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Let’s leave our useless banks with worthless IOUs, writes Mick O’Broin. Even before it emerged that the National Assets Management Agency (NAMA) was definitively bailing out developers, its dealings with banks were problematic. NAMA is, as Enda Kenny said from the opposition benches, “another blank cheque to bailout the banks”. And, like the bank bailouts in general, there has been a variety of voices pointing out the illegitimate nature of the public debt generated by NAMA.
The independent Garda watchdog produced a report about the Corrib Garda ‘rape tape’ that misinformed the public and undermined the women who brought the recording to public attention. By William Hederman. It was one of the most extraordinary news stories of 2011. On March 31st, Gardaí in north Mayo arrested two anti-Shell campaigners and seized a video camera. The Garda sergeant and colleagues then inadvertently recorded themselves joking about threatening to rape and deport one of the two women in their custody before handing the camera back. The recording was posted online, where it was listened to by more than 100,000 people within days. It provided a disturbing glimpse into the minds of some of the very people to whom women are expected to report rape. However, the saga took a more worrying twist four months later. In late July, the Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission (GSOC), which was conducting a ‘public interest’ inquiry into the incident, announced it had sent an “Interim Progress Report” to the Minister for Justice, Alan Shatter. Shatter published the report and, within hours, widespread media coverage had implanted several key pieces of false information in the public mind. This three-page report should be compulsory reading for students of PR and political spin. By cleverly juxtaposing several half-truths and omitting most of the crucial information, it created an impression that all was not as it seemed with the ‘rape tape’. It serves Garda interests by undermining the women and creating an impression that these Gardaí might have been victims of Shell to Sea shenanigans. Back in April, the ‘rape tape’ had provoked public outrage. The official Garda response was contrite: the Garda Commissioner apologised and reassured “victims of sexual crime” that they should continue to report those crimes to Gardaí. Behind the scenes, it was business as usual for Garda ‘sources’. Personal details of the two arrested women were leaked to the press (the women had initially hoped to remain out of the public eye). A reporter turned up at the family home of one of them, Jerrieann Sullivan. She said her parents were “extremely upset” by this. Meanwhile, Caoimhe Kerins of Dublin Shell to Sea says she received tip-offs from two crime correspondents that Gardaí were spreading a rumour that the women had shouted “rape” during the arrest. Kerins assured them it wasn’t true and the journalists didn’t print it. The rationale of Gardaí seemed to be that this rumour would mitigate the Garda behaviour in the public mind: a disturbing echo of the old notion that a woman is to blame for rape. This smear finally found its way into print 10 weeks later, when Jim Cusack published the rumour as fact in the Sunday Independent on June 19th. Sullivan complained to the Press Ombudsman and in October he ruled that Cusack’s article was “significantly misleading”. Some Gardaí and their allies had been seeking revenge. But surely GSOC would act more fairly and impartially? The signs were not promising. On April 17th, the News of the World quoted a “source” at GSOC, claiming Sullivan was refusing to hand over the camera. She says she was “shocked at how a supposedly independent public body could feed journalists with information that undermined a witness in its own investigation”. In fact, there was a short delay in handing over the camera, because of a dilemma facing Jerrieann Sullivan and lecturers at NUI Maynooth, where she was doing an MA degree. The camera belonged to the university and contained a research interview she had recorded three weeks before the “rape” recording. The interview was subject to confidentiality agreements with the participants: academic guidelines meant the confidentiality of the interview had to be protected. When GSOC demanded the camera, the university academics explained their predicament to GSOC and repeatedly offered to have the older file deleted in the presence of GSOC. However, they say GSOC ignored all offers and issued threats of criminal prosecution against Sullivan and her lecturers. A spokesman for GSOC told Village he could not comment because, “This is an ongoing investigation of a criminal nature and we are bound to protect the confidentiality of that investigation.” Jerrieann Sullivan was forced to hire a solicitor. She says that he was, in turn, threatened by GSOC “with a fine or imprisonment for not handing over the camera”. A statement from seven academics – Sullivan’s course directors at NUI Maynooth – describes GSOC’s attitude to Sullivan and the other woman (who has managed to remain anonymous) as “consistently hostile, recalling past treatment of the victims of sexual violence”. Nine days after the story broke in April, the older file , containing the recording of the research interview, was deleted from the camera in the academics’ presence, and the camera given to GSOC. The possible motives behind GSOC’s approach became clearer when the Interim Report appeared. The deletion of the older file was cleverly exploited to give the false impression that the recording of the rape comments had been “tampered with”. The Interim Report makes no mention of Sullivan’s and the academics’ explanations, nor of their offers to reach a compromise. It simply reports that files had been deleted from the camera, implying that this was mysterious: “The significance of these deleted files … was not known”. The report is misleading by implying that GSOC first became aware of the file deletion when examining the camera, whereas in fact Sullivan and the academics insist the file deletion had been explained to them in a series of oral and written communications, involving university authorities and solicitors. When this was put to GSOC, the spokesman pointed out that the interim report “doesn’t say that the recording from March 31st was interfered with.” The report also appears to weigh in behind the insidious Garda rumour that the women said rape first. Jerrieann says she was questioned by GSOC for almost five hours, but her testimony is not referred to in the report. The only person quoted in the report is an
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The egalitarian Niall Crowley. The report of the working group on the proposed merger of the Equality Authority and the Irish Human Rights Commission into the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission (IHREC), commissioned in October 2011 was finally published in late March. It is comprehensive and expert and does put it up to Minister Alan Shatter to realise, as suggested by the working group, the opportunity offered by the merger “to develop an integrated body that can be stronger than the sum of the two existing bodies”. The Minister welcomed the “comprehensive and coherent package of recommendations”. So far so good. He then bizarrely chose to highlight that “the Group concludes that success of the new IHREC will be measured, not by the number of legal cases taken, but by their impact in promoting its strategic goals”. This reopens the suspicion that his agenda is to limit litigation by the new body, in particular litigation against the public sector. In any event, the Minister somewhat distorts the working group’s conclusion on this. The report does state that the “focus should be on strategic cases which are precedent-setting”. However, it is clear that it should be for the IHREC to decide which cases to take and that , sometimes, support to a number of individual cases on a single issue may be appropriate. The working group would have done better to acknowledge that sometimes a critical mass of cases is necessary to instil a culture of compliance among employers, service providers and other duty bearers. The Minister would have inspired more confidence had he chosen to recognise the four challenges posed in the report for a ‘feasible merger’. The new body will need to have: • Adequate resources. • Adequate and coherent functions and powers • Unifying strategies to ensure it does not function in two separate silos. • Appropriate career and personal development paths for staff. The working group is clear that the staffing levels for the two existing bodies are inadequate and that the new body “should be properly funded to perform its functions and exercise its powers”. It recommends that “the disproportionate cuts imposed in the past” are reversed. However, is it the dead hand of the Department of Justice, Equality and Defence that adds the proviso that this should be “as soon as possible”? The functions and powers for the new body are set out in detail in the report and it is established – crucially – that the same powers need to be available for both the human rights and equality agendas. New powers are also suggested for implementing an important new duty that is recommended be imposed on the public sector to “take due note of human rights and equality in carrying out their functions”. However, again the dead hand of the Department of Justice is seen. The new body can only “facilitate” and “support” public-sector bodies to meet these new obligations. There is to be no external monitoring or enforcement. The report is weak on how to integrate work on equality with work on human rights. It usefully recommends a structure that will unify legal, research and promotional work in the two fields. However, it does not capture an underpinning philosophy for the two fields. This will remain a challenge in integrating the new body. This seems to result from a limited understanding of equality. The report’s unhelpful definition is that “all persons being equal in dignity, rights and responsibilities”. This does not capture the reality that inequality touches a majority of people in our society nor the need to address inequality in the distribution of resources, power, status and standing and relationships of care and solidarity. It fails to recognise the importance of addressing the practical implications of diversity. And that the responsibilities of the wealthiest and most privileged are greatest. The report points out that international standards require that senior-level posts in the body should not be filled with secondees. It goes on to recommend that senior-level staff should be recruited by the IHREC directly through an open competition. Again aspiration is tempered by a proviso – “in future”. The Sociologist Mary Murphy. In ‘Shock Doctrine’ Naomi Klein chillingly describes the Right as always ready, waiting for moments of crisis, to move in and apply its prescriptive ideas. While the Left also expects opportunity in crisis, progressives have been found wanting by failing to grab the moment of crisis to popularise an alternative ideology to the one that caused the crisis. Writing last year Unger, for example, noted how there appears to be a lack of capacity to imagine and articulate alternatives and a tragic narrowing of political imagination and absence of progressive political projects. The Right and Centre simply claim there are no alternatives and successfully narrow political debate. They are aided by the Left’s collective failure to identify and popularise meaningful alternatives. Traditional political sources of progress like social democrats are backed into narrow defensive corners from where they tend to legitimate economic consensus. Marxist inspired alternatives often lack either credibility or vision. This is where civil society groups come in. Civil-society movements can work to popularise normative values or ideas about the good society and to build forums in which to deliberate and negotiate those ideas. Since 2010 Claiming our Future, for example, has attempted to create new public spheres where people can deliberate about alternatives. Over 1000 people met in the first event in the RDS in October 2010. Many more people have subsequently come together to reflect on and re-imagine democracy, local government and participation, new approaches to localism and achieving environmental sustainability, and fostering equality through minimum and maximum incomes. A common concern at all the events has been the Government’s ‘Plan A’, with its excessive focus on public expenditure cuts and its absence of both progressive taxation and investment in jobs and infrastructure. A constant theme for Claiming our Future is to argue that there are plausible and credible alternatives to this ‘Plan
Illustration: Phil Connors. [Archive, October 2011] Gary Fitzgerald on how and why the public interest has been hijacked. From 1995 until 2007 Ireland experienced one of the largest asset-price bubbles in the history of the world. We are now living with the fallout: negative equity and huge personal indebtedness. Recently there have been growing calls for a personal-debt forgiveness-scheme. However, the decisions taken by the Irish State in response to the end of the property bubble make it very unlikely that any such scheme will be implemented. When the bubble burst in 2007, the first part of the Irish economic system to feel the pressure was the banks. Almost every bank in the State had loaned large sums of money to developers, secured on land. As long as land kept going up in value then everything was fine. But once the inevitable happened and land fell in value almost every Irish bank either became insolvent or flirted with insolvency. The government’s response was to save the banks at all costs. It may be that this was as a result of an order from the European Central Bank (ECB), but the decision was taken by the government. The bank guarantee of 2008 turned private banking debt into public debt. It tied the banks and the State together. Following quickly after the guarantee came the National Assets Management Agency (NAMA). NAMA was to take distressed property loans of the major developers off the banks’ balance books at a discount and work those loans out over time. For example, let’s suppose that Mr Builder owed Bank of Ireland €100 million. NAMA bought that loan from the bank at a discount of 70% – and then stepped in to the shoes of the bank. The bank got €30 million in cash and had to make provision for €70 million in bad debts. NAMA was then supposed to recover as much of the €100 million as possible from the developer. The impression was given in 2009 that NAMA would be aggressive in pursuing this money. But now NAMA acknowledges that it will only look for the discounted value of the loan. In other words it has finally, in the teeth of earlier protestations from Brian Lenihan, become clear that Mr Builder has had his €100 million loan reduced to €30 million. Why then can a similar scheme not be put in place for people with smaller debts to the bank? If some of the richest citizens in the State can have taxpayers’ money used to reduce their debt, why not the ordinary citizen? The answer is simple, because the State cannot afford to do both. Back in 2008 and 2009 it was clear that the banks faced two problems. The first was bad debts on loans to developers. As a result NAMA bought €72 billion worth of loans for €30 billion. The banks booked a €42 billion loss and many had to be recapitalised by the taxpayer as a result. The second was bad debts on loans to ordinary borrowers. According to the Central Bank personal debt in Ireland is over €390 billion, of which mortgages account for just over €109 billion. Both of these problems were clearly identified by the banks, politicians and the media. Yet the government chose to save the banks and developers at enormous cost. Now even if there was a political will to introduce a personal-debt forgiveness-scheme, the money is not there to do it. Once the banks start writing down personal debt to any significant level, they become insolvent again. This would require a further injection of capital by the State, resulting in higher taxes and cuts in public expenditure. With the State on the brink of insolvency itself, it is simply not in a position to do this. Is there another way that the State can assist those in debt? Debt can be eliminated in one of three ways. Either it can be forgiven, or it can be paid back, or inflation can reduce the real cost of the debt. Since we are members of the Euro, we don’t have the economic tools available to control our inflation rate. In any case government policy is to drive costs and prices down to make Ireland more competitive. This “internal devaluation” will worsen the problem of personal indebtedness, making it harder for those struggling to pay down debts incurred during the boom. Neither the banks nor the State can afford debt-forgiveness. Government policy is to deflate the economy and individual borrowers can’t repay the debt. What then does the future hold? What are the consequences of the State’s decision to protect the banks and developers and ignore the plight of the ordinary citizen? There is no simple answer to this, but it is clear that the future is bleak. Without personal debt-forgiveness there will be a large section of society who will feel betrayed by the State, who will have no incentive to participate in the State and who will have no economic future in the State. This may lead to a level of social disunity that Western Europe has not witnessed since the late 1920s. The acts of the Fianna Fail/Green coalition and now the Fine Gael/Labour coalition are nothing more than a betrayal of the ordinary citizen and the consequences could be terrible.
The Fianna Fáil veteran tells John Gormley why his old party should merge with the enemy I’ve known Ben Briscoe (77), former dynastic Fianna Fáil TD and Lord Mayor of Dublin, for over twenty years. He has remained a keen observer of politics since he retired as a Fianna Fáil deputy in 2002. I visited him recently in his home in Celbridge to interview him. He is a courteous host. As he escorts me into the house, Ben tells me that he is the owner of five Rhodesian Ridgebacks, large African dogs used to hunt lions. He says their fearsome reputation is undeserved, but asks me not to look them straight in the eye initially, just to be on the safe side. As the dogs circle and sniff me, I’m looking rigidly into the distance. All is well in the end and one of the females sits on the couch opposite for the entire interview. Briscoe doesn’t think much of journalists. He makes an exception for Sam Smyth, but can’t abide Joe Jackson. “If I saw him on the street I’d be tempted to kick him in the bollocks”. He claims that Jackson deliberately misrepresented his views on gay people in a Hot Press article when Briscoe was Lord Mayor. His views on journalism were also coloured by an encounter with a prominent journalist in the 1960s. He claims this now-deceased Irish Times journalist, who got money from Fianna Fáil for ‘consultancy’, once said to him: “I’m an unprincipled bastard and I’ll do anything for money”. It’s the sort of statement that could have come from the lips of certain Fianna Fáil politicians, which perhaps explains his obvious disenchantment with the party. ‘My disenchantment with Fianna Fail also stems from the fact that a lot of people were also using it as a vehicle to get into politics. It wasn’t because they believed in Fianna Fáil or its traditions. There was no idealism. It was just their way of getting their foot in the door.’ He’s critical too of Mount Street for not discouraging the sort of political nepotism that put a block on new blood coming through. He criticises the practice of ‘paper cumainn’ and claims that the “rot” set into Fianna Fail some time back. He then makes a rather astonishing admission: “I voted Fine Gael” in the last election; and was sorry they didn’t get an overall majority. He did vote too for Fianna Fáil’s Áine Brady for personal reasons. He likes Enda Kenny. “I’m very impressed with the way Kenny is coming across, because he’s coming across with strength. I like the way he looks Adams straight in the eye”. He thinks it is now time to end Civil War politics definitively by having a merger of Fianna Fail and Fine Gael. ‘The people have called it a day on Fianna Fáil. There is nothing now to inspire idealism. My feeling is that if Sinn Féin was to moderate they could overtake Fianna Fail.’ He also believes that if Fine Gael were to get an overall majority – something that he and many of his friends would like to see – that Labour could become the main opposition party. When it comes to the presidential election, he’s supporting Gay Mitchell. “I’m supporting him because I know him to be a man of the people.’ He shared a constituency with Gay Mitchell and they got on well together. ‘I had more respect from Fine Gael and Labour than I had from Fianna Fail”. He claims some in his own party made his religion an issue on the door step. The anti-Semitism sickened Briscoe, a man who is very proud of his Jewish heritage. His father, Robert Briscoe, a founder member of Fianna Fail was the first Jewish Lord Mayor of Dublin and a very popular figure in the United States. Briscoe didn’t like the stance of the last government regarding Israel and claims that the current government is “more pro Israel”. He speaks fondly of his late father. Robert Briscoe reported to Collins in the War of Independence but ended up supporting Dev, a man that Briscoe always liked. The principles and values that informed the new Fianna Fáil party are the same ones that shape Briscoe’s view of politics. “My motivation for this come from what’s best for the country. My father was one of the first forty members. He used to pay the rent for the party when they were in O’Connell street. It was ten shillings a week. The party is not the party that my father founded. The country comes first, then the party”. If a man like Ben Briscoe is saying these things ….then maybe Fianna Fáil does have a problem.
This is a difficult time to be involved in organisations that seek a more equal, environmentally sustainable and participative society. Poverty, unemployment and emigration are increasing. Key public services and welfare provisions are being diminished. Funding for ‘civil society’ is being cut with organisations closing or reducing their work. The political system is increasingly unresponsive to organisations that seek to promote alternatives to current responses to the economic crisis. The media space for public debate is virtually closed to such organisations. Claiming our Future (www.claimingourfuture.ie) is a movement that brings together people from the different parts of civil society committed to equality, environmental sustainability and participation. In this way it is hoped that a civil society force, more powerful than it has been possible to mobilise to date, would emerge with a greater capacity to make an impact. It is based on an understanding that a civil society space is needed where people can identify shared values and positions, explore alternatives to current policies, and test out the political choices being made against this shared value base. The need for such a movement is urgent. A recent study (by the Fondazione Rodolfo DeBenedetti in Milan, with Brian Nolan, of UCD’s College of Human Sciences as one of the editors) found that the percentage of people reporting deprivation of two or more items, out a list of eleven defined as ‘deprivation items’ (Being without heating at some stage in the last year/Unable to afford a morning, afternoon or evening out in the last fortnight/Unable to afford to replace any worn out furniture etc, rose from 12% in 2007 to 17% in 2009. The study did find a fall in income inequality as a consequence of recession. The Gini coefficient, which measures it, fell from .32 in 2007 to .29 in 2009. Despite this, the share of household income going to the highest ten per cent stood at a significant 23% in 2009. Furthermore the top 1% of earners continued a long-term upward trend in their earnings. The study warned that a new era of sharp distributional conflicts could now emerge between rich and poor people and between older and young people. The forthcoming budget is likely to reflect this danger in prioritising cuts in public spending over increased taxation of the wealthy. Claiming our Future point out that there are alternatives to what is currently on offer and that there are choices open to Government in framing this budget. The choices that will be made are, however, most likely to benefit the wealthy rather than those living in poverty or on low wages. One key choice will be the balance decided on between taxing the wealthy and cutting public expenditure. The priority should be on increased taxation of wealth and removing tax exemptions that reduce the effective tax rate on the wealthy if a more equal society is to emerge out of the crisis. This taxation would free up resources to protect public services and welfare payments and to create jobs. This choice is vital since previous economic crashes have been found to occur at moments of high levels of income inequality. An IMF analysis also found that spells of economic growth last longer in countries with relatively low levels of income inequality. Higher levels of violence, imprisonment and mental health issues and lower levels of life expectancy, educational attainment and social mobility have been found in countries with higher levels of income inequality. In taking this position Claiming our Future is articulating ideas developed at a ‘national discussion’ it hosted in May in Galway on reducing income inequality. Income inequality was identified as being at the heart of economic crisis and as leading to behaviour that damages societal culture and the planet. People on high incomes hold disproportionate influence. The need to level out income gaps was highlighted. It was considered that a maximum income threshold, set at some ratio to social welfare rates or to the minimum wage, was required. The event concluded that not enough is being done about this issue. Civil society needs to take action to demand greater income equality. The absence of political will was identified as a barrier to change. The December budget provides an important opportunity to challenge this.
Miriam Cotton surveys the political web forums causing a stir Bondwatch Ireland / The Chattering Magpie 14 Editor: Diarmuid O’Flynn Describe your website/what made you decide to set it up? Thechatteringmagpie14 is a blog of short articles explaining/updating our protest in Ballyhea. BondwatchIreland is about the next 12 bonds due for payment, the ‘Dirty Dozen’ – with details of the individual bonds as they arise. Because of the total lack of coverage/exposure in the mainstream media (print, radio, TV), people don’t know that most of the bank bonds have yet to mature. Over €60bn has still to be paid over the coming three years and more. This blog and protest shines a light on those bonds, a place where people can learn the truth of what’s happening. Even as we’re informed on a weekly basis of more cuts in our already suffering public service, more proposed taxes and levies, our banks – with our money – are paying out on those failed bonds, week after week, month after month, with no attendant publicity. Those on-going payments are a scandal, the on-going lack of major media coverage is also a scandal. This site is an effort to inform those who want to be informed. What are your two favourite political/current affairs sites/blogs and why? NamaWinelake – the most up-to-date, the most concise, the most accessible information on what’s going on in the murky world of Irish finance; and David McWilliams (www.davidmcwilliams.ie) – populist, but his articles are an easy read, and for the most part make eminent good sense. Generally speaking, what value do you think sites like yours offer that mainstream media and news reporting do not? The view from the bottom, with no vested interest, no worries about appealing to the lowest common denominator. What type of reader/user does your site attract? No idea, but probably those who are already concerned about the official imbalance between looking after banks/financial institutions and looking after people. How many registered users do you have? I don’t get into that‚ whoever is there is there, I’m not concerned about numbers. How many visitors and page views would you have in a typical month? Again, no idea, and no idea who I could track this‚ wouldn’t be interested in doing so. Have you ever come under pressure to take down valid stories or posts? How did you deal with it, if so? No. Contact Information: Web: http://bondwatchireland.blogspot.com/ Email: Ballyhea@eircom.net Twitter: @ballyhea14 Comment: An essential blog publishing information about the most critical economic activity affecting the country. Putting the national news media to shame. Broadsheet.ie Editor: John Ryan Describe your website/what made you decide to set it up? It’s a rolling news site with jokes uploaded every 15 minutes Monday-Friday, 9am-5pm with sporadic posting through the night and at weekends. It was set up to provide a news source for the bewildered by the bewildered. What information/stories, if any, have first been published on your site, ahead of the mainstream media? There have been a few. Sometimes they even credited us! Which was lovely. What are your two favourite political/current affairs sites/blogs and why? Right at this moment I like NamaWinelake and TheStory.ie. Generally speaking, what value do you think sites like yours offer that mainstream media/news reporting do not? A cynical and jaded worldview. What type of reader/user does your site attract? The urban or rural stoner of all ages. How many registered users do you have? None. How many visitors and page views would you have in a typical month? Visitors: 615,000, page views: 1.5 million Have you ever come under pressure to take down valid stories or posts? How did you deal with it, if so? If it is completely spurious we try when possible to print the solicitors’ letters on the site in an effort to ridicule them and their prose style. Contact Information: Web: http://broadsheet.ie Email: Use contact form on website Twitter: @broadsheet_ie Comment: Ireland’s answer to The Onion? Witty, sharp and exquisitely presented. Priority is entertainment and delectation over heavy politics, which incidentally appear to be broadly libertarian. Could use an ‘About us’ and a ‘Mission Statement’. The Cedar Lounge Revolution Administrator: Dónal Mac an éala Describe your website/what made you decide to set it up? The Cedar Lounge is a left-wing blog with a core group of four regular contributors supplemented by a broader group of up to ten irregular contributors. It deals with politics, culture, political economy and other matters. The decision to establish it was that the original core group (which has changed a bit over the years) having been through the bear-pit that is Politics.ie wanted to establish a space which was neutral, in the sense of not being party-political, but which was overtly left of centre, using the term ‘left’ in its broadest definition (including social-democrat, further left, republican, socialist, feminist, anarchist and so on) in a courteous and welcoming environment for all those interested in politics, particularly those of the left, but embracing those from the centre and right also. We also wanted to be able to discuss issues in greater detail than in the forum context. And we were sick of trolls, negativity, etc, etc. It wasn’t that we were unwilling to hear voices who differed, but we wanted to hear serious voices who would respect difference rather than simply see it as an excuse for attacks. What information/stories, if any, have first been published on your site, ahead of the mainstream media? Only one, where we hinted at the nationalisation of Anglo-Irish which I’d heard about some hours previously through knowing people linked to those making the decision. But that’s it. We’ve never been interested in news-breaking or news-making but rather commentary on news. We’re not journalists so we don’t see our function as supplanting journalism but rather running parallel to (or slightly behind) it. What are your two favourite political/current affairs sites/blogs and why? Michael Taft’s (Economist for the Unite Trade Union) Notes on the Front (notesonthefront.typepad.com) – political