The Family

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

Herd thinking

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 &*%$@

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!

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

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

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?

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.