Killian Forde

My resignation

2010-01-09T12:03:00.001Z

Yesterday afternoon, after nine years of membership, I resigned from Sinn Féin.

As people within the organisation will know I had become increasingly concerned with the direction of the party over the past three years. This concern was magnified after the 2007 elections but I believed that organisational changes promised to create an organisation fit for 21st century Ireland would evolve. These changes were re-promised after the election debacle of 2009 and yet those changes still had to materialise.

Sinn Féin had become staid and unresponsive and lost direction in the south over the past few years in both policy and organisational terms. The leadership of the party appeared to not recognise or were unwilling to accept that changes are long overdue. These changes were essential to transform the party into one that values discussions, accommodates dissent and promotes merit over loyalty and obedience. It is only logical that if you disagree with the direction of the party and are unable to change it there is no option but to leave.

In relation to my recent vote on Dublin City Council I will explain; as chairperson of Dublin City Council’s finance committee and the Chair of the Budget Working Group I had a specific responsibility to try and secure as fair a budget as possible. A budget that had to be balanced despite tens of millions in cuts in central government funding, a collapse in income from development levies and a massive reduction in our own revenues from services such as car parking, leisure and rates.

Working with other left wing parties and individuals we ensured that the budget presented to the Councillors on December 21st protected jobs, front line services, secured leisure facilities and minimised service charge increases.

The one item that all political parties were unhappy with was the partial removal of the bin waiver for those on low incomes. However this is not the function, responsibility or within the power of the Councillors to change. The power to set the fees and any waiver is the sole responsibility of the City Manager. This power was removed from Councillors and handed to the City Manager by a Fianna Fail minister.

I felt that voting against the budget, particularly given the positions I held in the Council, would have been totally futile and a meaningless gesture. Surely Irish politics has had enough of this.

For this reason I proposed and voted for the budget despite the instructions of my party.

The country needs radical change to make it fit for purpose for a new era. Many of our institutions of governance are creaking, discredited, some are corrupt, and they need to be radically overhauled.

If we do not shape success from the opportunity this crisis presents, we will be left high and dry. Decisions taken over the next few years by governments will dictate whether Ireland can finally become a modern, democratic European nation or the Haiti of Europe.

I want to be part of an organisation that can introduce the necessary legislative changes and constitutional reforms that will enable my generation to live on an island they can be proud of. Sinn Féin was not that organisation.

I look forward to continuing to work with all of my colleagues on Dublin City Council promoting a fair and vibrant city and providing a comprehensive constituency service for the people of the Donaghmede ward.

Political Darwin Awards

2009-05-20T22:49:00.003+01:00

The Darwin Awards are a satirical award system to "honor people who ensure the long-term survival of the human race by removing themselves from the gene pool in a sublimely idiotic fashion".

The forthcoming elections have offered up some gems in shortsighted behavior. Highlights to date include;

Cllr Annette Spillane a independent councillor in Cork City who when filling out her nomination form managed to write in the wrong Ward that she wanted to run in. Instead of running in the Cork City North East Ward, where she was elected in 2004 she wrote in Cork North Central. A different ward where she wouldn't have ever delivered a leaflet or knocked on the doors over the past five years.

Elizabeth Davidson, an ex work colleague of mine and a very capable and articulate representative of the Green Party, managed under some pressure from Pat Kenny on his RTE Radio Show to claim that Gas was a green energy. Pat helpfully pointed out to her that its a fossil fuel.

John Clare a former FF candidate in the 1999 and 2004 local elections in Donaghmede who is using his old Fianna Fáil posters with the logo covered with a small piece of paper sellotaped on. In this weather it will be only a few days before his posters just look like generic FF ones blowing his "independent" status.

Me for not paying my website bill which has been hijacked by some Ukrainian tech nerd and held for a €2k ransom.

Add Friday 22nd May
Former Lord Mayor of Dublin, Cllr Dermot Lacey who wrote a response to a woman in Sandymount who teasingly noted the amount of make up he seemed to be wearing in his election poster to one of his door canvassers. The woman's reaction to the letter was one of "has he nothing better to be doing" and she's reassessing her initial intention to vote for Dermo! Oh and having a laugh about his vanity with all her well heeled neighbors in Dublin 4.

No Junk Mail

2009-05-19T00:21:00.003+01:00

Knocking around the doors in this election I've noticed an increasing number of signs in peoples porches or on the letter box stating "No Junk Mail".

Now this sign causes a bit of a dilemma for us canvassers. Junk Mail is subjective. Obviously I don't consider my local manifesto to be junk, but accept that others might do.

So the dilemma is this. If I post in the leaflet will the potential voter be annoyed that I didn't respect their wishes but if I don't put it in the letterbox how will the potential voter ever know that I respected their little sign about Junk Mail.

I would suggest that a bit more detail is needed and after careful consideration I recommend that the sign is changed to "No unsolicited mail or flyer's".

That would sort out the confusion :)

The Plot Thickens

2009-05-17T23:27:00.001+01:00

Last weeks Sunday Tribune led with a story on the country's property developers seeking to limit the reach of the recently established National Assests Management Agency (NAMA). Today's Sunday Business Post suggest that may not be necessary as NAMA has agreed "not to force up to 20 of the country’s top developers into receivership or liquidation".

NAMA was set up by Finance Minister Lenihan "so that bad loans can be taken off the bank balance sheets, freeing them up to lend to business and individuals in support of economic recovery".

The Agency also intends to take some of the good assets from developers and sell them on as well as the bad loans which are likely never to be repaid.

The problem with this approach is that announcing that gives the developers a lot of time to transfer their good assests out of the reach of NAMA.

Last week I was at a meeting in attendance was a official from one of the ancillary service providers to major developers. He told me later that he knew that some of his clients were frantically looking at legal ways to transfer their good assets into legal trusts that NAMA couldn't touch!

This nugget plus the revelation during the week that the designated boss of NAMA knows nothing more about the operation of the agency that "what he read in the papers" make it look increasingly likely that the NAMA plan to deal with the mess of the bursting property bubble will be a total failure and leave the taxpayers with a monstrous bill that will takes decade to pay.

I think at this stage the most logical thing to do it review the bank guarantee. I feel that the Government should only guarantee the deposits up to say €250,000. Then start looking at establishing a good bank using the money designated for the existing banks into this new bank. The already existing infrastructure of both the Credit Unions and An Post could as well as an efficient web presence could act as a interim solution.

2nd best

2009-05-13T14:34:00.002+01:00

The worlds second greatest band, after the Petrols obviously, have just been confirmed to play The Electric Picnic.

A Flock of Seagulls writers of the classic "I Ran" and "Wishing I had a Photograph of You" play down in Stradbally first week in September along with a load of other people of much lesser importance.

Now whats the chance of getting a t-shirt.

2009-05-10T22:15:00.002+01:00

I'm not much of a gambler but always have a flutter on the elections. On the last General Election I won over €700 on betting on local constituencies. Ultimately betting is about knowing more about a 'race' than those setting the odds. If your into politics, know electoral histories and are canvassing it fairly easy to spot good odds.

Paddy Power have opened a bunch of books on the forthcoming European, Local and By-election.

I spotted Fianna Fail at 16/1 for getting no seats in the Euros and popped down to the shop in Baldoyle and stuck on €50. Another decent long odds punt is my colleague Christy Burke to win the Dublin Central seat at 10/1.

Respect

2009-05-08T01:41:00.003+01:00

Hands in pockets, disinterested facial expression, disdainful slouch.

Priceless.

The Family

2009-05-07T12:10:00.003+01:00

What is it with Fianna Fáil and their families. The current ruling troika of Cowen, Coughlan and Lenihan are all the children of TD's and "inherited" their seats from their Dads.

The FF conventions for the forthcoming by-elections in Dublin Central and Dublin South were held this week and the winners were;

Maurice Ahern - brother of Bertie,

and

Shay Brennan - son of Seamus Brennan.

The losing candidate in the Dublin Central convention was Mary Fitzpatrick, daughter of Dermot Fitzpatrick

I know times are tough but can none of these people go and get their own jobs.

Herd thinking

2009-05-06T22:57:00.003+01:00

As is well known our economy is in a critical condition. Unemployment is soaring, the tax take has plummeted, manufacturing and construction is dead and state cuts are swept around the country.

There seems to be a complete lack of vision to actually;

1) face up to the problem
2) accept that radical solutions will be needed.

Now a radical solution, in my book, is not to rip the arse out of the domestic economy to the extent that your average citizen is terrified to even buy a hardback book for fear they may need that extra few bob in a few months time. A solution focused on jacking up taxes and cutting expenditure is not new or radical its a copy of policies that failed in the 50's, 70's and 80's.

I believe the core reason why is that the Government, under ex Finance Minster Cowen, are far too understating point 1 to even look at point 2. Simply put Fianna Fail are too busy introducing policies that seek to deflect blame than confront the scale of the challenge.

In today's Irish Independent, economist and columnist David Mc Williams had a provocative article on ditching the Euro for a new Irish currency. His main argument is that we are then in a position to devalue and some make our exports cheaper and hence more competitive.

The reaction on various on-line forum has been hostile. This hostility expressed in the appartnely closing argument of "do we want to end up like Iceland". To me the most important point from Mc Williams is not so much the merits of leaving, or sticking with, the Euro but his criticism of the Shibboleths or conventional wisdom that, seemingly, cripple Irish political and economic thinking.

And its the reaction of these Internet fora that only goes to compliments Mc Williams core argument. Conventional wisdom is that Iceland is in a even worse condition than Ireland.

So I had a look, and guess what, Iceland's unemployment is lower than ours, its not in a deflationary cycle, its exports is up, its economy is actually growing and wages are slowly rising.

In short Iceland's economy is in full recovery mode. We, on the other hand are at least 16 months before bottoming out, at which stage the impact may well have destroyed the country.

The one thing we have learnt over the past 12 months is that the unthinkable soon becomes the obvious.

Oh and Iceland's government resigned before the recovery took hold!

Tight fisted &*%$@

2009-05-05T23:34:00.003+01:00

And the award for the most miserly, greedy, avid, insatiable, penny pinching, small minded meanness proposal of the millennium goes to the Dublin Airport Authority.

The DAA, the recipient of serious chronic abuse from Ryanair's Micheal O'Leary, who considers them swine have outryanaired Ryanair with the introduction of a €1 charge for one of those plastic bags that you are forced to put your hand luggage toothpaste and gel into going through security. This being some sort of cunning way to catch out would be shoe bombers and assorted nutters.

A euro for a bag that would cost about 2 cent if you actually had to buy one.

And I'm sure it will be all justified through some corporatespeak gobbledygook.

In fact according to the DAA website their "Approach is to build a performance based and business focused company across all areas of our operations that aims to achieve the best in international standards".

By charging a Euro for a crappy plastic bag?

Agggh.

Gotcha!

2009-05-05T00:55:00.005+01:00

Probably the singularly most quoted explanation for Ireland's recent economic boom (RIP 2008) is our low Corporation Tax rate.

Even suggesting looking at it and the fundamentalists are down your throat, dare mention that it might be a little low or that driving down the rate doesn't actual result in any increased productivity. The gospel of low corporation tax masked and stifled debate on changes that were desperately needed in the economy such as reducing the dependence on transactional and consumption taxes.

This over dependence and the lack of any public discussion on the wisdom of fueling our economy and paying for public services from stamp duties and VAT lead the government to sail cluelessly into the disaster we are now stuck in.

The "perfect storm" that is our economy has another gale heading its way. Flagged in his election campaign its been announced by PUSA Obama that loopholes that allow US companies to post profits in low corporation tax territories, e.g Ireland, are to be closed. The White House yesterday mentioned only three countries, Holland, Bermuda and Ireland as examples of where US multinationals post massive profits from.

The incentive therefore for US companies to locate and base themselves in Ireland will be significantly reduced.

Obama reckons he can save the US nearly €200 billion in tax forgone and provide employment in the US.

Maybe Fianna Fáil could send the cabinet clown Willie O'Dea to the US to convince him otherwise, after all Willie has form with the Americans given the great job he did when he visited Micheal Dell and made the case for the Dell facility in Limerick.

Oh maybe not - that closed.

Supporting the Province

2009-05-02T16:09:00.002+01:00

Its said that all identity is constructed. Sometimes this construction is politically motivated, think of the efforts made that we are European. Anyone ever cheered on Europe?

But the relentless hyping of today's Rugby game represents a triumph of marketing over reality.

Yesterday I was speaking at a conference in Cork and was impressed by the amount of homes, cars, business's and people displaying and wearing the colours of the Munster Rugby Team. Driving home the only sign of any Leinster support was a couple of drop down banners on the M8 courtesy of the Leinster Rugby Branch.

Today, canvassing in a local supermarket I bumped into a woman wearing a Leinster jersey. She confessed that she went in to buy the Munster Jersey when she was off on holiday last year but felt guilty and end up with the deep blue of the easterners rather then the red of the southerners!

This obvious lack of association hasn't stopped the game being sold as some sort of showdown derby akin to an Ireland vs England soccer match, Kilkenny vs Tipperary hurling or Fenerbahce vs Galatasary.

The complete indifference of Leinster probably has as much to do with the geographic limits of Rugby in the province. The only cluster of rugby playing being South eastern Dublin with a half dozen serious teams. Conversely the rabid support of their team in Munster is reflective more of their provincialism, enormous chip on their shoulders in relation to Dublin and they thinking they we care.

Rugby is an good spectators sport, high scoring and eventful. But the passion of sport is about the emotion of 'owning' and identifying a team. Todays result will be greeted by the residents of Leinster with a very large yawn - whether win or lose.

PSNI attack. Comment

2009-03-10T14:55:00.005Z

After 23 years, but only 36 hours after the RIRA, the CIRA inflict their first casualty.

A 48 year old PSNI officer, it appears, was lured into an ambush in a nationalist housing estate in Craigavon Co Armagh.

This is quite different from the killing of the British soldiers as the target was a local man and a serving officer of a police force that was slowly becoming "everybody's".

As I outlined in my previous post, this should not change anything, the military capacity and political strength of the groups is at best an irritant. There is no threat to the political or civic institutions.

As such the response should be;

Sinn Féin. Need to continue to be clear in their condemnation of this killing. Continue to encourage people to work with the police. McGuinness should leave for the Washington meeting.

DUP. Need to start publically calling for no response from Loyalists and need to demand they decommission. They also need to realise that governing means a lot more than vetoing Republican projects. Robinson should also go to the Washington meeting as planned.

Hugh Orde. Need to resist any temptation or pressure to use any sort of military support to the police. The PSNI should be given further police resources and they should easily be able to contain this.

Irish Government. Need to ignore any calls for new legislative nonsense, such as internment as suggested by Senator Eoin Harris.

British Government. Need to stop overreacting. The visit by Gordon Brown was not necessary. It served only to confirm my unease that it's the dissidents that are driving the agenda. They also need to remove all British army personnel, including those garrisoned in the six counties, back to Britain.

Those in powerful and influential position have to stop, take a breath and reflect. The Island hasn't changed because of this and the only people who will ensure that these killings escalate are those in position of power and influence.

Steady as she goes is the wisest course at this time.

Cui Bono?

2009-03-08T14:49:00.004Z

Incidents, events and actions are the ingredients of life, what dictates history is the response.

Last night killing of two British soldiers at a barracks in Co Antrim, has the potential to shift the politics of the Island. This likelihood is dependent on the reaction of, amongst others; the British Govt, the Nationalist community, Loyalist paramilitaries, Sinn Féin, Unionist Politicians and the spook/special forces shadow men.

There are a number of questions that look decidedly odd in relation to the specific incident itself. One of the most striking things reported about the attack is that it shows a level of competence and experience that hasn't been demonstrated in previous dissident republican operations. Reports would have us believe that three men in a car drove up to a heavily fortified barracks, opened fire at soldiers then got out the cars and fired a second burst before escaping unharmed. A small series of actions that outlines a pattern of capacity and ability never seen before with any of the dissident groups.

We released a statement earlier today and although it received some of the expected criticism on some blogs, specifically about it taking a long time, the reality is that our statement had to be worded correctly. It is.

As of yet no admission of responsibility has been claimed. I am not sure that signifies anything.

The deaths are tragic for the families and friends of those killed. However the reponse must be political and not military. Its vital that the devolution of Policing and Justice is accelerated and that those responsible are pursued only through official and legal judicial means. Hugh Orde needs to reverse the decision to utilise SRS/SAS units to assist in anything. These are shit stirring trouble makers who will add nothing but confusion, chaos and death.

The response by the pro GFA parties needs to be 'business as usual'. Political development should not be dictated by those most opposed to it. The attack changes nothing, the GFA is the agreed template, change can only occur by inappropriate reaction to last night events.

Like it, love it

2009-03-05T20:19:00.003Z

A bunch of media today have an interesting poll done in Britain about books and reading habits.

One of the poll findings was around books that people claim to have read, but didn't.

Nineteen Eighty Four tops the list of non read books. The story caught my eye as I was recently in Dublin's best bookshop, Chapters in Parnell Street and was looking for a book to buy. I ended up buying Brave New World by Huxley a book that until I started to scan in the shop had always assumed I read. I hadn't.

A similar exercise can be done with bands.

I have found myself over the years agreeing with someone on the merits of some band - but really not being 100% sure clear what they actually sound like.

My favourite, not sure if I have actually heard them, bands are;

American Music Club.
MC5.
Television.
Pere Ubu.
Elbow.

Look mammy I'm on the telly.....

2009-03-01T21:18:00.005Z

It seems to quite an Irish habit, but this one is just, well a little weird. On the nine o clock news last night we had a live report from David Davin Power on the Fianna Fáil Ard Fheis.

He found himself delivering his piece with what looks like a bunch of minders, but in reality is a shoal of Fianna Fáil candidates. My favourite one is the guy on the bottom left with the burgundy tie. A thousand yard stare at the camera. He doesn't even blink once.

Politics.ie are calling them the David Davin Power Ten

Follow this link its the second report entitled David Davin Power said the Taoiseach's speech was well received at the Ard Fheis.

Another Day, another poll

2009-02-27T23:20:00.004Z

The latest opinion poll, published in the Irish Indo today, confirms the trends of the most recent Sunday Business Post and Irish Times polls. Collapse in FF, huge rise in Labour, FG holding their own.

Sinn Féin are also steady, but frankly I would prefer to describe it as becalmed. We should be at least in double figures at this time.

We aren't for two reasons and they feed into each other.

1. There is a very perception that we are economic illiterates.

We get this reputation from;

a) Some odd policies that as recently as 2003 said things like this "Private property has been and remains an instrument of oppression of people the world over". I mean WTF!! I don't remember joining some commie party :)

b) We didn't "respect" the consensus on the benefits of low tax that was a tautology for a decade until a few weeks ago. In true Irish herd mentality, social partnership take a bow, our ideas were therefore deviant, not worthy of respect and so demonised.

c) Our spokespersons, party members and supporters were sucked into the myth that we had crazy economic policies (which by the 2004 Euro elections we certainly didn't) and so underperformed or apologised for them.

d) Elements of the media who dislike us spotted it as our Achilles heel and so kept repeating it until it became "true".

2. We aren't considered a coalition partner. The focus is on Labour and FG, FG and Labour as the alternative government and they are so far ahead in the opinion polls that SF support is seen as irrelevant. This perception feeds back into the difficulty of making ourselves heard and at a time when our economic message is extremely valid yet we can't get a shout in.

There's 15 weeks to the Local and European Elections. I think its not improbable that FF will be wiped out in the Europeans, returning with only one seat. There is a very real challenge on our part to ensure that we don't also become a casualty of the electorate voting only on general election lines in the European and Local elections.

Over the next few weeks we will be launching some new economic policy positions that should both surprise some and irritate others. Good. That coupled with a focused ground campaign should get us back in the national conversation we need to be involved in.

Tis Sunday...

2009-02-22T16:22:00.006Z

Busy times. Just wrapped up with the Ard Fheis. Our IT lads set up a nifty site especially for the event. On Saturday afternoon I spoke on the economy.

It seems from the lack of any mention in the Sunday papers for my address that my Obama moment is still some way off.

During the weeks BBC Politics show was down and they spent a morning filming in Donaghmede. The line of questioning, not unreasonably, given our poll numbers was 'how come SF is irrelevant'.

At this point one behaves and goes out to bat for the team. The show was on at noon today and a repeat later.

Can't fault the editing.

Keeping with the 'look at me, look at me' theme, I had a trip report in the Irish Times travel section on Saturday. Part of it outlining my experience in a spa.

Incompetent or Indifferent?

2009-02-12T09:38:00.009Z

UPDATE @ 16.31. I just recieved a call from Seamus Mulconry of Edelman (in his former life Director of Policy for the PDs). Seamus explained to me that the email which I recieved was mistakenly sent out by a staff member and was not intended to be disseminated until after the meeting.

So its seems it was more of incompetence than indifference which I suppose is better!

Still awful day for the workers.....

Right now the 1,200 workers of SR Technics are in a meeting with management to discuss the future of the plant.

However last night at 00.49 I received this email from SR Technics PR firm Edelman.

So I, and I presume all the other Councillors in Dublin, knew that the plant was going to close 9 hours before people who worked there knew. All in the name of PR.

What an astonishingly insensitive way to deal with your workforce.

SR Technics Management
P.O. Box
CH – 8058 Zurich Airport

Direct dial: +4...
E-mail: bernd.kessler@srtechnics.com

February 12, 2009

SR Technics announces plans to close its Dublin operation and to enter into consultation process with trade unions

Dear Councillor,

I am writing to inform you of the difficult decision we have taken in relation to our operation at Dublin airport. Regrettably, we announced our intention today to close the facility and will now enter into consultation with the relevant trade unions.

The global economic crisis has had a profound impact on business and consumers around the world and across all sectors. The aviation industry has been severely affected. We are faced with falling consumer spend, rising costs and a trend towards consolidation amongst not only airlines but also the businesses that service them. As a result, reduced work volumes have dramatically increased pressure on independent MRO companies in particular.

The Dublin operation recently lost a number of key customers that were victims of this dramatic market downturn. In addition to this, Dublin has also lost major contracts from its primary base load customers.

The loss of major contracts from primary base load customers, the current business and economic forecasts as well as the high cost base of the Dublin operation means it will not be possible to fill the resulting capacity gaps with sustainable business in the medium-term.

The decision follows an exhaustive review and assessment of all lines of business across the entire SR Technics Group, including an evaluation of their financial, operational and strategic inputs. As a result of this review the Group intends to close its operations at Dublin airport which currently employs 1,135 people.

The intention to close the facility at Dublin Airport will have no impact on SR Technics’ other group wide operations, including its facility in Cork.

We will now enter into formal consultation with the trade unions in parallel with detailed discussions with the Irish aviation authorities, our customers, suppliers and other relevant parties.

I fully appreciate that this news will be unexpected and that you may have additional questions. Should you require any additional detail please call 087 25... and we would be happy to brief you further.

Yours sincerely

Bernd Kessler
CEO

2009-02-10T02:05:00.002Z

There is something about this thread on politics.ie that I find hilarious.

Its clear the idea is ridiculous and yet....there's something there.

Isn't there?

The dodgy gets dodgier

2009-02-07T01:56:00.002Z

The stink of sheer dodginess that is the nationalisation of Anglo Irish just got a hell of a lot worse.

The Irish Examiner reports today that "members of the cabinet were asked whether they had loans from Anglo Irish Bank. Six ministers refused to answer".

Now if it turns out that any of the Cabinet had sizeable loans from Anglo Irish we can safely expect that the Local and European elections scheduled for June 5th will see the late arrival of a ballot for General Elections.

On other Irish Examiner news, I was quoted yesterday in it. This "Fianna Fail hacks" comment led NCA board member Eddie Hobbs to contact the paper irate that, he was being called a hack. Apparently that it was somebody from Sinn Féin upset him even more :)

Maybe he could spend his time reflecting on whether its appropriate taking professional fees from a statutory body is a board member of.

2009-01-24T00:12:00.003Z

Politicians and commentators are very fond of banging on about the knowledge economy, the importance of broadband roll out (note to Minister Ryan, Macedonia already has 100% wireless broadband penetration) and embracing IT.

But with a nod to the old saying of dressing up mutton as lamb, compare the website of zombie bank, of which I am now a reluctant part owner, Anglo Irish, worth about minus €10 billion to the company with the most expensive stock in the world, A single share costing $86,250!, Berkshire Hathaway worth €133 billion.

Its obvious auld Warren isn't spending the wonga on web designers.

I'm just saying like

2009-01-21T01:02:00.003Z

Just an observation, but scroll down and see on the right hand side of the page of The Irish Times and you'll notice the most popular online story is a sub headline stating "Property Developer found dead at home".

Interesting whatever caused the herd, particularly give the events of the day, to have such an interest in that one.

I could suggest that the same people were somewhat disappointed it wasn't one of the big names. Hmmm.

Its stinks

2009-01-19T21:30:00.004Z

How come everything that is being done by the Govt either reeks of gross incompetence or has a whiff of corruption about it.

This morning it emerged that draft legalisation published by the Govt on the nationalisation of Anglo Irish Bank is to be amended. The change is that a clause that stated that people with deposits of more than 20 million are not allowed to withdraw that money if they owe more than 20 million.

It was a clever clause in a piece of legislation that, I presume, aimed to ensure that the huge debtors of the bank, who now owe the money to the state, cannot flee with some cash will owing a pile more.

The government however removed the clause and left chief blusterer Martin Mansergh on RTE today to explain why. As is his style he created a lot of heat and little light.

Its claimed that the Attorney General advised that the draft clause was "unnecessary". This is a peculiar word as the Attorney Generals role is to "provide the highest standard of legal services to the Government". His job is the provision of legal advice to the Government on the constitutionality of a bill.

Now "unnecessary" is not a word that really could be used when providing advice on the constitutionality of proposed law. Unnecessary is a political opinion not a legal position.

Either the clause is unconstitutional or its not - the AG's opinion that he thinks it "unnecessary" is irrelevant.

More and more its becoming apparent that the operation of Anglo Irish Bank has little to do with bad management or over aggressive lending but a corrupt company designed to exploit cheap credit. An impotent regulatory regime facilitated by a interested networks of compliant friends in the politics, the media and in the construction industry made it possible.

On a related note Irish Bank shares had another fiasco of a day. BoI shares today cost 34c in February 2007 they would cost €18.53. AiB can be yours tomorrow for 60c in Feb 2007 a share would have cost you €23.95.

Irish house prices to fall by 80%

2009-01-13T17:28:00.004Z

My reaction rhymes with clucking bells.

Story here, commentary here, here and here.

And just for auld time sake - lets reflect on the words of wisdom from Brendan O'Connor of the Sunday Independent who in July 2007 advised us "The smart, ballsy guys are buying up property right now".

I am safe in the knowledge that I am not the only one, whose birth year is an even or odd number, who hopes that Brendan took his own financial advice.

Israel's allies

2009-01-12T14:03:00.003Z

Phew, looks like Israel might come out of this ok.

Remember Joe the Plumber?

Well he has arrived in the promised land and is angry about the terror that Israel citizens are subjected to.

In the Jerusalem Post today, Joe empathises with those citizens of Sderot who can't do normal things like "get soap in their eyes" as they may have to flee to their basements.

Read about other minor inconveniences the people of south east Israel are subjected to and Joe's advice .

Next week Joe tackles the challenge of alchemy.

Another day another Sindo

2009-01-11T19:42:00.004Z

Ireland's most inaccurate paper, The Sunday Independent, tends to snub its nose at such concepts as evidence and facts.

During the last general election they aggressively supported Bertie Ahern, and called for the various Tribunals investigating criminal behaviour by politicians and others to be shut down.

As recently as July 2007 were claiming that it was the time to buy property. Property has gone down about 20% in real terms since that little nugget of advice.

You get the feeling that they have a Millwall supporters attitude, 'everyone hates us and we don't care', but it appears that increasingly this attitude extends to its own sizable readership.

Yet despite all these readers and associated revenue, it appears that none of their journalists can count.

In today's edition they publish a poll. The presentation and commentary of which is both unbelievable and hilarious.

They report that the Lisbon Treaty will be passed by 55% Yes, 37% No and with 15% undecided.

That a total of 107%!

They also report that the state of the parties is;
Fianna Fail - 28%
Fine Gael - 27%
Labour - 18%
Greens - 2%
Sinn Féin - 2%
PDs - doesn't say
Don't Know - Doesn't say.

This adds up to 77%. They have either failed to re-distribute the don't knows, the PDs have had a phoenix like revival or the polling company simply has no idea what a proper political poll is supposed to look like.

The poll was carried out, allegedly, by a company called Quantum Research International Inc, who goggled leads to these, they appear to be one of those armies for hire. A search of Ireland's registered companies uncovers these guys.

A thread on Politics.ie is quite indicative of the esteem that the Sindo is held in by its peers.

The Sunday Independent isn't subtle with its political agenda and that its prerogative, what is unacceptable for a paper with its resources is amateurish polling and sloppy analysis and then broadcasting that as news.

A must read

2009-01-10T11:13:00.000Z

Cynical, jaded, defeated romantic, like to round off a evening out with a good sneer, think that the Blacks in the Jacks issue of the Slate was the most misunderstood piece of Irish satire since Gullivers Travels?

Well then subscribe to My Little Piebald, a weekly wickedly contemptuous look at Dublin.

This weeks highlight include news that;

For 125 years, the GAA has dominated
Irish sporting culture, and the Late Late Show
returns tomorrow with a fitting tribute in which
Z-listers like Brush Shields, The Saw Doctors,
Tommy Fleming and Nob Nation's Oliver Callan
talk about their love of these primitive games

and a event guide with advice such as;

SATURDAY
--Natty Wailer, The Button Factory. In a breathtaking
display of false advertising, it is claimed that 'Natty Wailer'
toured with Bob Marley and The Wailers. However, Ian
Wynter never got within a Camberwell Carrot of gigging
with Marley, and in fact played keyboards with a Wailers
spin-off in the 90s.

Send a mail to mylittlepiebald@gmail.com for your weekly dose.

2009-01-08T18:21:00.006Z

So to no-one's real surprise computer maker Dell announce that they will be firing 1,900 workers from their Limerick plant.

Fired not downsized, outsourced, laid off, migrated, cut, transferred, offshored, consolidated or any other linguistic distortion.

This is a complete disaster for the City. Dell itself is the country's biggest employer and adds about 5% to the states GDP. Those clever people in Economicsland reckon that every one job in Dell supports another four jobs in the area.

Somewhere between 6,000 - 10,000 jobs will be lost in the City over the next 12 months as the firings progress. This in a city and suburbs with a population of only 97,000. The equivalent impact would be like Dublin losing up to 100,000 jobs.

I was listening to Radio 1's Drivetime and as a guest they had on Dr Ed Walsh from the University of Limerick. Now I don't really know much about Eddy, from time to time he appears on TV and seems a tad pompous.

Pompous in itself is harmelss enough and this man is an actual rocket scientist who holds four honorory doctorates as well as a gilt edged CV.

Despite this it seems that Eddy's ego has got the better of him and has succumbed to that irritating habit of the American right where you simplify complex problems to force a ideological point.

In the interview Dr Walsh claimed that Dell moved to Poland as "our public service is too bloated" that "public servants need to take a 30% cut", that it was wrong that "a waitress in Dublin gets 20% higher wage than one in Copenhagen".

The interview exposed a couple of things about Walsh; one a complete ignorance of what caused wages to increase to the point that we priced ourselves out of the labour market and secondly a twisted understanding the effect that globalisation has had on manufacturing trends.

Given that Poland's average weekly wage is less than €180 a week what does Walsh recomneded - that we drive wages down to a level to compete with the Poles?

Here is a man with multiple degrees and qualifications coming out of his ears and he blames the massive loss of jobs on the fact that Tracey in Dublin gets paid 1 euro more an hour than Trina from Copenhagen.

Walsh is obviously bright but from reviewing some of his TV appearances it appears that he has reduced himself to blurting obnoxious statements in order to maintain a public profile.

Sad.

Books as pressie's

2009-01-07T22:47:00.006Z

Christmas is a time not for family but books, as we get older, the books get harder and generally more challenging.

This year brought me;

Dreams from my Father, Barack Obama. - Sis in Law.

The Third Chimpanzee, Jared Diamond. - El Wifo.

The Ascent of Money, Niall Ferguson. - Alma, my sister in law bought this.

The Whisperers, Orlando Figes - Brudda.

The Gods That Failed - Larry Elliot and Dan Ferguson. - Brudda2.

One Hit Wonderland, Tony Hawks - Mudda.

I'm not sure I can read the Obama book, I have a bit of a prejudice against the guy - I blame the media who sold him as the messiah - but I kinda think he is a bit of a tonic salesman. I hope I'm wrong. I really hope I'm wrong.

Halfway through Niall Ferguson's book, its a cracker of a read, uncomfortable as I am with some of Ferguson's opinions, his interpretation of Pinochet's Chile is very neo conish.

There is a welcome glut of readable books on economics and the economy out now. So no excuse for us lefties bumbling our way through interviews that involve the economy, leaving listeners with visions of bread queues, Bulgarian trainers and badly dyed hair.

Jared Diamond's writing to date has been genius and Guns, Germs and Steel a personal bible, his follow up, Collapse a warning that most likely will go unheeded.

As for Tony Hawks, the comedian not the, looks too old to be skateboarding , stakeboarder, I'll get around to him - his book a 'mmm what small book will I take for this reasonably long journey that I don't mind if I lose'.

Crystal ball redux

2009-01-06T20:13:00.004Z

Going out on a limb on this one a bit, but hey its Tuesday.

Serena Maneesh, a Norwegian band whose productivity compares to Chad's, are set to release the follow up to their debut album in 2009.

Their debut was a cracker and as all great albums slowly burned it way in people stereos, ipods and what nots.

They managed to get that delicate balance between making a racket and constructing a piece of beauty. Thats the difference between My Bloody Valentine (Racket) and Rollerskate Skinny (Beauty).

Its all about the layering (and skinny jeans).

This album will be huge in 2009.

For previous musicial predictions see this post

Urban Myths

2009-01-05T00:48:00.003Z

I've always been curious on how urban myths start. Well I think I have found one in gestation.

A trade union offical, Michael Kilcoyne, who is also Vice Chairperson of the Consumers Association of Ireland claimed in the Belfast Telegraph on Friday 2nd Jan that on a couple of Polish building sites have signs saying "No Irish Need Apply".

The story doesn't specify at what site in which towns these signs appear and do not carry a picture of these signs. Indeed the claims of Mr Kilcoyne are comfortably vague in that he claims that "it had recently been brought to his attention that No Irish signs" were appearing. Meaning that he has also not seen these signs and equally can't be specific on where they are.

Indeed it could have been brought to his attenton by a drunk in a pub or a complete madman.

The story then was picked up by RTE, Newstalk, The Irish Independent and The Irish Times all with no additonal detail or specificity.

There is also a thread on it on Politics.ie, Boards.ie, polishforums.com and various other blogs and fora. Even Wikipedia has it included in its page on anti-Irish racism.

The claim is absurd on a number of levels not least the fact that Poland's winters mean construction is on hold for three months and there would be no need to have either signs up at hibernating sites or a requirement for walk in labourers, as the full workforce will return in March.

As confidently as I can state this story is utter rubbish I can equally be as confident that I will hear about the "no Irish signs in Poland" for the next few years on any discussion on immigration.

A little bit of digging reveals that the Michael Kilcoyne of SIPTU and the Consumer Association of Ireland, is the same as the Castlebar Town Councillor. With local elections only six months away perhaps Cllr Kilcoyne regards the publicity he is getting on this claim far more important than its accuracy.

You are not alone

2009-01-02T18:55:00.002Z

This blog started in May 08 and in that time I managed 54 posts, less than I hoped, and up until the end of the year had 19,709 visitors. The busiest time was two weeks around the end of October. The most popular posts were about Sarah Palin.

I've had visits from 128 countries/territories.

My top 10 visitor origins were from;

USA - 7,751
UK - 1,825
France - 1,662
Ireland - 1,591
Canada - 1,114
Germany - 1,103
Poland - 655
Spain - 487
Sweden - 306

Single visitors include those from Gabon, Kosova and Papua New Guinea. I recieved no visitors from countries including North Korea, Afghanistan, Bhutan, Yemen, Mongolia and most of Africa.

For 2009 I want to post a minimum of 150 times and fill in the rest of the globe.

All figures are from Google Analytics

Predictions for 2009

2009-01-01T10:49:00.003Z

Ten random predictions for 2009.

1. Fianna Fail lose their Dublin European seat.
2. Somali becomes Obama's first foreign policy military intervention.
3. Bangladesh suffers from serious civil unrest.
4. Ireland qualify for the Soccer World Cup.
5. Lisbon Treaty is passed in October.
6. Irish Unemployment reaches 12%.
7. Teachers and ESB workers strike.
8. Emergence of Irish neo nazi gangs.
9. Anglo Irish ceases to exist and BOI and AIB merge.
10.Labour win the Dublin South bye election.

over to you.....

Something changed?

2008-12-29T00:53:00.004Z

After years of running a servile foreign policy, two recent ministerial statements lend some hope that Ireland is growing some again.

Yesterday saw a welcome strong statement by Minister of Foreign Affairs Micheál Martin on the Israeli slaughter in Gaza and today I read that Mickey Mac is off to Cuba.

What has brought on this new found independence is unclear. Whether the recent change in the top Civil Service post in DFA is anything to do with it I don't know.

Operation Over the Top

2008-12-28T14:47:00.004Z

Its the sense of deja vu that so dispiriting. Israel/Hamas or Hamas/Israel exchange fire until, predictably, Israel unleashes an utterly over the top military attack to a political problem.

After two days of bombing Israel has killed over 300 people, ripped apart a fragile infrastructure, made thousands homeless and caused the injury or hundreds more.

An attack that is completely counter productive and will do nothing to achieve the goal that Israel claims it wants.

I don't think anyone would argue with what Israel won't secure with their bombing of Gaza.

1. It will not bring an end to the rocket attacks launched by Hamas and Islamic Jihad on its territory.

2. It will not undermine the support base of Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

3. It will not gain them any new support from the international community.

So why proceed?

Well what the bombing might achieve is the election of current foreign minister Tzipi Livni in her February showdown with opposition leader, and even bigger asshole, Benjamin Netanyahu.

In a sense the very weakness of the peace process in the Middle East is the immaturity of the Israeli electorate. An electorate who continually elect "hardline" leaders whose very actions only ensure that peace in Israel is impossible.

At this stage and having met and talked to political people on both sides of the conflict I have to say that I don't believe that deep down the Israeli state is ready for peace with the Palestinians. The state of Israel is greatly reinforced by having a weak bogeyman at its side. The Hamas attacks are no more than an irritant to the state, yet the Israelis are able to portray them domestically, and to a much lesser extent abroad, as an existential threat, which is nonsense.

Until such a time that Israel converts its current arrogance into a self-confidence it will remain at war. It is not a David, 50 years after its birth it has become the dominant super power of the Middle East and mediterranean.

It will take an ex-military strongman to lead the Israelis out of the political cesspool they are in, its just not clear if one will emerge soon.

UK of GB and Irl?

2008-12-24T21:20:00.004Z

Sometimes I think that there is as much likelihood of Ireland being united as Ireland joining in a political union with Britain. That thought grounded with the trend of nativist shame in relation to our own history.

The last few days have seen, with the exception of Tom Mc Gurk in the Sunday Businees Post, a cluster of fawning obituries to Ireland's most intellectually corrupt politican, Conor Cruise O' Brien. A man whose acts were so singularly treasonous that in many other countries he would have served time.

Then today I get an email from Dublin's Lord Mayor , a pointless and pompous office as it now stands, but more of that at another time.

The mail was a press release entitled New Year Message. Nothing very interesting; noted that Dublin's great, the Garda, Civil Defence and Fireservice are doing a good job, that homelessness is bad and next year looks grim.

The wording that caught my eye was this;

We are certainly living in an unprecedented economic period but in its time Dublin has survived famine and rebellion.

Heh? "survived rebellion"?

Now this might seem pedantic but the wording here implies that Dublin's rebellions were something negative, some black spot on our history, some event of which we were helpless passive victims of.

History is constructed on myths, I accept this, but equally acknowledge the importance of these myths in helping form identity and loyalty.

Surely the most appropiate, and accurate, wording that could have been used was to say that Dublin had survived "colonisation", "invasion" or "attack".

I fired off a quick mail to the Lord Mayor on this, I will post an update.

If thats the best you have....

2008-12-21T21:42:00.004Z

More grimness reported in the sundays - it appears that Dell are about to fire 2,000 of their Limerick staff. Whats most shocking about this is that Ireland´s worst minister, the sociopath and liar, Willie O´Dea was dispatched off to meet with the boss of Dell to make the case for retaining the current workforce.

Now seriously if you were the CEO of a fortune 500 company and Willie O´Dea was sent as some sort of ambassador would you be impressed?

Willie O´Dea has left his mark in Irish politics in that he has managed to record a montrous personal vote yet conversally he has managed to achieve absolutely nothing of note either nationally or locally.

After he is retired mathematicians will try to devise formuale to explain the imbalance between his support and his effectiveness.

O´Dea personifies the fatal flaw in our PR-STV electoral system.

The lying liars are lying again

2008-12-19T11:02:00.003Z

The latest of the banking 'indiscretions' exemplifies the complete lack of progress that Ireland thinks it achieved towards creating a meritocracy.

Last night the Chairman of Anglo-Irish bank, Seán Fitzpatrick, resigned. His resignation prompted by the reality that a story was about to leak about an eight year long sleight of hand he had been playing with a huge loan he took out from the bank during his tenure as CEO and then Chairman.

Now lets go back a little - to September 2008 - at the end of that month the stock price of Anglo Irish was hurtling down. The bank bailout/guarantee was triggered by the fear that Anglo Irish wouldn't last a few more hours trading. The Bank share price is now some 98% less than its peak 16 months ago and its worth only about €200 million. This figure puts into scale the size of Fitzpatrick's €87 million loan.

Whats so revealing about this story is the scale and extent of the deception. To ensure that the loan did not make it into the Anglo Irish's annual accounts, Fitzpatrick had to transfer the loan into Irish Nationwide. So the following people must have known about this huge loan;

Board of Anglo Irish Bank.
Loan Committee of Anglo Irish Bank
Audit Committee of Anglo Irish Bank
Anglo Irish Banks Auditors
Ernest and Young, the Banks Auditors
Irish Nationwide CEO
Irish Nationwide Board
and so on...

The point is that possibly hundreds of people, mostly based in Dublin, were complicit or at the least knew that the head of one of big four banks in Ireland was involved in deceiving the shareholders.

And all stayed schtumm.

I believe that Ireland operates, by and large, through a series of social platforms, the platform you occupy determined by; where you grew up, who your father is and what school you went to. Our society appears to me to be still largely tribal based. Irrespective of the rights and wrong of the tribes behaviour the rules dictate that your loyalty, co-operation and complicity is the only qualification demanded. By playing ball, rewards will be conferred on you.

Our political system is littered with examples of this.

Anglo Irish has only days left to live - its seems quite absurd that the guarantee introduced in September, primarily due to the performance of Anglo Irish, is likely to be called upon because of the indecent behaviour of those on the very top of the Irish financial community.

It appears nothing much has really changed.

2008-12-16T09:43:00.004Z

I received notification of this seminar a couple of weeks back;

IIIS SEMINAR ROOM, 6TH FLOOR, ARTS BUILDING, TRINITY COLLEGE DUBLIN

Olakunle Animashaun, Camino De Orula Productions

Making manifest the 'Spectagonist' and the Metatheatre in Athol Fugard's 'Sizwe Bansi is Dead'

I mean what chance is there of me going to this - I can't even understand the title.

One of the lads in the office reckons its an anagram.

Academia - don't you just love it.

2008-12-13T18:44:00.003Z

Ok hands up, I have been a bad blogger, with almost three weeks since my last post. In defence I was up to my proveriables.

The sense of impending economic doom has meant I keep agreeing to take on more work - on the theory that next year I will be standing at the local junction with one of these signs.

We are now in end of year wrapup time - so posting will resume from today on a much more regular basis.

Its worth it.

2008-11-19T11:34:00.006Z

Online polls although completely unreliable and open to loading, remember the BBCs poll for the greatest ever song, are a low cost online tool to garner buy in from the targeted clients and customers. Also they can be used as a cheap research crutch to support some man in the pub position. They can also be used as Mick on Slugger points out to encourage public opinion in a given direction.

Clear? Well now be a good citizen and express your position on Lisburn City Councils plan for a new retail development. There is an online poll you can vote on.

www.lisburncity.gov.uk/sprucefield-development-poll

Good and bad news

2008-11-06T16:39:00.005Z

While its nice that an African-American man can get elected to the White House, I'm still skeptical on Obama "changes". His monstrous u-turns on, for example Palestine, lends me to suspect he may be just another politician. I hope to be proved wrong.

What got me passionate about this election and pro-Obama was the clown that was running as VP on the republican ticket, Sarah Palin. Thankfully the wisdom of American voters mean she won't get within sniping distance of the Oval Office.

As for her being a 2012 candidate - no hope. Her only positive attribute, her looks, are the one asset that will wither with experience. Palin will be no more than a quirky footnote in American history in four years.

On a sadder note, proposition R, the renaming of the San Francisco Water Treatment Centre, which we reported in June, to the George W Bush Sewage Works was defeated. San Franers are speculating that nobody in the city was keen on anything being named after a man whom they have made their feelings on clear in successive elections

Car buying

2008-10-28T21:26:00.002Z

A couple of months back I totalled my car and since then I have been looking for the bargain of a century to replace the crappy runaround I bought after my crash.

Last week I thought I found it, a reliable good looking car, diesel, low mileage and all for less than €5k. Happy days.

Oddly though its an email only contact...a little wary I send off a short mail saying "saw the ad, I would like to see the car"... the plan being to ask a mechanic friend of mine to check it out.

Anyway earlier today I get a response to my mail from a man called Lucas Miller who tells me

"The car is located in Liverpool/United Kingdom. Now i am located in Germany with my bussines and i have nobody in Liverpool that could show you the car.I need to come personal to meet you and present the car.

Fee days ago a buyer told me that he'll buy the car, so we must meet in Liverpool.I came to United Kingdom because I trusted his word,but when I arrived I called him and no answer, so I lost money and precious time on his promise.I don't want to ask you to send me any money in advance, I just want to see that you are a serious buyer. If you don't want to buy it after you will inspect it, no problem, but I need to be sure that you will be there."

and Lucas goes on to outline his proposal so that he knows I am serious;

"1. The service name that we'll use is Money Gram transfers.You will find Money Gram agency at all the Post Office in your city and you will go there with your best friend or your wife. Your wife or your friend (relative) will be the sender of the money and you will be the receiver in Liverpool.

2.Ask your wife or your friend to send € 4,200 eur by Money Gram to your name in Liverpool.Is enough for me too see that I have a interested buyer. (I will pay the Money Gram fees when we will meet)

3. Only you can pick up the money from Liverpool, so this is no risk on your side.

4. Once the money is sent,you will have to email me or fax me Money Gram papers.

5. In the same day I will buy the flight ticket and I will email you the scanned ticket.(We will verify the car with a mechanical service and at police to. I also accept any test)

6. We will meet in Liverpool and we will finish the deal. I will help you to make all papers.If you don't want to buy the car I will pay for your transport. I assure you that you will love this car and you will buy it. It is in perfect conditions."

So I think its clear where Lucas wants this to go namely him being €4,200 wealthier and me still in my bashed up runaround.

I was just about to delete the mail when instead I was inspired to hit reply. I drafted a expletive heavy reply pointing out his grammatical errors but realised that was a waste of time so instead I rewrote and sent the following.

Lucas, that's really interesting as I will be in Tranmere town next Monday and my flight back to Dublin is late.

What would be best for both of us is if I can have a look at the car to help make me an informed decision. I will pop down to your mechanic and have a quick look and I'll get back to you then. In this way we don't have to go to all that trouble with Moneygram and Flight tickets and the rest!

How does that sound to you?

Regards,

Killian

Might be funny to see how this evolves.

Collapse?

2008-10-25T21:34:00.004+01:00

A graph of Fianna Fail polled support will soon resemble the ISEQ. An appropriate reflection considering their role in designing our economic collapse.

The October RedC/Sunday Business Post Poll is out.

RTE, Politics.ie, Dan Sullivan, Cian on Irishelection.com all cover it.

In one way this is huge news, FF falling behind FG in a poll hasn't occured for 25 years, but in otherways its irrelevant; as Cian notes "The problem, as ever, will be to keep those voters who are angry now, away from FF on election day".

As for us Shinners, an upward trend is always nice, but....1% rise in a time like this is not promising. Matters are exactly helped by a complete lack of media coverage of out statements, positions and policies.

Bertostalgia

2008-10-24T18:13:00.007+01:00

The part of the political process I find so fascinating is how public opinion is shaped.

You can buy books on the subject, study it, marketeers and brand managers dream of unlocking its secret and billions is spent by corporations and political parties trying to subtly and not so subtly influence the opinion of citizens.

At the moment there is an important battle being waged between the Government and Opposition in relation to the economic condition the country finds itself in. Fianna Fail's preferred narrative is that the budgetary crisis we find ourselves in is unfortunate but reflects nothing more than being caught in a global shitstorm. Sinn Fein, Labour and Fine Gael insist that the recession has been caused by Fianna Fail, specifically accusing them off reckless spending, unnecessary tax cuts for the wealthy and the "buying" of elections in 2002 and 2007.

By and large these two conflicting interpretations are the only ones that have been debated in the papers and on the airwaves over the past couple of weeks.

So how does one explain the growing alternative interpretation emerging, which simply goes like this.

Agh Bertie wouldn't have ever let this happen.

I first heard this on Monday during a canvas in Edenmore, Raheny from a pensioner and a long term supporter of Fianna Fail. Since then I have heard it from taxi drivers, the mothers on the school run, in the local sandwich shop, yet nothing on the mainstream media.

Bertostalgia, the longing for the good auld days with Ahern in charge is growing and creates an interesting problem for both the Government and the oppositions parties.

The Government can slope there shoulders in a "ah shucks were doing our best" and hope that the electorate has pity rather than anger on them next June. After all Offaly's greatest ever politician is clearly no match for His Bertness.

The opposition has to put up with the reserve scapegoating of a problem of which the entire government helped create and sustain over years.

Its not entire clear what the effect, particularly in Dublin, of Bertostalgia will be, but barring his return as Taoiseach it, this meme looks set to grow and then set as conventional wisdom.

The pursuit of triviality

2008-10-16T01:53:00.003+01:00

The Dow Jones loses the gains of last week, The Nikkei is plummeting, Britain reports the highest quarterly rise in unemployment in 17 years, Ireland finally manage to beat Cyprus and the last US presidential debate is about to take place.

Yet the Sky News lead story on its website and every fifteen minute TV headline is that a middle aged past it singer and a one hit wonder director have split up.

And then we wonder why its so difficult to engage people in politics.

Political activists aren't they great

2008-10-14T11:04:00.002+01:00

This is so far gone that you'd have to believe that he is working for the Obama camp!

Sort of reminds me of the freakology that these loo-las get up to.

Is this a pyramid imploding?

2008-10-12T16:25:00.004+01:00

Are we looking at the wrong comparsion? The media talk over the past few weeks has been looking at the 1929 wall street crash.

But seemingly this has the potential to be a fundamental collapse of the entire financial system. The International Monetary Fund warns of a "systemic meltdown".

Given that effectively what has occurred is that the property market pyramid scheme has collapsed perhaps we need to think beyond some problems with the banks, people losing money in stocks and a slowdown - but try and imagine what a full melt down means.

For a start paper money of whatever sort loses all value. If there is a global meltdown, there will be no hard currency to revert to. We will be reduced to barter.

I was twice in countries when the local currency lost all value. In Romania in 1990, I once went to the doctor and paid her with a bottle of "western" shampoo and in Yugoslavia in the mid 1990s when the inflation rate was so high, that Marlboro and Kent cigarettes was what you bought with your dinar as a form of stable currency.

But more interesting I spent some time working in Albania following the implosion that country had when a variety of pyramid schemes collapsed. The outcome of that was economic, social and political anarchy. UN food aid was needed to keep people nourished and the Italian army and navy and the OSCE was needed to restore some semblance of security.

The question is whether the shenanigans going on in the financial industry are the start of the collapse of a global pyramid scheme and much more than a issue of confidence. If so then its difficult to see who or what will be able to come to the assistance of a USA and Europe without a reliable currency and angry citizenship.

Psycho Palin

2008-10-11T02:28:00.003+01:00

The globes greatest potential danger, Sarah Palin, has been found guilty by lawmakers in Alaska of abusing her power in a vindictive case of familial revenge.

Great.

Whether this will make a difference to the rednecked, racist, homophobic, gun lusting, god bothering, deytukkyerrjerbs, Fox News lobotomised American "patriots" that is her support base is doubtful.

No doubt Plain and her republican party lizards will spin it as a conspiracy by the liberal media.

Black Friday??

2008-10-10T00:18:00.003+01:00

In a few hours the the Irish Stock Market, ISEQ, will open with an index price of in the upper 2k range. For a host of reasons I think today will see the ISEQ absolutely tank. The bail out, once copied, has not added the necessary confidence. The ECB rate cut is a nice little snifter for consumers but for corporate lending adds little.

Watch movement with the big four Irish banks. The contrasting shifts in Anglo Irish and BoI shares late yesterday suggest takeover chatter has spilled into investor speculation.

What to do, well. Auditors from outside this country should be sent in to the banks to examine the loan books and try get a true values of the balance sheets in the institutions. Only then can recapitalisation occur as the companies value will be clear (or clearer anyway).

Given the failure of the regulator and the Central Bank and the general stench of cronyism that pervades Irish life an audit done by the Central Bank or Dept of Finance is not going to engender confidence that's is needed.

The bail out to where?

2008-10-06T00:52:00.006+01:00

Where is this all going. Ireland, followed by Greece and now one of the big Euro four, Germany.

Watch the Irish banking stocks tomorrow, I expect drops, as their unique competitive advantage from last tuesday disappears.

Here's whats most worrying about this; it is plainly obvious that at least one of the six guaranteed Irish institutions is a basket case - weighed down with loans tied up in deprecating property.

Its increasingly difficult to see how their collapse, or lets say, their end of being an independent company, can be avoided. The benefit of the Irish bail out was that, overnight, bogey Irish institutions became globally unique (with exception of Northern Rock).

But now that the Germans, Greeks and presumably the other Euro countries by the end of the week, are also guaranteeing deposits, their USP disappears. At this point they will be naked to the market and off we go again, collapse in share price and flight of capital irrespective of Ireland's guarantee. Remember confidence is an emotion.

I have no doubt that the end of this week will deliver a longer term indicative verdict on the Irish Banks future.

p.s. - From Finfacts.com. Worth a read.

Door..shutting..horse..after...barn etc

2008-10-03T18:17:00.004+01:00

I must say I find this odd. In todays Irish Times, ICTU boss, David Begg has a passionate, informed and well written topical critique of the global banking system and model of capitalism. There is nothing in the article I disagree with he sums up the mud we are in.

"Let us be absolutely clear. This crisis was caused by greed and recklessness in our own country, on Wall Street, in London and in other major financial centres. Senior executives permitted speculation on a huge scale on investments they ill understood. Speculators have exacerbated the serious rises in fuel, food and raw materials.

The losers are many and include workers in the industry and, more generally, pensioners, families, firms seeking investment capital, and all of us as taxpayers now bailing out banks. It will take years to recover the money - if we manage to do so - and our future ability to fund high-quality public services is now jeopardised."

Excellent - this needs to be stated repeatedly in black and white. And Begg is a well connected and a player in power circles in this country.

But.....

He is also been a Director of the Irish Central Bank for the past thirteen years!

By no means do I think Begg is at fault for the banking crisis in Ireland but what I would like to know is what exactly he did during all those years to try and prevent the inevitable results of the greed that he writes of.

There is no point of a senior Union leader being on the Board of the Central Bank in Ireland if they are not there to keep an eye on precisely what he despairs of. He has been at the heart of the Irish Banking System, he had held this powerful position for 13 years and yet now, way too late, shouts Fire.

Windfall tax needed on banks

2008-10-02T12:15:00.003+01:00

The people who we should seek not to reward or protect in the Irish bail out are the executive and management of the banks and developers with outstanding loans sitting on lands banks and unsold properties. Properties unsold because they won't lower the prices. A comfortable enough position they find themselves in because the banks are refusing to call in the loans.

However there is another group of people that are currently benefiting massively from the bail out.

The new shareholders of Bank of Ireland, Allied Irish Bank, Anglo Irish Bank and the others. Since the furtive conclave on Monday morning of bankers and the Government that cobbled together the plan, there has been a four fold increase in the volume of these banks shares traded.

In the past three days Anglo Irish share price has more than doubled, Bank of Ireland has risen from €3.26 to nearly a fiver and Allied Irish Bank has seen a nearly 50% rise.

The "deal" that the Irish Government put together ensures, that by not taking an equity stake in the banks, that the state will not garner any of the hundreds of millions in value that the Irish taxpayers have added to the value of the banks.

Its safe to assume that some of the most recent trades are new. They bought into a risk free investment. Yet the Irish taxpayers are the ones underwriting this.

What needs to be done is the introduction of a targeted capital gains tax on bank shares to accompany the bill. As the legalisation stands the profit on any capital gains is merely 20%.

For the banks lets increase this to 50% for the lifetime of the state guarantee.

The bail out is appartenly only about liquidity. If so and also to reduce the short term speculation and bring stability to the share price lets see a chunky tax introduced that ensures the Irish state itself can directly benefit from our taxpayers insurance policy.

Bail out

2008-09-30T23:56:00.003+01:00

The parliament of the most powerful country in the world, after public awareness, and a televised debate and vote say no to a €700 billion bail out. Our boyos sort out a €400 billion promissory note in the dead of the night.

Hmm...says something that.

Sarah Palin vs Miss Teen South Carolina

2008-09-29T16:12:00.004+01:00

Now this is frightening. Its becoming increasingly obvious that the VP candidate for the Republican Party, Sarah Palin, is....well there is no real polite way to say this....a total and utter moron.

Last week she did an interview on NBC in which she rambled on in the most incoherent manner. In large sections of the interview she was talking complete unconnected jibberish.

Does it matter - well yes, as Jack Cafferty of CNN notes "this woman will be one 72 year old's heartbeat away from being president of the United States"

In an earlier ABC interview with Charlie Gibson, amongst others things Palin demonstrates deer in headlights ignorance of the Bush Doctrine

Now have a look at the links above of the not improbable future President of the USA and compare her answers to Miss Teen South Carolina response under questioning and tell me who is smarter.

This is one extremely stupid politican.

I've been busy!

2008-09-26T17:01:00.005+01:00

Well it might look like I've been slacking but only on the blogging front. As a councillor I find the busiest time is September, schools are back, people back to work and I get a huge upsurge in constituency cases.

It didn't help that I went off to see Ireland play Montenegro in Podgorica. A fair 0-0 draw was the result. I think a point gained than 2 points lost, as Montenegro are a good side, growing in confidence and will take points off teams at home.

With three friends I popped over the border to Albania for a couple of days hiking in the Accursed Mountains. Fantastic. See pic.

I spoke at and attended the Electric Picnic, my debate on Friday night on Cultural Diversity in Ireland was a bit of a mess, not helped by two of my fellow panellists being a bit....well.....tired and emotional?

However the world greatest band did reform and were amazing.

Sinn Féin Donaghmede had its Local Election 09 convention on Tuesday the 23rd. I was the only person nominated so I am the candidate again. So the next nine months will be a hard slog as we try to get to all 10,000 homes in the constituency.

Also had a piece in the Irish Times on Saturday on skiing and hoping to get more writing done on snowsports over the winter.

On a wider note that US bailout will probably go ahead, I just wonder whether the nature of the public negotiations will scupper any confidence building measure in the banking sector. If it does expect big overnight gains in Irish banking stocks, which at this stage are well in the bargain basement.

Oh and I gave up smoking on Monday......grrr.

The whatever you say, say nothing, school of public relations

2008-08-07T19:06:00.005+01:00

Well I've been back from my holidays about a week but just now getting around to the blog.

Lots of happening in the last month, Sarkozy visits Dublin, Karadzic is uncovered as a new age doctor, the DUP think that homosexuality is worse than child abuse and that creationism should be taught in state run schools, Olmert, PM of Israel, does a Bertie and the lad in charge of Mauritania is the victim of a coup d'etat.

All interesting and informative bits of news from around the globe. What then to make of the press release that appears in my inbox an hour ago.

From the Dublin City Council Press Office its opening line states;

The City Council is aware of what occurred in O’Devaney Gardens last evening

Ok, fine so far, it continues in this cryptic vein;

We have been in consultation with the Gardaí on the matter and there is ongoing co-operation between the Gardaí and Dublin City Council with regard to Estate Management issues.

The press release then contains two paragraphs on the failed Public Private Partnership that was designed to rebuild the estate and finishes with the news that;

In the meantime new additional CCTV cameras are being purchased to augment what is already in place and we will continue to co-operate fully with the Gardaí in relation to Estate Management.

In a separate press release The Mayor of Dublin also commented on whatever happened last night in O'Deveney Gardens by revealing that;

As Lord Mayor I am deeply concerned about what happened in O’Devaney Gardens last night. It was an extremely traumatic event for residents.

Despite searching on irishtimes.com and breakingnews.ie I for one am none the wiser on what did happen in O'Deveney Gardens last night. You would have to be a seasoned, vodka soaked Kremlinologist to extract any information from both press statements.

What an odd manner to carry out PR!

2008-07-15T14:50:00.002+01:00

Ireland's SFA, that's the Small Firms Association, not a brilliant Welsh band have released the secret to halting the elevator crash that is the Irish economy.

After pouring over reports from experts of taxation, fiscal decentralisation, abstinence theory and dirigisme, by talking to Marxists, Keynesists, Ricardoists, Humists, Hayekists, Malthusians, Georgists and by engaging in all night gin sessions with think tankers on normative economics and bluesky strategists they have discovered the answer.

They propose reducing the minimum wage from €8.65 per hour to €7.65 per hour.

Genius!

At least its a lot clearer now what SFA does mean for employees of these business's.

Our Knowledge Economy, 100 years ago

2008-07-11T00:15:00.013+01:00

I happened to be in Clifden this week. With a couple of hours to kill I went for a spot of sightseeing. After pottering around the village and taking the car on the Sky Road Drive I headed back to Dublin.

Just on leaving the village there was a small sign pointing down a lane for the Alcock and Brown Landing Site. The lane turns into a eight foot wide raised unpaved trail, with rain flooded bog on either side and goes on for about 2kms. At the end of which is a large whitewashed obelisk to commemorate the flight.

Oddly this is one of two memorials to the flight, another lies on the other side of the main road. Just beside this was what looked like a council built urinal wall, but with a plaque. The plaque commemorated the 100th anniversary of the first message sent by Marconi's transatlantic station.

I was surprised, I knew about the significance of Marconi's station, but just presumed that the area would be preserved, with an interpretative centre, car park and the OPW charging an arm and a leg for access. But here it was in the middle of a desolate bog with sheep shearing pens as neighbours. It was both delightful and a little shocking that the area hadn't been manicured, pruned and plucked into a pristine tourist hoover.

From where I was standing I had a good look around and it became apparent that this had been an enormous industrial complex. There was the foundations of dozens of building over a mile radius, the remnants of a narrow gauge railway and the stumps of mast anchors. The main building 200 metres across the bog was fenced in, to control sheep, and was littered with the machinery of the wireless station. The station at its peak employed over 300 people. It was the Microsoft and Google of its day.

On the way home what had me thinking was not so much that the site was unexploited but that 100 years ago Clifden was host to two major technological developments that would transform the global economy; namely cheap realtime long distance communication and long distance air travel. Clifden, and the west of Ireland was literally one end of the bridge between two empires; one decaying and one emerging.

Yet somehow we ended up in the 1930's as an absolute economic and cultural basketcase. What should have been a dynamic, export led, knowledge based economy became a peasant holding, conservative, clergy controlled and isolationist island on the bit end of Europe. The Marconi station ceased operations in 1922 due to the war and plans for a Clifden airport are still ongoing.

There has always been assumption that our geography has cursed us. My Leaving Cert books both apologised and excused Ireland's underachievement and poverty, hinting that with no natural resources and sitting on the edge of Europe weren't we doing grand anyway. An underlying, almost chronic, shoulder shrugging is our most destructive political trait. Look at the latest reaction by the Government to the appalling shortfall in the public finances, its all "what can we do, its all bad everywhere".

But.....we had the opportunity a century ago and seemingly blew it and we have (had) an opportunity now, we can still straddle two empires, one European the other Americans and exploit the benefits and association with both. For that to happen we need more than ever to examine the madness that is our electoral system.

It needs reform so that intelligent, professional, specialists unencumbered by short term parochial issues can input to state policy. We need to dump the STV-PR system, weed out the Willie O'Dea's from cabinet and introduce a partial List System so that brains and experience not cutehoorness is what qualifies you to sit on the top table in Ireland in charge of a €60 billion budget.

Christopher Hitchens; Waterboarded

2008-07-04T23:47:00.001+01:00

This was posted up on You Tube yesterday and is well worth watching.

It features British writer, Christopher Hitchens volunteering to be "waterboarded". The Bush admin calls these and order forms of interrogation "alternative set of procedures". Amnesty and others have claimed its torture. Hitchens had written and commented in support of enhanced interrogation.

Sorry? nah!

2008-07-02T17:24:00.003+01:00

A number of years back I was sitting in the departures lounge of Stanstead Airport for a connecting flight. Alone and with a couple of hours to kill you get to that stage where you begin to notice and filter the wallpaper and background noise of modern life.

One of the tannoy announcements I actually listened to for the first time was a non-apology apology from Ryanair.

It went something like this; "Ryanair regrets to announce the delay in flight FR123 to Dublin, this is due to the late arrival of the incoming aeroplane."

Its was a clever non-apology apology as it indicated a clear disconnect between Ryanair and the aeroplane. It was as if anxious Ryanair staff were out on the tarmac nervously looking at their watches and the distant horizon waiting for this aeroplane to appear out of the sky. It was as if there was some "Aeroplane Dispatch Centre" that had screwed up and was late in sending the plucky Ryanair costcutters their flying machine on time.

Yet the reality is that incoming aeroplane was a Ryanair flight and the reason it was late was due to the airlines scheduling turnaround policy so as to fit as many flights in given day.

Our Minister of Finance had his own Ryanair moment today when he announced the dreadful updated exchequer figures for 2008. It now is evident that Ireland inc will face a €8 billion shortfall for the year.

Aside from the predictable external factors cited by the Government (Credit Crunch, Oil Price) Minister Lenihan cited "lower than expected tax revenue receipts. This is due largely to lower growth than projected at Budget time and to a fall off in tax receipts as a result of weaker property market activity".

Fair enough Minister but who is responsible for this weakened property market?

You and your government colleagues who, in the face of repeated advice to the contrary, encouraged house prices to get out of control so to shore up support from their developer paymasters, facilitate a consumer binge from feel-wealthy home owners, fund Fianna Fáil's cyclical spending sprees around election time and egged on every last cent produced in the economy to be reinvested on the most unproductive of assets until like a black hole the thing collapsed in on itself.

Olympics to save us all, or not.

2008-07-01T15:05:00.003+01:00

July 1st and still raining.

Has anyone else noticed how many commentators are repeating the opinion that the London Olympics are a solution to unemployed Irish/Irish based construction workers.

Last night on Questions and Answers (something needs to be done to perk that programme up) Alison O'Connor of the Sunday Business Post was at it, on Sunday, versatile blogger, Sarah Carey mentioned it in her Sunday Times column, on the Newstalk panel that morning it was offered up as a type of safety valve.

On an governmental level Minister Micheal Martin and the head of the Enterprise Ireland having been talking up the opportunities the London Olympics offer.

Given that, according to the Construction Industry Federation, there were some 282,000 in 2007 working directly in construction in Ireland, and that at most 20,000 jobs will be created in building Olympic venues that's still a big gap.

Perhaps this panacea being proffered is a case of letting them down gently.

The big R

2008-06-30T13:48:00.003+01:00

Just about sums it up; the performance of Irish shares over the past two years on the ISEQ index.

Since the ESRI publication last week with the Celtic Tiger epithet "Thus Ireland will experience a recession for the first time since 1983" public commentary has been by and large one of gloom. The weekend papers had a fine time, with reminiscing from 40 somethings on the recession of the 1980's.

This morning the CSO confirmed that the first quarter of 2008 showed negative growth.

However not all bought into the script with some of the economists still King Canute like insisting all was well. A special mention must go to Dan Mc Laughlin of Bank of Ireland, a bullish economist who has a habit of getting ever prediction he makes wrong; he has been wrong about Irish economic growth rates, house prices, inflation and ECB interest rates. But he is not alone, with the exception of Jim Power, all the commentary and analysis from the bank employed economists over the past two years has been dishonest and self serving.

And normally that's fine, these economists know "who pays the piper plays the tune" and know that their employers need confident consumers to spend and seek loans. The problem has arisen that these economists were elevated into Oracles. RTE regularly sought out the economists to comment of the latest reports or news on the economy as if they were independent and neutral. Those who urged caution, such as George Lee or David Mc Williams were dismissed as doom merchants.

Indeed His Bertness himself claimed in 2007 that not alone was all rosy in the garden but that "sitting on the sidelines, cribbing and moaning is a lost opportunity. I don't know how people who engage in that don't commit suicide because frankly the only thing that motivates me is being able to actively change something".

Says a man who has since dumped the problem into the laps of other as he hadn't the guts to stick around.

Part of the recovery process of this country should include a in depth post-mortem to how we went from a bust to boom to bust economy. Questions that need to be addressed is why employees of the banking industry were allowed, usually unchallenged, access to the state broadcaster to decieve the Irish public on the actual trends and direction of the economy.

p.s. What is going on in Bank of Ireland - its share price just seem to be in freefall at this stage.

Next time

2008-06-29T02:38:00.003+01:00

The Irish state lottery recorded it highest ever jackpot for the draw last night.

€19 million.

The winning numbers were 04, 12, 26, 27, 29, 37.

Mine were 02, 09, 10, 24, 42, 44.

Bollix.

Real Democracy

2008-06-28T01:06:00.005+01:00

In the US they do direct democracy like no one else, well maybe expect the Swiss, and at a time that our own Referendum vote is being demonised by the very people who were mandated to represent it, its refreshing that anti-establishment initiatives elsewhere can be simply progressed by the electorate.

The New York Times picks up on a story on a petition that has been gathering signatures in San Francisco to rename the local water treatment centre plant the George W. Bush Sewage Plant.

A local group the satirically named Presidential Memorial Commission of San Francisco has collected nearly 9,000 signatures to successfully ensure that the proposal to rename the treatment centre is included on a City wide ballot on the same day of the USA Presidential Election in November.

A simple yes/no option will be open to all registered voters at that time.

In a city that vote 83% Democrat in 2004, I think it won't be long before the liberals, pro-choicers, gays, greens, pinkos, gun shirkers, artisans, actors, and atheists of San Francisco have the last laugh on the most awful of US presidents.

Cowen's Downfall

2008-06-25T15:46:00.002+01:00

This is priceless! Hat tip to Dan Sullivan.

Ah, Some Clarity

2008-06-20T11:44:00.005+01:00

Richard Delevan has been tracking and hunting for the elusive Lisbon Poll commissioned by Eurobarometer following the Lisbon vote.

The first report of a detailed poll having been undertaken was in Tuesday's Indo. The Independent piece revealed that three quarters of No voters did so on the basis that parts of the treaty could be renegotiated. This claim is substantiated in the poll findings published today.

The same story claimed that "Immigration was an unspoken factor in the vote, as people expressed concern about the numbers of immigrants coming to the country in such a short time".

Except it wasn't.

The Eurobarometer poll noted that only 1% of those who voted No did so on the basis of fears around immigration and only 2% on concerns about the introduction of abortion, gay marriage and euthanasia.

Yet these issues have been repeated by all the politicians, Government and even EU Commissioners as an explanation of the No vote. It seems that having demonised the No campaigners before the referendum the Irish political and media is intent of demonising the No vote itself.

Some might say that just politics, but its not, the No vote was not a vote for Sinn Féin, Libertas, Patricia Mc Kenna or Joe Higgins. If our No vote is misrepresented by the Irish Government in Brussels we will end up with a rehashed Lisbon Mark II being presented back to the electorate in 2009, with some meaningless declarations about abortion and conscription.

This referendum that would end in a second defeat for the Government. That defeat would be interpreted around Europe as "we gave them what they want and they said no, what is wrong with these ungrateful anti-EU Irish".

Now that would be a scenario that would be very negative for Ireland.

The Return of the Petrols

2008-06-19T19:44:00.009+01:00

The world greatest band, scientifically proven, That Petrol Emotion, are reforming for a few shows this summer.

Their 1987 single Big Decision is often cited as the first dance/rock crossover 'hit' in Britain influencing the sound and success of the Madchester and Britpop bands. Unfortunately for the Petrols their much anticipated follow up album, recorded just as their main songwriter left the band, underwhelmed an expectant music media and fans alike.

They returned in 1990 with the my favourite Album, Chemicrazy, a 12 tracker, eleven of which are outstanding. Over the next four years I saw them at least 15 times and live they were incredible. Vocalist Steve Mack epitomised exactly what a frontman for a band should be, the only other even to approach his presence, energy and creativity was Perry Farrell.

The best gig, by a long way, I've ever been at was a eve of US tour 'secret' New Inn show in Dublin. A 200 capacity venue run in the early 90's by Smiley Bolger, it had a low ceiling, sticky carpets and warm beer - but hey, it was ours. The band that night played for two hours, the hits, album tracks, b-sides and covers.

The Petrols play a warm up show in Dundalk on the Thursday 28th August and the superb Electric Picnic (I have my brother Dec to thank for his wise and tasteful booking skills!) on the 30th.

Check their new site for updates which now includes a video of the band rehearsing the songs in London last week.

The Lying Liability

2008-06-18T11:01:00.006+01:00

I have blogged about the concerns I have in relation to the Chad EUfor mission previously.

After hearing Ireland's worst minister on Morning Ireland this today those concerns are heading to despair.

Responding to UNHCR complaints that Irish Defence Forces failed to provide protection to their staff and offices during a rebel attack on saturday Minister Willie O'Dea, a proven bullshitter wholly unsuitable as in any Ministerial post, claimed that it not their mandate to protect UN staff.

Now, O'Dea is one of those people whose belligerent assertions have an inverse relationship with the facts.

Security Council resoultion 1778 which authorised the mission has an number of points which implictly authorises UN peacekeepers to be proactive in "securing the environment" and one section which explicitly states that EU forces deployed are;

To contribute to protecting United Nations personnel, facilities, installations and equipment and to ensuring the security and freedom of movement of its staff and United Nations and associated personnel.

Now by no means do I think it feasible for Irish peacekeepers to be able to perform miracles in the political pisspot they have found themselves in. But rather than O'Dea pointing out the very difficult situation they are in, the obvious lack of air assets and the incident based selective interpretation that is pragmatic and sensible he blames UNHCR and also lies about the mandate.

O'Dea has only two gears in his political armour one is lying the other is blaming the nearest available scapegoat.

It is plainly obvious that the Irish troops are in a very, very exposed and vulnerable position in Chad, it is more than possible that will be able to carry out their UN mission and at the same time avoid getting pulled into the civil war. For this to happen though O'Dea needs to be removed, he may be an effective political scrapper in Limerick, but in his current position the causalities of his approach will be far more serious than some ambitious FF councillor.

The Minister of Defence first and foremost should be in a safe pair of hands, I don't think even O'Dea's greatest supporters would call him that.

UPDATE: O'Dea is now claiming that the UN apologised to him for the comments made by their offical spokeperson. The Irish Times report that they are unable to confirm that any apology has taken place!

No, Nien, Non.

2008-06-17T19:03:00.005+01:00

Oops I was wrong it was a resounding No!

53% of the electorate voted against the Lisbon Treaty.

In Dublin North East it was a 57% No vote on a similarly high turnout. I was very happy with the turnout as it was obvious that the Treaty really captured peoples attention.

I did the tallies for the area.

It was apparent from about a half hour after the first boxes were opened that the Yes side was in trouble. The boxes from Donaghmede were recording a 2:1 vote against the treaty. Raheny boxes were about 5:4 against and the Bayside boxes were 3:2 against. The only parish that returned a solid Yes vote were those boxes from Burrow Road (Sutton). At the other end of the constituency and economic bracket and my party colleague Larry O'Toole's stronghold, Darndale had one box that was over 90% No.

Interestingly Dublin North East was the only DARTland area that recorded a No vote.

What happens next?

Tomorrow we will be presenting our alternative and the changes necessary in a new treaty.

The proposal will map out how to proceed with a new EU Treaty, but one that defines a limit to the EU's creeping powers, protects Irish, and other small states interests, and promotes a more social Europe.

As for the Government, they need to ensure that they hold firm and inform our European Partners that Irish people are uneasy about the extent of EU political power, concerns on neutrality and workers rights and worries on our place in the future of the EU.

Just waiting now

2008-06-13T00:25:00.003+01:00

So after almost six months involved in the Lisbon Treaty campaign for SF its finally over.

I was pleasantly surprised at the turnout, RTE are calculating (as of Thursday evening) a 43% national turnout).

From what we can tell in Dublin North East we think the figure will be about 51 - 53%. That ranges from the low 40's in the Darndale polling station to the high 60's in Sutton Polling Station.

Kilbarrack and Donaghmede were both busy with Turnouts in the region of 50 - 55%.

And my national prediction?

I really have no clue.

Anecdotaly its a 70% NO, but clearly that reflects more on my own professional, political and social circles than anything else.

All day voters in and around my electoral area unprompted told me they were or had voted No. Again that's meaningless as I can't see why a constituent would be so keen to tell me they voted in a different way than we had been advocating.

Looking at the turnout figures also heartens me, the working class areas engaged and voted on this and so should be good....but this referendum clearly had massive class, income, age and gender cross over that makes presumptions on the result foolish. Also as this post points out on politics.ie, there has been assumptions made on turnout benefiting one particular viewpoint that simply don't add up to a hill of beans.

I am off to witness and tally some of local boxes count for Dublin City tomorrow morning and I expect that by 1o.30 am we will know how Dublin North East voted.

As an indicator DNE voted;

56% against Nice 1 on a 40% turnout.

60% for Nice 11 on a 60% turnout.

Getting partly off the fence, I forecast that DNE will be....

55% against Lisbon.

And nationally I think it may just sneak over the line. The lower turnout in the country I think reflects indicative NO supporters loyal to one of the three major parties who decided in the end to opt out rather than voting against the Lisbon Treaty.

As a campaign I enjoyed it and learnt a hell of amount.

More tomorrow.

PC Gone Mad!

2008-05-30T14:12:00.005+01:00

Part of the perverse logic of the far right and some self proclaimed libertarians is that the liberal left are intolerant and undemocratic.

They have popularised the phrase Political Correctness Gone Mad to such an extent that it has become a cliché.

Yet in another demonstration of the right's true roots, and its power, it was announced that Dunkin Donuts have pulled a on-line ad which featured a celeb TV chef wearing the keffiyeh, more popularly known as the PLO scarf.

It seems that D.D. were running scared after some of the more nasty, small minded wingnuts in the US started to express outrage over this satorial expression.

Along with the shoefaced Carol Coulter, Hysteric in Chief Michelle Malkin was upset. Claiming that the scarf "symbolized murderous Palestinian jihad".

One would have to wonder then what would Malkin and co would make of the tie, or fedora.

2008-05-27T14:15:00.009+01:00

Brian Keenan

2008-05-21T09:53:00.002+01:00

Saddened to hear that life long Republican Brian Keenan died this morning after a long battle with cancer.

One of the most important behind the scenes leaders in the peace process, Brian was a extremely articulate, intelligent and passionate man.

Rest in Peace.

Peacekeeping, but for whom?

2008-05-20T23:30:00.004+01:00

Today 160 Irish defence force troops will journey from the capital of Chad to their AOR almost 1,000 kms away on the Chad/Sudanese border. They are the first in a 400 strong contingent mandated to protect some 400,000 refugees and IDPs made homeless from fighting in Sudan and the border region.

The deployment fits all the requirements of the triple lock arrangement fixed into the Irish law. It has a UN mandate and it was agreed by the Government and the Dail. Although given that the Government will have an in built Dáil majority surely this “triple lock” is really just a “double lock”.

The coverage from the mainstream media on this has focused mainly on the logistics of it and little on the politics of it.

The mission is part of the EU peacekeeping force and the UN Secretary General himself made the appeal for troops.

Obviously the very nature of soldiering entails some risk and danger and so no one is realistically expecting that the Irish soldiers will be welcomed with open arms by all. Peacekeeping is rarely truly neutral and one if not all domestic combatants will feel at some point that UN peacekeepers are biased.

Accusations of bias were constantly levelled against Irish peacekeepers as part of the UNIFIL mission by Israel and the Serb minority in Kosova has made similar unfair calls.

But this is different. Irish troops have been deployed to Chad and from the day they arrive our Minister of Defence and his EU counterparts have placed them in a much compromised position.

Headlines that point out how the mission is commanded by an Irish General, it is routinely omitted to note that some EU troops are already in Country.

In 2005 France, at the request of the Chadian president Idriss Deby sent additional troops to bring a total of 1,300 French military personnel in the capital.

Neutrality, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. Willie O’Dea would have us believe that the Chadian rebels in the Toyota flatbeds whose stronghold is in Ireland’s AOR are going to recognise the visibly subtle difference between the EU troops sent to protect refugees and the EU troops sent to prop up their enemy.

It’s delusional to hope that they will. To them the French and Irish EU troops will be seen as one and the same. White Europeans siding with an unpopular leader with extremely dubious democratic credentials.

If there is any doubt see what UFDD leader, Mahamat Hassane Boulmaye, had to say about the EU peacekeepers “We will view the European soldiers as enemies, whether they are French or Austrian. For us all European units on our territory are enemies because they came to defend the dictator Idriss Deby."

By all means Ireland should take on assertive peace enforcement missions but we should have never agreed to contribute troops as long as France had troops acting as an illegitimate government’s Praetorian Guard. It puts the reputation and lives of Irish men at risk and threatens to further erode our neutral status.

Gaybo on Lisbon

2008-05-18T19:21:00.005+01:00

While out walking the dog this morning one of my elderly neighbors stopped me to tell me she was voting no to the Lisbon Treaty "after what Gaybo wrote in the paper".

It turns out that in today's Sunday Independent Gay Byrne wrote a piece on his opposition to the treaty. The thread on politics.ie outlines more.

Given that Gaybo and Myers are both against the Lisbon Treaty, I may have to reassess my own position.

Lisbon, Lisbon and more Lisbon

2008-05-17T21:58:00.006+01:00

So the Irish Times had it latest poll on the Lisbon Treaty in today's paper. Yesterdays party results, FF lose a leader due to his financial wizardry and go up 8%, are far too surreal for serious political analysis. Time for a new electorate anyone?

Anyway the Lisbon Treaty poll shows that 35% intend to vote Yes, 18% No and 47% Don't Know. It would be interesting if there was a fourth option given to those polled, namely "What you talking 'bout" - I suspect that many of the Don't Knows are in this group.

That said the presence of tens of thousands of posters throughout the state provides a very visible nudge to the electorate that they are being asked to decide on something, and soon.

With 25 days to run the Yes side, although ahead on a 2:1 basis, are far from safe as the IT notes;

The first Irish Times poll during the Nice referendum campaign in 2001 showed the Yes side with a bigger lead of 52 per cent to 21 per cent, yet the No side won a month later.

This campaign is going to be decided in the last three days, the Yes voters and campaigners I have met and debated are uneasy and intend supporting the Treaty for largely emotional reasons or fuzzy logic; grateful to Europe, Europe is good, need to be in Europe.

By contrast the No campaign is clear on the dangers of the Treaty and the main groups have managed to articulate it in a precise fashion, and the most welcome and surprising development, in a sober manner without try to spin utter nonsense and ripping into one another.

I've two non constituency Lisbon events this coming week.

On Monday at lunchtime I am debating with Fine Gael MEP Gay Mitchell and Brendan Kiely of the Alliance for Europe, also speaking from a No perspective is Declan Ganley of Libertas.

The debate is a little different, its on a lunchtime in the KPMG office in the IFSC, the attendance will be mainly those working in the centre. Not exactly the people who will be hardcore Shinner voters.

Both Gay Mitchell and Brendan are aggressive debaters so while the panel may enjoy themselves there's a chance that it will become bogged down in too fine a detail on the text of the Treaty for many in the audience to engage with.

On Thursday I back to Dublin Castle for the last time in the current round of National Forum on Europe debates. Thursday features the new veliki sir. The format is protective of the guest speaker so I would expect Cowen to deliver a well researched civil servant written speech, light on whats good in the Treaty, but heavy on history.

Cowen's response to the questions he will be asked will be interesting; he can choose to evade the questions and finish content that he will have secured his 15 seconds and soundbite on the 6'O Clock news, or he maybe tempted to get stuck in.

Given that its not clear how much he knows about The Lisbon Treaty, any attempt by him to assert himself holds the real danger (for him) of making a false claim on the benefits of the Treaty.

Here's hoping he goes for the latter option.

2008-05-12T07:00:00.000+01:00

I'll be a guest on Newstalk 106-108FM tonight, reviewing the news of the day. Hosted by Declan Carty, Late Night Live, is a cracking listen with the right guests and issues.

Throw in is at 10pm.

Is there a Power of One?

2008-05-11T23:46:00.002+01:00

Last summer I read George Monibot's book Heat.
The book is a comprehensive assault on the complacency, wishful thinking and technological messiahness, that soothes most peoples concerns over Global Warming.

Systematically Monibot destroys the "easy options" being bandied about; nuclear power, renewables and, well, eating tofu.

The only alternatives to catastrophic climatic change, according to Monibot, is for a 90% reduction in carbon emissions by 2030.

90%!!

After reading the book I went and through a friend had my carbon footprint calculated for 2007.

I had imagined that I would be below the average in Ireland. I walk regularly, drive a average car, recycle (sort of), don't take unnecessary flights and turn off the appliances at night.

However the result revealed that my carbon footprint was 12.1 tonnes in 2007. The Irish average was 10.2 tonnes.

Cracking into action, and as penance, I went down to the garden centre, bought and planted four fruit trees and a bunch of hedging.

For 2008 my aim is to get my footprint below 10 tonnes.

How;

I recycle everything at this stage. Using the three bins we have in Dublin and separate the waste into each one.

I use conference calling and Skype with video to avoid needless work trips.

I have cut down on eating meat.

I check where the food produce we buy actually comes from. (No more tomatoes from Chile)

I got the bike out from the shed for the short trips to the shops and local house visits.

I fix things rather than looking to replace them.

I will buy second hand CDs and books on Amazon.

I have become somewhat obsessive about turning off household appliances.

Where I have failed and this isn't good, is around flights. Too many again this year, but will be one less than 2007.

The changes I made have been have been easy and I am confident I can get below 10 tonnes this year.

The nagging problem of course is what difference, aside from me feeling better about myself, will it make.....??

What we need is a mandated benign enforcer to bring in radical laws that oblige us all to conform to massive reduction.

Surely that's a role for the Greens in Government?

Calculate your own Carbon Footprint here.

2008-05-10T16:27:00.004+01:00

Heard a bizarre bit of political gossip last night at a local community fundraiser.

A Fianna Fail Oireachtas member told me of a FF Councillor who rang one of their Meath TDs.

He wanted to check how come no Fine Gael TD got a promotion in Cowen's reshuffle!

Olympic Boycott

2008-05-09T16:35:00.008+01:00

I see there are more calls for a boycott of the forthcoming Olympics appearing on the blogsphere. Politics.ie has a developing thread making renewed calls for Ireland not to send athletes on the basis of the refusal of Burma to allow access to international aid workers.

It seems China's allies have a bit of history in this regard, something I wrote about during a previous career in relation to North Korea. Still to this day the numbers who died in the North Korean famines of the 1990's are unknown.

A post on the politics.ie thread captures some of my feeling on the boycott issue, saying "we knew they were assholes when we gave them the Olympics and we didn't care , so it would be a bit dodgy to suddenly start caring now".

In Ireland that has been almost a weekly roll out of politicians calling for a Olympic boycott because of Tibet, Burma or Sudan. Yet some of these same politicians don't seem to have the same concern about our cultural cousins abuses around the globe.

China should have never been awarded the Olympics but now that they have, what to do.

A Olympic boycott is the easy way out and would represent cowardice by Iveagh House. Most of the Irish Athletes have as much chance of winning a medal than I have of being Taoiseach in 2012. Its a possibility, just a very, very, very slim one. But similar to an aspiring Taoiseach an athlete rated 45th in the world, has to train and sacrifice as hard as those in the top 5. All their earnings go into their sporting ambitions and family and career developments are shelved. Most of these people probably couldn't even find Burma on a map.

We seem to think it appropriate that these athletes non participation will alleviate our guilt and establish our empathy with the oppressed in Lhasa.

A complete cop out.

If the Government wants to make a statement on China, it can do it, by withdrawing ambassadors, expelling diplomats, taxing imports, petitioning the UN or EU or even handing out melted Ferrero Rocher at the next embassy knees up.

If a citizen wants to protest against China do it with your wallet. Next time your out shopping check the "made in" label. If its China, purchase an alternative.

A reasonable course of action would be for a boycott of the opening ceremony and for no Irish diplomats or TDs to attend any part of the games.

And as a Councillor I would appreciate if the Department of Foreign Affairs would stop trying to twin Dublin with Beijing.

Irrespective of what goodies are offered I will not support Dublin being twinned with any City that is not democratically represented.

Deja Vu Again

2008-05-07T11:47:00.001+01:00

A story from a week back in the Northside People outlined a local problem that I was facing. The issue was about the Old Station Masters house at Howth Junction Station.

Stay with me now...!

The building itself is not remarkable, but it is a handsome brick structure built in the 1890s and one of the very, very few historic buildings in the Dublin 5 and 13 postal districts.

It is also, importantly been on the Record of Protected Structures for Fingal Co Council since January 2006.

Yet it is literally falling down, with holes in the roof, open access to all and sundry to go in, covered in graffiti and being chipped away by local vandals. Surely, you may ask, part of the rationale on being placed on the Record of Protected Structures is to be "Protected".

So when I wrote an email to Iarnrod Eireann on the 1st February asking them to secure the site one would expect them to answer positively.

A few emails later and the relevant person, a Ms Joy Rogers replied on the 5th of Feb saying "My contractor has secured opes and lower roof areas. It is my intention to seek Fingal co co permission to demolish this dangerous structure."

Aside from wondering what a "opes" is (Anyone?), I was pissed with the comment that the structure is dangerous. Lets be clear here the building is in the condition it is in ONLY because, at best, Iarnrod Eireann don't care and Fingal County Council haven't forced them to address it.

Fingal County Council are supposed to apply the law and Iarnrod Eireann have eight weeks to comply. Since my email of the 1st February nothing has happened, except the building has become further damaged. Fingal have been useless, the officials I was speaking to protesting that they have already asked Iarnrod Eireann to comply. Its utterly pathetic.

I would go as far to speculate that this being a prime land bank location is informing their decision to allow the building to become an aesthetic and structural zit that Fingal will agree to remove it as a protected building and it can be demolished and the land sold off for apartments.

Fingal then get a few extra social and affordable units and a headache off their books.

This little local issue is so typical of the immaturity of Irish planning, it is infantile in its analysis of cause and effect and this example goes to show how far we have to go in terms of holding people to account.

Commentators and politicians like to think that the destruction of Georgian Dublin as happened in the 1960 and 1970 were an aberration. However the justification given then for the systematic demolition of entire Georgian streets was precisely the reason being given now, ie the building is dangerous. Well deja vu, and you know how many people seem to care; from where I'm standing, none.

The Ting Tings on Later

2008-05-07T00:34:00.001+01:00

In two weeks, Salfords latest musical shock troops release their debut album.

The Ting Tings have a trio of cracking singles behind them, have managed to delicately straddle between NME cred and Radio 1 appeal and are gifted with two innovative (and photogenic) musicians and songwriters.

This apperance was the wow! moment for me. It was from Jules Holland's Later in, I think, December 2007. They are performing "Thats Not My Name", which was released in May of last year and will get a re-release on their major label next week.

Expect this album to be the soundtrack for the summer of 2008.

First!

2008-05-05T16:46:00.001+01:00

A bank holiday seemed like a good a day as any to finally get around to opening a blog.

Although I have had a web presence for a number of years http://www.killianforde.com/ I was always a little sceptical of the benefit, to local constituents or myself, of posting up detailed parochial issues with earnestism being the primary emotion. In addition the formats available through the web hosting company were stale and inflexible, meaning I needed to open a new tab for each new local issue. This made quick posting and commentary difficult.

As I am only a local Councillor and the web has a global reach the web seemed to be the wrong tool to use to highlight local work carried out or flag issues of concern. The tried (even tired!) and tested newsletter and door knock are both expected and effective.

So I decided that my homepage should be just a business card with contact details, a biog and a gallery of relevant pics.

This blog's aim is to comment on wider issues, I intend to use local issues to highlight some of the problems in local government that I think are emblamatic of a wider statis in administration in the state.

I also use the blog just to comment and give my tuppence worth on......well whatever.

As for comments, feel free to post, I'll try and respond but that subject to having time, the comment making sense and generally being arsed. I will delete offensive or libellious stuff.