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    Ross hits judicial soft spot

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    There is this extraordinary conjunction of interest between the legal profession and parliament. Lawyers in Ireland play a very active part in the political system. In 2010 there were 16 barristers and solicitors in Dáil Eireann – ten percent of the total. There are strong historical associations between the professions of politics and the law. In Ireland’s case the association has been grandly embedded at least since the time of Daniel O’Connell, arguably the greatest Irish parliamentary figure and agitator a popular and crusading barrister whose campaign for Catholic emancipation earned him the sobriquet ‘the Liberator’, Radical nationalists following in O’Connell’s wake quite often, unfairly, depict his achievement of Catholic emancipation as being only of benefit to the Catholic middle class or the well-heeled lawyerly professionals. Wolfe tone and Padraig Pearse were also members of the legal profession. In more modern times lawyers have in many ways dominated the new state. The story of the first half of the Irish state (1916-1966) was in large part an economic failure – weak domestic industry and continued emigration. The safe and prestigious jobs were in medicine, the professions, banking, the civil service and the law. The meagreness of economic growth and wealth imbued these positions with an enviable mobility for those with social or class aspirations. A great many lawyers also gravitated towards politics. Traditionally the appointment of judges was a rather rarefied activity monopolised by the cabinet. In Ireland judges must have 12 years (10 for the District Court) experience as a barrister or solicitor. Interestingly, the US alone among common law countries has literally no requirements for appointment to its courts, though of course there is stringent scrutiny of supreme Court candidates by the legislature including a senate Judiciary Committee. Historically in Ireland, the whole thing had the feel of an insiders’ game. For example, there was a kind of informal, lawyers’ club within the cabinet when my father, the late Brian Lenihan senior, was in politics. My father, needless to add, was highly active, along with other cabinet-rank lawyers, when it came to the appointment of people as members of the judiciary. Friends and former colleagues of his in the bar library were constantly discussed as possible or actual appointments to the bench. In my father’s time Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael dominated the appointments with an occasional Labour party twist. The two big parties were careful enough to appoint supporters of the opposite political persuasion to create the impression that the process itself was fair and impartial. By the time i had been elected to the Dail in 1997 the appointment of judges had become an extraordinary example of indiscreet lobbying and jockeying for place and position. TDs were frequently canvassed to promote a particular individual. I even became involved myself and managed, along with others to get two or three lawyers appointed who I felt would be good people to be members of the judiciary. In her recent book on ‘the politics of Judicial selection in Ireland’, Jennifer Carroll MacNeill concludes of judicial appointments: “some systems are exclusively based on the preferences of the executive, some systems require approval of nominations by the legislature, some appoint judges according to a quota by different branches of the political system and some restrict the involvement of politicians to selecting among individuals who have been pre-screened by an independent body comprising judges and representatives of the legal profession”. For the last 20 years in Ireland, High Court, Court of appeal and supreme Court judges have been recommended by the Judicial appointments advisory Council and the Cabinet (ie the executive) makes the decision on advice from the minister for Justice and Attorney General and with the consent of the Taoiseach. In reality, of the ‘executive’ only the Taoiseach, minister for Justice and leaders of any coalition partner, are involved in the selection. Unlike in England and Wales (where the Prime minister selects the judge after nomination of one candidate by the Judicial appointments Commission) and unlike Israel (where the Judicial selection Committee selects the judge), the Irish government retains significant discretion to choose any person to fill a judicial vacancy. Reform has certainly been tame but efforts to curtail, control or otherwise reform the legal profession are often the subject of a cacophony of protest by the profession who are very adept at deploying well-orchestrated campaigns against hostile regulation of the profession. This is because unfortunately, according to Carroll MacNeill: “over the 20 years of its operation, the advisory board did not use the range of powers given to it to assess judicial candidates, was not provided with sufficient secretarial or professional supports and suffered from a substantial absence of process and Oireachtas oversight”. Worse, Carroll MacNeill says, the board made a “crippling“ change of strategy when it decided to change its process for recommending judges. Instead of performing a careful selection that would recommend the seven (or fewer) best candidates as provided in law, the board decided it would in the future simply approve all applicants deemed not to be explicitly “unsuitable”. The number of names recommended to government “increased substantially from about seven to roughly 20, 50 or 100 names for a High Court, Circuit Court or District Court vacancy respectively”. In Ireland this means the executive has almost free reign to appoint someone whose – real or perceived – politics they favour or, more pertinently, who favours theirs. Against this domestic background, Shane Ross is either very brave, or very foolish, to take on the task of reforming the country’s judiciary and how it regulates itself. His proposal to create a new body, composed mainly of non-lawyers, to guide the judges in their work, recruit appointees and register their financial interests is a welcome and well overdue piece of work. Ross is often accused by his opponents of coat-trailing a brand of opportunistic populism that is once off and designed to secure him maximum publicity. in the case of the judiciary however Shane Ross has been remarkably consistent.

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    When shall we three meet again?

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    This is a saga of sadness, a tragic tale of three ‘whiches’, a fairy ‘which’, a whichsoever ‘which’ and a wicked ‘which’. In initiating each of three referendums, David Cameron said, “You have a choice, ‘this’ or ‘that’, which do you want?”. So all three ballots were binary, and while the first two delivered what he wanted, the last one was, in effect, political suicide. All three outcomes were inaccurate reflections of ‘the will of the people’. Let’s have a look, and then let’s consider a better methodology. 2011 Referendum on the Electoral System After the 2010 general election, the UK had a coalition government: Cameron’s Conservative Party (Tories) and the Liberal-Democrats. And he probably thought to himself, “How can I rid myself of the Lib-Dems’ persistent pursuit of proportional representation, PR?” Hence the first ‘which’, so to silence any further debate on electoral reform. Some people liked single-seat constituencies, either the UK’s first-past-the-post, FPTP, a plurality vote; or France’s two-round system, trs, a plurality vote followed by a majority vote; both are single preference systems; or again, there is the Australian alternative vote, av, a preference vote which is like a knock-out competition – in a series of plurality votes, the least popular is eliminated after each round and his/her votes are transferred to the voters’ second or subsequent preference… until a candidate gets 50%. Meanwhile, many wanted PR in multi-member constituencies. There is the German half FPTP and half PR-list system called multi-member proportional, mmp. There is PR-list – in Israel, you vote for a party; in the Netherlands, for a candidate of one party; in Belgium, for one or more candidates of one party; and in Switzerland, for those of more than one party. Or there’s the Irish PR-single transferable vote, PR-STV, where voters can vote cross-party in order of preference; STV is like AV except that success depends on (not a majority but) just a quota of votes. Overall, then, the choice was huge. But Cameron’s 1st preference was FPTP and his 2nd av. So that was the 2011 referendum, the first ‘which’: “FPTP or AV, which do you want?” For countless (and uncounted) supporters of pr, this was like asking vegetarians, ‘Beef or lamb?’. Now maybe FPTP was the most popular but, based on data from just a two-option poll, impossible to say. For Cameron, however, it was a dream: he chose the question, and the question determined the answer, just as any fairy godmother would have wished: a massive 67.9 to 32.1%. Magic. Furthermore, the Electoral Commission said the question was fair. Amazing. The Ombudsman agreed. Incredible. And many thought this was all democratic. So that was the end of that argument. So why not a second fantasia, another referendum? Scotland 2014 “Double, double, toil and trouble”, said the witches in Macbeth. The Scottish Nationalist Party, (SNP), always on about independence. How can I rid myself of these skittish Scots? This was Cameron’s second problem, and so, as if on a broomstick from the darkest recesses of Westminster, the second ‘which’ enters the political stage. There were three options: (a) the status quo, (b) maximum devolution or ‘devo-max’ as it was called, and (c) independence. Thinking that (a) would easily beat (c) in a two-option contest, just as FPTP had wiped out av, Cameron waved his wizard’s wand and demanded a binary ballot. So the second ‘which’ was again dichotomous: “(a) or (c), which do you want?” In the campaign itself, however, the gremlins were grumbling, option (c) was gaining ground. Cameron twitched; no – panicked: and so, as if at the witches’ coven, a vow was made – zap! – and option (a) morphed into option (b). On the ballot paper, however, there was no switch, the ‘which’ was still “(a) or (c)?” So the result was a stich-up: 55.3% and 44.7% respectively were highly in ated levels of support for (a) and/or (c). Furthermore, the winner was (b)… but no-one had voted for it! For Cameron, though the potion was fading, the plebiscite was still successful, and that was the (very temporary) end of that argument too. We return to the diviners’ den. The EU Referendum Believing as it does in majority voting, the Tory Party (and many another) is a beast of two wings and no body. Little wonder that this weird creature is often in a ap, especially over Europe. “Those cursed Europhobes”, he might have muttered. And then, stage extreme right, another scary monster, the UK Independence Party, Ukip. “Oh how can I rid myself of these damned devils?” Ah-ha, the third… but this was the wicked ‘which’. The wrong side won. The Electoral Commission’s semantic change from ‘yes-or-no?’ or ‘in-or-out?’ to ‘remain-or-leave?’ did not change the poisonous potent of the poll, its binary bind, its divisive ‘positive-or-negative’ nature. The question – “Which do you want?” – was again adversarial. The campaign was horrible. And the result? 48.1% chose ‘remain’ to 51.9% ‘leave’. But nobody knows what the latter actually want! To suggest, then, that this outcome is ‘the will of the people’ is, again, bunkum. Meanwhile, politically, Cameron is dead, impaled on his own petard; in a word, ‘bewhiched’. Democratic Theory and Practice So what should have happened? Well, consider first a hypothetical example. The average age of the electorate cannot be identified by a majority vote. If such a piece of research were to be attempted, the question would probably be, “Are you young or old?” In which case, no matter what the answer and by what percentage, it would be wrong! If, however, the question were multi-optional, ‘Are you in your twenties, thirties, forties, etc.?’ the answer could be pretty accurate. With average age or collective opinion, as in a German constructive vote of con dence, voters should be positive. No-one should vote ‘no’ or ‘out’ or ‘leave’; instead, everyone should be in favour of something: for the UK to be in the EU, or like Norway in the EEA, or like Switzerland in a looser

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    Irexit

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    Since the Brexit referendum in June I have been rapporteur of a Private Study Group of Irish economists and constitutional lawyers who have been examining what we should do when and if the UK leaves the EU. In August their report was sent to the Taoiseach, his Ministers and the Secretary-Generals of all Government Departments. It has been sent also to the EU embassies in Dublin, to UK Prime Minister Theresa May, her key Ministers and senior civil servants concerned with Brexit, and to a wide range of British Brexiteers whom my colleagues and I have got to know over the years. The report’s basic conclusion is that it is in the interest of the Irish people that Brexit should be accompanied by “Irexit” – Ireland exit. We applied to join the then EEC in 1961 because Britain and Northern Ireland did so. We joined simultaneously with the UK and Denmark in January 1973. Now that Britain and the North are leaving, we should do the same, for three principal reasons. The first is that Ireland is nowadays a loser, not a gainer, from EU membership. In 2014 we became a net contributor to the EU Budget for the first time, paying in €1.69bn and receiving €1.52bn. This means that in future any EU moneys that come to the Republic under the CAP, EU cohesion funds, research grants, support for community groups and the like, will be Irish taxpayers’ money coming back, employing some Brussels bureaucrats on the way. Henceforth the EU will no longer be the ‘cash cow’ most Irish people have regarded it as for decades, and which is the basis of much of our official and unofficial europhilia. A bonus would be that outside the EU Ireland can take back control of its sea-fishing waters. Eurostat’s estimates of the value of fish catches by non-Irish boats in Irish waters since 1973 are a many-times multiple of the EU cash we got over that time. The second reason why Irexit should go along with Brexit is that that is the only way of preventing the North-South border within Ireland becoming an EU external frontier, with new dimensions added to Partition, affecting trade, travel and different EU laws and legal standards as between Dublin and Belfast. For example without the UK as an EU Member alongside it, the Republic would be in a much weaker position to withstand pressure to adopt continental norms in EU crime and justice policy, which differ signi cantly from Anglo-Saxon ones in such areas as trial by jury, the presumption of innocence and habeas corpus. Such divergence would adversely affect good relations within Ireland as a whole and while it would not undermine the Peace Process, it would not help it either. If we stay in the EU while the UK leaves it would mean that for Irish reunification to come about at some future date the people of the North would have to rejoin an EU that Britain had long left, adopt the euro-currency, take on board a share of the €64bn of private bank debt which the ECB insisted that Irish taxpayers nance during the 2008-2010 currency crisis, and implement the further integration measures that are likely to be needed over the coming years if the Eurozone is to be held together. It would give 26 EU Governments in addition to the UK and the Republic a veto on eventual Irish reunification. Such a development should be unacceptable to all Irish nationalists. Another consideration is that if the South remains in the EU while the North leaves along with Britain, future Irish reunification would make the whole of Ireland part of an EU military bloc that is likely to come under greater Franco- German hegemony following Brexit. That potentially could be a security threat to Britain. This will surely change significantly the calculus of British State interest and give Britain a strategic reason for keeping the North inside the UK, an interest it has not got today. The third reason why most Irish people should now reassess their attitude to the EU is that the business case for Ireland remaining an EU member diminishes significantly if the UK leaves. Most foreign investment that comes here is geared to exporting to English-speaking markets, primarily the UK and USA, rather than to continental EU ones. Once the UK leaves the EU two-thirds of Irish exports will be going to countries that are outside it, as they are going today to countries outside the Eurozone, and three-quarters of our imports will be coming from outside. Outside also, Ireland’s 12.5% corporation tax rate would no longer be under EU threat. Of course our relations with the UK and the EU in the Brexit context are complicated by our membership of the Eurozone. Irish policy-makers abolished the national currency and joined the Eurozone in 1999 on the assumption that the UK would do so also and that by going first they would show how communautaire they were. It was an utterly irresponsible action in view of the fact that the Republic does most of its trade with countries that do not use the euro. With the pound sterling falling against the euro as the UK disengages from the EU, Ireland desperately needs an Irish pound that can fall with it, so maintaining its competitiveness in its principal export markets – the UK and America. That is why the Irish State urgently needs to get its own currency back. Economist Chris Johns noted in the Irish Times on 20 August that if the Irish pound existed today it would be worth some 10 percent more than the pound sterling. This was the level it reached in January 1994, when Irish industry was in crisis because of its overvalued exchange rate – explicitly then, implicitly today. That in turn precipitated the major devaluation which inaugurated our ‘Celtic Tiger’ years. Ireland needs to regain the freedom of being able to determine its own exchange rate. There is no legal way to

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    Oxford, Britain

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    North Oxford is a heartland of academia where leafy halls of residence mingle with stately homes and rarefied hostelries. Situated in almost the very centre of Britain a windless calm favours scholarly reflection removed from modernity’s fugue. Even the traffic is orderly with bicycles sensibly preferred. It is one of the most attractive places in the world. Spend an afternoon on the lawns at Christchurch if you doubt it. Oxford is world-class in so many ways: the city and the university. PWC and Demos rated it the best place to live in Britain, in 2012, across a wide range of criteria. Shanghai ratings names Oxford University the seventh best in the world. South Oxfordshire was recently named Britain’s best rural place to live. It is transcendent England. What has this to say about Brexit, the political issue of this generation? The City of Oxford is located on the confluence of the Isis (the idiosyncratic name for the Thames here) and Cherwell rivers. Broadly, it may be divided into three zones with a clear north-south divide: that affluent and mature north Oxford of Jericho and Wolvercote; predominantly twentieth-century suburbs including Cowley to the south; and the historical and commercial centre linked to Botley and Osney Island, built around an Anglo-Saxon settlement of which little remains. This contains renowned colleges such as Christchurch, Balliol and Magdalen. The first sign of incongruity is how close it nestles to the ‘any-town-UK’ commercial centre and its array of gaudy chains. Moving south, there is yet another Oxford as housing gets cheaper and industry is evident. The first industrial revolution passed Oxford by as colleges objected to the contagion of commerce. Only after World War II did significant manufacturing arrive as the city attracted a car industry. By the early 1970s, 20,000 people were employed in the sector and the original Mini Minor was developed here in 1959. Unfortunately, as in much of the country, a significant proportion of heavy industrial jobs have departed. The working class areas now face social problems familiar in many English cities. Living as a jobbing tutor and supply teacher in Oxford for two years I encountered classroom behaviour that made experiences in schools in socially-deprived areas of Dublin seem almost meditative. Oxford is a place of profound educational inequality. Oxford accomodates a great literary tradition: JRR Tolkien, CS Lewis, Lewis Carroll, Kenneth Graham and Irish Murdoch wrote from Oxford. The number of Prime Ministers that have passed through Oxford University is startling. 28 overall. Only Jim Callaghan and John Major, who revelled in his immersion in the university of life, among English Prime Ministers since Winston Churchill (who finally left office in 1955) did not pass along its quads. Alumna Theresa May (St Hugh’s, 1974) joins a list that includes Labour Prime Ministers Tony Blair (St John’s, 1974), Harold Wilson (Jesus College, 1937) and Clement Atlee (University College, 1904) as well as Tories Anthony Eden (Christchurch College, 1922), Harold MacMillan (Balliol College, 1914) Edward Heath (Balliol College, 1939), Margaret Thatcher (Somerville College, 1947), and David Cameron (Brasenose College, 1988). Oxford indubitably has seeded the post-War UK political establishment. Moreover, numerous Tory politicians maintain an association with the wider shire. Churchill himself was born in the nearby ancestral estate of Blenheim Palace (though he passed some of his early childhood in Dublin’s Phoenix Park). David Cameron, MP for Witney, Oxfordshire, lives in Chipping Norton close to Rebekah Brooks, Jeremy Clarkson and the rest of the well-placed Chippy set. Michael Heseltine (Pembroke College, 1954) dwells in style nearby though one imagines he looks slightly askance at the gobby neighbours. Theresa May grew up in the village of Wheatley a few miles east of Oxford where her father served as vicar. Further east towards London, Boris Johnson (Balliol College, 1987), the new foreign secretary, lives in Henley-on-Thames. Jeremy Paxman, Richard Branson, Kate Moss, Kate Winslet, Rowan Atkinson, Jeremy Irons and Ben Kingsley: celebrities, high-and-low-brow, live in Oxfordshire. Perhaps the county has a quality – an England of the imagination – that grandees of all sorts gravitate towards. It could be the low rural population density, a legacy of the Enclosure Acts (1760-1830) that placed formerly common land in the hands of expanding gentlemen farmers. Today, though located only an hour from some of the most in ated land prices in the world in London, it is possible to drive for long stretches without seeing a single dwelling. The hoi polloi were kept at bay, in Oxford and swathes of its hinterland. As an Irish person living in the city of Oxford I never had a sense that I was unwelcome, or at least any alienation was no different to that felt by the bulk of the population before a converging aristocratic and mercantile elite: unlike the ancient regime in France since the Tudor era, nobility has been open to the highest bidder and an Oxford education provides the polish. One must however acclimatise to the southern English reserve and a sardonic sense of humour. The historian Tony Judt (St Anne’s College 1980- 87), who concededly knew little of Ireland, wrote that the English are perhaps “the only people who can experience schadenfreude at their own misfortunes”. Succumbing to generalisation I regard English friendships as firmer than Irish for all the latter’s sociability. But these societies of companions generate mosaic communities often hostile to one another. Better the devil you know and bugger the rest. In the era of the Internet there is a growing suspicion of the ruling class of politicians. Many do feel “shat on by Tories, shovelled up by Labour” in the words of Uncle Monty in ‘Withnail and I’. They are often seen as a separate cast reflecting the cultural dominance of Oxford and Cambridge Universities (‘Oxbridge’) which extends to the media and business. This trend perhaps explains why maverick and grumpy (though otherwise profoundly different) outsiders such as Jeremy Corbyn, Nigel Farage (and Boris Johnson who went rogue over Brexit) are appealing to a jaded electorate; a state of

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    Galway Sprawlway

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    Around one hundred submissions were received by Galway’s City Council on its Draft Development Plan 2017-23 by the deadline of 5 October. Meanwhile, a number of well-known community and environmental activists in Galway City have come together to form a new alliance to promote a ‘Future Cities’ concept based on “regenerative urban development, ‘green’ living, smart technologies and a sustainable transport. They have a lot on their plate. It’s a planning and transportation mess with no visionary Messiah. In many small cities comparable in size to Galway, people are regenerating and humanising their urban environments by introducing woodlands, gardens, recreational parks and city-wide 24/7 cycling, walking and public bus or train systems. Yet here in Galway City we are now proposing to build the N6 ringroad that will cut through homes, villages, neighbourhoods, farmland, key wildlife habitats, a university campus and sports elds, and lead to further mindless urban sprawl of this, in so many ways, creative city. Then, having spent €700m on a new road, there will be no incentive or money left to introduce the Public Transport improvements being promised “after the road is built”. If Galway City is to have a sustainable future, the authorities should immediately bin a policy based on a discredited ‘predict and provide’ private car-based transportation model and instead should use the available €500-750m to construct a hierarchical transport model based on a ‘new mobility’ prioritising pedestrians, cyclists and users of public transport”. When the IDA first developed its business parks at Parkmore in the early 1970s there were very few businesses initially established out that far. So having only one main entrance avenue wasn’t a problem. In the intervening years the estate has exploded so it now accommodates many of the world’s leading medical device and IT manufacturers. With very little available public transport passing, let alone actually entering the estate: the sheer number of private cars coming in has now reached crisis point. Yet Galway Co Council actually gave permission for a new sub-standard entrance/exit point and junction giving the planning board no choice but to refuse permission. In September An Bord Pleanála duly reversed the permission because “its construction would endanger public safety by reason of traffic hazard”. This decision could, should, force debate about the much larger can of worms around Ireland’s lack of a ‘sustainable’ National Spatial Strategy’. The daily traffic chaos in Parkmore is a symptom of the much wider problem we have in historic spatial planning in Galway, with rapidly increasing numbers of people having to commute from their new homes in County Galway to their workplace in the city, by car. This phenomenon has become overwhelming over the past 40 years. Workers living in the city but working in Parkmore/Ballybrit have been failed by the lack of civic imagination that might have provided an adequate public transport system in the city. For a youthful and fashionable city, capital of ‘craic’, dubbed as progressive, and once crowned ‘the fastest growing city in Europe’ this is anachronistic. In its May 2014 Newsletter, the Western Development Commission – using an IDA case-study, stated that “of the 16,701 rural dwellers commuting to work within the gateway of Galway city, one quarter (25.6% or 4,285) commute to work in the IDA estates”. The first figure refers not just to people heading in to Ballybrit, Parkmore and Galway Technology Parks, but others who commute further still into the heart of Galway city, for work at GMIT, NUIG and UCHG, our largest city-centre employment nodes. As James Wickham said in his book ‘Gridlock’: “Car dependency is an issue for social policy. Car dependency exacerbates social exclusion, for those who do not have a car run the risk of being excluded from normal life. Their access to jobs is restricted, they find it difficult to move around the city, they are not full citizens”. There is a belief that transportation problems result from the antedeluvian planning policies of the 1980s and 1990s, both at local and national level. These intensi ed in Galway from the time Colin Buchanan and Partners published its ‘Galway Transportation and Planning Study’ in September 1999. This report together with its subsequent 2002 ‘Integration Study’ commissioned jointly by Galway City and County Councils, led to a situation in Galway, not dissimilar to that of Dublin, where availability of sufficient reasonably priced housing units in the city failed to keep up with growing public demand. This, combined during the madness of the Celtic Tiger years, with pressure being applied by county councillors and developers turned Galway’s surrounding towns, villages and particularly countryside into worker dormitories: for families that had been priced out of continuing to live in Galway city. The Galway County Development Plan of 2002, which integrated the recommendations from the Buchanan Report, facilitated development in places ringed around the city: Bearna, Moycullen, Claregalway, Tuam, Oran- more and Athenry. And everything in between. Responding to Galway County Council’s then- Draft Development Plan in July 2002, then City Manager John Tierney wrote to Donal O’Donoghue, then County Manager, expressing some concern over proposed policies which would continue to promote a wider spread of settlement, and not the concentration into the 38 towns, villages and proposed development at Ardaun that had been planned. He stated: “The cumulative effect of these policies/objectives all greatly undermines the ‘Galway Transport and Planning Study’ GTPS, any sustainable approach to a settlement structure and consequently any ability to promote a sustainable public transport system. It would exacerbate the current dependence on private vehicular transport and the consequent negative effects of this”. Tierney’s pleas went ignored, and widespread ‘one off’ housing development in County Galway continued unabated, with septic tanks mushrooming leading to water pollution, cryptosporidium, and a culture of lengthy commutes into once homely Galway City. So a long-term strategic policy for planning where people might be sustainably housed was scupperedd, due to the regime, the report and thousands of concomitant individual acts of planning anarchy, cumulatively undermining any regional strategy. The problem is now self-pepetuating and solution-less.

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    Seeya print

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    The recent Audit Bureau of Circulation (ABC) figures for newspaper sales for January-June 2016 show an alarming decrease for nearly all Irish newspaper titles, with the demise of the industry itself now, for many, inevitable. Of the national newspapers, The Irish Times dropped 5.5 percent compared to the first half of last year, The Irish Independent is down 6.4 percent, The Irish Examiner 6.7 percent and The Evening Herald 8.4 percent in the same period. Most daily tabloids are down, apart from the Irish Sun, which saw a rise of 4.6 percent year on year. The Sunday Independent dropped 6.7 percent year, The Sunday Business Post 3.5 percent, The Sunday Times 6.4 percent and The Sunday World 8.9 percent. The Irish Mail on Sunday fell by 7.2 percent while the Irish Sun on Sunday recorded the only rise in circulation at +9 percent. Overall, the circulation of daily print titles was 5.7 percent lower and of the Sundays 6.3 percent lower. Globally, the threat to newspapers is epidemic. In May 2016, the 121-year-old Tampa Bay Tribune, Florida, ceased publication; in March, the London Independent and Independent on Sunday ceased their print publications and November 2015 saw Russia’s only independent English-speaking title The Moscow Times end its daily edition in favour of a weekly format. In 2013, The Washington Post was sold to Amazon.com founder and chief executive Jeffrey P Bezos for $250m. In September 2010, the Chairman and Publisher of The New York Times announced to an International Newsroom Summit that: “We will stop printing the New York Times sometime in the future, date TBD”. The Guardian, whose web edition is the world’s second most popular English-language newspaper website – after the Daily Mail online, has shed 200 jobs and clocked up losses of £69m for the last financial year with falls in both print and digital revenue leading to an £8m fall in total turnover to £209.5m. Digital revenues were £81.9m, down almost £2m from the preceding year as Facebook and Google ate up the bulk of the money it had made from mobile advertising. Based on current trends, commentators have predicted that only the Sunday and weekend newspapers will survive in a culture immersed in Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat and Youtube and with the proliferation of citizen journalism offering free ‘news’ content. What New Media offer is ‘free’ news as it happens from an infinite number of sources around the globe; in the age of New Media, traditional values of accuracy, accountability and professionalism are at risk from unverifiable facts, unconfirmed sources and the constant need for instant news; and gossip. With daily newspapers, today’s news is essentially yesterday’s, or this morning’s at best. Newspapers have made a concerted effort to shift content towards analysis and commentary, but this hasn’t been enough. What the recent ABC gures don’t reveal is where these disenfranchised readers are migrating. The loss of newspaper revenue may be partly attributable to growing internet usage and online culture, but this does not necessarily mean those same readers are now reading news online. A decline of 10,000 readers for a national newspaper does not equate to an additional 10,000 people reading or accessing news online. Youtube, Facebook, Twitter and other social media account for most internet usage, so perhaps not all migrated readers/users will be regular perusers of the Guardian online edition. A ‘cornerstone of democracy’ for over 400 years is now in danger of imploding. Attempts by newspapers to embrace New Media by offering pay walls for access to online content have so far been largely unsuccessful (though the Guardiannow boasts 50,000 ‘subscribers’); cynics point to the obvious – there is simply too much ‘free’ news to be harnessed online. Print Media’s only hope is to reinvent their current business model and somehow embrace their biggest rivals. What that does for journalism is another story. Ken Phelan

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    Áras Attracta lesson: rights-based model

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    On 4 January 2016 I found myself in a court-residents. The review group recommended a move to a room in Castlebar, Co. Mayo. One man and ve women were on trial, charged with assault alleged to have occurred in Áras Attracta. Sitting in the courtroom my hope was to use this experience as part of my own catharsis, having lived through physical abuse in Áras Attracta which is the HSE-run residential centre in Swinford, County Mayo where 96 men and women with intellectual disabilities live. It featured of course in a recent exposé by RTÉ’s Prime Time programme. Bodily integrity, in the context of receiving support for personal care, brings an unspoken vulnerability. Fear is ever-present. Dignity and respect should be basic imperatives. Those of us involved in the rhetoric of human rights and the independent-living movement must remember that our sisters and brothers with learning disabilities are uniquely susceptible to abuse. The material captured on the hidden camera placed by Prime Time’s undercover reporter showed staff shouting, pushing, force-feeding and dragging residents across the floor. The footage was used in evidence in the case by the State prosecutor. The five staff, including nurses and care workers, were found guilty of assault. All but one avoided jail terms. Four were sentenced to community service orders in lieu of prison terms. The fifth was given a prison term of four months which is currently under appeal. The protracted saga of Áras Attracta is a reminder of the slow pace of the State’s apparatus. Two years on from Prime Time’s exposure of what was happening in Áras Attracta an independent review group published the ‘What Matters Most’ report in August with thirteen recommendations and an action plan for all congregated settings. The most pertinent of these was to “accelerate the process of supporting people to move into community living, avoiding transitional arrangements”. The HSE has committed to implementing this and claims that “individual needs assessments have been completed for all residents to identify their future support requirements to live a successful life in the community”. The independent report stated there was “widespread institutional conditioning and control” of people living in Áras Attracta. It found that this was generally imposed for the convenience of staff and management and the model of service was structured to suit staffing constraints rather than the needs and aspirations of residents. The review group recommended a move to a rights-based social model of service delivery in one of its overarching recommendations for Áras Attracta. Most service-providers for people with disabilities are state-funded. They remain institutions where power and control exerted over us and people’s right to independence and choice is denied. The report tells those of us who have to have relationships with service providers nothing new. It con rms unspoken realities. There have been a series of HIQA reports on these services that back up this analysis. The inertia in implementing recommendations from these reports coupled with the lack of rights-based legislation further demonstrates state inertia when it comes to people with disabilities. The Áras Attracta situation merely highlighted the insidious practices that take place in residential institutions. Often there is an inference that somehow people who are abused brought it on ourselves. In the context of Áras Attracta, what was considered, or diagnosed as challenging behaviour could better be described as very challenging circumstances for the residents. There are still over 2,700 people living in congregated settings throughout the country. Residential settings echo a discredited previous era. We suspect, we fear and we know. However, still they continue. Twenty-seven people currently living in Áras Attracta are now waiting to move into new supported accommodation. The Minister for people with disabilities, Finian McGrath, has announced that the Government has provided a dedicated €100m capital fund to facilitate de-congregation over the period 2016-2021. €20m has been provided for 2016 and Áras Attracta has been prioritised to receive funding in this first phase. Action is now needed, not just another report or political promise that will become redundant as time passes and nothing changes. The kernel of the ‘What Matters Most’ report is in the overaching recommendation for Áras Attracta that “The voices of the residents need to be facilitated, listened to and promoted”. Why would you need to make such a recommendation? What has gone so badly wrong that this has to be one of only three overarching recommendations. Fostering the independent voice of the people accessing services, attending to their preferences, and ensuring people know their rights and have access to advocacy services should have been a given. These are the voices that must now determine the future. Rosaleen McDonagh

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    Nay to the Mayor Yayers

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    In any discussion about Mayoral governance’ in Dublin there are assumptions: firstly, that it is a good thing, that it will solve lots of problems in the city; and second, that the mayor should be directly elected. We usually hear the paraphrased quote – ‘who do I ring if I want to talk to Dublin?’. We want to be able to identify who runs the place. We want someone to be running the place. Directly-elected mayors give us that. The ‘direct’ in direct election, a bit like in direct democracy, is a ‘Yay’-word. It is seen as an unarguable good. Who could not be in favour of giving people a direct say in, a direct link to, who runs the city? These assumptions ignore the relationship between central government and city government and what competencies are appropriate for the mayor, what geographical area the mayor might rule over, and the central issue of funding. They also ignore the fact that we can and do have strong political leaders who are not directly elected. There are broadly three models for city governance. One is the Council-Manager system we currently have – where the mayor has no executive powers. There’s an assumption that it is a bad thing. It certainly isn’t very democratic: it is not responsive to voters’ wishes and there are no clear links between the vote in local elections and local government policy. It’s also not very transparent – though that might be due to the absence of real media reporting of city government. It in turn might be a function of the lack of clarity in decision-making. The second model is the directly-elected mayor or Mayor-Council system. It is used in London, some other European cities, such as Rome, and about half the big US cities, including New York and Chicago. Probably because our nearest neighbour and biggest influencers adopted and use it, we naturally assume it is the one for us. But within this system, things aren’t uniform. They can be strongly mayoral or weakly mayoral – so the Council’s control of the legislative and financial functions can vary considerably. There is a third model. It is a Council system. The elected councillors appoint a mayor, who has executive functions. As with the directly-elected mayor, depending on rules, the mayor’s power can vary quite significantly. The system is quite common, used in many northern European cities, such as Amsterdam, Berlin, Stockholm and Paris. So which works best? Well I’m not an expert in local government, but even the literature doesn’t have a clear conclusion. So the short answer is, we don’t know. But I am interested in the functioning of central government, and we can think of the two models, the directly and indirectly-elected executive mayors as functional equivalents to the presidential and parliamentary systems at the national level. And there is a long debate in political science about the relative success of the two systems at delivering democratic stability, human development, and a range of other indicators of a country’s success. So which should we choose if we are to be guided by the relative performance of presidential or parliamentary systems? The presidential system, which is the system analogous to directly-elected mayor, has some advantages. Candidates are required to present a vision to the public. It puts power in the hands of one person, on the basis of popular election. That means the presidential system is clearer and appears fairer. We all know who we vote for; and the person who gets most votes becomes mayor. Unlike in parliamentary systems, there is no messing about with coalition-building based on backroom deals that aren’t transparent and over which the voters have little control. Much of the debate in parliamentary elections is about who will coalesce with whom, a debate that could be avoided in presidential-style systems. Instead the rival candidates for mayor could debate the issues facing Dubliners. The presidential system also weakens the power of parties. Many people dislike parties, and regard them as gatekeepers of political ambition. With a presidential system new leaders can emerge without having to be sanctioned by a party. This is much less likely in a parliamentary system. And at a time when people complain that government is unresponsive to their needs, and lacks leadership, the mayor could have clear lines of power to deal with the big problems. A suitably empowered mayor might be able to deal with the housing crisis in a way that the local authorities, minister and agencies can’t. The parliamentary system, that is the indirectly-elected mayor, however, has some advantages of its own. One might seem a weak one, but it might be important. We are used to parliamentarianism – it’s in our political culture. Political culture governs how we behave and are expected to behave. It changes slowly and doesn’t always respond to institutional changes – perhaps not at all, or perhaps not in predictable ways. This is important because picking systems that we are used to means we are less likely to get nasty surprises. A stronger argument in favour of parliamentarianism is the way it divides power. Politics is meant to do at least two things. It should solve collective action problems: those that make us collectively better off if we are guided to behave in certain ways than if we were left to act individually. The classic example is fishing. Individually we have an incentive to extract as many fish as we possibly can from the seas. We would over fish, making us collectively worse off when fish stocks are depleted. So we are made better off being forced to restrict our fishing. Politics is therefore also a mechanism for the resolution of conflicts, such as the fishing one. In parliamentary systems the mechanism for the resolution of conflict is negotiation, and parties representing different interests compromise, strike deals and build consensus, embracing a wide range of views in the decision. This manifests itself in coalitions, with a formal opposition offering alternative policies. In presidential systems conflict

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