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    Yes in May. A toolkit for marriage-equality campaigners.

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      By Grainne Healy. ‘We want to live in a country where you can marry the person you love’ In many ways the coming out of Minister Leo Varadker was the starting gun for the marriage equality referendum campaign. His announcement brought the forthcoming campaign to the attention of the media and the public in a manner few expected. On a yet to be determined Friday in May the Irish electorate will get to vote on whether or not they want lesbian and gay people to be able to marry the person they love. This is a referendum that is about recognition – recognition of the love and commitment that gay and lesbian couples have for each other; recognition that some of them want to get married so as to have Constitutional protection for their relationships and families; and recognition that they should have the right to choose to get married like all other citizens. A successful Register to Vote initiative (YesEquality) has been organised. Some 40,000 new voters put their names on the electoral register. These mostly young, first-time voters will be a crucial cohort in May. All recent polls on voting intentions show that a majority will vote Yes, but until now those being polled have not been engaged with the campaign. Younger voters are hugely supportive of the proposal. Ensuring that the youth vote is mobilised and informed is a key challenge. Student and youth organisations are already launching initiates in this regard. Irish society has come a long way since decriminalisation of homosexuality in 1993. Civil Partnership in 2010 was a milestone on the road to equality for same-sex couples. Civil marriage equality will bring equal recognition before the law for lesbian and gay people. If you support the campaign, you could: Start conversations: Conversations about the referendum at home or in the work place are important. Ask others how they are thinking of voting. Encourage them to check the register and to vote. Explain your reasons for voting Yes. (see www.marriagequality.ie for information). Donate: A fundraising initiative (#sharethelove) asking people to give small personal donations or organise fundraising events for the campaign has been launched. If you text Love to 51500 you will get a text back telling you how to make a donation. Encourage your friends to donate too. Get organised locally: Join or form a local group interested in canvassing in the run up to the vote. Identify the spaces in your locality where people gather, and where you could canvas their vote. Groups are forming, targeting train stations or simply planning to knock on doors with camaign leaflets. Note the date: Make sure you put the referendum date in your diary when announced. Vote Yes on the day. Tell ten others about the date and organise to go together to vote or give a lift to those who need support to get to the polling station. Many civil society organisations are gearing up to support the campaign, including the Trade Unionists for Civil Marriage Equality, USI’s #makegráthelaw, students for marriage equality, and Faith in Marriage for people of various faith communities who intend to call for a Yes vote. A coalition campaign for civil marriage equality will soon be launched. ICCL, GLEN and Marriage Equality will play leading roles in co-ordinating it. This grassroots-led, grassroots-targeted campaign will be looking for local community groups and bodies who support a Yes vote to ensure that as many doors as possible are knocked upon and as many Dart/Luas/train stations and football/sporting occasions as possible have a Yes campaign presence. The Children and Family Relationships Bill (2014) is being debated in the Oireachtas. It will bring greater equality for diverse family types including addressing issues of guardianship, parenting and the right to apply to be adoptive parents for same-sex couples. Voters must see clearly that the referendum is not asking people to judge whether or not lesbian and gay people make good parents or should be allowed to parent. Lesbian and gay people already make wonderful parents. This issue is likely to be raised by the opposition and voters must understand that what they are being asked to vote on is the right for lesbian and gay people to enter the institution of civil marriage. We want to live in a country where you can marry the person you love.

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    Save your beautiful town.

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    By Hayley Farrell. Ill fares the land to hastening ills a prey, where wealth accumulates and men decay”, Oliver Goldsmith’s ‘The Deserted Village’ is a portrait of life in his native countryside, once a thriving community, but then destroyed by the effects of the industrial revolution. We hear much about Dublin in terms of parks, but when compared to rural towns Dublin has an established tradition. The main square in Rathdrum, Co Wicklow, the backdrop to the  iconic raucous pro-Treaty harangue by Michael Collins in the eponymous movie languishes – no more than a car park surrounded by derelict pubs. Many other towns, that do not typically attract tourism but rely on commerce, have turned their back to their rural setting as a result of ribbon development. The town of Longford is notably guilty of this. The wide main street, typical of a market town is crammed with cars and car parks which have hijacked most of the civic spaces, with little or no greening. Narrow footpaths and an absence of quality street furniture, planting or trees does little to encourage people out of their cars and onto the street. The town also turns its back to the rich industrial heritage it once enjoyed. The Market Square cannot become a beautiful tree lined civic space surrounding the old 1800’s Market House since it has been demolished. Approaching the town today, Shaw’s, a large retail store centred on wide spans of grey hard landscape is the focal point of the town, a prime example where owners of public space should be urged to provide greening for the community. A welcome reimagining of the town in recent years has been the opening of the Royal Canal after years of being derelict, with navigation now possible from Spencer Dock in Dublin to Clondra, and the river walk along the Camlin now offers the only direct access to public open green space from the town centre. Longford has always been a thriving town with great transport links and some fine surrounding villages. The newly restored St Mel’s Cathedral could still be the centrepiece of a heritage-sensitive landscape scheme to celebrate the re-opening after the devastating fire, an opportunity for a good quality green open space. The streetscape along the Main Street and Ballymahon Street, if enhanced with street trees, suitable street furniture and planted beds to break the depressing congestion could transform the town, with traffic Islands offering further scope for greening. There is much good practice to follow. A number of towns and villages have planted and thereby softened their streets: Tyrrellspass and Mullingar, Co. Westmeath, Abbeyleix, Co. Laois, Adare, Co. Limerick, Dungarvin, Co. Waterford, Kilkenny and Carlow towns, Killarney, Co. Kerry, Claremorris, Co. Mayo, Ashbourne and Ardee Co. Meath, Dalkey and Leixlip in County Kildare. Birr Co. Offaly recently received an Active Travel Town Grant of nearly €1m for the enhancement of Emmet Square and other sustainable travel initiatives. Athlone Civic Centre and Square received international acclaim and many awards but like many civic spaces, the soft landscape element is lacking. Although Longford still has some potential for green infusions, one town with immense potential is Moate in Westmeath, also a market town with a wide Main Street. It too has turned its back to its countryside. This town, once heaving with traffic, ‘a bottleneck’ and a through-route for commuters travelling east to west,  now endures enervation and dilapidation due to the bypass and the downturn. The reduction of traffic now offers the town the breathing space to reinvent itself through natural resources, culture and built heritage. Unlike Longford, the town has a relatively unspoilt Quaker and industrial heritage, recognised by the County  Council with a commendable architectural conservation area designation, proposals to convert the closed classical courthouse into a library and a disused railway station in the style of Dún Laoghaire station, as well as a unique esker landscape to the south rich in biodiversity, left over from glacial deposits – with a motte and bailey. A garish fast-food joint and a SuperValu fester incongruously in a car park by the old gaol and courthouse, where the main square should be – a space for markets and impromptu fun, linking public paths to the Esker landscape beyond. Council houses face Moate Castle, blocking the views to the  esker and river. Old farm outhouses and the adjoining a mill present a frustratingly avoided opportunity for a walkway and landscape enhancement. Rights of way could be co-ordinated and linked to the local towns of Kilbeggan, Clara, Tullamore, Lough Boora Sculpture Park and bogland visitor amenities and the River Shannon. Following the abolition of their councils last June, towns are being urged to form elected representative organisations to hold regular meetings with county councillors. Beleaguered but concerned citizens can make a tangible difference by highlighting and cherishing the natural and built assets of these towns and villages using ‘green’ town design guidelines such as the Design Guidlines report for Tyrellspass which deals with heritage predominantly, a nice example of public consultation before any developer-led madness bulldozes in again. • Hayley Farrell designed the scheme for a park at North Kings Street, Dublin 7.

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    Ansbacher back: the Caymans, LuxLeaks, Offshore Leaks and WikiLeaks.

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    By Ronán Lynch. The vast sums accruing to the 1%  present at least one problem for the most avaricious: how to hide their money. With vast amounts of wealth invested in property it may be  the case that offshore accounts, tax evasion and property bubbles are not unconnected. The return to life of the Ansbacher investigation into offshore accounts held by senior Irish politicians and businesspeople from the 1970s to the mid-1990s reminds us how things used to be done. Some might argue that little has changed. Under the new protected disclosure legislation, serving civil servant Gerry Ryan, who began investigating the Ansbacher accounts in 1997, has contacted the Public Accounts Committee to voice concerns that tax evasion among high-ranking politicians with offshore accounts was not properly investigated. Mary Lou McDonald said they were “household names” from Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Progressive Democrats. Responding to the disclosure, the government said that the files had already been forwarded to the “relevant authorities” which apparently did not include the Gardaí, as Minister Richard Bruton finally forwarded the files to Gardaí on Monday 10 November. Ansbacher was closely associated with CRH, the giant Irish business which has connections across almost all political parties. In ‘A History of Scandal’, (Village Oct/Nov 2012), Michael Smith outlined a series of serious instances of failure of the “relevant authorities” to lay a finger on CRH; it materialised, for instance, that Justice Moriarty had £500,000 worth of shares in CRH that in his opinion precluded him from investigating the company. Now it emerges eminent progressive turned President of the High Court, Declan Costello, who investigated the bank’s Cayman operation as a High Court inspector in 2000 had a domestic Ansbacher (ie Guinness and Mahon) account though he had ‘forgotten’ it when denying it to Ryan. He resigned as inspector citing ill health,  He died in 2011. Ansbacher bank became a household name in Ireland from stories emerging from the McCracken Tribunal in 1997 as it uncovered a complex series of payments from Ben Dunne to Charles Haughey that eventually landed in Ansbacher bank, formerly the Cayman Islands branch of Guinness & Mahon Bank. The accounts were run by Haughey’s bagman Des Traynor and John Furze, an English-born banker who ran the Cayman Islands end of the venture. Furze’s career was straight out of a John le Carré novel. He was instrumental in establishing the offshore banking system in the Cayman Islands, arriving there in 1967 at the age of 25. When his name was first mentioned in the Irish Times in 1996, the paper wrote that it considered Furze to be a fictitious name. Another early Irish Times report on the island referred to John Grisham’s novel ‘The Firm’ for context. Yet by 1996, Des Traynor was already dead, and Furze had travelled to Ireland for the funeral and to remove paperwork from Traynor’s office at CRH. Furze died in July 1997 following heart surgery and by that stage he had destroyed much of the paperwork. A full 200 customers of the bank were identified in a 2002 report but no prosecutions resulted. Revenue later cited a number of reasons for not bringing prosecutions, including the lack of original documentation, an inability to compel Cayman Island entities to release documents, and the elapse of more than 10 years in bringing cases. Despite the criminal-law  inertia, by the end of 2012 the Revenue Commissioners had recovered more than €112 million in unpaid taxes and penalties, (an  Irish solution to  a  Cayman  Islands problem) but now it appears other names have been identified and efforts by Gerry Ryan to recover documents that may have aided a prosecution were stymied. The return of Ansbacher reminds us of the scale of tax evasion and tax avoidance on a personal and corporate scale. The recent ‘Lux:eaks’ story involves PriceWaterhouseCooper, several of the world’s biggest corporations, and the now European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, who was Prime Minister in Luxembourg for much of the relevant period from 2008 to 2010, and after a short period in apparent hiding he has now emerged to “take responsibility” for the “unethical” policy, and possibly spear Ireland’s Corporation Tax policy. Interestingly, when the story broke, the Cayman Compass news website promptly issued an editorial in support of Juncker. Documents obtained by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) and released in early November showed Irish companies among hundreds of businesses using Luxembourg as a tax haven. By routing money through Luxembourg in the form of intra-business loans, these companies were avoiding billions of euros in tax; the annual tax savings achieved by Irish businesses including Glanbia and the Sisk Group and Irish subsidiaries of multinationals such as Pepsi and GlaxoSmithKline dwarfs the money collected from the Ansbacher accounts. Of course there is no suggestion that the Luxembourg operations were indulging in evasion as opposed to (legal) avoidance. Among the companies availing of the arrangement were several media investors including UK media group Northern and Shell, which owns 50% of the Irish Star and used an Irish branch of its Luxembourg subsidiary to facilitate the deal; London investment firm Doughty Hanson, which owns TV3, also availed of Luxembourg tax structure, as did the Cayman Islands-based Tiger Global Private Investment Partners V, which by 2008 had acquired a 25% share in Daft Media. A follow up report in the Irish Times found that Ireland’s biggest indigenous company, CRH, also had subsidiaries in Luxembourg that engaged in the intra-business loans that saved tax for other businesses. The Luxembourg leaks story drew irate comment from charities and campaigners furious about tax income lost to the Irish exchequer, though not from Bono who recently expressed the view that tax avoidance is a point of principle for Irish people. The Cayman Islands, wealthiest of the Caribbean islands, ranks as the fourth largest tax haven in the world, with dourer Luxembourg seizing second place, according to the Tax Justice Network. The islands feature high in the 2013 ICIJ project Offshore Leaks which

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    Humiliating heroes.

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    By Frank Connolly. The High Court is about to adjudicate on the constitutionality of the direct-provision system for  refugees. This is a story illustrating who the system affects, and how. Ramesh (not his real name) was a respected journalist and talented, acclaimed, poet in Sri Lanka when he was arrested in 2008 on suspicion of having Tamil sympathies. One of his alleged crimes had been to question military authorities about Tamils who had been ‘disappeared’ by the Sri Lankan army. Another was to write about the illegal encroachment and seizure of resource rich Tamil lands by the Colombo government (not unlike the Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands) in north and east Sri Lanka. His detailed and critical analysis of the massive Sethu Canal project in which powerful interests in the US, India and China have combined to develop the massive project with negative environmental, social and economic implications for the Tamil people was banned in Sri Lanka and India. His investigation of the notorious ‘White Van’ abductions by the army led to his own arrest at his home in Colombo in June 2008 and a year of torture. Recently married with a 6 month baby, Ramesh describes to Village what happened: “I was blindfolded and tied and taken in a white van. My father tried to stop them but I pleaded with them not to attack him. They tortured me in the hidden torture camp, Panadagoda, with electric currents on my nipples, in my nostrils and on my penis.  They put barbed wire in my anal area. They put petrol in a plastic bag and put my head in it. I was naked. They accused me of being a supporter of the Tamil Tigers, a spy for freedom fighters. They wanted the names of high ranking Sri Lankan army officials who supported the Tamil tigers.  They wanted to know how I knew about corruption in army business dealings that I had written about. My eyes were covered. At one stage the soldiers released my blindfold and I had a chance to view the surroundings. I saw the ‘electric crematorium’ run by Sri Lankan army where they burned people and left their clothes, thousands of pieces of clothing, including women’s clothes. After five days of brutal torture and unconscious, they left me in the bush. I was taken into hiding by friends and after some days I travelled to India where I was hospitalised for six months”. It was January 2009 and near the end of the 26-year war in which more than 200,000 people were killed. The conflict began when the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE, also known as the Tamil Tigers) sought to create an independent state in the north and east of the island. Between January and May 2009 the Sri Lankan military massacred tens of thousands of people as the Tigers prepared to surrender. “When I was in India I was arrested by the authorities because of my political opinions and activities. They detained me without charge for almost nine months in a camp”, Rasheem recalled. He was released with the help of Irish embassy staff in India and permitted to come to Dublin to act as an interpreter and witness at the People’s Permanent Tribunal of inquiry into the Sri Lankan conflict in January 2010, after which he applied for  political asylum. Following a rigorous and demeaning application process he was given refugee status and admitted to the direct-provision system for asylum seekers in 2010. Not before one retired garda assessing his application threatened to have him extradited to Sri Lanka to face subversion charges, and certain death. Unable to work, study, cook their native food or live a normal life, those in direct provision are expected to raise families and maintain a dignified existence on €19 a week. His experience in detention centres in Kilkenny, Waterford and Dublin is a harrowing indictment of how the Irish state treats some of the most vulnerable citizens of the world. His final humiliation was when another asylum seeker, sharing an overcrowded space, urinated on his face as he slept in the Waterford centre. Ramesh recently left the direct provision service and is looking for a job. His mental health has inevitably suffered from years of ill treatment and prolonged separation from his wife and young child. The manner in which he has been treated by the Irish authorities has made matters worse. The inhumane conditions have resulted in recent protests at several of the centres which are invariably in isolated locations miles from the nearest town and run by private commercial concerns with little interest in the quality of life of those in their care. Is it any wonder President Higgins and the media have been refused access to some of these places where hundreds of families are living as unhappy and unwelcome guests of the nation? •

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    Ebola hell in Liberia.

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    By Jacinta Fay and Silas Kpanan’Ayoung Siakor. Liberians are haunted by the sights they now see on their streets. Dead bodies await ambulances. Soldiers patrol in combat-ready gear. Every Liberian has been impacted by the Ebola epidemic. In three to six months the epidemic may be under control but the crisis has affected every facet of society. Children are not attending school. Farms have been abandoned. Whole villages and families have been wiped out. Infrastructure projects have ground to a halt. The social and psychological scars will be deep and long lasting. The epidemic has prompted multiple crises. Liberia was already extremely food insecure. It is now cut off from the outside world on which it relies for 60% of its food. Hunger and malnutrition are rising. People are dying from easily preventable and treatable diseases like malaria and diarrhoea as access to healthcare collapses. Women are dying in childbirth. Women and girls, as primary caregivers, are suffering some of the worst impacts. Fear and panic have sparked a myriad of security issues. The future death toll can only be imagined from this multiplicity of crises. In the region the total number of Ebola related deaths has reached an estimated 4,922 and the number of cases has reached an estimated 10,141. Official numbers probably need to be multiplied by two to three times to account for unreported cases. Liberia has been particularly hard hit with the highest official death toll of 2,705 as of October 25th. $294 million has been earmarked in emergency aid for Liberia. However, according to current estimations, $473 million is required. While pledges of assistance have been committed, their delivery remains slow. Pledges and action are two very different things when it comes to emergency aid. The Guardian Ebola funding tracker (as of 29th October) gives an insight into the problem. Countries have pledged $1.22 billion but only disbursed $569.79 million, multilaterial organisations have pledged $442.53 million but only disbursed $257.41 million, and NGOs have pledged $142.59 million but only disbursed $49.87 million. Immediate action on funding commitments and improved coordination between the actors involved in responding to the Ebola epidemic are urgently required. More medical staff and resources are needed immediately. Flights must be allowed into and out of Ebola affected countries to ensure that people are able to travel and supplies are delivered. Security measure being taken in the countries must respect human rights and humanitarian concerns. There are already many lessons to learn from the crisis particularly regarding the inadequate international response. The international community failed to invest in research for a cure for the virus. Only now that there is an international market are the pharmaceutical companies queuing up to conduct trials. The World Health Organisation (WHO) failed in downplaying the outbreak and only declaring an international public health emergency in August after there had been almost a thousand deaths. Governments and international agencies around the world failed to mobilise the necessary support and resources to tackle the epidemic before it became a humanitarian crisis. The media failed with its irresponsible reporting of the epidemic. This has fuelled panic about the spread of Ebola to Europe and North America and perpetuated negative stereotypes about people from west Africa, rather than calling for international assistance to tackle the crisis. Superstition, myths and ignorance are blamed for the spread of the virus whereas the problem is dysfunctional health systems, limited technical and financial capacity of Governments, and the inadequate response of the international community. The Irish Government must increase its support for the response to the Ebola epidemic. This currently stands at 2.5 million Euro and a further 660,000 Euro through UNICEF. Further funding should be provided for medical charities and sending medical personnel. Direct funding to Liberian civil society organisations and their community support programmes should be increased. These groups are to the forefront in equipping communities to protect themselves from the virus and need support to scale up this work. After the immediate crisis a new reconstruction programme will need to begin and Ireland should be to the forefront in this. • Jacinta Fay is a member of the Liberia Solidarity Group and Landgrab Campaigner with Friends of the Earth International. Silas Kpanan’Ayoung Siakor is the founder and Lead Campaigner with the Sustainable Development Institute/Friends of the Earth Liberia.

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    More. Austerity.

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    For 2015. By Constantin Gurdgiev. December data on the Irish economy paint a picture of a major slowdown in growth momentum and once more highlight the troubling nature of our national accounts statistics. With that in mind, and given the spectacular tremors rocking the global economy outside the well-insulated doors of our Department of Finance, the Irish economy is set for an eventful 2015. Let’s take stock of the prospects awaiting our small haven for tax-optimising MNCs and regulations-minimising foreign investors, in the New Year. Domestic Bliss On three domestic front, three drivers of economic recovery will be lighting some fireworks over the next 12 months. Here they are, in order of their importance. The ongoing shift in MNC activities here from profit-booking to cost-based transfer pricing, colloquially known as ‘contract manufacturing’. In simple terms, this means unprofitable low-margin activities are outsourced by MNCs to their subdivisions and other MNCs located abroad, and the resulting revenues are booked, often into Ireland. Official GDP rises here, while our domestic economy stands still. In H1 2014 this game of accounting shells has accounted for 2.5 percent of the 5.8 percent recorded growth in Irish GDP. In other words, some 43 percent of the growth ‘miracle’ that is Ireland Unchained was bogus. We don’t have detailed analysis of the Q3 2014 data to determine the broader impact of ‘contract manufacturing’ yet, but the National Accounts data are not encouraging. The gap between the National Accounts-reported exports of goods and the same exports reported in our Trade Statistics is growing once again. Over Q2 and Q3 2014, this stood at a whopping €7bn more than what the historical average would imply. That is, roughly, 7.65 percent of our entire GDP over the same period. If we correct the National Accounts data for this discrepancy, cumulative Q2-Q3 2014 GDP in Ireland would have posted a 0.4 percent decline year-on-year, not the rise of 5.4 percent recorded in the official statistics. As the trend accelerates in 2015, the Irish economy is likely to post greater paper gains and lower real and the utility of our economic data will diminish further. The second driver of boosterism is also MNC-focused. Budget 2015 introduced massive incentives for MNCs to book intellectual property into Ireland. Instead of the notorious Double Irish we now have an even more generous Knowledge Development Box. This reinforces the already absurd change to the National Accounts that re-labels R&D spending into R&D investment. The combined effect of both factors is likely to be more R&D ‘imports’ into Ireland. The latest data show that overseas-originating patents filed in Ireland rose 22.4 percent year on year in Q3 2014. And that is before the ‘Knowledge Development Box’ opened its all-welcoming lid. As 2015 rolls on, expect more GDP supports from the new ‘investment’ products to hit the market here. Just don’t count on new jobs and higher domestic incomes to materialise out of this ‘smart economy’ any time soon. The third force likely to propel Irish growth to new highs is the ongoing squeeze on the and construction sector imposed by a combination of the credit crunch, Nama’s assets-disposal strategy and the woefully poor regulatory reforms that have cut down the supply of development sites amd the funding for development, and so have blocked up the planning applications pipeline. The result is rising rents (GDP-additive) and prices (the so-called ‘investment’ side of the national accounts) amid the very real deepening misery of rising business costs and an escalating cost of living. Added up, the Irish property sector ‘revival’ is now yet another force that simultaneously transfers money from the households and firms into the pockets of rent-seekers and the Government, and galvanizes with fools’ gold he national accounts. Foreign Squeeze The domestic bliss of the GDP growth described above will be severely challenged in 2015 by the continued deterioration in global economic conditions. Here we have some serious flash points of risk, trailing back from 2013-2014, and some circling new ones that are likely to emerge in 2015 in their own right. Back at the beginning of 2014, expectations for a global growth recovery in 2015 were driven by rosy forecasts for North America and the Emerging Markets. The Euro area was expected to post a rather sluggish, but nonetheless above one percent, recovery in 2014 and rise to close to two percent annual growth in 2015. Fast forward to today. Latest forecasts suggest near-zero growth in 2014, followed by one percent growth in 2015. So Europe’s prospects are bleak. That’s roughly 35 percent of our indigenous exports trade in the bin. But at least low growth is likely to delay the inevitable rise in interest rates, giving our heavily indebted households another stay on execution. The US miracle of economic recovery is heavily dependent on interest rates policy not reverting back to elevated rates and, in all likelihood, the US Fed might just oblige. Should the Fed change its mind, all bets are off: we might see a slowdown in the US recovery and with it a fall-off in the US demand for Irish exports, both indigenous ones and MNCs’. The UK is a great example of the fragility also present in the US economy. Like the US, the UK is heavily dependent on supportive monetary policy. And, ahead of the US, its economy is starting to hit serious bumps. Latest data show continued declines in house prices, while demand is stagnating and inflation is slipping to long-term lows. The last time we saw UK inflation at current levels was in 2002 – amid the dot.com-bubble-induced recession. Taking both the U.S. and UK markets together we see over 50 percent of demand for Irish indigenous exports put under rising risk. Which leaves us with the rest of the world. Here, the Emerging Markets are tanking, fast. Brazil is in an outright recession. Russia is slipping into one at the speed of a rock falling through the foggy ravine. China is on the brink of a

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    How government has dismantled the equality infrastructure.

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    By Rachel Mullen. The Equality Tribunal has been an important part of the Irish equality infrastructure. The system whereby the former Equality Authority provided support to those taking cases of alleged discrimination and a specialist Equality Tribunal heard and decided these cases had been lauded as best practice by the European Commission. The Equality Authority has been subsumed into the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission. Now the Equality Tribunal is to be abolished. The Workplace Relations Bill 2014 replaces the Labour Relations Commission (including the Rights Commissioner Service), the National Employment Rights Authority, the Employment Appeals Tribunal and the Equality Tribunal with a new Workplace Relations Commission and an expanded version of the Labour Court. The Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation has set the end of the year as the target for enacting the Bill. Sufficient care has not be taken in drafting the Bill to take account of the specific nature of discrimination cases and to ensure the particular role of the Equality Tribunal is sustained. Cases of discrimination extend beyond workplace relations. They cover the provision of goods and services, under the Equal Status Acts. Specific legislation prohibiting discrimination draws from European Union Directives and a body of established case-law at European level. The Equality Tribunal has years of specialist expertise in the field of discrimination. The Equality Tribunal does not operate like an ordinary court since it investigates cases. It is not reliant on legal arguments presented by the complainant or the respondent. Cases of discrimination are unique as the burden of proof that discrimination is not involved passes to the respondent once the complainant has made a prime facie case of discrimination. There are high levels of under-reporting of discrimination and it is important that any new arrangements do not worsen this situation. Research has shown that the groups most likely to experience discrimination are the least likely to report it. Less than 10% of those experiencing discrimination took any formal action, including taking a case. 60% of those experiencing discrimination took no action at all. The Bill is devoid of reference to claims under the Equal Status Acts and as to  how these will be considered. This is particularly noteworthy in a number of areas of the Bill: in relation to the presentation of complaints and referral of disputes, appealing the dismissal of complaints, and enforcement of decisions by Adjudication Officers. The Adjudication Officer is given discretion whether to permit someone to accompany the complainant or respondent at the hearing or to represent them at the hearing. There is no equivalent provision under current equality legislation. This provision could be in breach of EU Directives and the Charter of Fundamental Rights. If lawyers or any other representatives are excluded this could prevent a complainant adequately arguing a claim and gaining an effective remedy. Employment cases before the Workplace Relations Commission will not all fall neatly into one area. Where cases have a discrimination dimension alongside a general employment dimension it is unclear how Adjudication Officers will deal with them. For example, will the alleged discrimination, where a different burden of proof applies, be addressed separately from a general employment rights concern?  Will the complainant be forced to select between a discriminatory dismissal and an unfair dismissal claim? How will Adjudication Officers decide an equality claim where they have investigative powers under equality legislation, and then proceed to hear other aspects of the claim where they have no such power? There is much emphasis in the Workplace Relations Bill on dealing with a claim without recourse to an independent hearing. The Director is allowed to refer the claim for resolution to a case resolution officer, mediation, or by way of written submission. While the parties to the claim can refuse to have the matter dealt with in this manner, for complainants under equality legislation who may be highly vulnerable, this adds another layer which they must navigate before they have the right to a hearing. Finally, the Workplace Relations Bill 2014 proposes to delete sections in the equality legislation that allow the complainant or the respondent to appeal a decision of the Equality Tribunal to the High Court on a point of law. This is a diminution of the redress previously available. •

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    Dissent and Democracy.

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    By Tom Hanahoe, Terence Conway and John Monaghan. On September 17 2011, hundreds of Americans gathered in New York’s Wall Street district, the very hub of American and global capitalism.  Calling themselves the Occupy Wall Street movement, they set up a protest encampment, which soon spawned similarly themed protests in over 100 US cities around the world. Within months, most Occupy camps around the world – including camps in Ireland – had been forcibly closed by police.  In the US, over 6,000 protestors were arrested.  Some were batoned or pepper-sprayed. A movement that encompassed around fifty countries was being suppressed. State power – using police power – was crushing People Power. A few weeks ago, on the day the Dáil reconvened after its lengthy summer recess, a few protest groups gathered outside the gates.  The following day’s Irish Times carried a front-page photograph of a woman being carried from the scene by five members of the Garda Public Order Unit (POU) – its riot squad. Why? Did she pose a physical threat to gardaí, to members of the public or to members of the Dáil? The use of riot-squad members to police a group of peaceful protestors was extraordinarily intimidatory – intended to overawe them with fear, and dissuade others. The Water Tax protests have resulted in a certain casualisation of aggressive police force. In 1996, residents of Kilcommon Parish in north-west Mayo learned of a natural gas discovery in the sea off their coastline. The proposed gas pipeline’s land route passed through Rossport village, close to a local road and outlying houses. Assurances that the pipeline posed no risks did not assuage local fears.  Ultimately, consultants hired by the Shell-led consortium admitted that residences within 230 metres of the pipe could ignite spontaneously if an explosion occurred while pipeline gas was at the maximum pressure. Occupants would have just 30 seconds to flee the scene. Residents chose to oppose the project, peacefully but in October 2006, around 200 gardaí – including POU members – arrived in Kilcommon, whose population numbered no more than 2,000 men, women and children,  What followed was a startling erosion of civil liberties and human rights. Democracy was suspended in the area. Allegedly, police tapped phones, correspondence was intercepted and read – and sometimes stolen. People’s movements were monitored and their protests filmed.  Around 24 people spent time in jail – the Rossport Five for 94 days, and Pat ‘The Chief’ O’Donnell for around five and a half months. “There is a sense the law is being used to kick people into submission”, according to local parish priest Fr Michael Nallen. Indeed a 2007 human rights hearing in Glenamoy, conducted by the US-based Global Community Monitor, was told by Ed Collins, an American-born Kilcommon resident of how he had “been beaten, assaulted, kicked, choked, punched… kicked and battered since day one”. One alleged Garda assault left him with a knee so badly damaged that for a considerable period he was confined to a wheelchair, unable to walk. Betty Noone told of seeing gardaí drag a woman to the side of a road – “she tried to get up, and as a third garda left her… he kicked her”. Noone – a 63 year old grandmother – outlined how she herself was lifted up by a garda and thrown towards a water-filled drain, perhaps eight feet below the road. John Monaghan, a former Irish Press journalist and co-author of this  article, told of how a garda had threatened to rape his wife. He has an audio recording – that he says is of this incident. Another recording shows how sergeant James Gill joked about raping two female protesters who had been arrested. But the Garda Ombudsman found that no action could be taken against him as he had retired,  He had also exercised his right to silence throughout his questioning and “largely gave a ‘no-comment’ interview” to them. What is remarkable about the testimony of witnesses is the number of alleged Garda assailants who were identified by name or number. None of the identified gardaí were ever disciplined. Few were even questioned. There is a symbiosis between dissent and democracy.  Polemicist Tony Judt argued that “the disposition to disagree, to reject and to dissent… is the very lifeblood of an open society.  We need people who make a virtue of opposing mainstream opinion. A democracy of permanent consensus will not long remain a democracy”. “What happened to the people in Rossport beggars belief”, Deputy Mick Wallace told the Dáil in May of this year. Front Line – an organisation founded to protect human rights defenders – argued in a 2001 report that it would be appropriate to characterise the situation in Kilcommon “as one where groups of individuals are clearly seeking to defend human rights”. It is imperative that an independent inquiry be held into Garda behaviour there.  It is time that the actions of the people of Kilcommon are, finally, vindicated and that their reputations – besmirched by their oppressors – are restored; and that Garda reform becomes an imperative not a clichéd oxymoron. •

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