Posted in:
Post-election 2016
The general election was tedious and it’s not really clear what message it purveys
Editorial
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Village is now eleven years old and has been published by Ormond Quay Publications since 2008. From its foundation in 2004, Village has been one of the few local publications that systematically criticised the thrust of the direction of the economy and society. The twenty-year reigning economic orthodoxies have finally been thrown out even if policy-makers and, depressingly, many voters are playing catch-up. A leftist analysis could not be more timely as we risk repeating our past recklessnesses. Mores are changing, though short-termism and materialism remain ascendant in Ireland. Village Magazine does not dance to the ephemeral thrum of pragmatism, it stands for transcendent principles. Its motifs are equality of out-come, sustainability and accountability and because these ideas are timeless it has no intention of changing or confounding them. It promotes in its columns, as a badge in every edition makes clear, the fair distribution of resources, welfare, respect and opportunity in society by: the analysis and investigation of inequalities, unsustainable development, corruption, and the media’s role in their perpetuation; and by acute cultural analysis. In historical and international terms its analysis is mainstream radical left. For example egalitarians will favour high taxes to fund services, and will be broadly in favour of property taxes, whatever the mood of campaigners ‘on the ground’. It embraces controversy and attempts to take on the powerful and the furtive. This edition reprises many such articles: including features on Ansbacher, Donegal Planning, Denis O’Brien and the legal profession. Village aims to be ideological, investigative, news-breaking and even, without pretentiousness, culturally challenging. It assumes the best and the most of its readers. It aims to be sharp. Humour is not entirely beyond it. It blithely excludes certain pre-occupations including sport, weather, sex and road news. There is a stringent editorial filter. Neo-liberal, intolerant or ad hoc worldviews are typically relegated to the humour pages, or to well-flagged opinion pieces. But mostly Village aims to be inclusive. It is a forum for perspectives and voices not easily found elsewhere, including those of community activists, social-sector employees, environmentalists and NGOs generally. It aspires to the highest standards of journalism including hard-mindedness, risk-taking, bravery, constancy and – which is unusual in contemporary media, elegance. There is a danger of preaching to converts and Village makes a special effort not to rant or succumb to lazy prolix. We ask our contributors to address the principal arguments levied against them by their ideological and practical antagonists. And the aim certainly is not to be self-righteous or unforgiving. It will always be a battle for a magazine like Village that eschews a glossy approach and that does not champion the commercial. There is renewed energy and time for expansion of this magazine’s ambition and impact. We are aware that Village is dense but, in the era of ISIS, climate change and runaway inequality, we do not really apologise for the intensity of the information. We aim to make many of our articles evidence-rich one-stop-shops for the issues covered. We are now changing the design, that has been largely undisturbed for seven years to make it more user-friendly. This will take a number of editions to complete. The design is intended to be logical and clear; and to set off strong images. We have swapped a yellow-and-black theme for the red masthead. We include more infographics and ‘cheat sheets’, a new curved font, more use of full-page photos. We will publish more long-format articles. We hope more ads will leaven the effect of denseness. The website will be reinvigorated and its design mirror the print version’s. We will not be changing the substance or the editorial direction of the magazine. We will continue to publish articles that are issues rather than personality focused and avoid trite click bait, trivia, gossip and cheap objectifying images of semi-clad women (and men). We will market Village as “challenging” since that is important and a rarity. It will be styled Ireland’s only political and cultural magazine. We are grateful for your support over the years and welcome ideas on how we can improve. And Village wishes a Happy Christmas to all its readers!
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In 2011 we wrote in this space, “You would think from our recent history of some of the most notoriously bad governance on the planet, that we would have learnt that our political classes need to be replaced. In fact, this election time we see no new ideas”. Sadly democracy in Ireland needs an overhaul every bit as much now as it did in 2011. Village is disappointed at the quality of politics, across the range. It’s easily diagnosed: Fine Gael is open to regressive policies and cronyism. However, at least on its own terms it deserves credit because it has consistently stuck to its agenda of (unimaginative) economic orthodoxy and because Enda Kenny has proved relatively competent, in the face of scepticism, including from this magazine. In 2011, we stated, “ Perhaps it is a unique merit of Fine Gael that if it is elected with a mandate, this time it may actually govern as it has campaigned. The electorate will be able to assess whether what it voted for was what it wanted”. This edition of Village explores at length the extent to which the coalition government delivered on its Programme for Government. It’s a fair test and it shows that, beyond promoting economic stability, the Government has been a disappointment. Labour certainly does not have the Fine Gael appeal of consistency. It never does what its manifestos promise. Worse, a number of its senior TDs have allowed themselves to appear smug and ideologically jaded or even, in Alan Kelly’s case, dangerous. Because of the elasticity of its conscience Labour has long attracted the wrong type of representatives. Fianna Fáil is tainted by its reckless past and the incoherence of its platform. It believes serving the people, parish and business in equal measure is viable. It has learnt little beyond the need to regulate the banks. Sinn Féin’s commitment to a Left agenda is unclear bearing in mind its defining preference for irredentist nationalism over ideology, its centrist pragmatism in the North and its willingness to coalesce with Fianna Fáil. Its performance at local-authority level is not impressive or particularly leftist. It is cultist, and ambivalent about democracy and transparency, and its leaders lie casually about its, and particularly its leader Gerry Adams’, past. Renua seems like a somehow unendearing chip off Fine Gael’s Christian Democratic block, with a penchant for propriety. The Independent Alliance (dubbed Shane Féin) is utterly incoherent of policy and membership. If ex-stockbroker Mr Ross and turfcutter Michael Fitzmaurice ever breathed an atom of the same political air, Village cannot imagine where it was. Village has a weakness for the Social Democrats, whose mild platform is essentially the same as Labour’s, though strangely more pro-business, but whose small membership is more prepossessing. Its antipathy to water taxes is expedient but regrettable. The radical Left offers the huge appeal of integrity and seriousness but its opposition to property taxes is inexcusable, and its focus on opposition to the loathed water taxes rather than a broader anti-inequality platform, including opposition to the iniquities of Nama, corruption and the resurrection of the developer classes has diverted its revolutionary ideology. The Green Party’s policies are often radical, and its agenda mature, but it is not hard-minded and it achieved so little in the last government that it is difficult to be enthusiastic. To the extent that we have not afforded space in this edition of Village to the policies and protagonists of most of these parties, it is because they simply don’t offer enough to justify it. Village believes equality of outcome, sustainability and accountability are the most important policies; and it is difficult to be optimistic about their immediate Irish prospects. Laboured machinations over the fiscal space are ephemeral, though most of the other media address little else. Reflecting the need for a vision of society as well as economy this edition focuses on the coalition’s delivery across a number of departments that promote equality, sustainability and accountability, though we do have articles by Constantin Gurdgiev, Michelle Murphy and Sinead Pentony on the iniquitous handling of the fragile economy. We consider Education, Health, Social Welfare, Environment including climate change, Small Firms policy, and Accountability. These departments make life worth living. We systematically assess whether they achieved the goals set by the Government for each of them when it took office. In the end the conclusion is that they have underperformed. And so therefore has the unimaginative, regressive and stolid Government behind them. Against this backdrop, we would again not presume to advise readers where to direct their votes. However, we can say the non-ideological, non-visionary parties of the pragmatic centre hold little appeal, even when mitigated by somewhat more thoughtful ones. A coalition of the parties of the Left, radical Left and the Greens would, as always, best promote Village’s agenda, if no doubt imperfectly.
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Posted in:
Election 2016
More of the same, disappointingly
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Editorial, Village, April 2014 Gerard Convie is a whistleblower, but you won’t have heard of him. Over the last few years Village has helped a number of other whistleblowers whose cases are to varying degrees unassailable but have not been championed by the media or pursued by the authorities: Jonathan Sugarman on Unicredit Bank, Noel Wardick on the Red Cross, Paul Clinton on Treasury Holdings and Dublin City Council, Séamus Kirk on planning appeals withdrawn after a 1m payout in Louth, Colm Murphy on solicitor fraud and Law Society ‘skulduggery’. As Frank McBrearty, the whistleblower whose attempted framing for the murder of Richie Barron led to the instigation of the Morris Tribunal, told Village this week: “without whistleblowers you can’t expose corruption”. But the lack of official interest in these brave citizens, or action on their allegations, bespeaks an overwhelming cynicism veiled only by the correlative rush to be publicly perceived as welcoming of whistleblowers such as the gardai who revealed the penalty-points scandal. As one man’s freedom fighter is another man’s terrorist, so one man’s whistleblower is another’s deluded obsessive. You only really become a whisleblower once your whistle has been heard by the ‘political correspondents’ and the party spokespersons. When you are at your most vulnerable they won’t seek you out or even answer your letters. Convie worked in Donegal County Council as a senior planner for nearly 24 years. He claims it was well known in Donegal and beyond that he would not capitulate to the “goings-on in planning” by certain councillors and senior officials in Co Donegal. He tried to control one-off housing, produced the first design guide, and used to appeal to An Bord Pleanála on his own behalf and at his own expense all decisions to grant planning permission via the infamous S4 motions. This was controversial. He claims one councilor constantly referred to him as a ”wee shit from the North”. Convie has claimed, in an affidavit opened in court, that during his tenure there was bullying and intimidation within the council of planners who sought to make decisions based exclusively on the planning merits of particular applications. In the affidavit, Convie alleges another planner: 1) recommended permissions that breached the Donegal County Development Plan to an extent that was almost systemic 2) submitted planning applications to Donegal County Council on behalf of friends and associates 3) dealt with planning applications from submission to decision 4) ignored the recommendations of other planners 5) destroyed the recommendations of other planners 6) submitted fraudulent correspondence to the planning department 7) forged signatures 8) improperly interfered as described in a number of planning applications 9) was close to a number of leading architects and developers in Donegal, including the head of the largest ‘architectural’ practice in Donegal, with whom he holidayed but the relationship with whom was undeclared. His affidavit also refers to irregularities perpetrated by named officials at the highest level in the Council as well as named senior county councilors. The Minister and Donegal County Council made no defence of any averment in Convie’s Affidavit. Convie had a list of more than 20 “suspect cases” in the County. As he reverted to private practice he claimed that there must be many more, perhaps hundreds, “a cesspit”. His complaints to various Ministers for the Environment and to the Standards in Public Office Commission went nowhere. After the Greens got into government, Environment Minister, John Gormley, announced “planning reviews” in 2010, not of corruption but of bad practice – in seven local authorities including Donegal. Convie’s case studies comprised all the material for the review in Donegal. But when the new Fine Gael and Labour government took over they very quickly dropped the independent inquiries. A lazy 2012 internal review stated: “The department’s rigorous analysis finds that the allegations do not relate to systemic corruption in the planning system…Nonetheless, they raise serious matters, ranging from maladministration to inconsistency in application of planning policy or non-adherence to forward plans, such as development plans”. As regards Donegal, the Department, extraordinarily and scandalously, decided – according to Minister Jan O’Sullivan in the Dáil, that: ‘’ … the complainant [Convie] has failed at any stage to produce evidence of wrong-doing in Donegal Council’s planning department”. Convie felt this left him in an invidious position and, in the absence of any defense of him by from any source, he successfully sued. In the High Court Order all the conclusions by the Minister were withdrawn, including reports on the matters prepared for the Minister by Donegal County Council. The government has been forced to reinstate the planning enquiries. But it will be important to see the ramifications for the civil servants who concluded that Convie’s complaint did not constitute “evidence”, and for the Minister who accepted the conclusions. While some of the council officials who are named in the irregularities in Convie’s Affidavit have retired, some remain in the Council’s employ and have seen their careers soar. The Convie file has been referred to the Attorney General for direction and she has now reported back to the Minister. The Department will report its review before the summer. Meanwhile a taint hangs over the administration of planning in Donegal, and a whistleblower twists in the wind. As Village was going to print, things were finally heating up in Donegal County Council. The Director of Housing and Corporate Services told Village the Council would be responding to Convie’s reported allegations, shortly, and Ethics Officer, Paul McGill, said the matter was being examined by management. As regards County Councillors, the current mayor of Donegal, independent Ian McGarvey, while making it clear he did not wish to be involved in anything ‘scurrilous’, said he would refer the issue to the county secretary. Independent Donegal County Councillor Frank Mc Brearty noted it was difficult for current councillors to ascertain the truth of such matters because of difficulties getting files – even last year when he was mayor. While complimentary of the current incumbent,
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Posted in:
Perspective
Focus anger and energy to promote equality and sustainability
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Few countries elevate rejection as far as celebrating a national “No” day. But every October 28th Greece’s Oxi Day holiday commemorates the No with which it replied to a humiliating Italian ultimatum in 1940, a refusal to acquiesce that led to invasion. Greece is also the country whose stereotype is plate-smashing. The New York Times recently ran a story recalling doughty Greek fighters in the early 1800s who blew themselves up rather than submit to the Ottoman; in the mountains of Zalongo, by legend, women flung their children off a cliff and then danced off after them rather than be sold as slaves. And yet feisty contrarianism may be just what the twin hegemonic systems of free markets and undue influence by the demands of capital, deserve in exhausting 2015. Greece’s negativity has gone global after a No vote to a referendum on whether it should approve an already lapsed offer from eurozone finance minister for a new bailout. When it comes to it most people’s view on the Greece tragedy is rooted in their psychology: do they favour the underdog and the romantic, or the powerful and the financial. Above all it is rooted in their desire for change. If you think the world, presumably symptomised by your own situation, is in good shape, you will be nervous about it; if not you may be more open to radicalism. Village tends to be critical of prevailing politics and economics and is open to radical change. But even for the cautious the weight of evidence suggests we must stop bullying the admittedly traditionally profligate Greeks. On a human level certainly Greece commands our sympathy as, five years into the debt crisis, the country has suffered a loss of 25% of its GDP and a debilitating rise in immiseration and the unemployment rate – which now stands at over 50% among young people. However, even on a basic practical level, Nobel Prize-winner Paul Krugman, for example, says austerity is also probably shrinking Greece’s economy faster than it reduces debt, so all the suffering serves no purpose. According to the conservative IMF’s analysis, Athens’ debts are unsustainable and require large-scale relief: a 20-year grace period, or a haircut that yields a reduction in debt of more than 30% of GDP. Otherwise even if the economy managed to grow at close to its historical long-term average of 1pc a year, Greece’s debt ratio would still top 100pc of GDP in three decades. “Facts are stubborn. You can’t hide the facts because they may be exploited”, one IMF official told Reuters. If discomfiting, this analysis at least has the determining virtue of being the truth. As Village went to press the normally practical Germans were finally coming around to this truth, though confusingly they did not seem to incline to being a consensual partners to any write-off. More fundamentally for non-Greeks, the debacle has certainly undermined those who claim either global capitalism or the European project are exercises in democracy. For example if you wondering why the IMF favours the markets and keeping taxes down, when dealing with the likes of Ireland and Greece, it is important to know that IMF decisions require an 85% majority, and the US holds 17% of the votes. The IMF will not allow Greece to raise taxes on the rich or on corporations. It interfered with Greece’s fiscal authority to insist on a change to any possible bailout to reflect this concern. A previous Greek government was forced out when it called a referendum and a change of leadership was foisted anti-democratically by the eurogroup on Italy when the Euro-technocrat Mario Monti was imposed as Prime Minister in 2011. In Ireland the process where in 2010 at a conference call with the G7 finance ministers, a haircut for Irish bank bondholders was vetoed by US treasury secretary Timothy Geithner, shows closer to home just how undemocratically decisions that affect all of us can be taken. How often do we see policy driven by resigned, indeed sometimes enthusiastic, deference to the markets. It is alleged you cannot buck them. Moreover, whatever government the cradle of democracy chooses it must, like all eurozone countries, defer to the decision taken in December 2011 by the European Council to adopt a new fiscal compact, imposing on all members of the eurozone a rule that “government budgets shall be balanced or in surplus”. The rule had to be transcribed into national law, and to “contain an automatic correction mechanism that shall be triggered in the event of deviation”. Decisions on Greece have been dominated by ‘the eurogroup’, an informal group not bound by treaties or other laws that actually does not consider itself bound by those long-lucubrated European treaties. The European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) is an anonymous and unelected body, passing itself off as a robotic ‘Facility’ that has acquired the power to bankrupt an entire country and effectively expel it from the euro zone. It recently issued a formal threat to call in Greece’s loans from the EFSF early. It simply has no mandate. Why should we be in thrall to a bureaucracy supporting that has now shown itself willing to support kleptocracy? In 2015 Ireland will spend over €8bn on interest alone on debt repayments. That’s roughly the same as we spend on the entire education budget. It is unsustainable, mini-boom notwithstanding. On ethical and selfish grounds, and because Ireland uniquely can see that global capitalism, represented by the extraordinary boom, crash and enforced payments to unsecured bondholders, and democratic deficits represented by our vulnerability to decisions taken elsewhere. In an interview with Die Zeit in early July French Thomas Piketty suggested that we need a conference on all of Europe’s debts, just like after World War II: “A restructuring of all debt, not just in Greece but in several European countries, is inevitable. Just now, we’ve lost six months in the completely intransparent negotiations with Athens”. A new European institution would be required to determine the maximum allowable
