Perspective - Village Magazine

September/October 2015 3

Online

www.villagemagazine.ie

@VillageMagIRE

Village Magazine promotes in its

columns the fair distribution of

resources, welfare, respect and

opportunity by the analysis and

investigation of inequalities,

unsustainable development

and corruption, and the media’s

role in their perpetuation; and

by acute cultural analysis.

Editor

Michael Smith

editor@villagemagazine.ie

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+353 1 873 5824

Production

Village Magazine

Editorial Board

Niall Crowley, Joan Fitzpatrick

Bride Rosney, Michael Smith

Contributing Editors

Niall Crowley, John Gormley

Printers

Boylans, Drogheda, Co Louth

Village is published by:

Ormond Quay Publishing

6 Ormond Quay Upper, Dublin 7

sales@villagemagazine.ie

Issue 40

September/October

2015

EDITORIAL

Perspective

Focus anger and energy to promote equality and sustainability

NDA Kenny was not in fact damned by the Fennelly

report. It found he did not sack or seek to sack hap-

less Garda commissioner Martin Callinan.

Admittedly there are caveats and a “however”, but from

the fury of commentators and opposition politicians

you would think Kenny was Bertie Ahern. When people

need to be ﬁred, and no-one could vouch conﬁdence in

the commissioner, it’s impossible for the axe-wielder to

look good. The most important thing was to remove the

commissioner, in a society where too often incompe-

tents are left in place.

Village is not particularly well disposed to Enda

Kenny as a force in politics but that is because of his

antipathy to equality and sustainability (and all that

winking). Not how he ﬁres people, though clearly he

can learn lessons in transparency, and minute-taking.

Certainly there are questions for the Attorney Gen-

eral and the Garda Commissioner (and indeed his

successor) and the report published is only a compo-

nent of an ongoing investigation of Garda station

recordings but a sense of proportion is required and

anger should be dispensed eﬀectively.

For example, for Village other issues of propriety

have more legs. The recommendations of the Moriarty

and Mahon Tribunals languish. What happened to the

team of  oﬃcers from CAB who were looking at the

£, channelled to Lowry by Denis O’ Brien after

Lowry had granted the second mobile-phone licence to

O’Brien’s Esat in ? What is happening to Ben

Dunne who received beneﬁts from Lowry that were

“profoundly corrupt to a degree that was nothing short

of breathtaking”? Is Bertie Ahern to be prosecuted for

his perjury and conspiring to mislead the Mahon

tribunal?

The authorised oﬃcer’s dossier on Ansbacher pur-

ports to establish a wide-ranging establishment

conspiracy to ensure well-known holders of illegal

bank accounts were never exposed. Why has this never

been investigated and why will the media not even

report it?

If propriety is the issue, Kenny is not the outstanding

problem.

But it is not the principal problem. There are epochal

emergencies such as the rise of Isis, failed nations,

colossal migration and climate change. Kenny, no

visionary, makes little diﬀerence to these issues.

Meanwhile, basic iniquities seldom make the news.

Poverty, Travellers’ rights, Direct Provision and refu-

gees (until there’s a photogenic death), homelessness,

the iniquities of the bank guarantee and Nama, species

loss.

For Village the overarching issue is equality. Village

believes equality of outcome is an ethical imperative.

We are all equal from birth and ethically. Society’s goal

is to recognise that by distributing resources to rein-

force that equality.

Only equality gives the perspective necessary to deal

pre-emptively with each of the problems above, without

the need for a crisis, a death or a photo-op.

The debate about equality is very crude, partly

because those who beneﬁt from inequality want to keep

it that way.

For example, inconveniently, during the Great Reces-

sion in Ireland the two income groups worst aﬀected

were the very highest earners whose income fell by over

% and the very lowest earners whose incomes fell by

%. It is important nevertheless to keep a focus on

the fact that absolute poverty and deprivation levels

- among those very lowest earners – have been rising

consistently since . The level of deprivation has

almost doubled since . As Mike Allen notes, for

example, in this edition of Village: in July this year, 

families became homeless,  of them for the ﬁrst time.

Anybody seeking to address the big ethical issue of

equality would have only to undertake to reduce abso-

lute poverty and increase equality, measured by the

Gini coeﬃcient, across the range of income levels, and

to leave oﬃce if they did not make progress. That politi-

cians are insincere is evident from their unwillingess to

establish simple indicators to gauge their impact on

fairness.

And sustainability is a subsidiary of equality for it is

transcendently unequal to transmit fewer of the earth’s

resources and joys to the next generation than the

legacy left to this generation.

In ,  and  years they will not remember Sep-

tember  for the Fennelly Report (or for water

charges or property taxes). They will note that we

allowed inequality to pervade, that we were squander-

ing the earth’s resources and that we failed to avail of

the opportunity to tame climate change.

And they may note that the desperate quest for

asylum, and its principal driver, an anarchic civilisa-

tion-subverting industrial-scale terrorism of daunting

ambition, both ﬁrst became manifest on a vast scale in

.

If we think migration on the scales we’ve reluctantly

been debating over the last few weeks is dramatic, wait

until climate change drives millions from drought,

desertiﬁcation and sea-level rises.

If we want to deal with the problems of our era and

for future generations to pay us any respect we must

ensure all policy pushes for equality and sustainability.

And direct our ire at those who stand in its way. Not get

waylaid by an incompetent ﬁring of an inept Garda

Commissioner. •

4September/October 2015

3 Editorial Perspective required on Fennelly, corruption and equality

NEWS

6 Villager News miscellany

10 McCreevy, Dunne and Mulryan Axis of developers, bankers and politicians not fully exposed

Frank Connolly

12 Contagious Allegations about NAMA in North

Frank Connolly

13 Aﬀray in Bray How did restaurant get 250-year lease?

Frank Connolly

14 In the dark Workplace Relations Commission shelters Parties

Michael Smith

15 North’s Unions Wary of South’s embrace of Sinn Féin

Anton McCabe

16 Migrants Minister’s cynicism on direct provision

Fiona Finn

OPINION

18 Constantin Gurdgiev No market is an island

22 Sinéad Pentony Atkinson’s template for equality in Budget 2016

25 John Gormley Migration gyration

26 Ruth Barrington Children and Family Relationships Act is no panacea for unmarried fathers

POLITICS

28 Abortion Ireland’s laws let us down internationally

Cathie Doherty

30 Deinstitutionalise and give choice to people with disabilities

Niall Crowley

31 Transformative Trans legislation needs to include children too

Vanessa Lacey

32 Freedom politics My platform of creativity and passion

Senator Katherine Zappone

34 Septic tanks Ineﬀective National Inspection Plan

Simon Mooney

37 Homelessness Open letter to Taoiseach

Mike Allen

MEDIA

38 Times tables

Irish Times’

app better than

Times’

Gerard Cunningham

40 Confusing How newspapers confound sales and readership

Gerard Cunningham

CULTURE

42 Book review Theodore Zeldin’s ‘The Hidden Pleasures of Mankind’

Frank Armstrong

46 Sculpture My initiation into art

Kenneth Ruxton

48 Rugby took over my life

Brian John Spencer

replies to

Jim O’Callaghan’s

recent article

50 Newgrange Boyne Valley chamber of horrors

Kevin Kiely

54 Obesity obeisance

Michael Smith

replies to a misleading article on obesity

ENVIRONMENT

58 A prehistory of violence Mass extinction caused by fossil fuels

George Monbiot

60 Plastics A beady eye on toxin balls

John Gibbons

61 Obituary Dominic Dunne, heritage hero

Ruádhan MacEoin

62 Motor moronism Regime of taxes weirdly doesn’t achieve aims

Eoin O’Malley

64 Depressing Exposed and un-green Wolfe Tone Park

Ciaran Flynn

INTERNATIONAL

68 Nationalism trumps socialism How history made leftists pro-EU

Anthony Coughlan

70 Sustainability Multinationals outmanoeuvre UN

Lorna Gold

72 Halawa’s purgatory Get medical treatment for young Ibrahim

Lynn Boylan, MEP

73 Sustainable development Make us the best little country

Niall Crowley

74 Europe’s angry Ukrainian frontier Where the EU is a force for division

Frank Armstrong

76 The meaning of Civilisation From Syria to asylum in Germany, via Greece

Johanna Kaprio

78 (Fake Letter) From Dr O’Brien to Dr Desmond

79 Village Idiot September/October 2015 Donald Trump

CONTENTS September/October 2015

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September/October 2015 5

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