the hopes of Labour’s Pat Cody. Pat has been an outstanding candidate and has polled about 4,500. He is very transfer friendly and may attract preferences as the last left winger left standing. It’s going to be a long night ahead. Mick Wallace is entitled to his triumph having campaigned on the slogan Wallace for Wexford however his remarks subsequent to his election to the effect that he sees himself as a national politician and not one who is concerned about hospitals or potholes may come back to haunt him as serious questions hang over the future of Wexford General Hospital.
On the national front never has Labour got as many votes and never has the party got as many TD’s. The Gilmore Gale has blown although like most gales it isn’t as consistent across the country but the prospect of 2 seats in some constituencies is a basis for progress. 4 years ago I remember that FF supporters sniped at Labour to say that all the TD’s were old and that the party was dying. Not anymore and there’s plenty of new blood that will take the party forward. The Spring tide can be left in the past and let’s move on build further.
Looks like a coalition between us and a chastened Fine Gael some of whom 9 months ago were opposed to Enda Kenny even in Wexford. I’m delighted to see Brendan Ryan perform so well in my old stomping ground of North Dublin.
I predict an extraordinary battle between Michael D’arcy FG and John Browne of Fianna Fail for the last seat. It’ll be down to a few hundred votes and a late night in Wexford. Anyone for a recount?

Tales from the canvass; Sprinting a marathon!

2011-02-20T23:05:00.004Z

After the phoney war comes the campaign. After the campaign comes the vote. After the vote comes the count and after the count comes the post-mortem. If you survive all that, there’s the chance of being in government. So the good news in Wexford is that we’re not even half way through General Election 2011 despite what the papers will tell you!
I’m already putting a few of our “windfall” posters by as I’m beginning to suspect we’ll need them for later in the year. My view is that nationally Fine Gael will exceed 70 seats and will seek the support from independents. The independents don’t need to be like minded, I could think of a few so called left wing independents who would walk willingly into FG’s arms if they could gain influence. The possibility of the Greens surviving and scotching FG’s manifesto pledge for reversing the hunting ban in return for a continued Green presence in the Custom House is also in the mix. Add to that the Sunday Independent business editor, fund manager Shane Ross who would see common cause with the right wing of Fine Gael in hacking at public services, or as they call cuts now “doing the heavy lifting”.
The mood music from Fine Gael has been extremely hostile to Labour. It’s not personal it’s policy. Lucinda Creighton who recently threatened to quit if not considered for ministerial office seems to have had second thoughts judging by her attack on Jack O’Connor’s call on union members to vote Labour. The subliminal signals are FG want an overall majority with the proviso of being nice to everyone that you meet on the way up as you may just need them on the way down. So sweet talk while firmly letting them know who FG thinks is boss. I think FG is making a huge mistake, one that will undermine the new government with whoever ends up in government with them and I’m of the view that it may not be Labour.
So lets just tease this one a bit and think past next Friday. The worse place to be next Saturday is in opposition. Look who you’ll be alongside, FF, SF, ULA (strong personalities but no agreed leader). Labour may well be there, may be not! Some independents some independents may be not. There is no way into government from that position and FG know that well. So the divided nature of the opposition will play into FG’s hands in the next Dail. But taking a divided opposition for granted may cause a government problems.
So given that the FG led government should last 2 full terms that will see Enda Kenny into retirement, and then who leads FG? One of the turks who eats dinner in the evening who seemed to lack political nous last June? Can’t see Labour last long in that government after Kenny, can you?
If they go the Indo route, some independents will be favoured over others, how long will it take for one or 2 to do a George Lee? Would FF gene pool independent TD’s who see themselves as only delivering to their area be acceptable as FG supporters to the D4 urban support? How long would the reported love affair between Fine Gael and Dublin last once FG’s rural tendency find their voice in power?
Will FF offer support for FG if they follow the 4 year program as set out by the outgoing government and will FG walk into that trap?
So, in the meantime the pitch for votes continues in Wexford. Liam Twomey’s posters implicit beg Labour supporters for preferences by his suggestion that they vote local vote Liam. There’s one of those on my road but I’ve never seen Liam in the area!
John Browne seems to have a poster malfunction with plenty of speech bubbles popping up on his posters suggesting that John didn’t exactly look after the interests of the people. On Wednesday Eamon Gilmore will be in Wexford to support Pat Cody and Brendan Howlin. This campaign will go down to the wire on Friday night. The race is still on.

Scealta ar na sraide

2011-02-10T18:04:00.002Z

Tá breis agus coicise fagta go dtí an oll-toghcán agus táimid leath slí trid an cogadh i Loch Gorman. Bhí sé ag cur fearthaine aréir agus do chur ar ceal ag dul timpeall na doraise. Beidh ceathar deág animneacha ar an papeir ar le rogha ár teachtaí Dala . Níl ach bean amhain ar an liosta I Loch Gorman.

Ach is soleir anois go bhfuil troid deacair again chun an dara siochain a bhuacaint ar son Lucht Oibre. Las muigh cursaí airgeadeas níl morán ceisteanna aituil ar phlé san comortas. Mar a duirt Bill Clinton uair amhain “Is é faoi cursaí eacnamaiochta, amadan”, agus tá an ceart aige. Nuair a bíonn triobloid i cursaí gnó, seans mhaith rudaí eile ag cur trí ar an cúinn.

Cúpla blianta ó shin duairt Fine Gael go raibh sé in am rogha a thabairt go dtí daltaí ag an darú leaibheal gaelige a dheanamh ar scoil don Ardteist. Níl fhios agam cén fath é gaelige a roghidear an phartaí. Cathann gach dalta trí abhar a dheanamh ar scoil go dtí an Ard teist; Gaelige, Mata agus Bearlá. Tá fhios agam faoi daltai ón anall atá ag staidear an teanga i Loch Gorman agus ní cloisim aon gearain ó na thuismethoiri faoin gaelige. Anois san toghcán, deireann FG má bíonn an partaí san rialtas go gearfaidh said an gaelige i dó; abhar nua faoi culture agus abhar eile an teanga. Saghas Diddley eye in aghaigh an modh coiniollach!
Ach is é mo bharuil go bhfuil é sin botún mór. Ní ceapaim go deanfaidh é fheabhas cur ar bith don teanga. Tá fadhb is fior é a rá faoin teanga. Bíonn nios mó daoine in a conadh san gaeltacht ach níl moran ag usaid an galeige dar liomsa. Triocha blain ó shin d’fhan mé oiche in teach I Tirellan Heights I Gallaimh agus ba mhór an iontas orm a bhaint amach go raibh an teach san gaeltacht! Teastaionn uainn teoraim nua a chur ar na fíor gaeltactha. Ach fresin tá suim mór san teanga i aiteanna mar Loch Gorman agus tá an sui mag fás. Is iad na aiteanna a tuigim go mbeidh an teanga i mbaol má deanann an rialtas é easca an teanga a dhuiltaigh.

Is amhlaigh in a bhfuilimse in aghaigh Fine Gael maidir leis an pléan sin. Ni creidim go mbeidh an teanga in ann fas faoinn pléan agusní dopigh liom go mbeidh níos mó daoine ag caint trí Gaelige tar éis an athrú. Dar liomsa ta deacrachtaí agama ag leanuint le mó vota go dtí Fine Gaeltar eis an Lucht Oibre ar an lá mór ag deireadh an míosa. Tá 8 iarrathoir ag an partaí idir an Gallaimh thoir agus Muigh Eó. I measc na gaeltachtaí ceapaim go ndeanfaidh an pléan nua damaiste don phartaí san toghchán mar ciallóidh mná na tithe airegead sna coalistí na Gaelige.
Is soilear domsa go mbeidh Fine Gael i gcumhact I ceann cúpla miosa. Mura mbíonn an Lucht Oibre isteach leo, an bhfuil aon suim ar an Phairtí Sommerville & Ross no na neamhspleachai rud ag deanamh faoinn polasí FG sin? Sin ceist a fhagaim leatsa le freagra!

Tales from the Canvass 2011, Anyone seen an FF candidate yet?

2011-02-04T14:58:00.002Z

After a week of canvassing, it’s time to reflect on how the campaign is going in Wexford. Firstly our own Labour campaign for Brendan and Pat are making good progress. Ivan Yates who knows a thing or two about Wexford says he believes one of the Fianna Fail TD’s will lose a seat but won’t say which. Yates also gives the 4 other seats which as we all know is the kiss of death for any candidate so I won’t repeat it here. He figures that it is between our Pat and Dr Liam Twomey( FG) for the last seat. That’s some acceptance of how rapidly Pat has made progress in Wexford politics. Cork Vs Kilkenny for the last seat in Wexford! Did you ever think you’d see that?
Brendan Howlin is the outstanding candidate, there’s no doubt about that. Few of the other contenders get a fraction of the national airtime as Brendan as their party spokesperson. Few have as much credibility. The rest of the country will have a Gilmore Gale, in Wexford we're having a Howlin Gale!

Evening canvass is a nuisance in the dark. Finding your way round dark paths to front doors in older estates, reluctance of some people to answer in the dark are all factors that irritate the ordinary canvasser. Interestingly we canvassed a working class estate last Saturday night where everyone was in. I think most of these people would usually be out on a Saturday evening for a pint but not anymore. Less money to spend means evenings in. Look on the bright side, it hasn’t rained and many are openly indicating they will support Brendan and transfer to Pat Cody.
The number of young non-nationals coming to answer the door is significantly less than during the local elections of 2009. Many worked in the building industry. If they were single then they’ve likely moved on. They older ones with children in school are still here. They’ve integrated and their children are learning English and indeed Irish, their friends are Irish. Many are thinking twice about returning to their native lands.
The one issue that is coming back to me is from public servants who are worried about their future. As one myself I know the concerns but the baiting of the public service by FF, FG and the Greens is making for huge volatility among public servants. These people will vote and it may yet decide the final seat between Pat Cody the union official and public servant and Fine Gael’s Liam Twomey who regularly reminds us of the part he played on the FG financial team that met the IMF. This may be unwise on Dr Twomey’s part.
Meanwhile there are still no FF posters in Wexford town on day 3 of the campaign. I hear that the FF candidates aren’t exactly fighting over who gets this part of the constituency to be canvassed. No sign of any FF canvassers in town. Effectively there are just 3 candidates running campaigns on Wexford town, Howlin, Twomey & SF’s Anthony Kelly. The greens have yet to select a candidate. The word is that they’re getting close and may have someone in place within a fortnight, god bless them!
It seems bizarre that only these 3 candidates are campaigning in Wexford town. Nobody from the outgoing government parties will darken most doors. That’s an insult to the electorate. I remember 1987 when Labour was hammered on the doorstep only too well. But at least we went out, canvassed for our candidates, because the electorate has the right to engage, political parties are obliged to account. The only FF literature I’ve seen in Wexford was something from Mattie McGrath who is running in South Tipp. It seems someone dropped it inadvertently on a pavement!
With Micheál Martin on every radio station there is no starker contrast than the absence of FF on the ground. One FF TD last night on radio explained that the slow FF start is because they knew the wind was coming. Pity they didn’t see the slump coming!
The big question for the next 3 weeks is; will Fianna Fail and Green candidates ignore the people of Wexford who gave them the mandate 4 years ago and fail to account?

Time to vote

2011-02-03T18:13:00.002Z

The envelope arrived at the week-end containing the ballot paper. ASTI is now balloting its members on acceptance of the Croke Park Agreement. While we voted to reject Croke Park last year as members of ICTU we’re obliged to discuss its implementation and its these proposals that are now before members. Last year I voted no. Having seen how the industrial landscape has changed in the last year I’m now having a long hard think about it.
There is no suggestion that the ASTI will resort to industrial action if the union votes to reject the deal. The CPA does offer the unions abiding by it protection for earnings in 2011. That’s effectively what the state gives. What the public service gives is flexibility (i.e. concedes to government what the department had long pursued, PTM outside of school hours, filling in and additional 33 hours to be worked in the working year).
I voted against the CPA last year because I preferred to protect teachers jobs. Personally I’d accept a pay cut over a reduction in working conditions. I’d prefer to protect the jobs of younger teachers, those with mortgages rather than seek to protect my own income for the moment. Let’s be honest there is a low level of morale among public sector workers. They’ve been the subject of abuse and denigration for some time. A poll last week in the Sunday Indo showed that 54% of Labour supporters would support a reduction in the numbers. Support among supporters of other parties for cuts were much higher with 69% of Sinn Fein supporters wanting to see job losses. In the north SF have frozen the pay of all public sector workers on as little as £21,000.
But there are 2 issues that are making me think about voting at all. One is the Fine Gael proposal to get rid of 30,000 public sector workers on top of all that. I think that that would be disastrous. I don’t deny that there are people in the public sector who want to go and that if a voluntary redundancy package was on offer that they would leave and take their pension. Before Christmas such a scheme was on offer at the HSE but there weren’t as many takers as management thought there were.
The other thing that concerns me is the upward trend in mortgages. I’ve a mortgage with Permanent TSB. It seems that interest rates are now increasing not because of any ECB decision but because banks want to increase their liquidity. It’s likely that other banks and building societies will follow up. There is less competition in the banking sector following the withdrawal from Ireland of HBOS and the ECB/EU stated objective of restructuring the banking industry; i.e. closures. Mortgage interest relief is only available for 7 years for first time buyers.
The brunt of this move is going to reduce the amount of disposable income for home owners like public servants. Where is the money that will re-boot the economy? What worries me is that there will be less spending rather than more spending in the economy. That in turn will prolong the slump, not any decision on the part of public servants to implement the CPA.
So when I vote today on the proposed deal, I really get the feeling that power to actually decide your future in the workplace and power to participate is gone. Regardless of how I vote and I’m still veering towards No, most workers feel it ultimately won’t matter. There are lessons for all of us in the context of a general election. What’s the bet it’ll be a low poll?

Political pantomime leaves us with 7 dwarfs!

2011-01-23T18:11:00.002Z

I wish the surviving 7 cabinet ministers good health. That may strike you as being out of character for someone who opposes the policy of the Fianna Fail government and as of a few hours ago it is a Fianna Fail single party government that runs this country for the first time since 1989. However if any more ministers resign and the Dail does not replace them then there will be no functioning government in this country. You need a minimum of 7 cabinet ministers for a cabinet meeting. This possibility would be farcical. My main concern is that the international standing of Ireland and the political standards that should apply in this country have been trashed by the government that is now leaving power.

As far as I’m aware there are no ministers junior or senior in the Department of Transport and the ongoing dispute at Aer Lingus threatens to escalate. What started out as an internal Fianna Fail matter brought on by Golfgate developed into a crisis after a good old fashioned Fianna Fail stroke backfired. The likelihood is that the next Fianna Fail leader will never be Taoiseach and that what we are witnessing is the relegation of Fianna Fail to the role of just another political party. They’re not a movement as Mary Hanafin claims but an embarrassment. Eamon Ó Cuiv’s hope’s of re-establishing the party on a parish by parish basis fundamentally misses the point that people’s focus under this government has gone from the community that they live in and the party stands no chance of re-invigorating a sense of societal participation as Fianna Fail spent the last 14 years in power cosying up to the wealthy at the Galway Tent. Many people live detached from their communities because they couldn’t afford homes in the communities that they were born in.

Brian Lenihan and Mary Hanafin seem to have shot themselves politically in the foot and that leaves the main battle between O Cuiv and Martin unless Connor Lenihan makes good his threat to run. Running is good for the profile and may be the difference between re-election and the P45. I hope Micheal Martin wins. Of all the candidates he spent the last 14 years in cabinet stoking up the bubble and he cannot distance himself from the impact of his policies. Fianna Fail under Martin will fit into the 2 and a half party system very well in the half party slot.

I expect a General election to be called for Friday February 25th. I wouldn’t be surprised if Fianna Fail appointed 3 new junior ministers as the vacancies exist and the appointments are by the government and not by the Dail. Here’s hoping that the people of Wexford put the boot in to the Fianna Fail ticket. It seems likely that the older FF TD’s with a reputation for clientelism will survive. That’d be a bonus as the image that a new Fianna Fail leader would like to create in the opposition benches will conflict with the reality.

Or maybe just maybe there may yet be a sting in the tail for us all? A reverse Tallaght strategy where Fianna Fail support Fine Gael so long as Enda Kenny follows the 4 year economic plan? Or Fine Gael falls short of a majority and is supported by the new right wing economist grouping? By the way isn’t it peculiar that these right wing economists will only stand for election in constituencies with good social infrastructure such as schools, hospitals, LUAS, DART etc? If some of these guys felt that their policies were beneficial for the entire population why won’t they run for election in socially disadvantaged parts of the country?
Strange country with peculiar politics.

Once in a full moon!

2011-01-20T23:00:00.002Z

Tonight’s full moon is set against the background of the most extraordinary day in Irish politics since 1982. They say a week in politics is a long time. So what does that make 24 hours? It seems a long time ago since Micheal Martin was unceremoniously sent packing by Brian Cowen. The general public are underwhelmed by the move although judging by the Taoiseach’s behaviour on the order of business you’d have thought he’d just won the lotto, he was so high out! They say that to win you must be lucky, if that’s the case, Brian Cowen must be the most fortunate victor FF ever had. Martin is seen as being indecisive, citing the smoking ban of 7 years ago as his big achievement, while Lenihan is seen as having mis-led FF back benchers while Mary Hanafin thinks that Brian Cowen may not be good enough to be leader of Fianna Fail but is still Taoiseach material. Says all it ever needs to be said of the slum that has become Fianna Fail.
But today there’s even more! A reshuffle was to be held to fill the cabinet seats of departing cabinet and junior ministers. The best of FF strokes to pack the cabinet with as many members as possible was rumbled by the greens who have in the last few years packed as many party members into ministries, the senate and state bodies. The offshot of the whole thing is that the government is collapsing into a disorganised shambles that puts Fianna Fail first.
The Greens have still indicated that they want to stay in office to facilitate the finance act even though there is no trust between them and Fianna Fail. What they need to tell us is do they mean if the finance bill passes the Dail or the Seanád. Next week will see the Labour motion of no confidence and bizarrely the greens may vote in support of a discredited and shambolic government.
There's just 9 cabinet ministers left and if the greens 2 ministers go there will be less than half the cabinet left! There may not be a quorum for a cabinet meeting! If Cowen is shown the door by the FF backbenchers then the country may not have a government the ministres may have to tripple up in responsibility!.
Prolonging polling day to March 11 will draw out the pain and indecisiveness. The time has come to draw a line under the shambles of Ahern & Cowen. Let’s have an election now and a debate between Labour and Fine Gael about issues as to who’s best able to lead a new government.

Going Going Gone!

2011-01-16T12:09:00.001Z

By all accounts it’s all over for Brian Cowen. The party that has been led by the most unpopular leader in the country’s history is now going to remain in power until after the General Election while Fianna Fail will have a new leader that will spend the next 2 months distancing himself and the party from what they’ve done for 14 years.
So let’s tease out the possibilities. Micheal Martin may well be the new party leader who will not be Taoiseach. He will take decisions on the basis of what is good for Fianna Fail. He won’t be Taoiseach and he won’t have the responsibility of the job of Taoiseach, which is different to that of cabinet minister. Presumably with a caretaker Taoiseach subservient to the party leader as a party member, whatever Micheal looks for from Brian will be no problem! My fear is that Ireland is now on the verge of cronyism version 2.0. We’ll be unique in the world in having 2 discredited leaders, one in office but having no power, the other in power without an office. Fianna Fail will now do an Enda with Brian Cowen for the next 2 months hiding him from scrutiny hoping that their profile will plateau out. There exists a possibility that the General Election campaign will be effectively a 2 way debate between Labour and fine Gael with the economist candidates shouting from the sidelines.
The promised General Election is still at least 2 months off while the Greens seem happy to stay on for the sake of the planet and the Climate Change bill. It may be that there is a growing reluctance for a ballot and if a way out can be found to defer it then Brian Cowen will be happy for the sake of the party to comply, the Greens facing extinction will look the other way. The arrival on the political scene of the economist party is interesting as it will provide Fine Gael with additional options other than Labour should they be within striking distance of a majority. These candidates are not going to run so as to have a 5 minutes speaking time every 6 months from the backbenches. To be fair to Shane Ross who is very good at what he does in the Oireachtas, he wants to be in office and make decisions without the distraction of potholes and the minor inconvenience of the electorate with the blocked drains. That’s why he won’t run in his home constituency.
I hope that the Labour no confidence motion goes ahead and is successful. The prospect of a lame duck Taoiseach with a lame duck government with ministers who are at war getting a vote of confidence at carrying on regardless is toxic to our nation. It’s time to wave good bye to the past and let the people have their say.

Celtic era seems over for Wexford.

2011-01-04T19:47:00.000Z

There is an irony in the name of the collapsed chain of bookmakers; Celtic. However the irony doesn’t mask the reality of receivership and what it means for those who’ve worked in Celtic Bookmakers. I’m not a betting man and can understand that there is another view of the divisive nature of gambling and how it impacts on families of those addicted to gambling. Ivan Yates compares the company to those in the retail sector while pointing out that its discretionary spending rather than basic retail that he’s involved in thence the companies vulnerability to the down turn.

I listened to Ivan on the News at One. I won’t knock someone when they’re down. It is very hard for him but my main concern is for his workers who have little in prospect should the receiver decide to close outlets. Fair play to him in how he dealt with the collapse and pointing out how he tried to save the firm and what may now happen to him. As someone involved in the media Ivan well knows how to get your side of the story out and out first is what counts. So no real surprise that he took the bull by the horns. But what really surprised me was when Sean O’Rourke asked him about Celtic’s responsibility as a tenant to its landlords! Does Sean ever walk down a street? The number of bookies on the main street is not sustainable. What have they being doing since the bad weather came last November? We also know that attendances at race meetings have dropped recently. That said a book makers will take bets on anything so there must be alternatives to horses. Add to that the competition from online betting and there is a perfect storm.

I’ve always wondered about the number of bookies in Wexford town. That said there must be at least 12 bookies in a town for about 20,000 inhabitants. Of course if you’ve a core custom base that lays a lot of money then you can make a profit. But given the collapse in the economy and increases in unemployment, how many bookie shop can be making money? All chains had an outlet there until recently when William Hill closed. In some cases some chains have more than one outlet in the town. Can the market support that? When does competition end and market saturation start?

Some of Celtics shops will close while some may be sold off. Perhaps someone may step in and buy some or all of the chain. That would be preferable so as to maintain the jobs at present however, who would invest in a sector that seems to have over capacity at present unless you could reduce the operating costs. However knowing what we know about high rents are in Main St premises it’ll be hard to attract a new investor to the present outlets. Ivan mentioned rents of €100K for some premises. If as some people are pointing out who in the work force is worth paying €100K a year, I could turn that round and ask what premises is worth paying €100K each year just to open the door and turn on the lights? Ivan must have been fairly sickened in the last few months knowing what was going on in his company at a time when AIB were being bailed out by the state!

The ultimate irony is that capitalism is effectively gambling and the Celtic collapse proves that not even gamblers are above this law. You cannot beat the ultimate bookie, ie the market.

Out with the old and in with the new

2010-12-31T00:58:00.003Z

Ironically for the day that’s in it that former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern should announce his retirement at years end, 19 years after Mikhail Gorbachev threw in his hand . But threre the comparison ends. Whereas Gorbachev never achieved his goal of reconstructing the Soviet Union into a modern socialist state, Bertie the sociaist sure changed our society for many’s a year to come and I for now know that as I’ll be paying his bills as well as his pension for quite some time yet.
Bertie’s greatest achievement wasn’t the Good Friday Agreement, I’ll credit that to John Hume the genuine and greatest Irishman ever. No, Berties’s greatest achievement of which there were very many was hoodwinking the Irish people into the fairytale that he was the Dubs and Man U loving Bass drinking working class lad from the inner city who made it to the London School of Economics and created the wealth that was described in the media as the Celtic Tiger. I can never take any of that away from him. He was none of tha. the genesis for our tiger economy of the late 90's was put in place by the Rainbow. By 2001 Fianna Fail had trashed it and replaced it with a consumer boom
Once the Bertie myth had been put out there by a compliant media led by O’Reilly who saw advantage and profit for themselves the re-creation of our country as the ideal right wing playground for the illusion of wealth that is Ahern’s Fianna Fail, the slump was inevitable. Ahern's first move was to create a post intellectual society where tax write offs or buy offs or celebrity politics sub planted debate and discussion. If you suggested a bust you were talking down the economy (as some economists who wouldn't share my analysis did and they were right). Bertie famously turned up on RTE’s “The Premiership and Hung with Hector. Dumbing down rather than levelling up. The acquiescent media and an opposition that competed with one another to bed down with the Frankenstein that he’d created rather than square up all played their part in trashing the state.
I remember at one election commenting to any one who’d listen that Labour was neither sadly big enough to pose a threat to Fianna Fail nor thankfully small enough to be of use to them. Ahern found his toadies, a TD from the Gaeltacht who wanted to watch BBC, Lowry who feared a tribunal report, Healy Rae, the greens and of course Harney and her zealots in the PD’s. The rest isn’t so much history as the evidence needed for a treason trial. In reality I don’t think we will see here what the Icelandic people will get from their PM who tee-ed up their slump when he goes on trial.
We don’t have government for the people by the people. Our unique democratic system is more government by alibi for the guilty. Lehman Brothers, Europe, the regulator, the Central Bank, the builders and the bankers all according to Ahern were outside this control and if he was in power he’d have kept a closer eye on things as the recently reminded the Poles.
The reality is that our current mess resulted from his and Fianna Fail’s abandonment of their responsibility to protect the state from the collateral damage of moneymen and cowboys doing the only thing that that they know what to do. Those of us who are more cynical would say that the moneymen could only do what they did with the support of Ahern and his toadies.
He didn’t enter politics 40 years ago for the money but he sure got out of it for the pension. Thanks for nothing Bertie! You’re a leprechaun in comparison to real politicians like Hume or Gorbachev.

Mayors expenses declaration 2010.

2010-12-27T16:14:00.001Z

In keeping with my practise over the past few years, I am publishing my total expenses for 2010. 6 months of these expenses roughly are for the post of Mayor so there is a significant increase over 2009. The declaration also includes payment for membership of Co Wexford VEC.
The sums given below are the actual amounts I received. In the case of Representational Payment it is subject to tax at 40%. For the record I attended one LAMA conference in Sligo at Easter time this year (€214.16). I travelled by train so no mileage was paid to me during the year by WBC. I stayed away one night at that conference. I also attended the Birmingham Wexford Association annual dinner dance over a week end (€108.06) in early October as well as a day trip to Wales to present the Mayor’s Cup at a youth golf tournament(€80).
My expenses from Co Wexford VEC also include payment for a day seminar in Corporate governance in Tullamore. I also was paid in 2010 for mobile phone calls (€188.50)dating back to 2008. In previous years these claims were published on foot of a Freedom of Information request by local media. The figures released were gross and not net so they did not take into account taxes paid. It wasn’t noted in the media that for the 2011 estimates the Mayor’s conference allowance of €6,000 has been abolished and the Mayor will in future be treated like any other member when it comes to conference expenses.
What this information gives is what I received for being a councillor, mayor and VEC Vice chairperson. You may have expected more but that’s the lot. I know that it doesn’t ultimately matter how big or how little a councillor receives. What’s key is the accounting for monies paid.
Rounded off to the nearest euro
Representational Payment €7072.1
Monthly meeting allowance €3054
Conferences & UK travel €402.66
Mayor & councillors allowance €3990.63
Mobile phone €188.50
VEC €525.12

Total received € 15449.26

Given that I am exactly half way through the term of Mayor I expect next years figures to be roughly the same and in 2012 the payments will be close to the 2009 rate.

Browne’s politics of the asylum

2010-12-23T00:13:00.005Z

Its not so long ago that John Gormley compared being in government to an sylum It seems that our local FF TD John Browne has taken this suggestion with gusto judging by the PR disaster that was the FF Wexford General Election Selection Convention. While the Wexford Labour convention was a vibrant and optimistic, Fianna Fail was predicated on the back of a internal sounding showing that they are unlikely hold their 2 seats. Subsequently the party decided to run just 2 candidates presumable the sitting TD’s, Minister Sean Connick and John Browne.
Wexford born Minister Dick Roche was scheduled to chair the convention at what should have been a shoe in. In fact few would have noticed the convention was being held such is the low esteem the party is held in Wexford until veteran TD John Browne who topped the poll just 3 years ago woke up to the reality that Labour’s Pat Cody who works in the local psychiatric hospital in Enniscorthy was eating into this support in the district. St Senan’s is threatened with closure and Browne had continuously pointed to a government commitment to build an acute psychiatric unit on the grounds of Wexford General Hospital until earlier this week when the HSE said that acute psychiatric services for Wexford would be relocated to Waterford or Wicklow. This move would damage Browne’s standing and a continued slump in his personal support would have left Browne behind Cody and more crucially from Browne’s point of view Minister Connick meaning that his seat was in jeopardy. As a result John Browne threw a wobbly resulting in the deferring of the convention until January.
John prides himself in Fianna Fail’s support for the health services in Wexford, indeed he wrote a letter to Wexford Borough council lately lecturing members of this fact. No downgrading of Wexford hospital services is a FF mantra of late locally. To underline how desperate things are now in FF, Browne hung his FF colleague out to dry by siding with the opposition TD’s like Labours Brendan Howlin in pledging to change the minister’s mind on the matter.

How times have changed in the last 10 years! When Wexford Electronics closed during the General Election in 2002 there was no wobbly by Deputy Browne despite the fact that many experienced workers got a lousey redundancy deal. They protested locally and at Leinster House, all to no avail. Clearly the Gormley’s politics of the asylum speech has now struck a chord with John and he sees it as throwing him a lifeline in the General Election. As to why John wants to stand, I don’t know. FF may be heading for opposition but I always warn against taking the voters for granted. FF may not do as badly as forecast, FG, Labour and Sinn Fein may not have the election there way, but it’s hard to see FF in office after the next GE. Fianna Fail shafted him from ministerial office at a time when he was openly speculating about being elevated to the cabinet. He owes them nothing.

Who Fianna Fail has as their candidates for a toxic party is a matter for themselves. The word is out that they neither have enough canvassers to conduct a broad sweep of housing estates in a canvass nor enough voters in Wexford to elect 2 FF TD’s. I believe FF candidates will be targeting those who they have on their data bases and ensuring that these people will turn out on polling day as they hope to reverse negative opinion polls. Browne’s shenanigans is a wonderful compliment to Pat Cody and the Labour Party. John is not worried about Sinn Fein or the ULA candidate but Cody’s presence right in Browne’s back yard has the potential to quote Browne’s hero Bertie to “upset the apple

Indo’s tax war hides an FG flip flop

2010-12-05T00:53:00.003Z

According to the Iris Independent Labour and Fine Gael are at war regarding their policies on tax. Wars are usually events where medals are handed out to those who show bravery and initiative. The indo was the paper that famously gutted the Rainbow on polling day in 1997 when everyone wrongly assumed that there was a total moratorium on election coverage with it infamous “Payback” headline and editorial that swung the election for Fianna Fail and the PD’s.
That election was decided on the debate between the McCreevy argument for reducing taxes and the more progressive Rainbow case to widen bands and take those on lower income out of the higher tax rate. Bruton and Spring argued that equity and the need for those on higher incomes to make a greater contribution required those on higher incomes to pay more as oppose to the simplistic FF & PD plan to cut everyone’s tax bill. It was slam dunk when the Indo group annoyed at what they saw as Alan Dukes’ prevarication at handing out licenses for terrestrial re-broadcsting to the INM backed the opposition to get its way.

Irony of ironies, 13 years on. Alan Dukes is now winding down the banking poster boy of the Bertie Ahern era Anglo, and there is another debate on taxes, this time FG are reluctant to cut taxes for the rich and want those on low income to pay more tax, an approach that brings it closer to Fianna Fail than it has ever been before while Labour sticks consistently to the line that those on high incomes must make an equal contribution.
And the Irish Indo true to form presents the different budget approaches between 2 different parties as a war. This is a nonsense and trivialises what are fundamentally more significant differences and camouflages a sharp change of direction on Fine Gael’s part. Once more at a crucial stage in Irish politics the indo misrepresents events. What the war between Labour and Fine Gael is about is who will lead the next government rather than what its tax policy will be. There are lots of differences between FG & Labour. The headline implicitly suggests that Fianna Fail is by some reckoning a major player in events. In fact they’re not and won’t be, period.

The real debate is an intellectual one as to what will be the choice that voters will have at the 2011 General Election. You can have a Labour led government whose policies will be fiscally Kenysian with a stimulus package while at the same time tackling the burden left by the Greens and Fianna Fail by negotiation with the EU & ECB or you can have one that will be Fine Gael led that will be effectively neo-liberal that will cut spending in line with Fianna Fail policy and while will re-negotiate with EU & ECB will do so from the point of front loading the pain.
There are 3 effective choices in play; Labour and Fine Gael where a deal is done although Fine Gael say that €6B in cuts are their minimum so that option seems now to be harder to achieve. There’s the second option of Labour SF and the independents and Uncle Tom Cobley! Not very stable and no chance of a majority in the Seanad and won’t last a week. There is the final irony and perhaps the option that may Fine Gael may be considering now. A neutered and significantly smaller Fianna Fail propping them up either in or out of office in a reverse Tallaght Strategy! If Dukes can a generation on repeat his gesture at Anglo could Fianna Fail repay FG by minority support after the 2011 GE?
The more I hear of Fine Gael and the more Enda Kenny is being hidden from the public the more I think this option may be now going up the FG agenda although they may not admit it for obvious reasons since FF are toxic.
From my own point of view that’s their business, either GE 2011 will see the end of FF as a part of government for many years or the consigning of civil war politics to the bin. Either would be a good thing. Fianna Fail only want to be in power and will subvert anything to achieve that end. So I’ll live with FG & FF cosying up to one another. Jose Murinho described a recent punishment as a medal and recognition of what he does and how well he does it, Labour may well be on their way to ending up with the medals after the election but that won’t that revive our country if they are shut out of office.

The real world of Soacha comes to Wexford

2010-11-29T09:13:00.005Z

In the middle of the economic slump and a snow storm in town, a reality check. I met 2 women from Soacha Bogota in Colombia. The 2 women have had their sons “disappeared” in 2008. Later that year their sons remains were recovered from a mass grave along with the remains of 15 others.

There is nothing that you can compare this scandal to in Ireland. Colombia has a large and well resourced military who are at present engaged in a brutal war with the narco-terrorist group FARC. Colombia pays its soldiers by results, in other words the more you kill the more you earn. So as to maintain their incomes some officers decided to source people who could be shot and who would subsequently be claimed as terrorists when justifying executions and increased wages.
The men were picked up over a 2 year period in a poor suburb of Bogota called Soacha and transported hundreds of kilometres to a town called Ocana on the border with Venezuela.

The incentivisation of death devalues the cost of life. The victims were all taken from their home suburb of Soacha to a small town on the Venezuelan border where they were executed. For one 26 year old Fair whose mother is inconsolable as she tells me how he had contracted meningitis as a child and was mildly brain damaged as a result and had a mental age of a teenager. She showed me pictures and I really felt inadequate as I feel I can do very little to ease her sense of loss. But she didn’t come to Wexford to deal with her loss. She’s here looking for support for her campaign for justice. Jaime was just 1 when he was disappeared about the same time.

Another mother told me of her son Jaime. He was just 16 when he disappeared. The next day he telephoned from Ocana to his sister. She could hear commotion in the background and he was barely audible. He told her he wanted to come home. The next day he was executed an buried secretly. Subsequently his family were told he resisted officers and threatened their lives. The boy was just 16.

Its clear to me that these people are seen as poor and expendable. An investigation was ordered into the killings however charges collapsed. 3 generals were supposedly sacked, one ended his career as the Colombian Ambassador to the Dominican Republic. That doesn’t suggest any penury for his failings to me. In the meantime the relatives have received no compensation from the state for their loss, no admission of responsibility for what the state has done. To add insult to injury the relatives of those who campaign to highlight the Soacha case are threatened by military authorities.

I’m writing to Micheal Martin to ask him to bring pressure to bear on this matter and also to the Colombian ambassador. It’s something small, a gesture but it needs to be done. The irony of the mother of a young man called Fair looking for fairness from her government wasn'tlost on me. It really puts perspective on the current economic crisis.

http://twitpic.com/3an58w

2010-11-27T10:47:00.000Z

http://twitpic.com/3an58w

We are where we are, BROKE

2010-11-21T17:53:00.001Z

Its like watching a car crash. Government bluster was unspun when the Governor of the Central Bank outed the extxent of the bail out needed on Morning Irekand. Since then Fianna Fail and the greens have grasped at straws. Eamon Gilmore, Pat Rabbitte and Michael Noonan have battered the government over their denial at the extent of the fiscal mess.
Basically the problem I the banks. They spoofed the government and Fine Gael and Sinn Fein on the bank guarantee. That pushed back 2 years the day of reckoning as FF & the greens hoped that NAMA would revive their builder buddies and their paymaster banks. NAMA had morphed into a good bad bank while Anglo wanted to be a good bank and a bad bank while nobody told the department exactly how bad the mess was.
Just as Greece misled the EU on their own economic data the Irish big lie was the failure of the banks to level with the government on their precise position and the governments failure to have a regulatory regime. I’ve never rated Brian Lenihan as a Minister for Finance and the media who fawned over him in the last 2 years must be cringing today after his radio interview that failed to explain how the government decision to agree to the EU/IMF programme (not a bail out)) was despite the fact that we had enough money to keep the state (but not the banks) going until June next year was in the best interest of the euro.
It made Brian Cowen’s infamous Galway interview sound positively Churchillian by comparison. John Gormley thinks that the IMF arrival is good and may hasten changes he wanted to see for a long time! Lets see how that one pans out given the reality that TEEU has warned at civil disobedience and already there have been skirmishes between Gardaí and the SWM/PBP micro group at a student demo while an Eirigi councillor has thrown paint at Mary Harney.. The fear is that the next week building up to the demonstration in Dublin next week will be more of the economic reality of the IMF medicine for the country. The fear is that the low hanging fruit is gone and cuts will damage our country beyond the basics of what is needed for a cohesive society.
I hope I’m wrong but this could get very dirty as the Greens and Fianna Fail may well decide to tough it out with the people. Knowing many garda are as fed up with the government as the rest of us, can the government rely on every garda to do their bidding? A government that has just support from 20% of the people in the opinion rivals the support of that wonderful outfit the East German Communist Party at the end. I don’t believe they have any credibility nor right to govern. The Taoiseachs approval rating is now just in double figures and slightly ahead of the yield on Irish 10 year bonds.
We as a society are turning a corner but not the corner visualised when Brian Lenihan called us all to patriotic duty. The time has come for Cowen and Lenihan to do their patriotic duty and go and let the rest of us decide who will run our country. And while I think of it his predecessors son in law who warbles with a boy band has called for economic positivity from us.

The kindness of strangers

2010-11-17T00:17:00.005Z

Eventually we were found out on the banks. What looked like the cutest move 2 years ago to guarantee al the account holders in Irish banks and the bond holders who leant to them to a total value of €300 Billion has bounced on Fianna Fail, the Greens, Fine Gael and Sinn Fein. Tonight its clear that the EU and the IMF see the down side of this.
Bail Out 1 in 2008 was rolled out to restructure the banks leading to the line under the affair on Black Thursday in September. The problem is that the value of €50 Billion which FF told us would be the cheapest bail out ever and that would ensure Ireland would be the first out of recession has only made matters worse because the €50 B figure isn’t believed anymore by the money market.

So the advance party is on it’s way and will be here by the end of the week. The problem is that the Greens and Fianna Fail nationalised banking debt accumulated by bank rolling the FF developer buddy clique. The prospect of allowing Anglo or the Irish Nationwide to go to the wall was a step too far for FF and the greens. Thence the ultimatum that seems to have been given from EU member states as the prospect of dithering is destabilising the euro and pressurising Spain and Portugal. The big question is has the EU got enough to support the Spanish and Portuguese economies? So when they plane lands at Dublin Airport in the next few days and the officials from the EU or ECB or IMF or more likely all 3 arrive in Merrion St they should consider bringing a bottle of whiskey to break the atmosphere. As the old Irish proverb says “There’s no strangers here only friends who haven’t yet met”

Black Thursday was supposed to draw a line under the past however the markets don’t believe the government’s figure of €50 Billion. Indeed the markets have made their mind up on the government. The humiliation of a nation will follow as Fianna Fail will dress the bail out as a bank bail 2!
They’ll continue with the line that there is no bail out but there is additional support for the bank industry. What they won’t point out is that the bank guarantee scheme backs private debt with the states resources! In 2008 the fiscal difficulties that our government adjusted spending to cope with were caused by a reduction in tax income not by a spending requirement to sustain the unsustainable. Throw in the national fault lines within the eurozone and the internal need to support each states own economy and it’s a short hop and a skip and a jump from the Galway Tent to Anglo Irish to Merrion St and before you know it you’ve the Euro on the slide and the internal economies of 5 states in the melting pot.

As a guide to how we’ve fallen Russia Today has some guy comparing Ireland to a 3rd world dictatorship where the general has made off with the money. In such countries at least a coup usually followed. So how close are we to social strife now? Where will this end for Cowen, Ahern, Harney, McCreevy and the banking elite? The kindness strangers is seemingly more attractive to our society than the greed of old friends.

Sweetness and light?

2010-11-12T00:15:00.001Z

The EU Court of Auditors dredged something up from the past that came honme to bite Fianna Fail and the Greens yesterday. When the court examined the demise of Irelands sugar industry they established that the prices to consumers hadn’t dropped as promised and that the closure had been based on inaccurate information. In short the court concluded that the Mallow factory didn’t have to close. 4 years on from closure the factory has been flattened, the plant sold off and the EU has gone from being self sufficient in sugar to relying on imports for 15% of our sugar. The producers Greencore got over €100M to in compensation from the EU and has morphed into a food additives company that speculates on their former sites at Carlow and Mallow.

Of course Fianna Fail and the Greens will defend their decision even though the greens once upon a time proposed that the Carlow plant should be redeveloped as a gasohol plant. Out of sight was the last act of the closure a few months ago and that was the closure of the railway that carried the sugar beet from South Wexford for processing at Mallow. Fianna Fail and the Greens do embarrassment really well because they care little. Its all getting beyond farce., 6 months ago the need for an alternative to airlines off this island pointed to a need to retain a passenger service to Rosslare. This was ignored based on out of date information. 6 years ago the need to retain sugar production in the country pointed the need for food security. Once more ignored again on out of date information.

The sugar price at the time was beyond the world average by a third but with farmers under pressure now it may just give some tillage farmers an extra crop to bring in some badly needed cash. The time has surely come for the case for re-opening the sugar industry in Ireland. The IFA reckons that over 4,000 jobs were lost between Greencore, farmers and agricultural contractors. Now you can add Irish Rail workers to that!
And all for nothing, sugar never got any cheaper and Greencore still have an effective monopoly in the market. I’ve to laugh at the Siucra label! Talk about plastic paddies! I believe that the next government must look at re-establishing the sugar industry here. It would have a huge benefit in South Wexford. It would give a boost to the campaign to re-open the railway as there would be about 200,000 tons of beet that the roads cannot take. It would improve farm incomes and that would be reflected in spending. It would require the Irish government to seek a return to sugar production from the EU and it may be that Greencore may have to return some of the compensation . If that is the case then so be it.

Yawn Blah Blah Mrs Gilmore has a past!

2010-11-02T00:49:00.002Z

A few weeks ago I blogged on how the right wing Irish media was tut tuting about Eamon Gilmore’s past political life. A fortnight on from being portrayed as a fellower traveller of Official Sinn Fein in the 70’s he’s now being effectively compared to the Dunner!

Its going to get a lot tougher as the Indo group dredge the barrel on Eamon Gilmore’s personal life. Those on the inside track won’t give up easily. Today the shock horror is that Eamon’s wife had the cheek to sell land that was left to her by her mother at the request of the Board of Management of the local school where she grew up in rural Galway to provide a site for a new school building over 4 years ago. Eamon’s wife had no intention of utilising the land and she received €525,000, paid her tax after the land was independently valuated and a price agreed.
Eamon had no role in the matter but hey! Don’t let the facts get in the way of a good story! A woman with her own money? Surely that can't be alowed?

The Dunner on the other hand who regularly is highlighted by the Sunday Independent as an icon of how modern Ireland does things different. He asks his spouse to pick a number between 0 and their house number and then adds that to the €200M baseline he’d agreed with an agent. No need to bother about valuation or where the money is coming from. Sure Ireland will pick up the slack on that one.

So lets look at the “story”. Was the price per acre at the time in line with the market price for such land? Could the site have realised more if it had been sold off for one off housing sites and zoned at low density? The answer to both questions is Yes! Has Eamon Gilmore benefited from the transaction? Is there a suggestion of anything untoward? The answer to both questions is No!

What the implication is, is that Eamon Gilmore’s wife should not have sold the land because of who her husband was or if she did she should have sold it for next to nothing because of her husband’s politics. It’s unlikely that she was going to return to farm the land.
Fionan Sheehan accused Eamon Gilmore of a double standard comparing him to a developer on Tonight with Vincent Browne. Is the sale of 2 acres of land for a school the same thing as speculating on the price of land and regulating its supply to the market in order to drive prices upward? Because that’s what Sheehan effectively compared the sale to?
While I’m at it, if Fionan suggests that Eamon Gilmore should take responsiblity for his wife’s affairs, shouldn’t Fionan at least admit on air that his own spouse is a FF ministerial advisor and a defeated FF local election candidate?

The facts of the matter are that Kilimor National School was in need of replacement for many a long year. You’d be along time waiting to speculate on a site in Kilimor before the Sean Dunne’s of this world would roll into town with a Section 23 in their back pocket to kick start the construction sector even though it at least had more infrastructure such as schools than some of locations where all that’s left are ghost. A month ago the FG golf story was an attempt to undermine Enda Kenny and that one didn’t work either although some in FG rose to it because it suited their agenda to undermine their leader. For what its worth I believe Kenny is a decent and straight man and so too is Gilmore.

Eamon Gilmore is being worked over because he’s opposing the present consensus between government, bankers, developers and media. Believe me they’ll be back when this stunt doesn’t work.

VEC axing? The thin end of the wedge

2010-10-12T23:40:00.002+01:00

Since I was elected in 2004 I’ve served on Co Wexford Vocational Education Committee. This committee runs 6 second level schools in the county and alos nominates board members to some community schools that it iholds joint trustee status with other patrons. The VEC also provides adult education, traveller education, literacy programs and PLC courses that are accepted by third level colleges as a valid entry route.

That was until today. Last year that great supporter of vocational education Colm McCarthy made the case for just 22 VEC’s. This year the minister has said there should be just 16. Just 4 will remain in place, City of Dublin as you would expect in the largest single local authority in the country and the other 3 just happen to be located in the constituency of the present minister and her immediate predecessor!

Good old Fianna Fail and the Greens! If they are delivering a new standard of service to all of us why then are they not allowing their own constituents to benefit from the claimed improved service delivery? Minister Coughlan tells us that the remaining VECs "will be organisations of sufficient scale to support the evolution of local education service delivery and to meet future challenges So what hen is the actual saving? I’ve been on the audit committee of our own VEC for those 6 years and I’ve yet to see a report n either our own or any other VEC that suggests there’s a huge amount to be saved. I reckon whatever savings are made will probably last the state about 30 minutes.

So the Greens & Fianna Fail know the price of everything and the value of nothing! Wexford is going to be amalgamated with Wicklow and it seems it’s a done deal as the governing body of vocational committees the IVEA has reluctantly accepted the minister’s plan. I’m surprised that there has been no consultation on this with individual VEC’s. As Co Wexford VEC Vice Chairperson I’d expect better. Should I wish to remain on the merged VEC, where will the new HQ be located? For instance we moved 4 years ago to a new HQ that we’ve leased. Will the new HQ be in Wexford or Wicklow town? Will I be paid expenses to go to Wicklow town for meetings? At present I claim only the attendance expense for meetings that mean my absence from home of more than 3 hours and no mileage, about €40 per month usually only clocked up after a main monthly committee meeting . I’m also on audit committee and the Outdoor Education Centre committee. I believe mileage claims will take off as members have to travel further to meetings.

I suppose it’s only coincidental that there remains just a handful of government supporters on the VEC’s. In Wexford’s case just 4 VEC members support the government while Labour alone has 5 members! I’ve yet to make my mind up if I want to serve on any amalgamated body and it may be sometime before the government brings in the legislation. Last year I indicated to the committee that I didn’t want to serve on any VEC board that managed schools where my name wouldn’t appear on a ballot paper, meaning I didn’t want to serve outside the county. It would probably be better for any new VEC to have new and different members to bed down any new ethos.
New legislation is promised so what’s the bet that the membership of councillors will be significantly cut back with board size reduced? An Board Snip Nua will see less local authorities and less local democracy. Soon we’ll see that the axing of harbour boards was the start of the thin end of wedge. The chaos caused by the economic slump is being used to recast the social fabric of this country. An unrivalled unaccountable bureaucracy will be the real triumph of Cowen, Coughlan and Gormley!

Yawn! Blah! Blah! Gilmore has a past!

2010-10-11T00:06:00.003+01:00

The drowning man clutches at any straw is a sean fhocla frm Eamon Gilmore’s part of Ireland. It seems that Fianna Fail having blown the economy have only got energy left to blow through a straw! The latest shock to the chatering classes is the Marian Finucane interview with Eamon Gilmore, a interview that I listened to in part and one where he preformed very well and came across as being competent and trutworthy.
Gilmore subtly nailed one of the FF & Green criticisms of how Labour would save money by saying he’d freeze spending on Metro North. Just like the coconut shy once one target had been struck down the FF captains reshuffled the Harland & Wolf built deck chairs by pointing out their concerns about Eamon Gilmore’s “past”. To distract from the Bertie Ahern NOTW closet ad, the suggestion is that Eamon has a closet with his very own skeleton! Sure there’s a straw worth tugging at, isn’t it?

Eamon Gilmore, they whisper can’t remember where he was politically in the mid 70’s at UCG. God help poor old EU Commission President Jose Manuel Barosso! Jose was a Maoist in the mid-70’s and yet his cuff is now considered good enough to tug by FF & the Greens as they scramble to bail out their banker and developer friends from the better known university in Galway, the tent . Does this sort of patter not show how out of touch FF& the Greens are with what people think? Hands up how many people remember Official Sinn Fein and can remember any of their policies? Many OSF policies were relevant to that time, a time when FF had only 2, draining the Shannon and the restoration of gaelige and last winter we saw how little progress they'd made on the former policy. FF delight on being a policy free zone that's why this year they won't hold an Ard Fheis!

The world now is a different place from those days in the 1970's. The old certainties of mid 70’s Ireland where women were treated as second class citizens and the Catholic Church dictated social values. Local authority Housing had yet to see the benefit from Jimmy Tully’s drive to expand social housing while farmers were outside the tax net and the troubles in the north saw record number of fatalities.
My recollection of the period was that few people worried about the cold war and I remember from the 1983 abortion referendum that the anti campaign that I was involved in had people who would go on to be PD’s, Labour members, pro Garret Fitzgerald FG’ers, trade unionists and even the odd CPI member or 2!
Its not so much that anyone worries about whether Eamon Gilmore has a past but what the electorate want to know is, has Eamon got a future? An electorate worn out by the FF cynicism will reward any party that offers a realistic future however hard it may be to get there but they have no time for negative politics. That’s why a red scare won’t work against Eamon.
But it’s also why despite the media suggestion of last week that Enda Kenny would be by now history that Kenny is still very much here and will remain. I have this view that the next election campaign will be between Labour and Fine Gael. I compare Ireland to the DDR, it didn’t get there because of Official Sinn Fein but it got there because of free market liberal capitalism courtesy of FF & their henchmen.
What Ireland will soon have to make its mind up on is not about what happened here in the 1970’s but what will happen in the next decade. If you change mortgage providers mid stream there’s a cost. Likewise while the budgetary arithmetic is being fixed now for the next 4 years, There are 2 sets of competing values that will drive that, FG’s way or Labour’s way.
Trying to work up someone who has lost their job about what organisation Eamon Gilmore was in almost half a lifetime ago isn’t going to change anyone’s assessment that this government didn’t see the writing on the wall 2 years ago for their own free market values and draw the inevitable conclusions in terms of policy changes.

How soon will we wait for the next target? Ruairi Quinn, Gentle revolutionary? FF’s spin is made of straw. Gilmore for Taoiseach and Burton for Tanaiste!

Time for the oppositon to grow up

2010-09-26T21:27:00.007+01:00

I’m in shock this week end. Yesterday on Saturday View Alan Shatter launched an attack on the Labour Party that would have made Dermot Ahern blush. No policys says Alan with a straight face! Like hello? Where did FG get the policy Earn and Learn from or their opposition to the bank bail out for sub ordinate bond holders from? I nearly cracked up listening to him with laughter when Alan the supporter of Israeli occupation on the West Bank went on to call Labour arrogant! And it is initially easy to smile but there is the bigge picture for all of us in opposition to FF & the Greens. Will this type of dig on a programme where there was no Labour spokesperson to defend the party bring forward the day when this dreadful government is sent packing?

Opened the Sunday Tribune today and found out that my mayoral colleague in Dublin has branded some Labour colleagues as Anti-Catholic ! To make matters worse Lord Mayor Gerry Breen who still holds on to the title Right Honourable went on to tell his audience of impressionable teenagers in Young Fine Gael that they should do their best to make certain that the cling ons in the Labour Party don’t dictate matters in the next government.
There’s telling you! Not a vote cast yet nor one counted neither and already someone in Fine Gael has the hand bags out! In haste to curry favour with the youth wing His Worship compared Labour to the fictional warrior tribe from Star Trek the Kling ons! Less Shatter and more Shatner perhaps?

Is this really what passes for intellectual discourse nowadays in Dublin City Council? I hear that Gerry is being considered as a running mate for Richard Bruton in 3 seater Dublin North Central where he will have a tough fight. Sean Haughey and Richard Bruton will hold their seats here while the final seat will be between Labours Aodhan Ó Riordáin, Independent Finian McGrath and the bould Gerry. Gerry clearly doesn’t require Labour transfers since he’s anxious to diss the Labour Party. Dublin NC is hardly a religious hotbed so the question must be asked who is he trying to appeal to in this bizarre “anti-catholic” attack on Labour?

Is jealousy of the progress that the Labour Party is now making becoming the only thing that unites the 2 wings of Fine Gael? Are some in FG taking the election, the Labour Party and the people for granted? History tells us that John Bruton learned a valuable lesson after the 1992 election on the opposition benches for 2 years longer than it should have been. Are some in FG failing to learn the lesson in history?

If so there will be 2 outcomes for those FG deputies that try this on. First there will be a reluctance among Labour supporters to give preference votes to these FG candidates. Given that the Green Party will implode and FF is a non runner with Labour, I forecast that Sinn Fein candidates may well pick up preference votes from Labour candidates as will independents. This will cost some FG candidates their seats.
Secondly Labour may not be inclined to settle for a FG deal. Wait and see the result of the election when it comes has always been how I see it. Every vote counts and every seat matters. Its not a question anymore of a pre-election pact or indeed a transfer deal.

The present polls show that there are only 2 potential Taoisigh in the forthcoming GE, Enda Kenny (FG would be laughed out of court to dump him shades of our late and lamented Mick O’Leary in 1982 about any heave!) and Eamon Gilmore. Lets have a debate between the 2 of them on TV and leave Cowen for the minor match debate. Its time to have a mature debate with FG about issues rather than name calling that insults those who want to see some positivity rather than tired old and boring empty FF spin about absence of policy. Its nothing personal against FG but every dog has its day and it looks likely that FF is heading for the knackers yard so who will take its place? Could Ireland quickly go from being a 3 party state to a 2 party state where Labour and FG oppose one another like in any normal democracy while a FF rump look on from the side lines?
If that was what the real impact of the slump has been FG shouldn't worry, we'll all muddle through.

Wexford Hospital on life support

2010-09-25T09:34:00.002+01:00

I’m shocked at the resignation of Dr Colm Quigley as as lead in the reconfiguration of hospitals in the south east region of the HSE. Earlier this week I met Dr Quigley at a meeting to set up a Community Alliance to support Wexford General Hospital. He didn’t convey the image of someone who was on the verge of resignation. So what has happened this week to culminate in his resignation?

A good old fashioned piece of journalism on the part of South East Radio. The leaking of a confidential document outlining proposals to downgrade A&E long with the planned transfer of maternity to Waterford Regional Hospital was a seemingly a step too far for Dr Quigley. The document set out that 2 hospitals in the region Kilkenny and Waterford would provide most of the regions general needs while Wexford would provide A&E cover on a 9-5 basis.

A&E is crucial to any hospital since most of the workload comes through the A&E department. For anyone in Enniscorthy, Gorey or Wexford the local hospital is the only alternative to a long drive to either Waterford or Lughlinstown. Dr Colm Quigley is a very strong advocate for Wexford and his role on the reconfiguration team did give a certain level of comfort to us in Wexford that the hospital would in some way have a future after services were reconfigured. Now all bets are effectively off and it seems that the gloves are quickly coming off and that just 1 week after the ending of Irish Rail services in to Rosslare from Waterford, Wexford is once more going to lose out.

The real effect of the resignation will be that morale among hospital staff will slump as Fianna Fail and the Greens stand back while Mary Harney and the Hse do their dirty work. The usual old guff about no cuts have been proposed and that money is ring fenced serves as the comfort blanket by government TD’s and councillors. The reality is that the reduction in HSE capital spending will mean that the service will be cut before the A&E in Waterford is built, an adequate ambulance service will not be in place to ensure that patients can access services and Labour will be left to clear up this governments mess.

Recently someone asked me will Labour force Irish Rail to re-open the Waterford rail line. I responded “Tell me what you want me to cut to provide the money?” That’s not to suggest I’m flakey on re-opening the line, I’m not. The wider reality is that there is so much damage done now it’ll take decades to undo the last few years of government.

In Vino Veritas

2010-09-16T00:01:00.003+01:00

Until the last few days Fianna Fail and the Greens have been telling us how the wider world understands what the government is doing to tackle the economic slump that they brought upon us much better than the rest of us who merely inhabit this great little country. Eamon Ryan frequently tells us that if Anglo Irish Bank couldn’t stay business then, every other bank would suffer a credibility problem and they entire financial system in the country would collapse with job losses the inevitable result.

That was until last week. Now we know that Anglo Irish will never give out so much as another cent in loans. There’s been no run on any financial institution ,indeed Brian Lenihan has been turning up on RTE’s “Freefall” effectively portraying himself as a detached observer in the entire fiasco while his immediate predecessor Brian Cowen and their buddy “President Bertie” seemed in denial about the roles they played in collapsing the economy.

To further sink national morale it now seems that the Taoiseach Brian Cowen had more of a drink in than a think in with his party in the west this week. I find it amazing that the night before a major interview that he spent it on the lash and could hardly speak the following morning, sounded confused and rambling on key issues such as the Croke Park agreement, legislation on corporate donations and the future intentions on electing Dublin’s Mayor as well as the timing of 3 key by-elections.

The FF spin that government hands are tied on key issues and that the greens were getting their agenda was blown out of the water. The real reason why there is a constant drift is lack of leadership. There is a real feel of decay in the corridors of power, Last week it was the barmy idea that charging holders of ATM cards to withdraw their own money would deter Tiger kidnappings. This week the Science Minister was on the verge of launching a book denying evolution.

In the background is the reality that there is no more to cut despite Brian Lenihan’s commitment to find an extra €3B from current spending so as to keep on target. The next budget is just 12 weeks away and unless the plug is pulled that budget will cut social welfare to the bone, tax those on low income more and devastate health, education and communities. If you don’t believe me just look at what the HSE is considering in one hospital; unpaid leave of absence of 4 days so that the HSE can remain within budget for the rest of the year.

So what is the alternative? The reality is that the Greens and Fianna Fail have committed so much of our revenue to bailing out banks that our international credibility is now down the drain. We’ve no money now and none for the next 10 years. Despite all the plans the well is dry. In vino veritas means the truth comes out through wine. The truth is that whoever is office has no money to spend for 5 years so what can any new government actually do?

What FF & FG actually share is a poor sense of vision. I don’t get the Enda Kenny suggestion that it’ll take 10 years to revive the economy. Noel Browne didn’t take 10 years to rid the country of TB during the 50’s at a time of similar intellectual paralysis. The ESB built power stations, bogs were developed, there exists similar potential to develop our own resources in the interest of the national economy; fishing for non quota species off shore, tourism, agriculture, the arts. Of course that would require us to ditch the globalised model that FF & the Greens are so attached to now. Perhaps they’d change their opinion on the way forward if they could start a vineyard?

The train now departing from platform 9 ¾.

2010-09-03T17:45:00.003+01:00

It brought a wry smile to my face. I almost broke into a chorus of “We’ll meet again” last Wednesday at the station. Fianna Fail and Greens united on the ground in the south east to oppose rail closures while their colleagues in power did everything to see the line shut. And be cetain that we will meet again. Its gut wrenching to watch the Greens and FF turn up to be filmed by RTE when baring FF’s Tony Dempsey they did nothing about stopping Dempsey and Cuffe. Irish Rail brought forward their opening of the Dunboyne link to coincide with the announced withdrawal of service between Rosslare and Waterford in another spoiler move of theirs. Dan Boyle’s fleeting appearance on the rail protest brought a sense of celebrity to the campaign but nothing else.theirs!

I’ve always been cynical about the Greens but not even I could have thought that they’d stoop this low. On the night of the first protest meeting in Wellington Bridge a Waterford Green assured me that Minister Cuffe would contact me to discuss the matter. I sent him the 2003 report on the line, the rebuttal of costings sent to him by Irish Rail. Did he contact me?
When the Irish Times came looking for him to comment he took his cue from the old Dr Hook song, “Sylvia’s Mother”, he was too busy to come to the phone! One local green councillor was busy spoofing “With Ciaran Cuffe in place as Minister for Sustainable Transport, we have an open ear. We need however to make our own strong case. We need to make sure that we, together with Irish Rail, market this line properly, in order to give it a chance. There is a bit of momentum gathering here and that's good. But don't stop here, so please tell your friends” All of this was done but to no avail.

The Greens aren’t interested in Co Wexford while Fianna Fail are only interseted in bailing out developers. So long as Fianna Fail will tolerate minority middle class issues they’ll indulge Gormley and his party. So long as the Greens can ignore the rest of the country, FF get on with bailing out their supporters and they’ll throw the kitchen at it!
So right now the spin is that the line will close, not so! In fact Irish Rail must provide and maintain the line so that if another operator wishes to utilise the line they will have access and that the NTA will support the Rail Partnership model and the Southern & Eastern Regional Authority in their work to develop links. So in effect the ball is in our court, Irish Rail, the Greens and FF are off the pitch. Let us who live in the area now plan how best to deliver what is in the interest of thise who live here.

Dan’s Deise day out!

2010-09-01T23:28:00.004+01:00

Today was a very succesfull day’s protest at Waterford’s Plunkett Station. With just 2 days to the NTA decision on the future of the Rosslare Waterford railway, the campaign once more seized the initiative by staging a protest at Plunkett Station. Interestingly there was 3 TD’s including Brian O’Shea, FG by-election hopeful Paudie Coffey, Jack Walsh Labour’s Deputy Mayor in Waterford as well as the chairperson of the SERA.
I’d seen Senator Dan Boyle’s tweet earlier in the day so along with Paul Kehoe, I was expecting him. Could it be that the Greens seem to be getting off the fence on this issue for once and hopefully for all. Could it be a straw in the wind that the NTA is coming down on our side that the greens don’t want to be seen off side on decision day and that they have a strong indication that Iarnród Éireann is going to be refused permission to withdraw rail passenger services?

Perhaps Dan’s visit was a subtle way of sending a message to FF given the current disharmony in government about Anglo that the greens are there own men (as Miley used to say “First and Last”). Given the fact that the line runs through Carlow Kilkenny which is represented by Green Minister Mary White, the Borris woman was nowhere to be seen today. If it is that the Minister Cuffe is going to hang tough on the issue and eyeball his senior Noel Dempsey then I welcome it but if it was that Dan’s flying visit was purely about optics, I think that I’ve been used. Friday will tell a lot!
For some strange reason the SRG Chairperson Tanya Fenelon was asked to leave the station!
It was home for us all after 30 minutes and Irish Rail got their station back. However in light of their offer to share the line with a heritage operator, perhaps it won’t be too long before it’s once more a shared station?

Equality means never having to say you’re working class

2010-08-27T00:44:00.004+01:00

I see poor Kevin Myers is at it again! By at it, I of course mean he’s venting his spleen at people. Kev as he’s called in working class areas is at his patronising best in today’s column in the Indo! It seems Sommerville & Rosses man in Independent House has put his foot in it again!
Last week’s leaving cert results are Kev’s big moment to take a swipe at people who live in working class estates where he says “Many seem to be almost beyond the control of the State, as ganglords reinforce an autonomous culture that recognises no authority or ethos other than their own -- the ruinous road to an unending cycle of underachievement, crime and jail”.
Kev is right that there are some people like that in our society, but I doubt that there are as many as he thinks living in working class estates. Kev wrongly thinks our society is fair and equal and that working class and middle class all share the same aspiration in our society. Nothing could be further from the truth. Kev is of the view that the morality problem is exclusively one for the working class. Tonight I met a bank employee who expressed concern that there were indeed people reinforcing an autonomous culture that recognises no authority or ethos other than their own. The names she gave me were those of senior management in her own bank. None of them live in working class estates.

I must admit I haven’t the foggiest notion of what Kev is talking about. At the back of it all I’m certain that Kev doesn’t know what he’s talking about either. Wexford Borough contains about 20,000 people and about 8,000 houses. 2,000 households are found in local authority homes that are mostly in working class estates. I think I’m in a better position than Kev to understand working class values.

I don’t know any estate in Wexford where ganglords reinforce any culture, autonomous or otherwise. That’s not to say Wexford has its problems caused by marginalistion, it has! That’s why we have RAPID designation in some parts of town. A few weeks ago I visited one summer camp on their final day and sadly for Kev there were no horses let alone a lift! I did see plenty of happy children, mothers and a really good barbeque that had my taste buds switched on as well as a bouncy castle however that blows the stereotype for Kev!

Kev ponders the meaning of working class life in blissful ignorance and generalisation of what working class means today. It’s not Dublin or indeed northside Dublin, it can be rural or urban, it can be suburban, city centre or farm labourer, it can be skilled labour or unskilled, but what Kev’s biggest mistake is making the typical middle class assumption that all working class people want to aspire to middle class concepts like 3rd level education. It’s an insult to suggest that a pupil would be lynched for wearing any school uniform. Each school in this town has an open admission policy where there are no fees.

Despite this, patterns of attendance are hard to breakdown just as something that Kev ignores, early school leaving. I can answer Kev’s question as to why social mobility and his middle class concept of achievement among working class people doesn’t come up to his high standard and its because working class people have a tradition and different set of values to middle class people. Kev makes the fatal error of assuming that middle class values are identical to the aspirations of working class people and he’s wrong. Blue collar jobs were traditionally well paid and skilled. While these trades are disappearing, the culture of early school leaving remains. As a result those who drop out earlier get lower paid jobs than those who stay in school longer. They progress less in an unfair society. Unless more intervention occurs the disparity increases.
Its easy to dismiss people for being fecless and having achieved little but what does that say about those who've acheived alot?

Campile 70 years on, can make us think again

2010-08-25T10:15:00.006+01:00

At the week-end a memorial garden will be opened in Campile on the site for the former Shelbourne Co-op. I've been invited to attend. Campile is a small village of about 750 people close to Waterford estuary where 70- years ago the Co-op creamery was attacked by the Luftwaffe and 3 women died. It seems that the Germans were concerned that Ireland was supplying food to the UK during World War 2 and it was time to send a message to the neutral De Valera Government. Another bomber attacked the nearby railway viaduct at Taylorstown but missed.
The numbers killed could have been much worse had the attack taken place earlier as the restaurant where the bomb fell was full with workers. In the overall scheme of things in World War 2 the Campile attack was a foretaste of what was to come for Dublin and more significantly Belfast where hundreds died in a blitz. The German Ambassador will come to the ceremony.

Ireland and Germany has always had a complicated relationship. Most Germans will have a strong regard for the Irish because they respect how Ireland stood up to Britain. The support for Irish Volunteers from Germany during the independence struggle may have been motivated by the need to occupy Britain in their own back yard. Despite sinkings of Irish ship by U boats in World War 2 a local Wexford boat the Kerlogue was famous for rescuing the German survivors from a sinking and landing them in Cork as opposed to Britain. One survivor had a life long friendship with one of the Wexford men who came to their aid.

I owe my education to the country because when I went to college there was no student support for me so each Summer I along with many other Irish Students worked our holidays in Germany. I travelled widely throughout Central Europe only being halted by the bureaucracy of the red tape at the Iron Curtain. Germany is an incredible country. I admire how the German people not just rebuilt their nation once but twice, after the fall of Nazism and later Communism. If any one has an idea on nation building it is the Germans, so what lessons can we draw from their experiences?

Lets be blunt about it. The then German Ambassador was the one who put his finger on what was wrong with Ireland a few years ago. When he spoke to a private meeting of German businessmen he was heavily critical of how we run the country. I share that obvious frustration that he had. Hypo Bank was on the verge of going belly up at the IFSC. Just as Campile gave the Irish people a foretaste of what was to come 70 years ago, Hypo was the warning sign that Lenihan and Cowen ignored and look where we are now, this morning our rating has dropped another notch as international concern grows at the ability of our government to cope under the burden of the commitment to prop up zombie banks.

Realism, criticism and long term objectives are what I hope we can draw from the Germans. It’s a country with a proud tradition in social democracy and free intellectual thinkers where left, right, liberalism and green values all compete with a different vision as opposed to the dull lethargy of Irish politics that gives us clichés like “We are where we are” which subliminally caution against change or debate. We can still learn a lot from the Germans and while the numbers game in the EU have changed greatly in the last decade, we still need them. Next Saturday is a good day, I'lll be there as Mayor, lets remember our dead together and think forward.

Cowboys and Indians

2010-08-22T23:41:00.005+01:00

Kim Jong Il must be kicking himself! What does a man have to do to get a little respect round here? Newsweek has it seems drawn up a list of their fantasy top 10 world leaders. Heading their list of who’s hot is the Indian Prime Minister rapidly pursued by some of our European cowboys, Sarkozy, Cameron and our Brian Cowen. The man who a month ago was supposedly facing a challenge from Brian Lenihan is this month one of the world’s most respected leaders, well that’s according to Newsweek anyway! Kim doesn’t have to worry about challenges from colleagues which is just as well as he’s hardly up for the challenge of living. Like Cowen who once played Under 21 football for his county, the days when Kim could go round a golf course 38 under par are well truly behind him!
Saudi Arabian King Abdullah is in there too because he’s taken the radical step of appointing women to high office. Apart from Brazil’s President Lula there’s nobody progressive there at all. But given that the Saudi ruler who doesn’t have to worry about the niceties of democracy has set the bar so low, I wonder what exactly you have to do to impress Newsweek. Many of those who Newsweek respects are politicians who still believe strongly in free market economics, globalisation and unfettered capitalism. This is the dogma that has caused most of the problems in the first place. Despite freeing up of global markets, have consumers and I’m thinking of the sugar regime in Europe benefited from lower prices? No way. And while prices remain high, the sugar industry was dismantled importing low cost sugar and selling at a price that Greencore considered consumers could bear. Compensation went to farmers and the company while the consumer was left high and dry.

The Newsweek 10 are by and large a collection of market pleasers who will ensure that the state doesn’t get between speculators and money, unless of course in Sarkozy’s case you’re a speculator of a different colour skin or ethnic origin in which case he’ll send you packing. Strange that countries where the international banking crisis has had least impact don’t seem to rate when it comes to Newsweek’s top 10. Cameron is taking up where Thatcher left off with his small government is better nonsense. Perhaps he should have gone to specsavers or if not at least John Major? I've always regarded Major as being basicly a decent man who actually won an election his party deserved to lose.

Australia, Canada, Denmark, Sweden, not all countries with left wing governments but countries with a regulatory framework better than ours where scandals like Anglo don’t seem to get a look in with the boys from Newsweek. Indeed no female national leaders should apply. At a time when competition in financial services is going out the window and banks spin that the days of crony capitalism are gone why then are foreign banks sprinting for the boat? Once foreign banks who on their arrival here a decade ago brought competition into the market place for a mortgage are gone, slowly but surely the cosy relationship between AIB and Bank of Ireland will see interest rates climb well beyond the ECB rate. Tracker mortgages are sadly now things of the past and one of the few big advantages of monetary union is disappearing fast as banks set mortgage rates well above the ECB interest rate. If you can get a business loan outside the state good but who’ll give you a mortgage outside the jurisdiction for an Irish property? SME’s are similarly screwed when it comes to getting cash to simply expand even where a viable market has been identified. The genius that presided over this mess, is now deemed worthy of internatinal respect by Newsweek!
Sadly for Fianna Fail Newsweek sales aren’t very high among the unemployed, those dealing with welfare cuts, or coping with increasing mortgages on lower income, but expect more of this sort of guff in the next few weeks.

Your Leaving Cert isn’t an emigration cert!

2010-08-17T09:17:00.001+01:00

This is the week when the media rediscovers education. They hardly mention education once the state exams are well under way in June unless there’s a typo or a mistake made. So the slumber is over and soon the journo’s and cameras will be back at the school gate as those leaving school exit with their 7 A’s and later next week when the school year re-commences.

It annoys me that the mark of success is still considered to be 7 A’s and medicine in TCD or UCD. It conveys the wrong idea of what a school does and what it should be. I wonder is that because many journalists are middle class or identify with middle class aspirations or values. One of these values is a middle class career; medicine, law, engineering and yes teaching! My case is that while these jobs are important in any society and we should as a society ensure that we train enough of them, should we elevate them beyond their societal value to positions of economic value where students compete with one another for notional credits call points. Points are merely notional and cannot be traded and are simply a rating.
Those who can collect enough of these invisible commodities will do well while those who are not successful are considered surplus to the middle class. A number of years ago I heard a remark being made by a parent rep on local radio that “sure if you didn’t get a course there’s always a trade”. It reminded me of the way my old school, presumably hopeful of a vocation of two, in the 1970’s steered subjects to the top stream of Latin while the bottom stream did Commerce. Now we know who was done the favour!
2 things worry me. One is that we encourage a set of values of safety in our educational choices. No other nation does this ritual annual oohing and ahing as the competitors for points race to the college gates. If we encourage safety in early age will we foster creativity and risk taking?
The second thing that concerns me is what is being lost to our society by the artificial filtering from our education system that the points race achieves? Should colleges not encourage inward and outward movement of students and staff? If someone has a good idea worth commercially developing why should they wait to get their “Q mark” of a degree before striking while the iron is hot? Particularly when it comes to technology nowadays where there exists a flux of change and quickly an idea can be outdated. If you remain in college will the opportunity still exist for your idea when you graduate? Is a herd and “safety first” mentality still best to bring out the best? There is one example of a successful Irish industry where a degree doesn’t advantage anyone and that’s the entertainment industry. Few of those who are successful internationally and internally in Ireland have gone on to 3rd level. Entertainment is a ruthless industry where only the best will succeed across all its diverse sectors. Why can we not replicate this approach in other areas of our economy? There is another alternative to college in the context of a collapse in the Irish economy will soon be seen as youth emigration but you don’t have to leave the country

So avoiding this cul de sac may actually be in the interest of the leaving cert student just as years ago avoiding Latin gave an unintended advantage to my old schoolmates. I never studied business but I can still remember the first declension from latin.
Now where’s my ticket for Jedward?

I told you so!

2010-08-06T00:47:00.005+01:00

I’m not hugely surprised by the publication of the SERA report into the Limerick Rosslare rail line. There’s nothing in it that I never suspected or said. The report is an indictment of the centralised ethos that pervades Iarnród Éireann. It might have been acceptable in Todd Andrews day to tell a demoralised people that the local line was shutting just as nowadays its acceptable to spoof that while there is no money to re-open a line it’ll be alright in 2015. But its not acceptable any longer to threat communities as though they’ve no right to consultation and after enduring years of being ignored on how their service was provided to say as Irish Rail did last April, it’s the local authorities fault, the area has too few people and we’ve tried our best.
This report bins that spin.

What the Save the Rail group always said is backed up to the hilt! Link Waterford and Wexford, run more trains, draw in community support for the line, integrate the timetable to boats, buses and other rail services. They estimate that more than 600 passengers could use this train each day if that is done. That’s more than the Western Rail Corridor was projected to carry. And all of that can be done for very little as the line is still up and running.

They report says that the Irish Rail case to close contains a number of “critical aspects which are flawed”. It singles out the Strategic Rail Review recommendation that no investment should be undertaken at the expense of priority investment and that economic evaluation does not support investment in the Rosslare Limerick line. As I’ve pointed out there is EU funding available to upgrade the line as it leads to a TEN. Clearly there is no interest in IE or in the Government in accessing this cash.

The report agrees with my view that the real origin of the line is Wexford and if you count the population within in 10 Km of the line there is 125,000 within reach of this lightly used line. But what is astonishing is that IE have been running the train in the wrong direction! For years the number of people commuting into Wexford is 3 times that of the number commuting from the same parishes into Waterford! Is it any owned it was lightly used? Doh!

The report focuses on the actual definition of what economic actually means. It points out that increasing frequency can increase patronage. The opposite is true as well, can you believe that the letters C,I & E are found in the word “economic”? Irish Rail’s neglect of Sail Rail is now effectively an international embarrassment as the UK Department of Transport and Stena both unprompted commented to the reporters on their failure to provide rail connections out of Rosslare Europort. Irish Rails business case for closure is based on data that ignores any other market than those going to work in Waterford.
Irish Rail has been exposed in this report for poor analysis of the regions needs. I’ve arrived at the conclusion that they don’t deserve the line any more. Its time that they were told that the line will be open to competition and that if another operator wants to provide a service in addition or instead of them then they don’t need to hang around any longer if they don’t want to. As they say in Rosslare Harbour its time for them to shape up or ship out!

Ivor for ever!

2010-08-04T01:03:00.006+01:00

I was just as surprised as Ivor was! Its about 3 years ago when he arrived on my doorstep. Ivor thought I had a Senate vote and called to ask me for a transfer. It was July and he’d just lost his seat in the General Election. He’d driven into the estate just ahead of me in a 4X4. Not too many 4X4’s come into my estate and instantly I suspected the driver was a developer who was looking to speak to the local councillor, probably to give me a bit of stick!
From 20 yards behind it looked like trouble was heading my way so I was pleasantly pleased to find that it was only Ivor Callely! I spoke to him for a few minutes and we reminisced about our old school. We’d a pleasant conversation. He told me he had driven from home that morning to see me so I suggested someone he may try and then sent him on his way.
It was clear to me when the Seanad vote was counted that he hadn’t many friends in Fianna Fail as he only secured 13 first preference votes however help was at hand when he wound up in the Seanad courtesy of then Taoiseach Bertie Ahern. Why Ahern owed Callely the favour of a Seanad nomination is not very clear to me as Callely had to resign a few years ago over another unfortunate event.
Now his political career seems to be heading for oblivion, even if he can hold out until 2012. His political instinct like his homing instinct needs a reality check; His second home, his principal residence, his main home, his receipts from a long failed business, all contributing to bring him down and damage what ever remaining credit that politics may still hold somewhere.
I tend to believe his only problem is that he doesn’t have any political friends left in Fianna Fail. Ivor was a graduate of the FF class of 1985. Ivor was famous for towing a caravan behind his car as a mobile advice clinic. It’s my view that that local election was the most extraordinary one ever, bringing the most uniquely corrupt nest of FF vipers into political life. I watched at close quarters, canvassing for my good friend Bernie Malone in North Dublin. Why he’s on the edge is because people understand the amounts of money involved and can identify with them.

With Willie O’Dea, it’s a different matter. There was no money involved, but arguably a more significant matter of someone’s reputation. .
O’Dea mislead a judge in relation to a sworn affidavit. He tried to bluster out of it and almost got away with it until he shot himself in the foot by portraying himself as a victim. Callely tried the same approach but had few associates that were prepared to put their necks on the block for him as Dermot Ahern did for O’Dea
Maybe that’s Callely’s real failing in FF eyes, not being internally popular enough having seen off many FF rivals for his Dail seat. While Callely roasts on the spit like a steak on a summer barbeque, O’Dea is whinging as it seems that the SF councillor got too much money out of him. Poor Willie things are so bad he needs to hitch a lift to work of a FF TD colleague.
It may not be long before Willie is rehabilitated, but for Ivor already FF hopefuls are lining up to replace him in the Seanad if the event of a chance vacancy. I heard one senior FF councillor toast Ivor earlier today conscious that any slip on Ivor’s part would give Brian Cowen an opportunity to directly nominate his replacement. The councillor went on to say that Cowen had made few mistakes since taking office!

The reality is that while Ivor can be booted out of FF, he can’t be sacked as a Senator and he can continue to travel from West Cork to tend to the needs of the citizens of Clontarf. He may reflect that if he had lived in the caravan then none of the mileage controversy would have happened and as a consequence the phone bills would have never surfaced. But if Ivor learnt anything from the school we both went to it was to stand your ground on a pitch and don’t concede. Ivor will fight on till the very last minute and FF know it. Otherwise Brian Cowen (remember him?) would have been on the airwaves looking for Ivor’s blood. Yes, it will be Ivor for ever!

Deja Vú all over again!

2010-07-29T15:22:00.008+01:00

Oh dear, the silly season has arrived once more. I’m certain it’s here as the latest word is that Brian Cowen is to be challenged in the autumn by Brian Lenihan who when he wins is going to call a general election. And if Brian isn’t well enough he’s going to support Mary Hanafin who’ll win and call a general election too. Its not for me to prejudge the Irish electorate but on present form, I’d suggest for any FF leader who’s going to take over and then take us into an election not to go to bed as they’ll likely miss their short time in office.

Its not too long ago that Brian Cowen was winning the accolades that Brian Lenihan now accepts. In the last few days of the Ahern era Cowen’s ratings in the opinion polls were similar to the regard that Lenihan now is now held. Cowen single handedly turned the 2007 election around on the last week-end. There are many FF TD’s who owe their seats to Cowen. The fact that Cowen was complicit in the economic slump is neither there nor there for many FF TD’s. The fact that Brian Lenihan has prolonged the chaos and has thrown good money after bad will not in time be seen as a positive.

Brian Lenihan is now getting the plaudits of the media for what exactly?
· 2 years ago Lenihan promised that as we were first into recession we’d be first out, That forecast was wildly inaccurate.
· Lenihan forecast NAMA will make a small profit over its lifetime, we now know based on the haircuts proposed that it’ll never make a profit
· Lenihan’s bank guarantee scheme bailed out subordinate bondholders sucking cash out of schools, hospitals and the economy
· The jaded old boys network that controlled Irish banking was replaced with…eh… a jaded old boys network that controlled Irish banking!
· Do you know any SME who’s got a loan lately?

I’ve always felt that Lenihan is a triumph of style over substance since I heard him tell an audience in Wexford 2 years ago that things are never as bad as they look and never as good as they seem. Lenihan has deflected the criticism over the lack of regulation to the Financial Regulator. True, the regulator has a responsiblity for what was happening here and we know that the economic collapse was home grown, but what was going on in the Central Bank and more importantly the Department of Finance Summer 2 years ago when they spun a line that banks were doing ok when Lenihan was putting the finishing touches to his re-adjustments? . Cowen's own disastrous tenure as Finance minister was peppered with references to soft landings that we now know to be guff. I once said on local radio in Wexford that it takes 10 years to find out what is going on today in this country. Time will prove me right that Lenihan is no superman when our ountry stagnates under the strain of his ank bail out when other econmies flourish.
My take is how near are we now to recovery? I‘ve concluded that when you take away the hype the answer is; no nearer than 2 years ago. The only chance that FF and the greens now have is if they can point to an economic stabilistion in 2012. The country wouldn't wear another FF unelected Taoiseach until then. Regardless of where we might be at in 2012, the political retribution on a 2nd unelected FF leader posing as Taoiseach may be significantly worse than on Brian Cowen no matter when a General Election is called.

We are at the bottom of the pit and there is no sign that any recovery will happen in the near future. Emigration will see the return of non-national immigrants. The typical image of this sub-group is that they are mostly young, living in rented accommodation, single and mobile. These people will never return. Not too far behind and already going are young Irish people once they see better paid jobs elsewhere although the US and UK seem for different reasons unlikely to be the destinations, unless you want a job building an Olympic Village. These are people with the ability to spend more of their income than people with mortgages which are now climbing while incomes are dropping. When I hear the government talking about stimulating demand and consumer spending, I don’t know where the increase in spending is going to come from.

Lenihan should bare in mind his won maxim of "we're all in this together" and ask if that exteds ot each member of the FF parlaimentary party. More to the point if you believe the polls and I don’t put a huge meas on them as a guide to a final result, who’d want to lead a government for 4 weeks and an opposition for 8 years? Given how the FG move against Enda Kenny colapsed and the derision that the plotters earned, who'd willingly conspire in FF? Explain that one Phoenix!

For whom the road tolls!

2010-07-24T00:43:00.003+01:00

If you want clear evidence that the government has lost touch it’s today’s suggestion that its time to toll National Primary Routes. The argument in favour is one of equity! If Dublin and surrounding counties are paying tolls then its time the rest of us coughed up!
That ignores the financial reality, one I’ve always had difficulty with. The alternative to state investment in delivering public services is supposed to be that the private sector could provide roads and schools better than the state in a more efficient way. That’s why I paid a toll the other day when I drove across the Suir Bridge on the N25. The logic of the FF/PD government was that the builder took the risk by financing and delivering and operating a project on time. East Link, West Link, Motorway, it was all GAMA’s way! Indeed some who’re now in government opposed GAMA’s roads on the cheap and on double quick time.
But now tolling roads is on the agenda simply as a tax raising measure. Like all good ideas thought up in a rush, the real costs were ignored. Firstly all National Primary Roads have side roads that all link up. What would be the cost of building and maintaining the toll stations and how much revenue would be lost as motorists negotiate their way around the back roads to void paying the toll.
Let me give you a perfect example the N11 is the main road from Wexford to Dublin. If I take the R741 direct to Gorey I can join the N11 a mile south of Gorey and avoid 7 extra miles of driving and a possible tail back at Enniscorthy. So R741 is my usual route. So if the new N11 is tolled and the carrot to the County Council is the revenue, why would I take this road to Dublin? Faster yes but more expensive! NRA spin often emphasises how much is cut off journey time but what counts now is the point to point time not from between notional points. As it is Wexford is on average 2 hours from the southside of Dublin. What’s the additional economic benefit of being 1 hr 50 mins?
I make this point because at present there is a local controversy about the new Rosslare Harbour motorway. Having looked at the potential routes I’m annoyed that some routes take the traffic well away from Wexford Town. We’ve had a bypass for 20 years or more and now the potential routes will take long distance traffic further away from the town. Down the road, (No pun intended!) how likely is it that this road will be tolled? How much will be raised and if the original N11 is re-used by big volumes of traffic and new upgraded national primary roads don’t carry the expected volumes who carries the can for the lost revenue? The government? The County Council? The NRA? At the end of the day whoever takes the hit it’s ultimately the taxpayer who’s caught out on this one.
Wexford is hugely reliant on the N11 and the N25. You can’t get into the county without using a national primary route. A toll in my mind is a bridge too far. Listening to Minister Gormley tonight on the TV, I’m not convinced that he understand how peripheral counties could be hit by tolling national primary routes. Wexford relies on roads to access Rosslare Harbour, given the reality that tolls now can be done by cameras rather than physically paid at a booth and arrears build quickly are we in danger of pricing ourselves out of the market when it comes to holiday makers using ferries for foreign holidays? Will tolls turn people off using Rosslare? I hope not.

Double speaking Greens go dumb on rail closure.

2010-07-19T23:51:00.007+01:00

When the Irish Times contacted Minister Ciaran Cuffe about the possibility of closing the Rosslare Waterford rail line the Minister was unavailable to speak to the journalist other than to say that the matter was one for Iarnród Éireann alone. 2 days before he was appointed a minister, Ciaran Cuffe said that if a socio economic case for retention existed he’d listen to it. Now that doesn’t mean that he’d commit to retaining it he only said he’d listen to it. When Ciaran was nominated I sent him a copy of a report on the line asking that he’d respond, 3 months later I’m still waiting despite assurances from local greens that he’d contact me.

Lets face it Fianna Fail have the greens round their little finger. The core green issues such as Stag Hunting and puppy farming don’t wash with the electorate, Fianna Fail will happily let their junior partner “progress” these issues to keep them onside while Fianna Fail get on with running the country for their developer, banker and business buddies.
The Greens of course understand this and are happy to keep their heads down until issues like the Rosslare Waterford rail line turn up and show them up now for what they once said. Here’s Dan Boyle in 2007; “Sinister decisions relating to rail freight have been made in recent years. For example, in my constituency, the freight hub in Cork depends on the Norsk facility, which has been put up for sale. In recent years, the rail turntable, which allowed freight trains to change direction, because Cork is a terminus, was dismantled. This was an attempt to disentangle the rail freight infrastructure.” How right he was so what is he doing about returning freight to rail?

Ciaran Cuffe when he was in opposition knew exactly what had to be done; Green Party 2007 Rail Transport Policy “We must allow the regions to develop their economic and social potential. We believe that the Island's rail network should be used as a basis for informing the location of significant new development over the next twenty years." “urban generated rural settlement and low-density suburban development appears to be increasing, and this pattern needs to be reversed. It is unsustainable to provide large numbers of on-off houses and ribbon development in the country-side. We must revive our rural areas, but we do not wish to see people commuting long distances by car to our towns and cities.”

Minister Mary White could tell us last year that “The Government has a commitment to investment in public transport, another form of environmentally friendly infrastructure. Almost €1 billion is being spent this year on public transport projects and the safeguarding of future public transport projects will ensure jobs are sustained and that our travelling and commuting trends will be sustainable.” So where is that money for the South Wexford line now? The line qualifies for EU funding towards upgrading as I and Nessa Childers discovered at our meeting with the EU in June. Look even if you buy the Iarnród Éireann line that there is no market for passengers what about freight?

I’m aware of a real plan to put freight on the line. Not a word in support from the greens, surprising as in 2007 Dan Boyle knew what to do; “the next Government should at the very least seek to achieve the same balance between road and rail freight as other European countries, which is 77% by road and 23% by rail. A timeframe of ten years should be set down to achieve that. It will mean investment and a reversal of policy “ Have you seen a change in policy in the last 3 years? But wait there’s more from Dan “Ports such as Rosslare, Waterford, Foynes and Cork should be used more because they have rail links, which could be connected to the national system, thereby providing for more freight to be carried. The State should move away from a radial rail system, which comprises only lines in and out of Dublin, and restore the remnants of the rail system.”

That was then and this is now. The silence of any green TD to speak out on this issue in the last 3 months speaks volumes n how suppliant the party has become. Call it Stockholm Syndrome or urban Gombeenism the greens are wrapping themselves up in knots. They’re entitled to do it but the reality is that the Rosslare Waterford rail line is gong off the tracks because of their attitude. So if you’re wondering where the money should come from to support lines like the Rosslare Waterford line I’ll leave the final word to Dan Boyle from one of his newsletters in 2007; In Government we will redress the chronic under investment in bus, rail, cycling and pedestrian facilities and we will redirect the roads budget to improve road safety and traffic management.

Judge for yourself!

2010-07-15T01:02:00.004+01:00

I came home from holidays to get the good news from a constituent that the council had turned down a plan to build a 5 storey apartment block in town. I was pleased as I believe that making observations on the planning process is very difficult for those who feel threatened by the prospect of over development and I was pleased that the council came down on her side.

Imagine my surprise when I bought my local paper, was this news mentioned? No, but what was exercising someone’s and I say someone because the story is not attributed to any journalist, on the front page? Why the application to build a new court house in Wexford that comprises of a basement, and 2 subsequent floors on top. The article criticises the OPW not just for the scale of the extension to the former Tate School where the court house will be located, but also the location and design of the new library in town.

I smiled as I read how criminals could consult in luxurious surroundings with their lawyers and how could this happen when patients could be on trolleys and pupils in prefabs and the local garda station remains cramped! The article ignored the reality that Wexford’s present courts are inadequate and not fit for purpose as it is. The picture used to illustrate the article seems to be part produced from plans however while size and scale are the same, the finish as lodged by the OPW is substantially better.

The article mentions child abusers, criminals, thugs, killers in true tabloid fashion but misses the point that Wexford Court is more likely to deal with other type of cases such as small claims, civil disputes, traffic offences, in camera family cases where the judge is deciding on the future of children or property or commercial cases as much as it is likely to deal with criminality. Implicit in the article is the suggestion that this is money wasted on the dregs of society. The writer doesn’t understand that there is a lot more going on in the court than the processing of the local ne’er do wells to the Midlands Prison.

A court is someone’s working environment and it’s a nonsense to think that courts are for criminals only. At present Wexford Court has no provision for victim support, IT for close circuit interviewing of children, family law cases that are becoming an increasingly large part of their workload, poor provision for holding prisoners, while the court staff work in stuffy and cramped conditions. Does the paper actually believe that it is madness to give a public servant a decent working environment, I wonder? Regularly consultations between client and legal team take place in the corridors of Wexford Court which is also the county council building. So anyone in to pay their car tax will at present rub shoulders with the thugs and child abusers that concern the local paper or possibly over hear their neighbours sorting out the final details of ending their marriage.

While the article dwells on criminals who are of course dealt with, it makes no mention of victims and their needs. Its only a few months since a victim of a sexual assault in Kerry suffered the ignominy of sitting in court close to here assailant while neighbours shook his hand. Its not good enough anymore that this can happen. If courts have to be rebuilt with secure areas to keep prisoners, decent working conditions for prison officers and gardaí and to afford witnesses security then what’s wrong with that? Last year I photographed a prison van parked illegally outside my own workplace, presumably because of lack of parking space at the court 1 mile away!

In terms of height the building is no taller than the office from which the local paper that thundered against the court house is printed! The only complaints I’ve received about the court service are that there aren’t enough judges to deal speedily with the workload on a given day.
While I entirely accept the criticism of the writer that “Planners have allowed far too much offensive development in Wexford”, its more the reason to highlight in the local media when planners actually do call it right by blocking real high rise in town.

Make me comply but not just yet!

2010-07-13T23:59:00.003+01:00

While legislation on one off issues like stag hunting and puppy farms hog the political limelight a more significant piece of legislation is quietly making its way through the Oireachtas. The innocuous sounding Multi Units Development Bill 2009 is the baby of the Minister for Environment and it has enormous potential to benefit people who live in private apartment developments. It deals specifically with management companies.
At present there is no requirement on a local authority to provide for all new developments services like public lighting, maintenance of green areas, drains and roads so the services in an estate or apartment development are often charged on an annual basis to the purchaser. The sums involved are usually about €250 per annum. Many of these management companies are run by family members of the development company and are nice little side earners for precious little. For instance near me there is an estate with about 120 houses where each house owner must pay €350 per annum. That’s €42K per annum. For that sort of money you could employ someone on the average industrial wage on a 40 hour week for a year, pay the ESB bill for public lights and still turn a profit! And if you ignore demands to pay the management company the debt is attached to your property and the new owner will be liable for any debts in that regard. A good solicitor will spot the liability and advise the prospective purchaser of the debt and you’ll find it very difficult to sell if you don’t pay.

FF & latterly PD policy has favoured the developers, auctioneers and speculators in the last 50 years. There’s plenty of evidence in poorly planned developments in every county to support this so its about time that there was some legislation that will regulate the practise and fair play to the minister he’s bringing forward legislation. But there is just one or two problems, the legislation is not retrospective and only applies to developments planned subsequent to the passing of this legislation which is around since 2009. You may say better late than never however the reality is that once the legislation is enacted few will actually benefit given the surplus stock of houses already built and on the market and the likelihood of emigration meaning that house building will never return to the record levels built in the first decade of the century. What is needed to strengthen the legislation is retrospection.

Where planning permissions are granted and remember that an applicant can wait 5 years on a permission before breaking open the ground, the legislation won’t apply. In the context of a developer retaining units to lease, something that is becoming common now as it generates a revenue stream for builders, the builder can retain the right to vote if the management company is run by the owners of property in the estates.
While a developer can now be pursued through circuit court, that court can only impose a fine of up to and about €40K, a drop in the ocean compared to the resources available to the developers. Tom Parlon is definitely earning his keep at the CII.

So a worthwhile idea has been diluted meaning that in theory Ireland has all the appearance of resetting the equilibrium but in fact the delicate balancing act by the government between Builders, Auctioneers and Bankers still continues to the detriment of home owners.
While the tizzy about the ban on stag hunting garnered lots of media attention and conversely impacted on very few, this legislation could have huge impact in terms of improved quality of life for citizens and yet there’s no headlong rush by the minister for publicity or willingness to accept amendments to ensure improvements.

Taking the chains!

2010-06-29T07:48:00.003+01:00

It’s a great honour and its something that is hugely important to me. Being first citizen is the highest office you can get in Wexford politics. Lets be straight up it’s the best job in Wexford politics and the oldest. The County Council is certainly better resourced and has a wider remit but being Mayor carries a historical legacy that goes right back to the 14th century.
When the Normans invaded and subsequently rolled out town governance, Mayor was an enormously powerful job in local politics. The mayor called the shots. He (and it always was a man until the 1970’s) raised taxes, militias, passed sentence, performed weddings, decided what was spent and was enormously influential.
Happily the stocks are long gone from Wexford and I cannot see the circumstances when a militia might be needed for the moment! The town sergeant precedes the Mayor at formal events bearing one of the towns 3 silver maces. They date from the 18th century and we know that because on the staff there’s a harp representing Ireland, the rose representing England and the thistle to represent Scotland. All 3 kingdoms mentioned but nothing about our nearest neighbour, the Principality of Wales!

The traditional open meeting to elect the Mayor took place in Wexford Arts Centre, the original home of Wexford Corporation. I always enjoy these meetings as a councillor because there is something hugely significant and important in electing a Mayor. Being Mayor in Wexford is a completely different proposition to being Mayor in a bigger urban area. You’re so much more accessible and recognised. You’re ex-officio a member of all committees in both the town and the district. Add to that my membership of the VEC and it makes for a busy year in terms of policy development as well.
Not to mention there’s the social side to it or as it’s been described “Eating for Wexford”! When I served as Deputy Mayor 3 years ago I got to see that side of the town’s social life. I’ve always tended to think differently of invites to social events to those who actually organise them. You’re there because of who you represent. The others can do R & R but the Mayor can’t.

But there is something hugely important in being Mayor, local authorities are often derided but without them who would step into the gap? Moreover a Labour Mayor has always a vision of so what is mine? Hanging on the wall of the Arts Centre last night was a poster that said “I see the world as it is”. How appropriate! I pointed out that if you come to terms with the past you understand the present mistakes and you can plan your future. We all have a future in this town however it is one within the context of social solidarity. We cannot make those who are worse off pay for mistakes of the past. If we are to have a future it is on the basis that we all opt in. We must talk up our town, Why is it that decentralisation to Wexford worked? We have a lot going for us here, It’s time to tell the world about Wexford.

Labour has no policies?

2010-06-27T00:51:00.004+01:00

The rise of Labour in public opinion polls has seen the focus of Fianna Fail and Fine Gael’s fire power turn on Labour Party policy. I’ve always read the polls with the margin of error in mind. What that means is that FF is clearly in 3rd place now but that FG is where it always is, ahead of Labour who is closing the gap and for some time now I’ve figured little else was happening outside that 2 years off polling day.

What intrigues me most however is that the spin of those parties now under threat from Labour is the same; Labour has no policies. After giving a bit of thought on this one and the last 2 years I’ve concluded that FF & FG are right! From the FF point of view the last boom was based on property and construction and we’ve no policy to re-inflate the property market unlike the NAMA plan of Brian Lenihan. Lenihan will in time be seen for what he is, conning the public into reviving a property bubble that has already burst. The verdict on Labour having policy to revive that is refreshingly negative. There’s none whatsoever!

When FG say we’ve no policy what they mean is that after they’ve pinched Labour policies on Earn and learn, Universal Heath Insurance, gap year and pre-school education as ways to reduce unemployment there is not too much left for Labour to trumpet! The reality is that FF & FG will revive profits for those who have survived this far but have they any idea how to bring down unemployment? That’s the yard stick by which most people will judge the end of the recession.
The clincher was the IMF report this week into the Irish economy. It said that unemployment will remain high, well above the EU average for 5 more years. The IMF is no bastion of radical socialism but its report pinpoints one of the failings of the current policy entente between FF & FG. They don’t have any ideas how to reduce unemployment and to provide well paid jobs. Profits in industry doesn’t mean that jobs will be created.

All that they can say is that they can try to revive the bubble in property by shoring up the banks. Thence the bank guarantee scheme, the good bank and bad bank scheme and opposition to bank nationalisation. For 2 years the slump in economic growth has cut the economy back to the bone.
Where is the scheme to revive loans to Small and medium size enterprises. This sector has the potential to deliver more jobs that would be sustainable than those in the construction sector, so why hang about on the credit line from banks? The bank revival plan is all about reviving share price and profits not employment and how the revival of the economy will be judged is by the eradication of unemployment. So far we’re as far off that as ever. To put the record straight someone told me that Labour has launched more policy initiatives than FF & FG together, over 140!

Lest FF & FG forget Eamon Gilmore said all this as recently as April 2010; “As part of our jobs strategy, Labour will take 2 billion euro from the Pension Reserve Fund and establish a Strategic Investment Bank that will put €20billion Euro to work in our economy. The new Bank will have a joined up approach, providing finance for innovative companies and small firms, that are the backbone of this economy, but also helping to finance the infrastructure that they need to succeed.
Investment in networks like renewable energy, next generation communications, smart grids. Creating the environment for a new wave of Irish companies, that can seize the opportunities of a new world economy.
In our first Budget, Labour will establish a dedicated Jobs Fund, to finance measures that create and support employment; Such as a PRSI break for companies that create new jobs.
Such as more direct support to firms for research and marketing development. Moving ahead with projects such as school buildings, that are ready to go. Driving ahead our plan to promote building insulation so we can create jobs, lower fuel bills and cut emissions at the same time.”
So what bit of 140 does FF and FG have difficulty getting their heads around?

In at the deep end!

2010-06-05T19:50:00.005+01:00

OK lets get the political puns out of the way; out of his depth, swimming with the fishes etc. I’ll suffer them willingly because today was the day that I thought wouldn’t come for a long time. Wexford’s new municipal swimming pool opened on Thursday last so it was my chance to get in and see it for myself. I went over to Ferrybank and was blown away with what I saw.
Its been some time since I was there last. I attended an international life saving competition when I served as Deputy Mayor and the pool was dilapidated, run down and the worse for wear. Few people went to it other than the loyal corps of swimmers ad life savers that we’re lucky to have in Wexford.
As a local authority we lost heavily on the pool and while there are other pools in the town none of them are publicly owned.
The renovation of the pool has been a frequent item on the agenda of Wexford BC and I remember the night that we finally got to see the plans. Tommy Carr asked the question we all wanted answered namely when would it be built and how much would it cost. So about 2 years ago we finally got the go ahead and by the time contracts were signed and brief agreed the old pool was literally on its last legs. Its clapped out boiler frequently gave up the ghost meaning. The accompanying picture gives you an insight into the pool. Low roofed, 1970’s design, inefficient in terms of heating it was a nightmare.

That was then and this is now. The only thing that was retained was the hole in the ground that is the pool itself. The changing rooms (or changing village as its called) are bigger. Everything is bright, lots of glass to let in the light. The staff are friendly and very helpful and why wouldn’t they be sure didn’t I teach one of them? The children’s play ground is back too and before I knew it the whistle was blown and our session was finished. I had a very enjoyable swim. The gym will follow soon.
Its not so long ago since an official complained at councillors giving out that councillors rarely affirm or acknowledge council achievements. I hoe that any wrongs on my part are now righted. This is a great example of how the state can make significant changes in communities by investing in social infrastructure.

It hasn’t escaped my notice that this was achieved against a back drop of swimming pools closing down in Dublin . It is hugely positive and is a great boost to the town when the holiday season is starting. Our municipal camp site, the only one left in Ireland is full for the week end and I hear that visitor figures are surpassing those of the last 3 years. The good weather is obviously helping as is the unreliability of air travel.

But it also makes a point that isn’t lost on me in the middle of a campaign to keep the south Wexford rail line open, and its this; if the state invests in infrastructure people respond. When the Western Rail Corridor was partially re-opened numbers using the service soared. When the state built a decent swimming pool in Wexford town, the numbers swimming rocketed. The lessons are there for us all, if you want to build communities you invest. Adults €6 children €4, family tickets available soon.

Government supporters please note!

Rogue nation Israel unites the world

2010-06-01T00:02:00.003+01:00

This morning’s attack by Israeli forces on the flotilla bring relief supplies to Gaza from Europe once more shows that Israel care very little about international law or opinion. They’re not the only ones, a few weeks ago another rogue state North Korea was deemed responsible for the sinking of a South Korean naval vessel in international waters. There are 12 Irish passport holders in the convoy along with an Irish registered vessel the “Rachel Corrie”. One of the Irish is reported injured, all are in custody in Israel tonight.
Recently I pointed out on my blog that it was time to send the Israeli ambassador home following from the use of Irish passports by Israeli commando’s to gain entry to Dubai to kill a Hamas official. I’ve no time for Hamas but they did win an election in Gaza and the naval blockade by Israel of the strip is illegal under international law s was the attack in international waters on a civilian convoy. Ultimately this attack benefits Israel’s enemies and make no mistake about it, after today they countries relations with Turkey in particular are worse off.

The attack had a curious role played by the Cypriot government. Prior to the departure of the flotilla the Cypriots did their level best prevent politicians from joining the flotilla. Why did the Cypriots do that? These politicians had done no wrong under Cypriot law. Along with the Israeli ambassador should the Cypriot ambassador not be invited into Iveagh House to say what was going on? 3 Irish parliamentarians tried unsuccessfully to join the flotilla in Cyprus but were sent home. Had the Cypriot action something to do with their enmity with Turkey?

Another who is curiously quiet is President Obama. Recently it seems Obama left the Israeli PM abruptly in the White House to see his own way out! It seems that Obama has a different way to his predecessor and if that means that soon the Israeli government will smell the coffee and wise up then Barak has done the world some service. There appears to be no blanket statement of support from the US this time. Piracy in the Mediterranean is indefensible in the international community. Turkey is a key NATO ally for the US. Where does it all end?
Having seen the hold of one of the ships on TV, the convoy was bringing wheelchairs and cement. As a student I once lived close to where the Israeli team was held hostage prior to their murder at the Munich Olympics. Out the road from that is Dachau. 5 minutes in the grounds of the former concentration camp at Dachau hammers home the appalling sense of what happens when a society loses its values. That is what a rogue state is; one without values.
The ironic hope for Israel is that Germany is no longer a rogue warlike state. It’s learnt from its catastrophic mistakes. Hopefully Israel can too and when it does the world will be a safer place.

FF target all the single ladies

2010-05-29T23:43:00.004+01:00

I remember canvassing a house once in North Dublin during the 1987 General Election. It was a long and cold campaign that started on the day of a snow shower. One house in particular stood out then and still does. I had an argument with a woman who told me that Ballymun should be sterilised and that all the single teenage mothers who were living in sin at our expense should be forced to give up their childrens allowance and welfare. They were getting pregnant simply as to fund their life style and where were the fathers?
Of course we’ve moved on from those dark days of 80’s when the single mother no one knew about Ann Lovett died, or the Kerry Babies tribunal inquired into how Irish values were different then, or were they? Or have we moved on at all?

Yesterdays announcement that Fianna Fail and the Greens are now going to end payments to single mothers payment once the child has turned 13 as opposed to 18 or indeed 22 if they are in continuing education at present gives the right wing moral majority who want to use the state apparatus to endorse or punish values that they disapprove a fillip.
So why are they doing this? Lets remind ourselves of what the constitution says”The State shall, therefore, endeavour to ensure that mothers shall not be obliged by economic necessity to engage in labour to the neglect of their duties in the home”. So is the government not behaving in an unconstitutional way? What they want to do is to remove a payment from a parent with a child of 13. Do FF & the Greens think it stops at 13 and that 13 years olds require no further care than school? So where does childhood end and where does adulthood start? Brian Cowen says he wants to reduce our social welfare dependency. This plan ignoes the reality that there are no jobs for single women no more than there are for any other sub group that has been out of the owrkforce for some time. A real question is what about the responisbiltiy of each father in terms of emotional support for their child even if their own income may be marginal in what it can help. A child is better off with both parents, it doesn't always work out like that, but in the physical absence of a father the state surely should step in to help.
What will the government save? Births while still above the European average are well below numbers that they peaked at in the 80’s. True the number of children born to single women are now about 40% of all births but women are having less babies and having them later in their reproductive life than ever before. My point is that the savings won’t be as big as they think.
Many on single parents benefit rely on back to school allowance, child benefit and allowances for rent. Fianna Fail & the Greens tell us that this will only kick in over 6 years but its clear that the allowance will not be paid to those with children now in 3rd level education. My point is that welfare should be about helping a person up the ladder. And in 6 years time being the child of a single parent will act as a break on progressing to second level education. Its likely that the greens don’t connect with many single parents struggling on low incomes. Its clear FF don’t care about them as a group.

Politically let’s compare the response to the recent concern about child benefit. Do you remember last year when the airwaves were filled with discussion as to whether the benefit should be means tested or taxed? In the end, they cut it. Strangely there was no debate now about limiting access to the Single Parent payment. Why? Because the payment is often to women from lower socio economic groupings. Recently the government decided to cut the pensions of elderly women farmers. These women lobbied and made sure the government made a U turn. It seems that the Fianna Fail and the Greens have now found a softer target to hit that will speak out but aren’t as well organised to protest as the farmers.

Into the vacuum will run the FF moralists who’ll nod and wink to those who are prejudiced. Believe me they are still out there a lot older and politically cuter than when they ruled the political roost in the bleak 80’s. So long as we have marginalised sub groups we’ll have them.

Wexford walks tall on Demo Day

2010-05-22T22:21:00.005+01:00

The sceptics got their answer today. There were those who said that the rally and march in support of the hospital would flop. There were those who would have loved to see the demonstration fall flat on its face today but in the end the people won out. Fair play to Seamus O’Brien and his committee who worked night and day to ensure a huge crowd turned out on the day.

There were over 5,000 on the march in my view. Because the streets are so narrow its hard to get a full picture of the crowd but when the head of the march was at the lights at King St you couldn’t see the end of the march as it hadn’t got past Barrack St Post Office. The crowd were ordinary people from around the county, parents pushing children in buggies who were in all likelihood born at the hospital, elderly people who relied on the hospital for care, those of us whose only interaction was bringing a child to A&E and all points in between. The turnout was helped by the excellent weather but that’s not to say that the people of Wexford are fair weather friends of healthcare. We had to stop marching at the front so that the tail of the march could catch up.

The reality is that Brendan Howlin told the crowd that soon the draft report from the HSE for re-configuration will be available to local deputies. The services we need to protect are 24 hour A&E cover, maternity services, Intensive care and coronary care. What is fundamental is the need to maintain A&E round the clock. A&E is central to any hospital as most patients enter through it as opposed to elective admissions. Recently more consultants were relocated (or even re-configured?) from Wexford to Waterford. Many people have said to me that the hospital is on a slippery slope and that its future is under threat.

Minster Sean Connick’s admission at the rally that he wouldn’t vote against downgrading of the hospital in the Dáil genuinely shocked a lot of people there. He also effectively hung his FF colleague Senator Lisa McDonald, who at least had the guts to speak in support of the hospital despite being barracked by a section of the crowd, out to dry. When I left I could see a lot of people, mostly women one or two of them people I would know to be FF voters lining up to grill Minister Connick for his complacent attitude to the retention of the hospital.

Irish Rail shows rail services the door.

2010-05-21T12:31:00.005+01:00

Well so much for consultation! It seems that the suits in Connolly have had their fill. Poor old Jim must spin in his grave at the thought of his name being associated with an arrogant and high handed management. To put it in one sentence the boys ain’t going to share their train set with anyone; not the Oireachtas members but most of all the people in the south east.
Today’s papers carry notice of intention to close the rail line between Rosslare Strand and Waterford. In a way it’s clearly an attempt to deflect from their current denous with the Oireachtas committee who want to ask them a few embarrassing questions. Lets recap how we got here. In March Irish Rail applied for permission to close the line in secret to the NTA. In April the company told the Oireachtas Transport Committee and residents in Wexford. As the opposition to the closure built up and submissions were made and points rebutted the Southern and Eastern Regional Authority stepped in.

SERA sought tenders for a socio economic report on the future of the line from Limerick Junction to Rosslare Harbour. The NTA agreed to withhold a decision on the matter until the report was submitted. So as to expedite the process in the interests of Irish Rail the timescale of mid July was agreed by both bodies for an initial report and additional information within the following week. Arising from that the NTA would issue a decision.
Once more Irish Rail have move to undermine the process, just as they did by releasing the news of closure to turn people away from the first public meeting. They’ve issued notice of closure in accordance with the 1958 Transport Act. That means that in 2 months time regardless of what anyone else says the line will close. Minister Dempsey says that he wants to move the rolling stock elsewhere and it was about resources. The company on the other hand say it’s about money that they haven’t got. Just as the company marginalised campaigners against closure, they’ve undermined SERA and the NTA. There’s only so many that you can do that to and get away with it every time. The hypocrisy of the companies claim about concern at increased emissions is exposed by the reality that they will now deploy 4 buses to bring 25 passengers and none of them will go via Bridgetown, Wellington Bridge or Ballycullane to get students into WIT for lectures.
In reality it’s about having no interest in anything other than large urban areas, no imagination for developing services and no time for freight and Co Wexford. There is still a long way to go on this one. Irish Rail will have to give notice of intention to close to other EU carriers who will have the right to apply to commence services in Ireland. EU rules are interpreted in Ireland for the benefit of Iarnród Éireann and not the benefit of a developing rail industry. While we’re moving less by rail in terms of passengers and especially freight other countries are seeing freight returning to rail.

And what about the politics of all of this? For the Greens who aspire to a public transport policy? Minister Ciaran Cuffe said he’d support retention where a socio economic argument was made? Minister Dempsey by all accounts of the Wexford TD’s meeting was badly informed about the line but cared little. Will pressure grow on the 2 ministers or will they just attempt to spin a line that small populations of about 100,000 between Wexford and Waterford are not viable for a line. I bet they wouldn’t tell Jackie Healy Rae that!
If the Minster was half the idealist his spinsters like to tell us he is he’d haul in the chairman, sack him dismiss the board and tell the executives to either find ways to build up the line or find another job.

Heads you lose!

2010-05-11T21:39:00.002+01:00

The end came very quickly for Wexford’s Head Shop. When government classified their products like BZP alongside other illegal substances the door was shut leaving many young people down.
Legally they went from high to low in one day. From the start I was concerned at the shop. Ironically I first noticed it the night that Wexford Borough Council had a presentation on drug addiction. I walked past the premises on the way to the meeting and saw nothing but when I was coming home there it was bongs in the window and signs up to let the public know that the show was on the road. How ironic and sad!

I’m glad that the government has put the uppers on a downer. The reality is that Ireland already has 2 drugs that we are struggling to cope with alcohol and tobacco. We’re cutting back the amount spent on mental health and at the same time storing up chronic problems by allowing alcohols targeted at a younger market on the off license shelf. Last week hundreds attended a meeting in Enniscorthy organised by the facebook group at which my colleague Cllr Pat Cody spoke where concerns were expressed at the prospect of closure of St Senan’s Hospital and the likelihood that Wexford would have no unit to deal with acute mental illness. Psychologists are queuing up to point out the danger of these drugs most unfit for human consumption. The big fear is that there will be an unprecedented increase among young people for psychiatric care as a result of these drugs despite the reality that psychiatric services are practically non existent for these people. Last year I remember Shane Dunphy highlighting on South East Radio the difficulty a local mother had finding a psychiatric bed for her daughter due to a shortage of beds. How poorly prepared would that sector be for a wave of teenagers suffering from the effects of these unsafe drugs?

Wexford’s head shop opened about 2 years ago. At first the shop was a novelty while it masqueraded behind a façade of being legal. Entry was limited to those over 18 although the age group I would regularly see in the vicinity of the shop tended to be the hoodie generation of teenagers.
Unfortunately the interest in following the legal route didn’t appeal to the head shops owner all the time as he was stopped on the N11 by gardaí who subsequently discovered a significant amount of cocaine (valued at 5 figure) in the vehicle. The owner was convicted of possession of the drug for the purposes of supplying to others. I note that others are concerned that head shops are effectively fronts that legitimise income from criminality. In Wexford’s case I’m convinced that this is the case also. I spare no tears for the demise of the business.

I’m not interested in the argument that closure will drive what is an illegal business back underground. True the government made money off the trade, that doesn’t make it right. I don’t think it’s relevant if alcohol is more dangerous. It doesn’t make alcopops right either. The reality is that alcohol concentration has increased markedly within drinks. The law as it is makes it illegal to sell alcohol to minors, yet teenagers seem to have no problem getting as much drink as they want.
So the trade will now go online. The government now has a breathing space while they wait for the market to react. Respond it will. But from where I see it any product that isn’t safe should not be on the market. In another context we often hear about light touch regulation and failure to intervene to protect the consumer or the citizen. I don’t see any difference in what the government has done. It’s not too long ago since pork products were withdrawn from the market because there was a risk to consumers. If head shops cannot guarantee that their products are safe then surely the state has the right to step in to protect the consumers.

In the meantime pigs will fly before the shops re-open!