2011
Yearly Archives
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Humans don’t care about the planet and the future of their race. By John Gibbons Doomsday cults are as old as human civilisation. The Bible is a rich sourcebook for ‘End Times’ enthusiasts, who pore over Iron Age manuscripts purporting to pinpoint a particular day that heralds the Apocalypse. Another such date passed on May 21st last, with the ‘Rapture’ now rescheduled to October. But just because they’re crazy, doesn’t always guarantee they’re wrong. “An Armageddon is approaching at the beginning of the third millennium,” says celebrated naturalist Prof EO Wilson of Harvard. But, he adds, “it is not the cosmic war and fiery collapse of mankind foretold in sacred scripture. It is the wreckage of the planet by an exuberantly plentiful and ingenious humanity”. In the half a billion year history of complex life on Earth, five mega extinction events have been catalogued. The last one occurred around 65 million years ago, most likely triggered by rapid global cooling resulting from an asteroid strike. It brought the 160 million year reign of the dinosaurs to an abrupt end – along with around half of all other species. Their misfortune was to be our lucky break, as this calamity opened the evolutionary window for the rise of our ancestors, the early mammals. Today, what scientists have designated as the ‘Sixth Extinction’ is already in full swing, with an astonishing 50,000 species disappearing every year and the very face of the planet being re-shaped. For the first time in Earth history, the actions of a single species are threatening to overwhelm the entire biosphere. Homo sapiens is a young species, barely 200,000 years old. In the 10,000 years of human history for which some records exist, there has never been an age like the modern industrial era, and there has never been a century remotely like the amazing 20th century. My grandmother was born in 1901. Over the brief three-generation span from her life to mine, global population quadrupled, the world economy grew 14-fold, and industrial output shot up 40-fold. All this astonishing growth was fuelled by a 13-fold increase in energy usage, compared to the already industrialised 19th century. Along the way, we chopped down a quarter of the world’s forests, exterminating tens of thousands of species in a frenzied scramble to convert the natural word into saleable goods and lebensraum for people, our agriculture and our livestock. Two fifths of the world’s land surface has already been sequestered for the exclusive benefit of just one species. This human tsunami also unleashed a five-fold increase in air pollution, and a 17-fold increase in emissions of the critical trace ‘greenhouse’ gas, Carbon dioxide (CO2). This ongoing orgy of extraction, consumption and population growth was predicated on one key ingredient: cheap, plentiful energy. In the 20th century, humans employed more energy than in all the previous 1,900 centuries of recorded history combined. All these trends have accelerated through the tumultuous first decade of the 21st century, as China and India in particular have clambered enthusiastically aboard the ‘globalisation express’. The energy involved in reshaping the planet is almost unimaginable. Since 1970, the rate of energy building up within the biosphere is on a par with exploding 2.5 of the bombs that levelled Hiroshima every second, or 216,000 atomic bombs a day, every day, for the last four decades. Minus the radiation, of course. Another example that vividly illustrates the might and scale of human planetary reengineering is the Syncrude mine in Canada’s Athabasca tar sands. This one project involves displacing some 30 billion tonnes of earth – that’s twice the total tonnage of sediment carried down all the world’s rivers in a year. For better or for worse, man is now the dominant force of nature on this planet. As Brian Cowen reminded us, being in power should not be confused with being in control. “The human race, without intending anything of the sort, has undertaken a gigantic uncontrolled experiment on the Earth”, is how environmental historian Prof John McNeill put it. The bubble of spectacular affluence and comfort enjoyed by many of us in the Western world has been sustained by spending down the Earth’s finite natural capital and exhausting its ability to absorb wastes at an ever-increasing rate. The WWF’s Living Planet Index (which measures trends in biological diversity) found that between 1970 and 2007, global biodiversity had declined by an astonishing 30 per cent. “This global trend suggests we are degrading natural ecosystems at a rate unprecedented in human history,” says the WWF. The UN Environment Programme concurs, adding: “The world is currently undergoing a very rapid loss of biodiversity comparable with the great mass extinction events that have previously occurred only five times in the Earth’s history”. The mass die-off of the Sixth Extinction that has already spelled the end for vast swathes of the natural world has not – yet – impacted directly on human numbers. But since we are perched precariously at the apex of a global food chain that itself is a subset of a biosphere in freefall, this is no longer a matter of if, but when, and just how severe it will be. Not everyone is alarmed. “I think human beings are a failed species – we’re on the way out,” is the blunt assessment of Prof Michael Boulter of London’s Natural History Museum. “Our lives are so artificial they can’t possibly be sustained within the limits of our planet”. Looking down the road, he adds: “The planet would of course be delighted for humans to become extinct, and the sooner it happens, the better”. The Professor’s prognosis may be accurate, but that hardly makes it any less unpalatable to us humans. The scientific warning bells have been tolling ever more urgently recently. In May 2011 an expert group that included 17 Nobel laureates issued the ‘Stockholm Memorandum’ urging emergency action to reduce human pressures on the global environment. The language is plain: “Science makes clear that we are transgressing planetary boundaries
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The Irish Red Cross fired me for detailing its delinquencies. By Noel Wardick In July 2005 I came home after seven months in Darfur and seven years working in Africa. I accepted a job with the Irish Red Cross (IRC) as Head of its International Department, based in Dublin. Perhaps I should have listened to a colleague of mine who informed me it was considered a dysfunctional organisation and had a high staff turnover. I was, however, glad to be home and the Red Cross was a global organisation with an impeccable reputation. After my first month it was clear that the IRC had problems. Within weeks I had reservations about the capacity of the Finance Department. More worryingly I was very uncomfortable with certain procurement practices which were largely out of the hands of senior management and instead under the control of certain board members. I expressed concern. I was advised “this is the way business is done here” and not to challenge the two or three individuals who dominated the board. In June 2007 the Secretary General (SG) left in acrimonious circumstances. She had been pushing for reform, a dangerous pursuit in IRC. By 2009 there were problems with a huge financial deficit, staff redundancies, staff morale, failures to rotate board members and delays in distributing funds raised for that year’s domestic flooding. Throughout the period 2005-2010 I challenged the prevailing culture at the Society. I sought reform, accountability, transparency and openness. Where I could implement it, on the international side, I did. Where I couldn’t, at the level of the board, I documented my concerns to the organisation’s hierarchy. I was forever being told “Noel, you are a marked man”. The discovery of an undeclared bank account in mid-2008 in Tipperary under the name of the IRC, which had had €162,000 lying in it for over three years, caused consternation and panic. The money was supposed to be for victims of the 2004 Asian tsunami but money was not forwarded to IRC head office as per IRC financial procedures. The Vice Chairman of the IRC was a signatory on the account. He denied any wrongdoing. At least one call for his resignation was made. Questions were asked in the Dáil, particularly by Labour’s Brian O’Shea and towards the end of 2009 many of these matters were covered in Village Magazine, which named names and outlined details of the undeclared bank account for the first time; and in some, though not many other organs. With one or two notable exceptions, the establishment media seemed uninterested that a pillar of the charitable sector was in fact seriously delinquent. Another SG resigned suddenly and unexpectedly in November 2009 and a discomfited David Andrews, Chairman for 10 years, resigned on the same day. Chaos and turmoil followed. Eventually an investigation, highly compromised as it was internal, took place in late 2010 following intense media and political pressure. Serious errors, breaches of policy and mistakes were identified. Blame was apportioned to no-one. The signatories on the account were not sanctioned or reprimanded. The Vice Chairman was re-appointed to the IRC board for the 21st year in a row on May 28th 2011. This despite the IRC’s public position that it intended reforming its governance. By 2010 every attempt was being made to silence dissent and protect long established power bases. I began writing an anonymous blog outlining the IRC’s problems. Attempts were made to inform IRC members about the blog and to encourage them to take action. Shutting the blog down became an obsession for the IRC hierarchy. This culminated in the extraordinary decision in mid 2010 to take legal action against Google HQ in California demanding they reveal the identity of the blog author. Google refused. IRC incurred huge legal costs in the failed legal action. In August 2010 I publicly revealed for the first time, on RTE’s Prime Time, that I was the blog author. I had, just days before, told the IRC. In November 2010 I was fired “for gross misconduct”. I have taken an Unfair Dismissals action against the IRC. The backlog of cases means it will be many months yet before the case is heard. In the meantime I remain unemployed. The complete absence in Ireland of whistle-blowing protection for employees who in good faith report abuses means the weapon of fear can and is used to great effect in ensuring those who witness wrongdoing remain silent. Those responsible for the financial irregularities and the breaches of good corporate governance at the IRC remain in positions of authority and seniority. The government knows this and still it unquestioningly gives €1 million of tax payers’ money to the IRC every year. One government-appointed member of the IRC Central Council summed it up “Until those responsible for the Tipperary tsunami bank account scandal are removed and until those board members with excessive service step down the future of the IRC remains seriously jeopardised”.
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By Niall Crowley Theatre and the arts have choices to make in a time of crises. While they have been effective in organising for survival and the National Campaign for the Arts has been certainly impressive, the messages from the campaign raise disturbing questions as to the choices being made by theatre and the arts. The campaign sets out a belief in the value of the arts and in a society that values creativity, imagination and expression. It points to the role of the arts in enriching our lives. It also, however, emphasises the value of the arts to economic growth, tourism and the smart economy and the contribution of the arts to enhancing our image and reputation abroad. These messages are tailored to a purpose: theatre and the arts have chosen to be at the service of the economic and political élite. They have taken on to create the conditions for this élite to sustain profit taking in a time of crises by contributing to economic development and by creating favourable market conditions. There is no focus on theatre and the arts enabling people to question their current situation and how it is being managed by this political and economic élite. The campaign notes how the new Government needs our help to implement its Programme for Government and to deliver “the society we all want”. It highlights that an investment in the arts is an investment in Ireland and in the closer realisation of “the society we all want”. Any such consensus about society seems unrealistic in a context of the deep inequalities that persist in our society. The suggestion of such a consensus is unhelpful where alternatives being put forward are smothered with the mantra that we have no choice. The role of theatre and the arts in enabling people and communities to imagine different futures to the divided, unsustainable and unequal future offered by the political and economic élite is being denied. The ‘Imagine Ireland’ initiative launched earlier this year in the USA reflects similar choices. Mary Hanafin, then Minister for Tourism, Culture and Sports, highlighted that arts and culture are vital to Ireland’s recovery and to the relationship between Ireland and the USA. Gabriel Byrne noted that there was nothing new in this idea of imagining Ireland. He highlighted the work of W.B. Yeats in founding the Abbey Theatre with the aim of re-imagining Ireland for the 20th Century. He did not contrast the impressive ambition of Yeats with the tawdry ambition of ‘Imagine Ireland’ in imagining Ireland for tourists and investors from the USA. Theatre and the arts are there to rebuild our image and reputation abroad. They are to boost economic growth and enable economic recovery. ‘Imagine Ireland’ grew from discussions at the 2009 Global Irish Economic Forum. Business and cultural leaders were brought together to discuss ways to escape our parlous economic situation. Arts and culture were diminished by participants as a vital door opener abroad for Irish business. Ireland’s unquestioning artists bolster the economic and political élite When theatre and the arts choose to speak beyond the confines of their own sector it would appear that the interlocutor of choice is the business sector. Figures from theatre and the arts are largely invisible when it comes to collaboration with any other parts of civil society. Where they have participated, it has been largely confined to individuals fronting high-profile and well-resourced initiatives that pose little threat to the dominant status quo. This is an engagement more akin to patronage than to the collaboration that is required. Theatre and the arts have yet to reach out in any meaningful way to other parts of civil society seeking social and political change. As a result their capacity to arouse outrage at our current situation has not been deployed to any significant extent. The potential of theatre and the arts to challenge the ideological forces that sustain a response to crises that merely deepens inequality has yet to be realised. Their contribution to imagining a different and better society is still awaited.
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Democracy poses a threat to Israeli governments. By Kevin Barrington The theocratic nature of Israel has for too long been concealed behind the empty slogan ‘the Middle East’s only democracy’. The idea of a Jewish state is tolerated and defended by the same ‘progressives’ who shiver at the mention of an Islamic one. And while the US railed against the brute nature of the Taliban’s Islamic state it rallies in defence of the anti-democratic idea of a Jewish one. Worldwide indignation was aroused by the insult to modernity that was the Taliban’s use of the chador. Yet somehow the world is supposed to find acceptable Israel’s use of that appalling medieval phenomenon: the siege. Afghani woman were ‘imprisoned’ inside the chador. A whole Palestinian people is imprisoned inside Gaza. Like all religious states, Israel’s true anti-cosmopolitan nature has rarely been debated. Ironically, it’s the secular, democratic desires of the Arab Spring’s protests that have thrown an unforgiving spotlight on both the Jewish State’s backwardness and its fears of change to the region’s retrogressive status quo. ‘New historian’ Israeli Benny Morris believes that an ethnically-cleansed religious state was Israel’s aim from the very outset. When global awareness started to render unacceptable the policy of ‘transfer,’ a more subtle, but equally evil, policy of ‘politicide’ was adopted. Politicide is an attack on any of the constructs that define people as a nation. Its aim is to deprive people of hope and to encourage emigration through despair. The leak of the Palestine Papers – diplomatic correspondence about the Arab-Israeli peace talks from 1999-2010 – further undermined Israel’s pretence at being the rational peace-seeker faced with a delinquent, intransigent partner. Predictably, the bulk of the media supported this pretence. Most coverage told us how a corrupt Palestinian Authority was prepared to sell its people’s aspirations short while the leaders lusted for the perks of power. But what the leaked papers really revealed was the flip side of this tale of treachery and greed: the fact that the Palestinians were prepared to bend over backwards for a peace deal. Yet still they got nothing. And the world was spun the fallacious rehash of the Palestinians “never missing an opportunity to miss an opportunity”. Neither the democratic challenge of the Arab Spring nor the truths revealed by the Palestine Papers has curbed Israel’s backward ambitions. Instead the world witnessed Benjamin Netanyahu getting 29 Congressional standing ovations whilst bluntly rejecting Obama’s call for a ‘1967’ based peace deal – a plan which Israel’s continuing policy of creating facts on the ground has rendered nearly redundant. Like a true zealot, Netanyahu treated us to a paean to old-fashioned greed and territorial expansionism which if uttered by an ayatollah would have made many a young Iranian blush. But Netanyahu can’t even hear the supposed ‘sense’ of the Israeli left as they currently proclaim that a ‘1967’ based plan is the best deal modernity will offer to that ultimately offensive and outdated concept: the religious state. A democratic deficit, to put it mildly, is the hallmark of all of Israel’s Arab neighbours. But, despite oppression, it’s the citizens of those countries who are out on the streets bravely demanding that they be granted the decency of a modern democracy. The Arabs leaders may now quake at their peoples’ demands. But they are not alone in their fear of democracy. “More and more Palestinians are uninterested in a negotiated, two-state solution, because they want to change the essence of the conflict from an Algerian paradigm to a South African one. From a struggle against ‘occupation,’ in their parlance, to a struggle for one-man-one-vote. That is, of course, a much cleaner struggle, a much more popular struggle – and ultimately a much more powerful one. For us, it would mean the end of the Jewish state.” Thus spoke the former vice-prime-minister in Ariel Sharon’s government, Ehud Olmert, talking to the Israeli paper Haaretz in 2003. Olmert was recommending Israel impose a unilateral solution to safeguard the Jewish state and protect its religious status from the fatal threat of one-man one-vote. Olmert shows us that many in Israel, safeguarded by nuclear weaponry, see0 its real existential threat not in Arab armalites but in the ballot box. Olmert told Haaretz that his “formula for the parameters of a unilateral solution are: To maximise the number of Jews; to minimise the number of Palestinians; not to withdraw to the 1967 border and not to divide Jerusalem”. The newspaper noted that Olmert’s language was that of “long ago” adding that the former vice prime- minister hankered “unabashedly for those more hopeful times.” It seems those more “hopeful times” were back when the ethnic cleansing implicit in ‘minimising’ Palestinians was a more acceptable pursuit. Olmert’s language does indeed hark back to “long ago”. Because in the 21st century, when it comes down to a choice of religion over democracy, the answer must be quite simple. And when religion involves the complete abnegation of democracy, the question ceases even to be legitimate.
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Day 100 (June 2011 Editorial)
On Enda Kenny rests that most daunting of responsibilities in this battered society: the fulfilment of Hope In our last edition just before the general election we expressed, without confidence, the hope that having been the victims of some of the most notoriously bad governance on the planet, we would have learnt that our political classes need to be replaced. In fact, at election time we saw no new ideas and no significant new parties. The non-ideological, non-visionary parties of the incompetent pragmatic centre touted their old ideas, bolstered only by professions of aspirations to higher standards of ethics and transparency. Village has consistently made the case that Fine Gael is the closest thing to Fianna Fáil, being driven by small-time vested interests (see for example the Cherrywood article at p60) and a blasé laissez-faire. We see no reason to alter this judgement in terms of the fundamentals of policy: wealth creation and distribution (see Niall Crowley at p46), and the environment (see for example the cute handling of the despoliation of Ireland’s raised bogs at p16). The handling of the debt crisis is indistinguishable from Fianna Fail’s, despite a manifest, though comprehensively obviated, public desire for radical change. Fine Gael’s manifesto declared, “Borrowing up to €25bn in additional funds from the EU/IMF at 5.8 per cent to cover additional bank losses from firesales of loans and other bank assets at rock-bottom prices, as this government has agreed, will push Irish government debt towards unsustainable levels and hinder economic recovery, threatening the stability of the entire Euro area”. Yet this is what the coalition is doing, even as the coalition concedes major interest-rate changes are unlikely. Elsewhere also the coalition are pushing the previous government’s programme. Fine Gael implied it would hesitate to recapitalise the banks if bank losses were higher than anticipated. In fact it recapitalised them anyway. It said it would burn unsecured senior bondholders “as part of a European-wide framework for senior debt focusing on insolvent institutions like Anglo Irish and Irish Nationwide that have no systemic importance” but will not. Fine Gael said it would introduce water and property taxes only after preliminary measures and safeguards were in place but is now moving ahead anyway. And so on. There have, however, been some substantial policy improvements. Restoring the minimum wage level is a welcome gesture to social solidarity as is the IMF-mandated intention to shake up the legal and medical professions in openness in government. There have also been important improvements in openness including promised referenda on compellability of witnesses for Dáil committees and overdue whistleblowers’ protection, (see Noel Wardick’s article at p25), extension of the bodies covered by Freedom of Information and expansion of the role of the Ombudsman. There have too been marked improvements in tone. These include the reduction in ministerial cars, a promised referendum on judges’ pay and less-partisan Seanad appointments. Nevertheless, the change is fragile: nepotism continues in the hiring of political assistants and drivers and, depressingly if predictably Phil Hogan has downgraded John Gormley’s review of local authority planning malpractice. In our last edition we predicted that Mr Kenny would collapse under scrutiny, particularly on the international stage, and we churlishly queried his credibility. This was too harsh. In fact, despite a strange cattlemanish delivery and a tendency to term his co-nationals ‘Paddy”, lachrymosity in the presence of Riverdance and some probably-unfairly-derided oratorical plagiarism, he has performed adequately, and sometimes well, as his confidence has risen with high office. In this he mirrors the ascent of other assumed light-weights such as John Bruton; and even Albert Reynolds and Bertie Ahern. The Taoiseach has certainly been helped by recent State ceremonies and the associated pomp. The Queen’s visit was a triumph and, like most reconciliations, worth the effort. President Obama too, though not at his charismatic best, leavened the pervading national misery; and the death of Garret FitzGerald provided an opportunity to reflect on the possibilities of a lifetime dedicated to public service. Enda Kenny should use his political capital to take a braver, more economically-literate and indeed, since it is unfair to make a country including its most vulnerable pay the debts of its banks, more ethical stance on the elementary truth that Ireland is insolvent (see Constantin Gurdgiev at p6). It will anyway be exposed as such next year when it must seek investors in government bonds who, given current rates of 11%, are not likely to provide affordable funding. While the government ignores this, pursuing chimerical economics, it is difficult to divine much clarity of purpose anywhere, a difficulty that can only get worse if the political capital dissipates. On the narrow shoulders of Enda Kenny rests that most daunting of responsibilities in this battered society: the fulfilment of Hope. On the economy, on the environment and on equality he should be braver.
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Fuel aid is 31% of value of Irish fish landings. By Dara McHugh On May 12, the European Parliament voted 369 to 203 in favour of the ceiling for de minimis aid to individual fishing companies being doubled. De minimis aid is aid which can be granted by national governments without breaching the general proscription on state aid. The increased ceiling could, if endorsed by the Commission, be used to help the industry cope with higher fuel prices. This would be the second time that the de minimis ceiling has been raised; the Commission previously increased it by a scale of ten, from €3,000 to €30,000, in 2007. The argument for increasing the size of potential aid payments is fairly clear: the industry relies heavily on subsidies and would likely go under without them. For those vessels that use mobile gear (trawling, dredging, etc), fuel amounts to approximately 60% of operating costs, so assistance allows fishing that would otherwise be unprofitable, to continue. On the other hand, the industry’s problems do not stop at energy. The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation estimates 85% of fish stocks are over- or fully- exploited, while European stocks are believed to be more than 70% over-exploited. Fisheries are, it is clear, on an unsustainable path. It doesn’t make sense, then, to increase subsidies that exacerbate the excess. The fundamental problem is over over-capacity; there is too much catching power and too few fish. A 2009 Green Paper on Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) Reform called fleet over-capacity “the fundamental problem” of the CFP, a view backed up by a recent report by the Chair of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) Negotiating Group on Rules. This over-capacity is sustained by a poorly thought-out régime of subsidies. Both WTO and CFP reports focus on the role of subsidies, and particularly fuel subsidies, in maintaining over-capacity. Fishing vessels can avail of marked diesel, whose rate of excise is about 9% that of standard diesel; and since fuel is the biggest cost component, this support is crucial. In Ireland, the fuel subsidy is, according to recent research by Smart Taxes Network, approximately 31% of the value of landings. These subsidies worsen over-fishing, as they enable destructive and energy-intensive fishing methods to continue when they would not otherwise be economically viable. It doesn’t make sense for national or European subsidies to support the industry in destroying its own resource. Instead of responding to short-term economic demands, policy-makers should see subsidies as a tool for managing and protecting fish stocks and ecosystems. Stock recovery plans are an obvious starting point for this approach. Irish Sea cod stocks, for instance, despite over 10 years of rebuilding programmes, are showing no sign of recovery. A major factor is that derogations, sought by the industry, allow trawling to continue in the sea for other, less threatened species such as Nephrops, the Norwegian lobster. This non-selective fishing inevitably brings cod by-catch and undermines its recovery. Consequently, the EU cut cod quotas in December last year and Commissioner Damanaki has even threatened the complete closure of the Irish Sea to fishing if the situation does not improve. Ultimately, as long as non-selective fishing for other stocks continues in a recovery area, the threatened species will be caught and killed. Species-recovery requires that government direct subsidies to that end. Smart Taxes’ research proposes a simple mechanism for doing this: to disallow marked (subsidised) diesel to any vessel that is caught using towed gear in a recovery zone. Fuel costs are so substantial, and the marked diesel support so significant, that this would be a strong incentive for compliance. More broadly, instead of blind spending such as de minimis aid, subsidies should be used to help the industry reduce its capacity and adapt to biological reality. Other useful measures would include aid for implementing selective methods in recovery areas, so that only healthy stocks are caught, leaving the threatened species untouched. As the de minimis vote showed, the fishing industry is threatened by insolvency. Biological sustainability is being accorded lower priority than economic survival. The role of Government and European support is to ensure that the two imperatives overlap. Dara McHugh works for Smart Taxes
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Information maestro (June 2011)
Journalists should FoI and Cross-reference. Miriam Cotton interviews Gavin Sheridan of TheStory.ie Miriam Cotton (MC): What did you do before you started The Story? Gavin Sheridan (GS): In 2002 I started Gavinsblog.com. That’s in semi-retirement though it is still up there. I was just 21 then and at the time there were only about a dozen blogs in Ireland. The Iraq war was imminent, 9/11 had happened and the blog was a place where you could start writing about whatever you wanted. MC: When and how did the idea for TheStory.ie come to you? GS: I started to become involved in local government stuff after I graduated in 2008 from UCC. My New Year resolution in January 2009 was to build an Irish version of ‘TheyWorkForYou.com’ which was a British parliamentary transparency website. After I graduated I started working on this in my spare time. I found out that a man called John Handlaar was already trying to build something similar in Ireland. By April 2009 we had the first version of KildareStreet.com which is the Irish version of ‘They Work For You’. From my involvement in all of this I had become very interested in open government. I went to some conferences in London in summer 2009 and again I met some very interesting people. Heather Brooke did the original Freedon of Information request (FOI) for MP’s expenses. This was all very interesting to me – there was no FOI culture in Ireland. A few people had done some FOIs – Damien Mulley had done some on broadband and the Department of Communications. Journalists were using them but relatively infrequently. I realised that the culture that existed in the UK where citizens were putting in FOIs about, for example, why a building down the road had been sold for one pound, just didn’t exist here. So the first thinking I did when I got back to Ireland was to look at what FOIs were being done and the most interesting one I found was Ken Foxe’s one about John O’Donoghue. I FOI’d his FOI – not because I wanted to steal his story but because I wanted to see the receipts. It was a really good story that was going into The Sunday Tribune every weekend. But it wasn’t being talked about in the dailies or on the radio. The Department of Culture, Sport and Tourism sent them to me and I put them on-line through my scanner and started publishing the details of each trip. That gave the story an extra push. TheStory.ie hadn’t started at this stage so I put them on my own blog [GavinsBlog]. I also went to the Politics.ie website and gave them the details. I had met Mark Coughlan (Co-founder of TheStory.ie) at a Fianna Fáil Árd Fheis earlier that year and we’d been talking a good bit about this concept. We started ‘The Story’ in August 2009, just when the story about the expenses of John O’Donoghue, Ceann Comhairle, was taking off. Instead of submitting FOIs for individual things, we thought why not FOI for everything! What is fundamental to getting everything under an FOI is to submit requests for databases. If the government has gone to the trouble of more efficiently holding information then we can write more efficient FOIs to more efficiently get that efficiently-held information! The process of exporting a database is quite easy and a large amount of information can be got. We were thinking that if they’ve got an expenses database, we don’t just want to know about John O’Donoghue we want to know everything – within reason. How do one set of expenses relate to others? We were about transparency and advocacy – transparency first, journalism second. Most journalists would not know how to control a big spreadsheet of data and that was something we had to teach ourselves. A friend of mine who was working on the BBC’s Panorama taught me a lot of basic computer-assisted reporting like what you do with a spreadsheet once you get it, how you analyse it and graphically represent it. We learned about all the tools that are freely available for mapping information – the basics of Excel and Google Fusion Table. Cleaning spreadsheets is very important for instance. We then set out a policy whereby we began to look for precedent. We decided that if we were refused a database we wouldn’t just say ‘well, that’s that then’. We decided to appeal any decision which we believed was worth the €225 to appeal it – things that would have the effect of broadening the scope of the FOI Act as much as we could. Ken Foxe’s FOIs were an example of how documents are important because within them was information relating to the database that was used to record the information. We saw that they were using a thing called Oracle. The whole exercise took three months. There was an initial request testing to see how they would reply, then a second request asking for the entire database. That was refused under three FOI Act exemptions so we appealed that and finally we appealed to the Information Commissioner in January 2010. We eventually got the database. It named the civil servants, how much they claimed and more or less what it was for, but with some redactions applied because you have to work around S.10 of the FOI Act which is to do with volume. If you’re asking for a lot of information they can argue that it’s too voluminous. There is a certain amount of bartering. I was being as reasonable as possible and it was possible to have some negotiation. The day after we had reached an agreement with the Information Commissioner and with the Department of Arts, Sports & Tourism and we had published it, we went to other departments saying there was no reason why these other requests should be refused. Ultimately the databases that we have now published account for nearly half
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Former IMF Managing Director and his wife Serial philanderer Strauss-Kahn has been charged with trying to rape a Manhattan hotel maid.
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Transcendent Dylan (June 2011)
Mama, You Been On My Mind triumphs under scrutiny. By John Waters I wouldn’t, in normal circumstances, go so far as to assert that any of Bob Dylan’s songs is his best. That would risk being too big a statement. But if you put a gun to my head this very moment and demanded that, on pain of death for getting it wrong, I name his best song, I feel I would have a fighting chance of surviving if I mentioned Mama, You Been On My Mind. The strange thing is that I don’t think of it as a song. It’s deeper than that. Of course, there are versions of it that turn it into a song, including some horrendous duets Dylan did with Joan Baez. But there is a version in existence in which the song lives in a different way, as something more than the sum of its parts, as something so special you have to wonder why it is only to be found in one apparently throwaway version on the Bootleg collection, just one of many interesting tracks that got left to one side. The sleevenotes with the Bootleg Series tell us it was recorded in the middle of 1964. They also mention the several versions Dylan was to do with Baez – when Dylan would “ham the song up unmercifully”; and the solo version Baez released – ridiculously called Daddy, You Been On My Mind – on her 1965 album, Farewell Angelina. The solo recording that features on the Dylan bootleg was presumably made before this, perhaps in 1964 or even earlier. The note also mentions several other versions of the song that Dylan recorded or participated in. One, a “rather ponderous version as a Witmark demo with piano accompaniment in the summer of 1964”, another with George Harrison in 1970, in a New York session of which nothing was ever released. We are told that he performed the song live several times. If you search for it on YouTube, you get people who sing the song and don’t tell you it was Dylan that wrote it. You get people who sing it so badly that you wonder why they bother. You get Dylan and Baez cheerfully murdering it. You get a Johnny Cash version in which he inexplicably changes the lyric, including the opening line, arguably the greatest in all of popular music, for reasons unstated but worth speculating about. But if you want to hear Dylan sing it as it was meant to be sung, you need to get the Bootleg Series and expect to be playing nothing else for a week. Dylan wrote, recorded and released lots of songs. Many of them are carried by stories or statements or riddles or simply clever hooks that make you wonder about the immense sense of irony that resides within this man, this poet, this seeker, this joker. For half a century he has been standing on the edge of the world looking in, reflecting or refracting some things that caught his eye, uttering them in ways that always suggest a stab at truthfulness, then moving on as though unsure what he has done. Almost none of his songs are finished, and some are no more than begun. Some of them seem to go on forever and others seem to end before they get to the chase – containing “too much and not enough”, as he put it himself, coating their subjects in words as though to convey the inadequacy of description. But this song, this statement, this riddle, this joke, has something more in it than the others. It has Dylan in it in a way that the rest of his songs do not. Dylan is a storyteller, a creator: there is no need for him to be present in his songs, and there are no reasons for us to jump to the conclusion that we have glimpsed him in any or all of them. At any given moment it might be him or not, probably not. There is a character in this song, but I don’t suggest this character is Dylan. It might be, but it doesn’t really matter. The voice is Dylan’s and he gives this voice to the character as he does in many other songs. There is a baldness and clarity to the delivery that suggests it is Dylan talking. His voice carries none of the affection it sometimes has when he is trying to find the right pose or attitude for a song. Anyone who has read his autobiographical work, Chronicle, will know that he likes to lay false trails and blow up existing understandings. But there is a trueness here that is difficult to avoid. His voice is up close in a way that it rarely is. It is as though he has stopped to get real, if only for a few moments. The song, if it can be called a song, is great because it is not a song. There is no real hook to hide behind. It has no chorus, just the repeated title line. Moreover, the song is itself concerned with laying false trails, about the duplicity that lies behind the word and the note and the face and the name. Deep down, he has said more than once, nobody’s got a name. And yet the song that is not a song is, in another sense, banal. It is a kind of love song, on the surface of things a throwaway afterthought about a relationship that ended some time ago. Except that it is not throwaway. It is not an afterthought. It is a cry from deep within the heart of one who has loved too much and lost not just the love but also the capacity to face that loss. It is the plea of someone whose life has been stilled by the fallout from desire and the encounter with its limits. It is a song about the way human longing has the capacity
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The Mahon Tribunal, perhaps to avoid discrediting chief witness Frank Dunlop, failed comprehensively to investigate the Cherrywood rezoning that led to its establishment. By Michael Smith In 1995 Colm MacEochaidh and I sponsored a £10,000 reward for “information leading to the conviction of persons for rezoning corruption” after I had been involved in a long campaign against the suspicious rezoning of Cherrywood, beside Dublin’s Bray Road some years earlier. Allegations we received through our Newry solicitor, Kevin Neary, brought James Gogarty into the public eye and indirectly led to the establishment of the Flood/Mahon Tribunal, the jailing of Ray Burke and the resignation of Bertie Ahern. With the scandalously-delayed tribunal report again deferred – but this time only until the autumn – this is the evidence I gave to the Tribunal (available on its website). 1960-1983 For me one of the main distinguishing attractions of growing up in built-up Loughlinstown in the 1970s was its access to the idyllic Shanganagh Valley. This was an arcadian landscape, celebrated since the Norman invasion, bordered on one side by the Bray dual-carriageway and an ancient wall and then unbounded all the way to Stepaside and Kilternan, miles to the West. Thousands of acres of greenery. At Cherrywood dramatic hills ran down to the Shanganagh River, there was a stray orchard and a country lane; mysterious minor archaeological artefacts were present in inexplicable abundance; these and a wood of oak and beech gave the place an air of transcendence and permanence. This is how it was obliterated. 1989 On 30 June 1989 the banner headline across the front of The Irish Times Property supplement stated that Monarch Properties, best known for developing the Square in Tallaght, had bought 234 acres which they intended to rezone and develop with 900 houses, opening up the yawning interior of the Valley also to the JCB panoply. Though I had long moved out of the area and was unlikely to return to that part of Dublin, I was concerned; and I wrote letters to Dublin county councillors suggesting they zone the area amenity, perhaps with the aid of some sort of land swap. 1990 By 1990 the Council management wanted to rezone much of what they now called the “Carrickmines” Valley for a population of 30,000 people along what The Irish Times described as a Los Angeles-style grid-system. Residential development of 1,000 acres with two district centres (Cherrywood and Ballyogan), industrial development around a motorway and a brand new sewer were the main components of this proposal from management as recommended at a meeting of Dublin County Council on 18th Oct 1990. A heavyweight representative organisation styling itself the Carrickmines Valley Preservation Association (CVPA) was established to lobby against wholesale rezonings. They said the Carrickmines Valley was the Southside’s Phoenix Park. They took a hard-hitting approach, focusing on councillors and making them account for their actions. They held terrifying monster meetings. Councillors were probably scared to appear pro-rezoning. Between 1990 and 1993 the CVPA distributed several high-quality and effective leaflets to the tens of thousands of people in the area they said they represented. On 6th December 1990 Councillors Ed McDonald, Jim Murphy and Betty Coffey successfully proposed a motion that the Los Angeles-style development be limited to one (the eastern) side of the proposed line of the South Eastern Motorway, that the proposed industrial zoning be reduced and that the residential zoning and open spaces be indicated. 1991 The management produced obfuscating maps providing confusingly for the 6th December motion “except for updating to take account of the developments to date and adjustments of objective drawing number DP90A/129A refers”. In fact this provided for most of the Monarch lands to be zoned at four houses to the acre. A motion proposing this passed 21: 19. It went on public display and the local elections intervened. It would be for the new County Council, following a big public debate, to see if it wished to proceed with this sort of zoning. The CVPA were very influential in getting these resolutions passed. In 1991 so far as I was concerned development had been stopped. Newspapers and the CVPA said there had been no significant zoning change. So, relieved but concerned about the future, I decided I’d put out a leaflet before the 1991 local election in the name of the Campaign for Honesty in Politics drawing attention to the record of councillors in the outgoing council on a sample of specific issues. Its principal point was that there was a device whereby councillors outside an area voted for rezonings while their local colleagues cynically voted against. It noted that this practice was favoured by the big parties. It was hard-hitting and we distributed 7,000 copies of it in the Ballybrack/Loughlinstown/Cabinteely/Foxrock areas (see page 65). Some time in October 1991, I realised with consternation that in fact the Monarch lands had been rezoned. In late 1991 I set up a group which we called the Shanganagh Protection Committee. It was intended to sound like SPUC, a topically passionate protest group of the time. We were a bunch of about ten in our mid-twenties – precarious student-types. We included two members who subsequently became active in national politics in the Green party Éamon Ryan and Déirdre de Burca. Now Monarch, aware of the accumulating opposition, went on the offensive. 1992 The Roadshow Monarch employed soccer anchor and all-round cuddleball, Bill O’Herlihy who had a Fine Gael background and the ear of many councillors. His public relations company published a lot of cynical propaganda and organised a series of roadshows, mostly in schools, on Friday evening, Saturday and Sunday for eleven weeks, in which they touted their scheme for Cherrywood. These were staffed by droves of Monarch personnel who we got to know quite well. They had a large-scale model of the scheme. Members of the Shanganagh Protection Committee would stand outside – often because the school or institution would have been paid to keep us out, counter-propagandising. At these roadshows Monarch
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Posted in:
Mighty, Lucky Quinn (June 2011)
The Quinn empire benefited from goodwill in Cavan County Council and among -at least most – locals By Anton McCabe The epic fall of Seán Quinn and his Quinn Group is the end of an empire – one which has left a legacy of environmental degradation along the Cavan-Fermanagh border. There is a network of quarries in the area around Ballyconnell (Co. Cavan) and Derrylin (Co. Fermanagh). No figure for the area of quarries in Fermanagh is available; however, the area in Cavan was 257.7 acres in 2006 – around 130 football pitches. In the same small rural area, the Quinn Group also operated a cement factory; a factory producing rigid-polyurethane insulation; a block-making plant; a ready-mix plant in Co Cavan; and, on the Fermanagh side of the Border, a glass factory; another block-making facility; a factory making concrete floors; a tar-making plant and a tile making factory. Five years ago, An Taisce described what has happened on the Ballyconnell-Derrylin road as “a massive combination of large-scale industrial development (which) has occurred without the land in question ever being zoned for such development or subject to the integrated provision of services and road infrastructure required. The developments approved by Cavan County Council and An Bord Pleanála both individually and cumulatively have taken place without the required individual or cumulative service provisions, traffic management or environmental mitigation measures being in place. Each development granted in succession is going to exacerbate the problems caused by previous planning permissions for other developments”. The Group and other Quinn companies have been fortunate in their dealings with the planning authorities. On three major projects, the board of An Bord Pleanála has over-ruled the reports of its inspectors, who recommended refusal. In 2004, An Bord Pleanála over-rode the recommendation of its inspector to refuse permission for a 110- acre quarry south-east of Swanlinbar, and a linked 10.9 kilometre access road across Slieve Rushen to the Quinn cement factory at Ballyconnell. The planning application covered 24 townlands. The inspector wrote, in his recommendation of refusal: “it is considered that the proposed development would result in the pollution of ground and surface waters in the vicinity of the site, would be prejudicial to public health and would be seriously injurious to the amenities of the River Blackwater“. He questioned proposals to close the quarry after it became exhausted: “A large hole filled with water in continuity with the groundwater system will, in perpetuity, be a site at which the groundwater system is vulnerable to contamination”. Seven years earlier, applying for the cement factory at Ballyconnell, the Quinn Group had informed the North’s Environment and Heritage Service that further quarry development would not be necessary: “It notes the new plant would require an increased supply of raw materials but the supply will be available in existing quarries”. The site of the quarry was of archaeological importance. Archaeologist Robert M Chappell has described it as “outstanding” because it had been occupied from the Early Neolithic to the Medieval period. Chappell wrote: “few (if any) sites demonstrate such continuity and variety of activities at a single location”. Quinn acted totally within the law on this matter; however, it does not fit well with his self-definition as a man who respects the heritage of his home area. Despite the recommendation of its own inspectors, An Bord Pleanála decided to give permission. It cited a number of reasons, including “the strategic role of mineral extraction in the regional construction and cement industry”. In 2004, An Bord Pleanála’s inspector again recommended refusing planning permission to a ready-mix plant at Gortawee, Ballyconnell. The inspector wrote: “The site for the most part is reserved as ‘High Landscape Area/Leisure Reserved Industry Zone’ in the Ballyconnell Development Plan adopted in 2002. … The development is, thus, in material contravention of this”. Again, An Bord Pleanála granted planning permission, this time with “regard to the pattern of industrial development in the vicinity, (and) to the nature and scale of the proposed development”. In 2008 An Bord Pleanála’s inspector recommended rejection of a combined cycle gas turbine station near Louth Village, Co Louth. The inspector wrote: “The proposed development would in my view therefore materially contravene the Development Plan for the area”. He described it as “visually obtrusive development and a discordant feature in the rural landscape”. An Bord Pleanála’s Board again voted to grant permission, having “particular regard to the location of the site in close proximity to the Monavallet 220kV substation and the nearby gas interconnector, to the topography and nature of the surrounding countryside and to the pattern of development in the area including existing electricity infrastructure, to the function of the proposed power plant as a public utility and to the need for additional electricity generation capacity”. However, the most generous planning body has been Cavan County Council. According to its files, it has granted the Quinn Group and subsidiaries nine applications for retention. This means the developments were developed without planning permission. They included: a 12.2hectare limestone and shale quarry: two office blocks at separate locations: a three hectare shale quarry: and an 0.83 hectare car park: and a third storey on a two-storey office block. The last was in an application from Quinn Hotels to retain additions/alterations to a two-storey office development “additions include extra storey”. One of most spectacular events involving the Quinn Group was the disappearance of a tractor in February 1996 in Co Fermanagh. There is nothing to indicate Seán Quinn had any personal involvement in the disappearance. The Quinn Group was building a road to serve a quarry on the northern side of the Border, and its windfarm on the Molly Mountain, near Derrylin. There was a dispute regarding ownership of one stretch of land. The family claiming ownership went to the North’s High Court, and lost. They were, however, concerned the Quinn Group was not complying with conditions imposed. Family members thus blocked the line of the road with a tractor. The tractor disappeared. The RUC were sufficiently
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The average household needs to find an additional €950 during 2011 to cover energy bills as higher oil prices are passed on by wholesalers and retailers. But must the steady rise in oil prices really have such stark implications for every home? And what should government be doing about it? Having averaged $85 a barrel over the course of 2010, oil is now trading at around $115 a barrel. With demand from Asia keeping on the pressure, forward contracts suggest that $115 is a reasonably reliable average price for 2011. In 2010 Ireland spent €4bn importing oil – crudely an average of €1,000 for every man, woman and child, irrespective of age and income and the comparable figure for 2011 is set to be €1,350. With some 2.7 occupants per home on average, this year the additional burden placed on each household due to higher oil costs alone will be an extraordinary €950. The government is giving the matter little enough attention. First, government is guided to a great extent by the policy assessments of the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI). Sadly, the ESRI has been slow to acknowledge the link between oil costs and economic activity, or to take the next logical step – highlight what can be done on a practical level to stop money leaving the country to buy oil, and circulate it within the local economy instead. (For the wider implications of rising oil prices see the accompanying graph. Again, government-supported economists appear slow to tease out the issues here.) Accounting firm Ernst & Young has a much better sense of the interaction between economic activity and oil cost, pointing out in February of this year that the Irish economy would shrink if oil prices remained in or around $120 a barrel. Their latest figures, released at the end of May, say Ireland’s economy will contract by 2.3 per cent in 2011, with consumer spending falling four per cent over the course of the year. Households, including our 14.8% unemployed, are already struggling with other outgoings. And the pressure from mortgages (790,000 of Ireland’s 1.4m homes are mortgaged) and taxes is being compounded by rising oil prices. Oil prices are likely to rise 30 per cent over the next three years. That’s according to Fatih Birol, chief economist to the International Energy Agency (IEA), in an interview with Australian media at the end of April. The IEA’s track record has been to downplay concerns regarding rising oil prices, which makes Birol’s projection all the more daunting. Translated into prices at the pumps, the IEA forecast would see the cost of a litre of fuel approach €2 within three years, up from €1.45 cent a litre now. Little can be done fast to change travel habits to ease back on oil use. Transport initiatives – the promotion of walking and cycling and public-transport investment will take time to pay dividends, as many households are ‘locked in’ to long-distance car-commuting. Home insulation and home heating offer far more potential. Insulation is being addressed but there is one significant gap: with the Warmer Homes initiative aimed at households with no or low incomes, and the Better Energy programme tending to cater for higher earners, middle income households can literally be left out in the cold. Still, progress is being made. But while insulation helps to hold in the heat it doesn’t create it in the first place. This is where wood-burning stoves and boilers come in. However, grant funding was withdrawn from wood boilers under the Better Energy initiative announced on 11 May. No explanation was given. And more curiously, grants were retained for new oil and gas boilers. This strange decision-making comes at a time when Ireland’s forestry sector is gearing up to supply the commercial and domestic sectors. Government should encourage wood-thinning initiatives. By James Nix A recent publication maps out how forestry thinning can provide a reliable supply for commercial scale wood biomass boilers (“Step by Step Guide to Selling Your Timber for Wood Energy: Experiences from the County Clare Wood Energy Project”, Teagasc, Galway). In Donegal – a county with 60,000 hectares of forest cover – a reliable supply chain has been created for firewood (see www.donegalwoodlandowners.com), with 4.8 cubic metres of seasoned hardwood available for €340 to members of the initiative, for example. And, in what might serve as a model for small and medium-sized forests across Ireland, the company also offers a range of services to the sector, spanning timber processing, marketing, plantation maintenance and business management. Ireland won’t be able to staunch oil price rises. But by promoting alternatives to oil we can stimulate the local economy and maximise resilience.
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Posted in:
Villager (June 2011)
Canapés and gobbleydegook for pampered ex-pats The Government is to host a second global Irish economic forum at Dublin Castle in October, Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore has said. “The forum will provide an opportunity for the Government to meet directly with many of the most influential members of our diaspora and discuss our priorities for economic renewal, job creation and the restoration of Ireland’s reputation abroad,” he told the Dáil. More than the previous forum in 2009 held at Farmleigh, he said, “will be less on what we should be doing and more about action”. The first forum remember was billed as an “Irish Davos” think-in of our business élite and cost €300,000. David McWilliams promised five business plans out of the beano; and Dermot Desmond outlined a brilliant and original plan for a university of the arts. Eighteen months on, Where is the brilliant and original plan for a government-backed “recovery” bond that would be marketed to the 60-70 million Irish diaspora? Or for the “super”-website, “selling the country and linking with, say, the top 1,000 Irish movers and shakers abroad”? Or the plan for nationalising Eircom advanced by Denis O’Brien (may the Gods bless him and make fecund his tribe)? According to Gilmore, Farmleigh “led to the implementation of a series of significant initiatives across a range of areas, including business network development, innovation, tourism, the promotion of Irish culture and diaspora engagement”. “Diaspora-engagement”, Eamon? Ubiquitous waving Villager doesn’t like queens. They expect to be called Your Majesty, to be fawned over and not to be elected. In the particular case of Her whom we still anomalously know as “the” queen she notably never says or does anything progressive either. Still she did a good job here and seemed to enjoy her outing, at least more than such chores as royal weddings and variety performances, if the unusually radiant smile was any indicator. The folk in the Village office couldn’t look out of the window for a week without yer wan’s white glove oscillating up at them. She leaves a strange legacy of luminescent yellow spanner outlines over every drain and man-hole-cover in Dublin city centre. 21st-Century Security. Where are you, youth? Internet activists Art Uncut say they will be holding up a large, illuminated “Bono Pay Up” sign during the band’s set at Glastonbury and will also float an oversized bundle of fake cash across the crowd; from an Irish Tricolour on one side to a Dutch flag on the other – all, of course rehearsing the self-righteous but capitalistic band’s controversial 2006 decision to move part of their business to the Netherlands to lessen their tax burden following the Government’s decision to put a cap on the amount of tax-free earnings available to artists here. Very solicitous of them but why do the British do youthful political activism so much better than here. The last stunt in – politically-disploded – Ireland came courtesy of … Mick Wallace! Denis, Gavin, Brian and Dermot; and Michael Denis O’Brien, Independent News and Media’s largest shareholder, said Gavin O’Reilly and Brian Hillery (soon to be INM ex-chairman as well as ex-chairman of Unicredit in Ireland and general all-purpose FF ex-Senator) were “delusional in their total denial of the extremely chronic financial situation” at the group. Denis O’Brien, remember, is the non-delusional paragon who said, “I never made any payment to Michael Lowry”. Interesting to see his arriviste Esat mucker Dermot Desmond, now the proud owner of 2% of INM, backing him up here. Desmond made over €120 million out of Esat , benefiting from whatever largesse Lowry cast Esat’s way as a result of the goodies paid to him by O’Brien – allegedly. Chief Justice John Murray is retiring as Chief Justice. Apart from a limited number of jurisprudential gems he is most notable for being from Limerick, serving as president of the Union of Students in Ireland in 1966/7, marrying former Supreme Court judge Brian Walsh’s daughter Gabrielle, being twice Attorney General under Charlie Haughey and working as a Judge in the European Court of Justice. Funny with all that he never really caught on as a force for anything much. Anyway the push is on to succeed him. Fine Gael lost out on the Attorney Generalship, with Frank Callanan in particular, historian of Parnell, scourge of Bertie and a staunch Endaite the most disappointed. The Labour/Fine Gael dynamic will determine the next Chief Justiceship which is said to be a call between Susan Denham, elegant and progressive daughter of former Irish Times editor, Douglas – with Labour leanings; Niall Fennelly, ex-Clongownian former European Court of Justice Advocate General – with Fine Gael leanings. Two Fine Gael-leaning High Court judges are also in the mix: Frank Clarke of the High Court, one of the sharpest judges on the bench and Mary Finlay Geoghegan who began her career as a solicitor. Adrian Hardiman, the photographic-memoried Jeremy Clarkson of the bench brings PDish views that are too strong for the squeamish and the soft-minded and has little chance. John Rogers, who served as Attorney General under Dick Spring and engineered the recent ascent of the formidable Máire R Whelan to the attorney generalship in teeth of derision from Michael McDowell and his mouthpiece, Sam Smyth, is a possible last-ditch parachuter in (now the endless hearing at An Bord Pleanála over the Slane Bypass to which he is passionately opposed, has come to an end). Deputy Chief Justice While he’s at the bar, Villager salutes Declan Costello, another one-time Attorney General who died at the beginning of June. He was a disciple of Thomistic philosopher, Maritain. As a politician he was progressive architect of Fine Gael’s influential Just Society document. Later as a High Court Judge he was too inclined to believe that the State represented that Just Society and should not be judicially reprimanded. This led to some hard decisions like his – overturned – 1992 judgment in the X case injuncting the 14-year old rape-victim from leaving the country for an abortion
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By John Gormley It has been a good few weeks for the new government. The visits of the Queen and Barack Obama exceeded all expectations and that air of excitement and optimism still lingers. Even the charges of plagiarism against Enda Kenny could not dampen the euphoria. The new government has managed to convey a feeling of renewal and revitalisation. Their spin-machine is well oiled and operating at maximum efficiency. So much so that many believe the state visits were entirely the initiative of the new government. When you get credit for things you’re not fully responsible for you know you’re on a roll. If an opinion poll was held now – and there must be one due – both Fine Gael and Labour would be the beneficiaries of the feel-good factor. Fianna Fáil, on the other hand, may not have yet reached rock bottom and the dreaded decline could continue for a time. This won’t worry Micheál Martin unduly. He is a skilled and experienced operator who knows only too well that the government honeymoon will continue until the budget. Thereafter, it’s reality time for Fine Gael and Labour and the electorate who placed so much hope in this new administration. They did so on the basis that the incoming government would give the people a better and fairer deal, that they would stimulate employment, that they would burn or at least scorch or singe the bondholders. It is not about to happen. Sure, eventually we will get a lower interest rate but in the context of ten billion a year repayments it won’t make a huge difference. And no amount of spin can hide the fact that growth rates are flat-lining and that the government’s deflationary measures serve only to exacerbate the problem. Éamon Gilmore’s “Frankfurt’s way or Labour’s way” has proven to be not just a diplomatic faux pas but also a major hostage to fortune. Despite this, the government spin machine has ensured that all ministers stick to the script. You’ll notice a number of lines being repeated. The first of these is that this is a ‘national government’. It is not. Fine Gael and Labour rejected the concept of national government whilst in opposition, knowing full well the prize of government would fall into their laps if they could force an election. Both parties now have an overwhelming – and perhaps unwieldy – majority. They are faced with a shrunken , diverse, even disparate opposition, which they can dismiss as inconsequential if they succeed in branding themselves as a national government. The second line trotted out by government ministers and spokespersons is that two-thirds of the adjustment has already been made. True, perhaps. But it wasn’t this government that made that adjustment, a fact that won’t be lost on Micheál Martin as he looks ruefully at his depleted and demoralised ranks. Nor will it be lost on government backbenchers. And here’s one from the blindingly obvious department: taking money out of people’s pockets makes you unpopular. This will concentrate the minds of those backbenchers who got the second party seat in a constituency and those backbenchers who did not get ministerial preferment. There are quite a few who see themselves in that latter category. The third line of spin – and this is the mainstay of government communication – is that fourteen years of Fianna Fáil mismanagement have brought us to this sorry pass, necessitating further austerity measures. It is the line that works best because it has a strong foundation of truth. Nonetheless, as the new Icelandic government knows, it is not a line you can hide behind forever. Come the budget there will be no more benefit of the doubt. The cosy fireside chats, which pass for radio interviews, will be replaced by more rigorous interrogation. And, yes, the poll ratings of this new government will inevitably disimprove. And who will benefit? The answer is clear – Sinn Féin. They have a crop of new articulate deputies who will target Labour ruthlessly. Like Labour, they are extremely pragmatic and will pursue a strictly populist line that could yield significant electoral success in the coming years. Can the Labour party withstand that sort of sustained pressure on their left flank? Probably yes, but it won’t be easy. Already, there are indications of some unease on the Labour bankbenches relating to the Richard Bruton proposals for Sunday payments to low-paid workers. Likewise, there were some on the Fine Gael backbenches who were less than happy with the taxes on pensions. Most significantly, the unequivocal statement by Enda Kenny rejecting any sort of debt restructuring was in direct contradiction of an earlier statement by Pat Rabbitte. Perhaps all of this is simply the creative tension of coalition government, but one thing is certain: the budget will change the dynamic of this government and soundbites and spin doctors will be unable to disguise that.
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By Harry Browne As much by luck as by design, I have found myself in recent months spending some days in two of the world’s great conurbations, Chicago, Illinois, and Naples, Italy. It occurred to me that the cities had something in common other than my visits, and even beyond the great food and largely, astonishingly, good-natured citizenry. The poor and working-class people of both Chicago and Naples can see every day the expressions of their culture, mostly but not exclusively musical, celebrated and valorised by élites at local, national and international level, even while they themselves are crushed by poverty, discrimination, oppression and crime. Chicago blues and canzone napoletana remain not only globally popular but integral to the self-image of the cities — even while jazz and opera are far more highly subsidised — and in both places an aura of dangerous authenticity hangs around “the baddest part of town”, where homeboys and scugnizzi are not only picturesque, but probably up to no good. The people of both cities have, over the centuries, exercised some of the most memorably robust resistance to the plans of their rulers, and have been on the receiving end of some of the most savage repression. The rulers themselves have of course been notable both for the ambition that helped to make the cities among the most beautiful in the world, and the corruption that helped to block any equitable or democratic sharing of that beauty. In Chicago, at any rate, a pair of reactionary local newspapers have been, despite a spirited journalistic tradition at newsroom level, bastions of the power structure. Naples and Chicago are, in these and other respects, not unique cities — otherwise it would be pretty pointless writing about them here — but rather archetypal ones. It’s not difficult to project some similar characteristics on to, say, Dublin, with its “Rale Dubs”, captured memorably by writers from Seán O’Casey to Roddy Doyle, those Dubs with their problematic historical relationship to both colonial and national élites. Dublin of course has the added spice of being the capital of a state that has not generally been run by Dubliners, which may be part of the reason that the city’s middle class finds it so easy to express the most vicious snobbery about the inner-city poor, a contempt that was especially evident in the coverage of, and social-media discussion about, the small protests that accompanied the British queen’s visit. Poor Chicagoans and Neapolitans are of course despised too, but I think not quite so openly by local élites. In Dublin the local élites are also national élites. And their “local” newspaper, the Irish Times, is able to think of itself as a national institution despite its readership being overwhelmingly based among the capital’s middle and upper classes. The newspaper’s senior ranks are more geographically diverse, though you’ll rarely hear a working-class Dublin accent among them. The nearest thing to an exception is Fintan O’Toole, in many respects the outstanding, albeit often overstretched, Irish journalist of his generation. O’Toole’s misfortune, if he can be said to have one, is to have attached himself to the Irish Times just as it emerged as the definitive journalistic expression of the needs and priorities of the national bourgeoisie (much of which had previously regarded it as suspiciously Protestant). This meant that O’Toole, with his strong personal and political connection to the historic radicalism of working-class Dublin, could never be editor. To my mind it may also help explain why O’Toole can be seen to flit from a devastating left critique of Ireland’s predicament to a piecemeal reformist strategy in partnership with irredeemably bourgeois figures such as McWilliams and Ross. Our market is too small to afford several upmarket newspapers distributed along a left-right spectrum, in the British manner. The Irish Times must be the Telegraph, Times, Independent and Guardian folded into one. For a while that wasn’t really a problem, as Ireland’s social-liberalising, anti-clerical mission of the late 20th century enjoyed broad cross-class support, especially in Dublin, so the likes of O’Toole were welcome to join the crusade, as formulated in the Irish Times. During the boom years the sideshow of cultural and identity politics could proceed unhindered, with the Irish Times a broad church that could, for example, welcome immigrants just as much as both ICTU and IBEC did. But today the mission of that newspaper, like that of the class it embodies, is much simpler. Its needs and priorities come down to this: to preserve the status and privileges of bourgeois Ireland through this crisis, even if it means the devastation of ordinary workers and the poor. Indeed, if it can use the crisis to advance long-term ambitions, especially to reduce the role of the public service and the power of unions, it is happy to do so. It’s not Fintan O’Toole’s Irish Times. Instead, the newspaper’s economics editor Dan O’Brien, adept at concealing the iron fist of neo-liberal retrenchment inside the velvet glove of reasonableness and “regrettable necessities”, is the living embodiment of the ideological “commonsense” that serves to protect and project these class interests. In the context of the argument over the “bailout”, O’Brien and the Irish Times also reflect the natural habit of that class to kowtow to international corporate and financial institutions. This habit is not merely some cultural cringe but a fundamental consequence of the nature of Irish capital over the last half-century, essentially providing land and services to international companies, thus giving rise to financial and property speculation as the important sort-of-indigenous sectors. Recently I saw historian and blogger Conor McCabe give a terrific talk that previewed his new book, Sins of the Father. McCabe persuasively and humorously argued that Irish capital could not be personified as some Michael Corleone figure, clear-eyed and coolly cruel, but as something much more like Michael’s brother Fredo, making sure every important visitor at the casino had plenty of drinks and “girls”, and in the end, perhaps, too caught up in the
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Eurostrich (June 2011)
‘See nothing’ or ‘do nothing’ about structural problems: the EU wrongly sees only “liquidity” problems in “peripheral” states. By Constantin Gurdgiev Perhaps nothing defines the detachment from reality of European (and Irish) élites than their own statements. Like proverbial ostriches with their heads in the sand, the official responses to the current crisis have been oscillating between two extremes. On the one side, there is the extreme of ‘do nothing’ about the structural causes of the unfolding financial catastrophe – the ‘kicking-the-can-down-the-road’ policies of the ECB, Ecofin and the member states. On the opposite side, there is the extreme of denying the catastrophe itself – ‘ see nothing’ – that is evident in the policy pronouncements from Brussels and, most recently, in the debate here. The ‘do nothing’ response by Brussels and the member states, like Ireland, is embodied in the policy platforms adopted over the last three years. It is further reinforced by the soaring choir of ‘Hope will set us free from the crisis’ analysts who push forward an argument that, with just a little tweaking here and there, the Titanic of the debt-financed Euro zone will be able to sail on. The core policy documents published since 2008 by the EU Commission have virtually nothing to do with the crisis Europe is facing. The flagship EU programme unveiled during the crisis is an aspirational tome called Europe 2020. This envisions not a path to resolving the problem of debt overhang in the ‘peripheral’ countries but a grandiose scheme to jump-start the EU’s knowledge, green, and social economy. That Europe 2020 is an idea that is neither new, nor workable is highlighted by the fact that most of the platform proposals date back to the failed and abandoned Lisbon Strategy (2000-2010), Social Economy Europe (a zombie policy lumbering on since 2000) and a long line of knowledge-economy strategies aggressively promoted by the EU over the last decade. Even over the boom years of 2003-2007, these delivered virtually nothing. ‘See nothing’ is predicated on the political timetables of local and national elections in Germany, France and elsewhere across the EU. As a result, political rhetoric is being used to combat economic reality. The economically artificial deadline of 2013, the much-hyped hope of Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain (‘the PIIGS’) returning to the bond markets and imposing burden-sharing on the banks lenders (in the case of Ireland) and sovereign bondholders (in the case of Portugal and Greece) serves as both the goalpost to be reached and the deadline for the end of the can-kicking. The circularity of this 2013-or-bust argument is compounded by its surrealism. By 2013, the entire debt burden of the PIIGS will be carried solely by their central banks, the ECB and the Governments. Put simply, if debt default comes after 2013, it will be default of the worst imaginable variety –sovereign default. In the mean-time, as the debt crisis ravages the Eurozone, Brussels, Frankfurt, Berlin and Paris continue to deny the true extent of the problems we face, though Angela Merkel has at least recognised recently that the problem is a “debt crisis”. Hence, instead of finding the means permanently to reduce debt burdens accumulated across a number of EU economies, the Union pushes forward a solution of writing even more debt against already over-indebted countries. Behold EFSF/EFSM (don’t ask) and their ‘permanent’ off-spring ESM (European Stability) which will come into existence… yes, you’ve guessed it right… in 2013. The most amusing vehicle for this denial is the EU’s terminology. As you’ve heard, the Euro area is experiencing ‘liquidity problems’ in its ‘peripheral member states’. Never mind, the terminology seems to imply, that the liquidity problems – the phrase evokes some sort of temporary hiccup – are a full-blown debt crisis with a number of countries effectively frozen out of the bond markets and large swaths of the Euro-area-wide banking sector left unable to function as banks. In 1991, Euro area members’ gross government debt to GDP ratio was just under 54.1%. By 2007 it had risen to 66.2% of GDP. That was pre-crisis. At the end of 2010 the same ratio reached 85.04% and it is now projected by the IMF to peak at 88.4% in 2013. Since 1991, levels of real indebtedness across the Euro zone have grown annually by 2.26% in excess of economic growth. The chart above, based on IMF data and forecasts, illustrates this. Next, take a look at the ‘periphery’ label attached to Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain. In 2010, its ‘periphery’ accounted for 35% of Euro-area GDP, 40.5% of its population and 40% of the total gross government debt. I doubt any US administration would ever be arrogant enough to call, say, the States west of the Rockies the ‘periphery’. The crisis, faced by the EU is a structural one, which means it is long-term in nature and not resolvable by simply sitting and waiting for growth to come. And it is not being helped by those who deny it – be it Brussels politicians or Irish economists and ‘green jersey’-sporting commentators. Let’s face the facts, while using our own situation as an example of what is going on across a number of other European economies. Having digested the fact boxes, you must either assume that all these losses, if they materialise, will be covered by a fairy, in which case no contingency provisions should be made ahead of them crystallising. Alternatively they will be covered by the Irish taxpayer, in which case some forward thinking is required. Whether by our own design or by the interaction of complex forces of politics and economics (and I prefer the latter explanation) we are now caught in an EU-wide crisis of unprecedented proportions. Instead of praying for a magic solution and sitting out this crisis, we need a credible plan. That plan must start with analysis of the problems we face – problems of debt overhang, not liquidity shortages; and of lack of real-growth drivers, not lack of
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This week Kerry County Council blamed the Kerry slug from holding up the Macroom By Pass through a Judicial Review. But in fact the Judicial Review is being taken many miles from the home of the slug to protect a national monument. The traffic hell that the residents of Macroom are enduring is being blamed on the wrong slimy creatures.
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Belfast High Court says security forces may have had foreknowledge of the Omagh bombing. By Anton McCabe In February 2011, Omagh bomb victim, Laurence Rush, won an important legal victory in February, which attracted little notice. The North’s High Court allowed Rush to proceed with legal action against the North’s Chief Constable and Secretary of State. He is claiming their neglect of duty allowed the 1998 bombing to happen, and that they subsequently failed properly to investigate. Rush’s wife, Libby, was one of the 29 people killed. Last year the High Court struck Rush’s case out, ruling it had little chance of success. The headline on the Belfast Telegraph report “Blame RIRA for your wife’s death” was typical of coverage. All reports quoted the end of the judgment: “Those who committed the civil wrong against Mr Rush, as a result of which he tragically lost his wife, were the members of the Real IRA who organised and carried out the Omagh bombing”. Mr Justice Gillen, in the Belfast High Court, has now upheld Rush’s appeal. In his ruling, he wrote: “I have come to the conclusion that it is neither plain nor obvious that the cause of action in this matter has no chance of success. In short I do not consider that on the pleadings the case made by the plaintiff (Rush) is unarguable”. Regarding evidence produced by Rush’s legal team suggesting the security forces had foreknowledge of the bombing, he wrote: “I have concluded there may well be substance in this argument”. Some relatives of victims are calling for a public inquiry. However, after the Bloody Sunday Inquiry, British Prime Minister David Cameron told Parliament: “let me reassure the House that there will be no more open-ended and costly inquiries into the past”. Thus, the hearing of Rush’s case is the only chance for the circumstances of Omagh to be examined in public. Rush has always said that he sees the Real IRA as primarily responsible. In his Statement of Claim, he says: “The bomb which killed Elizabeth Imelda Rush was planted by the so-called Real IRA, a criminal terrorist conspiracy and a proscribed organisation.” However, he claims the state failed to properly investigate. Rush is being represented by British human rights barrister Michael Mansfield, instructed by solicitor Des Doherty. At the inquest into the Omagh deaths, their questioning established there were only four police in duty in Omagh at the time of the bombing on 15 August 1998. They also established that ten were being sent to Kilkeel to police a contentious parade. This police unit normally patrolled the Omagh area in civilian-type cars. Rush is also relying on information that emerged subsequently. A long-term security force agent, Peter Keeley (who uses the name Kevin Fulton), has produced evidence that he informed a police handler the Real IRA was preparing a bomb for an attack somewhere in the North on the weekend of Omagh. These allegations led the Police Ombudsman to begin an inquiry. Her inquiry raised serious doubts about the effectiveness of the police investigation; among other matters. She established that police had received a call on 4 August 1998 warning of an attack in Omagh on 15 August, the date of the bomb, but this information was withheld from investigating officers. The Panorama programme on BBC1 later established that the UK’s electronic intelligence agency GCHQ was monitoring mobile phone communications between the bombers; but did not pass the information on to investigating police. Rush’s legal action is separate from the Omagh Victims’ Legal Action, which two years ago obtained a judgment for £1.6million against four men associated with the Real IRA. Rush was originally a part of this, but withdrew. He was the most outspoken of a several relatives, Protestant and Catholic, unhappy with the Action’s strategy. In her book Aftermath: The Omagh Bombing and the Families Pursuit of Justice’, conservative writer and academic Ruth Dudley Edwards has claimed to have been one of the main strategists behind this action. She wrote of some relatives: “There were bereaved and injured and suffering republicans whose instinct would always be to blame the police for failing to prevent a tragedy rather than terrorists who made it happen”. Rush believed there was no point in taking legal action against individuals with no resources. He was unhappy with the decision to employ London lawyers H20 as legal representatives. There have been subsequent complaints about the fees charged by H20. Rush further felt there was an agenda of pinning all the blame on the Real IRA, and presenting the security forces as without fault: “The RUC were still the heroes”. In her book, Dudley Edwards admits she did not wish to query the role of the security forces. In December 2001, the Police Ombudsman produced her report. Dudley Edwards writes: “In London, lawyers and supporters alike were fearful that the fundraising effort would be damaged as the focus moved from the bombers on to the police, and Henry (Robinson) and I were sent to Omagh to talk to Michael (Gallagher – chair of the only victims’ group) about steadying the ship. … Henry and I sent messages to (RUC Chief Constable Sir Ronnie) Flanagan urging that he reassure the families urgently, but he was pre-empted by (Police Ombudsman) Mrs O’Loan, who spent four hours in Omagh presenting her report to victims immediately before making it public”. Dudley Edwards’ book does not give any of the details of the findings of the Ombudsman’s report. However, she devotes two pages to rebuttals by police and their supporters. Rush was further concerned at the involvement of former security force agent Sean O’Callaghan in the Action. O’Callaghan was in charge of its media side. Rush said O’Callaghan was presented as “someone with an understanding of Irish terrorism”. Rush subsequently established that O’Callaghan had two convictions for murders committed in the 1970s; and claimed to have murdered a low-level informer within the IRA in 1985 while he (O’Callaghan) was a high-level informant. O’Callaghan told
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Our new Minister for the Environment blew it in Brussels when it transpired that his claim that Ireland was protecting its raised bogs was exposed as dramatically false by an NGO Report with more than 700 photos of savage destruction covered in the current Village magazine. In trying to undo the damage, he and his climate sceptic sidekick Conor Sheehan encouraged unrealistic ‘compromises’ to benefit the turf cutters that they know Europe will not allow. Tony Lowes’ blog asks why.
