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Ireland's political and cultural magazine
— December 2009 - January 2010
Villager
Villager
Person of the Year
As Time magazine names Ben Bernanke,
Federal Reserve Chairman its person of the
year – famously with no comment on whether
the winner is a good or bad force, Villager
bestows his Irish honour on Brian Lenihan.
Lenihan topped Village’s most influential per-
son list last month and is clearly the driving
force behind much of what passes for poli-
tics in this jurisdisdiction. He will probably
be proved injudicious with the bank guaran-
tee and again overgenerous to the Banks and
developers through his vision of NAMA. His
recent budget will be remembered for sav-
aging public-sector pay. It also finally intro-
duced a carbon tax (ironically, days after gas
prices went down). Villager thought the self-
justifying post-boom ultra-rich could have
had a few more Euro extricated from their
shaking fists in income and capital taxes;
and was reminded of the anti-public-interest
excesses of Charlie McCreevy with the non-
sensical anti-environmental car-scrappage
scheme. Interesting too how no employment-
creating measures emerged. Overall Lenihan,
on grounds of straightness alone, is one of
Villager’s favourite FFers – and certainly his
favourite Lenihan.
Doing a lot
So Fianna Fáil have dealt with Lisbon, NAMA
and spending cuts. The dream team delivering
the dream platform. And unemployment only
up .% year on year. Brilliant. Villager’s
amnesia about FF causing all the problems in
the first place has set in again – as it always
does mid-term and he reckons he’s good
to vote FF in . When he gets into the
polling both he always remembers what his
auntie (the one with the Ansbacher account
who used to pass two and a half hours every
morning in confession with Father) said about
this country needing strong government (and
fairness waiting for the after-life). She would
have loved Brian Lenihan, Villager sometimes
fondly thinks.
Heaping fact upon fact
Alternatively the budget could have focused on
some of the facts central to an agenda based
on fairness. Equality think-tank TASC and
the Irish Congress of Trade Unions recently
launched the Hierarchy of Earnings, Attributes
and Privilege (HEAP) report, designed to
present the facts about income inequality
in Ireland in an accessible form. The report
- which was authored by NUIG academics
Professor Terrence McDonough and Jason
Loughrey - comprises a poster illustrating the
numbers of households at different income
levels, broken down by occupational category
and household type, together with an explana-
tory booklet.
The report shows that:
Five per cent of families live on incomes
»
exceeding €,
percent of families live on less than
»
€,
percent of families live on less than
»
€,
When analysed in terms of occupation, only
»
the managerial/professional occupation
category makes its way to the very top of the
HEAP (an annual income of €,)
Income distribution became more unequal »
between and . The distance
between those at the top and those at the
bottom widened.
Conventional measures of income
»
inequality, such as the Gini Coefficient or
quintile share ratios, fail to capture the
increase in inequality
Relative poverty levels before Social Welfare
»
transfers increased from . per cent to
per cent from to . Social
Welfare played a critical role in reducing
poverty levels from . per cent in
to . per cent in
Women’s income was around two-thirds of »
men’s income; adjusting for differences in
hours worked, women’s hourly earnings
were around per cent of men’s. Women
were also more likely to be at risk of
poverty.
There is a striking ‘education premium’:
»
the median gross income of those with no
formal education, or primary education
only, was €,, while those with a
university degree had a median income of
€,.
9/11 24/7
Governor of the Central Bank, Dr Patrick
Honohan, has called for an inquiry into the
causes of the banking crisis similar to a US
congressional hearing into the / terrorist
attacks on the US.
Villager suggests that we may as well take
a look at the church crisis, the planning crisis,
the corruption crisis, the environmental cri-
sis, the fairness crisis and the general political
crisis at the same time. Or we could look for a
bit of leadership.
Dublin to become Belfast
Villager always tried to like Dublin City
Councillors even if he could never really like
Dublin. He always liked the stance of the man-
agement - most of whom come from Villager’s
neck of the woods but who now live in Dublin’s
suburbs - which was to leave development to
the private sector. The builders have done so
much for us.
Anyway ... after years of cat and mouse when
it appeared the councillors (scared of the elec-
torate who viciously opposed it at a series of
meetings held before the local elections) were
not going to go for management’s increasingly
deranged attempts to foist Belfast-style high-
rise on an unyielding human-scale centre, Fine
Gael and Labour Councillors have voted to run
with the Bladerunner vision.
This would allow future developments in
excess of storeys in three city-centre loca-
tions - at Heuston and Connolly railway stations,
and in Docklands. Villager doesn’t mind that
too much, though more care was needed with
the details.
More problematic is that “mid-rise” build-
ings of up to residential storeys would
be allowed in Phibsborough and residential
developments of up to eight stories would be
allowed across the inner city. That seems bonk-
ers to Villager, though fine in a taller city like say
Madrid. Blanket heights are silly in a city like
Dublin of variegated heights.
In the outer city, residential developments
would be up to six storeys for residential and
four storeys for offices.
However, developments within km of a
mainline, DART or Metro station could have an
extra two storeys. Er .. Villager thought most of
the city is or will be within km of these trans-
port delights (even if the Economist Intelligence
Unit has just pronounced Dublin the worst city
in Europe for public transport). Make no mis-
take this is a charter for an incoherent city-
centre skyline. Where it fits - including in many
suburbs - high-rise is just fine. But it doesn’t
work in the historic city centre.
The building height policy amendment was
proposed by the Labour Party and agreed by
votes to against with six abstentions. The
likes of Emer Costello and Mary Freehill did the
honourable thing as usual but Villager was fright-
ened by the volte face performed by Fine Gael’s
leader on the Council, Gerry Breen. Mannix
Flynn, who you would think would know a thing
about questioning the establishment, gave a
ridiculous tour de force of a speech saying the
city had always been crap and now we needed
something completely different.
Fianna Fail, driven by the increasingly-as-
sured Jim O’Callaghan, amazingly opposed
the policy.
The new policy is now part of the draft city
development plan -, which goes for
public consultation in early . If the citi-
zens want Dublin to look like Belfast, this is
their chance.
Nepotism in Limerick
Closer to home, Villager was amused to
see John Fitzgerald, former City Manager
in Dublin getting himself and the Limerick
Regeneration Agency, headed by former
Dublin City Housing Manager, Brendan
Kenny, in hot water for indulging nepotism
to the serious displeasure of Limerick City
Manager, Tom Mackey. Kenny employed his
daughter on a large salary without bother-
ing with anything as tedious as an inter-
view process. Claire Feeney, girlfriend of
Southside Director, Brendan Hayden, was
recruited on a salary of €, without
competitive interview. She had no third-
level or other relevant qualification. And
Brian McElligott , son of Regeneration
Agency Director, Liam McGelligott was
recruited in Autumn without com-
petitive interview. He had no third-level
or other relevant qualification, thought
the agency is now paying his way through
a University of Limerick project-manage-
ment course.
Fitzgerald noted that the Limerick
Regeneration Agency didn’t have to comply
with normal public-sector norms. Funny
then that this is the same John Fitzgerald
who so rigorously – including with the ben-
efit of a fat legal opinion - hounded resi-
dents’ representatives on the Grangegorman
Development Agency (which he also chairs)
to comply with normal company law. They
were not to report back to the communities
that chose them but to observe the niceties
of company law – i.e. silence. Fitzgerald
reckons the Limerick agencies’ boards are
“not boards of governance”.
Villager was amused too to see Jim Barrett
resurfacing in Limerick.
Barrett, whose every post-democratic
impulse (high-rise, no greenery, no function-
ality, no consultation, no community bene-
fit – see for example O’Connell St’s spike) was
wrong for Dublin where he famously worked
very closely with Fitzgerald, is now benefiting
from exorbitant per diem architectural-consul-
tancy fees in Limerick. Fitzgerald puts the prob-
lems down to “destructive feuding” between
Limerick development agencies. Fitzgerald says
he “loves” the public service but they’ll need to
do things properly in Limerick if they’re not
to go the way of some of the more challenged
of Dublin’s development authorities – like
Docklands for example.
De-spiking
On that note Villager is sponsoring an award
for ideas for a replacement for the spike. It
was funny for a few years but now we need
something that reflects the Zeitgeist of a
new decade. Ideas to the editor please.
Monsanto wins
baddy award
The winner of the Angry Mermaid Award
, announced by Naomi Klein, at the
UN climate talks in Copenhagen on
December was the biotech giant Monsanto
with per cent of the total vote. Monsanto
is the world’s largest seed which has con-
troversially been promoting genetically
modified (GM) crops for over a decade.
According to Monsanto, GM crops are not
just the solution to world hunger, GM biofu-
els can also help tackle climate change. The
voters on the other hand noted that expan-
sion of GM soy in Latin America is contrib-
uting to major deforestation and greenhouse
gas emissions.
Also in this section
Red Cross
— December 2009 - January 2010
Villager
Gratifyingly for Irish environmentalists,
oil giant Shell took second place ( per cent)
in the Award for lobbying to sabotage effec-
tive action on climate change, followed by the
American Petroleum Institute ( per cent).
Ten thousand people voted in the Angry
Mermaid Award, named after the iconic
Copenhagen mermaid who is angry about
corporate lobbying on climate change.
The eight nominees for the Award were:
American Coalition for Clean Coal
»
Electricity (ACCCE)
American Petroleum Institute (API) »
European Chemical Lobby (Cefic) »
International Air Transport Association
»
(IATA)
International Emissions Trading
»
Association (IETA) Monsanto
Sasol »
Shell »
Carrickmines Valley
going further West
Six months after the wipe-out of Green
Councillors on Dún Laoghaire Rathdown
County Council the Fine Gael councillors
are, according to Ciaran Cuffe TD, back to
their old tricks. They’re rezoning acres
of land of high amenity lands at Fernhill
beside Three Rock Mountain for
houses. Two Fine Gael councillors proposed
the rezoning to residential of lands adjacent
to Fernhill Gardens at Stepaside. They’re
currently zoned for amenity and agricul-
ture. Further down the road in Kilternan
Councillor Tom Joyce from Fine Gael also
wants to rezone twenty acres of lands at
Droimsi from agriculture to residential.
Cllr. Joyce is also busy removing proposed
rights of way for walkers from the Plan.
The draft Dún Laoghaire Rathdown develop-
ment plan rezones land in Carrickmines as
a ‘district’ retail centre. The decision by a
narrow majority of councillors to pass the
motion for the rezoning was made against
the recommendation of county manager
Owen Keegan, who was concerned the move
would lead to retail space well in excess of
the area’s needs. “The inclusion of the lands
in Carrickmines as a district centre with a
,sq m retail cap is in direct contra-
vention of Greater Dublin’s retail guidelines”,
Mr Keegan said. In his report Mr Keegan
also noted there was no need for the amount
of retail space proposed at Carrickmines
because the site is near a recentlydevel-
oped shopping centre at Leopardstown
Valley and a large town-centre development
proposed for nearby Cherrywood.
Planet Green
The recent admission by the Environmental
Protection Agency that the decline in
Ireland’s greenhouse gas emissions was
“disappointingly small” at .% over
in spite of the Depressions that replaced the
economy with a sucking noise highlights
the intractable nature of the problem in a
country wedded, like Villager, to driving to
the garage to buy the frozen microwave-
able burgers for dinner. And the excruci-
atingly inadequate response of the Greens
whose reason for putting up with Planet
Bertie was that there was a moral impera-
tive to deal with our emissions. The Greens
promised average annual reductions of %
but instantly forgot them in the excitement
of being allowed by the big boys to present
a (useless) after-Lenihan “carbon budget”.
Think transport, cattle, planning lads.
Pedantico-Legal bit
Villager is calling for the resignation of
know-it-all Supreme Court Judge Adrian
Hardiman, famous for being able to recite
the Book of Ecclesiastes backwards from
memory while writing Joycean prose about
the illiberal decadence of the Equality
Authority – all to the adulatory delectation
of Law Library groupies and awkward, prep-
pie PD types. His Portmarnock judgment
appears to indicate definitively that the man
cannot spell. “Womens’”. “gentlemens’” and
“mens’” all deface his acrid Phillipic (ed’s
note: shouldn’t that be Philippic?). There is
no point in being able to recall verbatim the
Thom’s directory entry for every solicitor
mentioned in Finnegan’s Wake if you’re only
half-literate - or at least somewhat untu-
tored. He should have got Fidelma Macken,
who was too busy to contribute a judgment
on an issue that might be expected to have
been of some little interest to women of
her generation and caste, to proof-read it.
As Rickie Johnson would say, “off with his
head”.
Public Sector
Villager is fairly clear where the problem
with public-service pay originates. Bertie
pushed benchmarking to improve the effi-
cacy of civil servants to undertake a fun-
damental examination of the pay of public
service employees vis-à-vis the private sec-
tor.but bottled out of implementing the
lessons. Public sector – like private sector-
pay got somewhat inflated and inevitably
there’s a painful adjustment. Mind you the
handling of the Unions’ desire for time off
in lieu of pay cuts; and the cuteness of the
Lennihan/Cowen Mr Nasty/Mr Nice dou-
ble act now being played out again for semi-
State pay reminds him of nothing so much
as the Laurel/Hardy days of McCreevy and
Ahern.
Pat Kenny’s eccentricities
Villager feels there’s just no end to Pat Kenny. He
worries that he’s vulnerable to his lively new TV
show being interrupted every week by folk agi-
tated by his gargantuan salary. He risks becom-
ing the story himself. But most of all Villager
is amused by Pat’s tell-tale hobby-horses. Pat
doesn’t seem to like Unions or the public sector
much. Most of all he seems to loathe the environ-
ment or at least environmentalists. Villager con-
siders his treatment of climate-change where he
takes a counterfactual position to be dangerous
and in fact unprofessional. Broadcasters of his
stature should feel free to ventilate opinions but
not to get the facts systematically, deliberately
and repeatedly wrong. Pat believes in climate
change but thinks it may well not be caused by
human activity. He persistently falsely alleges
that a serious debate is raging. His choice and
treatment of guests on the issue is eccentric.
He indulges Philip Stott and David Bellamy’s
contrarian perspectives. He shut poor preco-
cious Oisin Coughlan of Friends of the Earth
up smartly on a recent ‘Frontline’ with a jibe
that his linking of floods to climate change was
just “taking the moral ground”. It all reminded
Villager of Kenny’s stultifyingly abnormal treat-
ment of stupefied non-singer Pete Doherty in
his last season of the Late Late Show. Next he’ll
be denying the link between smoking and can-
cer and saying the world was created in a week
with all life pre-evolved. It is as unprofessionally
eccentric to deny that climate change is anthro-
pogenic as to make the case for the sun travellng
around the (presumably flat) earth.
