Recently Hot and News

By Michael Smith. Eamon Gilmore needs to continue showing us his edge. “Triangulate: to move in the direction of a point by partly moving away from it”. For years the Irish Labour Party in general and its now leader, Eamon Gilmore in particular, have – characteristically – triangulated. They criticise a measure but pull their punches in part, lest they risk alienating someone or being seen as too radical. Or maybe because the Irish Labour Party, its leadership and much of its membership, after a period of radicalism thirty years ago, is now conservative by temperament. Gilmore won’t criticise the central substance of a measure; he’ll criticise its timing, its presentation, its costing, he’ll say it didn’t go far enough or something else needed to be done first. This won’t just be an add-on to his assessment, it will be his sound-byte. If Eamon Gilmore was breaking it off with you he’d say it wasn’t about you it was about him. Indeed that’s exactly what he’s been telling the unions. Speaking to the party’s youth conference about the link between Labour and the Unions, for Gilmore “It was not about the Labour Party’s view of the trade unions”. But rather, “the question is: where do the trade unions’ members see themselves in relation to the Labour Party?”. Gilmore would characteristically deny there is a problem with policies that indirectly have the effect of favouring the rich by saying he never sees such people. On a recent Questions and Answers programme, for example, he got around a question about whether he was in favour of allowing Tony O’Reilly a free medical card by saying he never saw millionaires at the doctor’s. It’s his instinct: caution outside his key passions. It allows him always to appear solid and competent and not to frighten the horses; and the pedantry even suggests erudition. But politics isn’t really about politicians. Or even primarily about competence. Gilmore needs to unlearn many of his key strategies. The question for Gilmore’s Labour Party is: Is there any beef? The policies Income Tax Labour’s 2007 Manifesto says “Labour will enhance the incomes of hard working families who have suffered from the “rip off” experience by delivering … a 2-point cut in the standard rate of tax from 20 per cent to 18 per cent”. This is directly culled from US and British populist thinking pitched at middle earners rather than the most needy in society. CGT and Corporation Tax Labour’s 2007 Manifesto which remains policy says “we recognise the need to maintain incentives for work, and to maintain Ireland’s attractiveness as a location for mobile investment and skilled labour. Accordingly we will: Maintain the existing rates of Corporation Tax. Maintain the existing rates of Capital Gains Tax”. In fact there is no reason not to increase Corporation Tax marginally to pay for services. It is also a blatant non-sequitur to imply that CGT is an incentive to work. This is definitive evidence of the Labour Party’s failure of nerve and radicalism. Universal Benefits Gilmore favours universal – i.e. non-means-tested – entitlements even against a background where the country cannot afford to give such “rights” to the richest. He seems, perhaps unwittingly, to be pandering to the middle-class base and brains of his party. Means-testing for Medical cards – including for over-seventies – and requiring university fees for those on high incomes are egalitarian policies (though in the case of the over-seventies it may be disproportionate to withdraw entitlements they have come to depend on). Applying typical Gilmore logic he says universal provision of services and benefits ensures those on middle and higher incomes have a stake in maintaining high standards of public services. In fact it is more notable they get a benefit than that they get a stake. Environment Triangulation was the key to Gilmore’s approach as Labour Party Environment spokesperson until 2007. For example Gilmore said the Protection of the Environment Bill 2003 which required householders, as polluters, to pay for the waste they generated and car-sellers to take responsibility for ”end-of-life” vehicles would “come to haunt” the Government when householders, the motor trade and local communities came to realise its impact. There was certainly a problem with the Bill which undemocratically allowed County Managers to override elected councilors, but the costs of taking care of the environment were inevitable and he should not, as environment spokesperson, have been arguing against them on blatantly populist grounds. Carbon Tax. Gilmore advocated reform of vehicle registration taxes (VRT) to encourage people to buy smaller cars, but Labour ruled out and continues to rule out introducing a carbon tax. Such taxation would damage Ireland’s competitiveness, Gilmore said. Liberal Social Agenda Gilmore has notably failed clearly to champion the classic “liberal” social positions that once galvanised his supporters. Abortion Gilmore does not feel the need to promote the party position which is to legislate for the X case. He told Hot Press, “I’m pro-choice. If abortion wasn’t as available in the UK then it would be much more on our agenda than it is now. Situations where the life of a mother is at risk, where a foetus is not viable, and, in particular, the issue of rape – those areas need to be looked at”. As he admits, it is not really on their agenda. Gay Marriage He is not pushing for a referendum for gay marriage, though typically he recently disdained the greens as having been “sold a pup” by FF in not getting commitments to hold one. He said of the Labour Party’s Civil Unions Bill, “To the extent that it stops short of changing the definition of marriage in the Irish constitution … some would argue that we have chosen the wrong approach… [but] our bill will lay the foundation to enable us to win the argument if or when there is a referendum on the issue”. Secular State. Gilmore doesn’t see the Angelus as an issue of secularity but as one of taste. He told

Programme-renegotiation not enough as even finger-wagging becomes parody – John Gormley 

Mary Fitzpatrick interviewed by Michael Smith Councillor Mary Fitzpatrick, 44, was born and raised on the Navan Road in Dublin’s North Inner City, one of four children of Tom Fitzpatrick, a doctor and dentist who became a Fianna Fáil TD, She went to St Dominick’s in Cabra and to UCD where she studied politics and then Italian and German which she thought might get her a job. She emigrated in the eighties, she worked in France, Italy and the US after getting a Green Card. She worked in international sales for a subsidiary of the Associated Press By 1992 she was selling broadband capacity to the Chicago Board of Trade and others, first in the US and then back in Dublin until 2006, serving the whole of Europe. She says the key to sales is “know your product and sell its strengths”. She now lives in Glasnevin with her husband Seán and three children. Her first election was the locals in 2003/4 and she has served as councillor – always in opposition since then, currently as Fianna Fáil’s Council leader. She is most famous for being shafted by Bertie Ahern in a mutually unedifying tit-for-tat of leaflet drops which in the end secured election for his unprepossessing buddy, Cyprian Brady, ahead of her in the 2007 General Election. Brady got elected on Ahern’s transfers though he’d secured an excruciatingly small number of first preferences. Throughout the interview she is engaging, good-humoured, balanced and disconcertingly charming with an infectious laugh. She had been interested in politics from her childhood, working on her father’s campaigns and got involved with Fianna Fáil “To make a contribution for my community”. She considers herself “a centrist politician, republican, democratic republican politician, my motivation I suppose is equality and equality of opportunity”. I ask if she is open to equality of outcome – to in effect compensate some people in circumstances where people get off to such a difficult start that it’s difficult for them to explore the opportunity she emphasises. She says education is the key, ensuring people have a decent start in life, a decent home. If we could get those two things right, we would be making huge strides towards equality”. Would she describe herself as a socialist like her Nemesis Ahern? “I think in its narrowest and strictest definition it’s a failed political philosophy and it just doesn’t really exist here”. She thinks the Socialist Party are not really serious about socialism. Unusually her hero is Abraham Lincoln: “he really battled through and made real changes, and had personal courage”. Anyone else, anyone in Ireland? |”Not particularly”. What class would she describe herself as? “I don’t”. Does she think that Fianna Fáil has been of service to the country? “Yes absolutely. I think the value of Fianna Fáil hasn’t been what it should be and we need to do better and we’re all committed to doing that, but I think if you look at the entirety of Fianna Fail’s service to the country, absolutely we’ve been of service. But we need to restore value to the brand”. Okay, how would she assess the last Fianna Fail/Green Government? “I can’t answer that question because…Can I come back to it? Later she comes back with “challenged”. Kind. As to what she thinks of Ahern and Cowen, and Martin: “Bertie was your quintessential campaigning politician. Cowen I didn’t know well. I’ve met him a handful of times and he struck me as a very patriotic individual. Micheál Martin, a politician with real determination and real vision to see Ireland recover”. How would she describe his vision in a word? “Ambitious”. How many times has she met Bertie Ahern, and Micheál Martin, roughly (I don’t have a clear picture)? “Well, I must have met Bertie a good number of times; I can’t say. Micheál a good number of times as well, I don’t meet him on a daily basis”. Does she believe Bertie Ahern’s evidence to the Mahon Tribunal – on the digouts for example? “Do I have to answer that question, I don’t want to”. Who owns Bertie’s former constituency den, St Luke’s? “Talk to the General Secretary, Seán Dorgan, he’s the person dealing with it. I don’t use it, but my understanding is the ownership of the property was transferred to Fianna Fáil Headquarters”. Ever met Denis O’Brien? It’s a querulous No. Just asking. . Just what sort of bank guarantee does she think was appropriate? “I don’t think they’d any option and obviously we’ve to await the outcome of a properly independent banking enquiry”. I note there have been a number of reports : “There was a number of reports, but there needs to be an independent one or we’re never going to learn from those mistakes”. Could they not have curtailed it in terms of time or left out unsecured bondholders? “I don’t think any of us know if that was even an option for them”. The current Government. Does she think the government is improving the efficacy of the civil service and the semi-states? “My biggest experience is what they’re doing with water services and in that respect absolutely not. What we’ve had is a situation where they have taken some of our staff, our property tax – €100 million in Dublin, they’ve spent it on consultants to create an organisation that is accountable to nobody and there is no improvement in the quality of the water service”. They shouldn’t start taxing water until they’ve sorted out the problems”. She’s not too keen to say how they should pay for the improvements necessary to get up to those standards. ”Maybe they should have implemented real efficiencies”. “I’m not opposed to environmental charges including water charges – or indeed to property taxes – per se”. She accepts the principle of a local tax to be spent on local services. But “That is not what is happening. Phil Hogan made a public statement to encourage everybody to pay their property tax –