And so, farewell to all that.

And so the waiting begins.  Bertie has bid farewell to Mr. Justice Alan Mahon and his esteemed colleagues down at Dublin Castle, and when Owen O’Callaghan has given his tuppence worth the three judges can get on with writing their final report.

I must say that I will miss the tribunal.  In entertainment terms it has been the best show in town for quite some years now and had come to feel almost like an old, reliable friend.  The sort of old friend who could always be relied upon to cheer me up and give me a giggle on a dreary, wet Monday in Dublin traffic.  After a 12 year run the end of it will seem a bit like the last episode of The Riordans.

The tribunal even outlived the Vincent Browne Show.  The re-enactments pioneered on the show were always fantastic entertainment.  Way back in the dim and distant past, before pod-casting had been heard of, I used to set my cassette recorder on a timer to record the show before I went to bed at night.  Driving out the N4 at 3 or 4am the next morning I was often convulsed with laughter while listening to Tom Gilmartin of Liam Lawlor giving evidence.  Gilmartin’s recounting of the occasion when Lawlor gate crashed a meeting in London nearly put me in a ditch west of Enfield one dark morning.

You see, there were one or two consummate entertainers at the tribunal a few years before Bertie came on the scene.  Imagine how disappointing it would have been if Bertie had completely flopped in the comedy stakes.

Good old reliable Bertie, though, he really didn’t let us down.  Bertie’s run had many highlights.  Everything from how as minister for finance he didn’t engage with the banking system to Michael Wall not eating the dinner and many more fabulous anecdotes in between proved his status as a raconteur without peer.  However, the day he told us that he won the money on a horse has got to be the pinnacle of a performance with more peaks than the Himalayas.

I look forward eagerly to the publication of the final report.  It is sure to be a bestseller and should easily outstrip Justice Floods interim report from a couple of years ago.  Perhaps it will enliven the blogosphere, which quite frankly has been a little quiet of late.

Over in Dublin 4 work on the new Lansdowne Road stadium continues apace.  When the newly built venue opens to the public in 2010 rugby and soccer fans can expect a much enhanced day out for their sports viewing.  What they won’t be expecting, however, is the crowds of spectators urging them on as they go to spend a penny in the stadium’s many toilet facilities.

“The other big thing is the toilet facilities, something that the old stadium was lacking in, to put it mildly. It’ll be a much better spectator experience.”  So said Martin Murphy, Lansdowne Road Stadium Director

 

Bank of Ireland on the ball

On June 24th last I was passing through Kilbeggan in Co. Westmeath and I snapped this photo of a rather shabby looking former Bank of Ireland branch.  Later that evening I used the photo to illustrate a post about the impending recession.  Just yesterday I was again passing through Kilbeggan and was pleasantly surprised to seee that the building has had a facelift.  Do you supppose someone at BOI head office came across the photo on the web? (Although, how a search for Californian escort agencies could lead one to my site is a bit of a mystery!) 

 

 

 Anyway, the denizens of Kilbeggan are, I’m sure, delighted that this eyesore in the heart of their village has benn rectified.

 

Now, on the count of 3. Deep breath, and tighten those belts, you nasty, profligate consumers, you!

So, the country is in recession for the first time in twenty five years.  Batten down the hatches, as they say, this could be a rough ride.

By my reckoning the Celtic Tiger boom finished about August or September last year.  We had ten years of unprecedented economic growth.  Economists around the globe stood and stared, their jaws residing somewhere below the knees, unable to believe the fantastic gains being made year on year in the Irish economy.  Now, a mere ten months after the tiger stopped roaring, we are facing our first recession in a quarter of a century.  Already the minister for education has told us that the school building fund is bereft of resources.  Dermot Ahern recently silenced the unseemly row in the north-east over where the new regional hospital should be built by glibly informing those involved that there would be no money available to build the hospital after all.  Over the coming months we will see project after public project being cancelled or massively scaled back as the government tightens the public purse strings.  Almost every economist I heard on radio today said the the national development plan should continue.  Many said that with the excess capacity now available in the building industry and construction and engineering firms desperate to secure new contracts in an ever shrinking market that the time was ripe to secure good value for money on large infrastructure projects.

Will the government do this?

Not a chance.

The priority of this government will now be to curtail public spending as much as possible over the next thirty months.  We will then see a sudden, massive increase in spending in the 18 months leading up to the 2012 general election as Fianna Fáil tries, once again, to buy its way back into power.  The most depressing thing is that this same strategy has worked twice before and, if the recession doesn’t get too deep, it will probably work again.

Fool, me once, shame on you.  Fool me twice, shame on me.  Fool me three times?

Some better prospects on the economic horizon, however, with the news that the government is soon to give us a casino on every corner. Every cloud has a silver lining, I suppose.

 

Democracy at the Heart of Europe.

Much has been made recently of the apparent democratic defecit at the heart of the European Union.  Euro-sceptics will tell you that we are being ruled by a faceless, unelected bureaucracy.  It would be instructive, then, to look at the make up of the legislative of the EU.

The European Parliament consists of 785 members, all directly elected by the citizens of the member states.

The European Commission consists of 27 commissioners, one from each member state.  The commissioners are nominated by their national governments and the entire commission must be accepted by the Paliament.

The Council of the European Union, more commonly referred to as the council of ministers, consists of one representative of each member state.  Usually the relevant minister for the topic being discussed will represent his or her nation at Council meetings.

The European Council is made up of the heads of government of the 27 member states.

That would seem to be an awful lot of elected representatives for an apparently undemocratic institution.  The only people above who are not directly elected by the prople are the commissioners, but they are appointed by those whom we elect, in much the same way as an Taoiseach can appoint 11 members to Seanad Éireann and can also appoint any member of Seanad Éireann, elected or not, as a minister in the government.

Whatever fears the European Union my hold for Ireland, a lack of democracy should not be one of them.

 

Lisbon Defeated

‘…and they so loved their country that they used its flag as a tablecloth.’

Lisbon ‘NO’ supporters honour the Irish tri-colour at a victory celebration in Brussels.

 

 

 

Meanwhile back in Ireland, Chicken Licken was reaching some alarming conclusions.

 

 

Lisbon Treaty in balance - Ben Dunne in Stockholm

Today’s Lisbon treaty discussion on Liveline was interesting.  Had it been informative it might have been worthwhile.  The main contributors were DJ Carey, Ben Dunne, Sinead O’Connor and Meabh Binchey.  Apparently these were some of the names that came up when Liveline asked its listeners who they would like to hear give their views on the treaty.  So, when the good people of Ireland, the wonderfully erudite and informed fans of Joe Duffy want some advice on a vital change to our hallowed constitution to whom do they turn.  A former hurler, a former grocer, a pop star priestess and an internationally best selling novelist.

According to O’Connor most of us are too busy trying to feed ourselves or raise our kids to figure out what the treaty is all about.  She thinks that we should postpone the vote until the dullards who make up the electorate can get up to speed on this thing.  That could take years.  She tells us later in the discussion that ‘…the devil is your best friend.’  So vote no, then.

DJ, believed by many to have political ambitions, nicely toes the party line and calls for a yes vote, saying that while he doesn’t really understand the treaty he trusts the politicians to steer him on the right path.  Blah, blah, blah.

Meabh takes a very europhile view of the debate, saying that Europe has been great for us and we should stay on the great big euro bus. So vote yes.

Dunne, as usual, is just hilarious.  Having told us that he does not understand the treaty he then tells us of his great intelligence.  So if Ben ‘Einstien’ Dunne can’t understand it, what chance do the rest of us have?

The most interesting part of the discussion was the apparent revelation that Ben Dunne is suffering from Stockholm Syndrome.  Twice today he leapt to the defence of Sinn Fein.  Yes, the same Sinn Fein whose private army, the IRA, kidnapped Dunne back in 1981.

Later, over dinner, the subject of Dunne’s kidnap came up and the idea was put forward that it was Charlie Haughey who secured his release.  This resulted in great mirth as we imagined the scene out at Kinsealy when Charlie learned that his greatest benefactor was in a spot of bother.

Within minutes Charlies, in a panic, has the IRA Chief of Staff on the phone.

‘Any chance you’d let Ben go?’

‘No f**cking way.’

‘Ah, go on.  I’ve spoken to Don Tidey.  He says you can have Maurice Pratt instead.’

The Questions & Answers Lisbon Special was great fun too.  One thing that was clear was that Enda won’t be leader of Fine Gael at  the next election.  Everybody, including Declan Ganley, wiped the floor with him.  He had to be rescued so many times by John Bowman that it was laughable.

Having watched Mary Lou McDonald tonight, it is clear that if she had joined Fianna Fail instead of Sinn Fein she would be snapping at Mary Coughlan’s heels.  Whatever about her politics, she is a shrewd operator who can hold her own with the best of them.

 A nice point from a member of the audience, who were all invited, interested parties, about the no side of the panel.  One of them (Sinn Fein) terribly concerned about US war planes passing through Shannon and the other (Declan Ganley) trying to get his gear onto them.

Micháel Martin batted well for the government while the Cóir representative accused the yes camp of being an ignorant shower who shouted and booed every time a no campaigner tried to make a point, before going on herself to try to shout down Enda when he attempted to answer her question.

So plenty of accusations of lying, plenty of booing and hissing and a complete disaster for Enda, especially when he revived his cringe inducing, wounded Catholic persona in response to a question about abortion.

Anyway, this correspondent has now made up his mind about how he will cast his vote.

(Note: Must stop referring to myself in the third person.  Far too remeniscent of Liam Lawlor!)

I have consumed the debate voraciously over the last couple of weeks and have done my best to be as informed as possible, (unlike Sinead and Ben), and unless Sarkozy and Merkel run naked down O’Connell Street in the next 48 hours screaming ‘You fools, you fools.  We have you now.  You will sell your soul to a war-mongering, baby-murdering, tax-plundering, European cesspit of pure evil!!,’ I will, like Meg Ryan in When Harry Met Sally, be screaming…….

YES, YES, YES! OH GOD, YES!

 

Shocking rip off exposed by RTÉ. Stores overcharging for sun-glasses!

On its late news program this evening RTÉ have a piece about the price of goods in certain shops in Ireland.  Some stores, such as M&S or Dunnes Stores, who operate both here and in the UK have dual Euro/Sterling price tags on their goods.  As we know, the value of Sterling versus the Euro has been falling recently and consumer groups, and RTÉ it would seem, fully expected that these stores would reduce the euro price of their goods as a result.  This has not happened and now Eamonn Gilmore and Consumer’s Association head Dermot Jewell are up in arms and the government is springing into action.  It seems that the Tánaiste is to meet with the head of The National Consumer Agency to discuss the matter.  Mr. Gilmore is demanding that the government do something to end these ‘rip-offs’.  RTÉ, in its report tonight, helpfully tells us by how much certain items in Dunnes and M&S are overpriced.

Overpriced according to whom?

As we all know, there is no statutory price control on sun-glasses and blouses in Ireland.  As there is an enormous amount of competition in the sun-glasses and blouses supply sector (a vital part of the economy, if RTÉ are to be taken seriously) I do not forsee any price controls being introduced any time soon.  Does Eamonn Gilmore really belive that, at a time when clothing has never been cheaper, the government will impose price controls?

I have no problem with the prices being charged by these stores.  They are in business to make money and if people are willing to pay the prices on the tags then they will continue to charge them.  When the prices of blouses and sunglasses reach an as yet unknown critical level people will stop buying them.

We can live without sun-glasses and we can live without an excess of blouses and jeans and t-shirts.  What we would find very difficult would be to live without gas and electricity.

The ESB is state owned and has a virtual monopoly on the supply of domestic electrical power in Ireland.  Domestic electricity prices have risen sharply in recent years, this despite the fact that the bulk of our power is produced in oil powered generating stations, oil which is purchased in US Dollars, a currency which has nose-dived against the Euro in the last twelve months.  The ESB also returns masive profits to the government every year.

Bord Gáis has a monopoly on domestic gas supply in Ireland.  Gas prices are rising sharply and Bord Gáis profits are rising just as sharply.  Bord Gáis is owned by the state.

If Eamonn Gilmore wants a ‘rip-off’ story to get his teeth into maybe he could look at the massive profits being generated by state companies charged with suppyling some of the basics of modern living - heat and light.

As Brian Cowen might say,  ‘We need to get a handle on this, will you ring those fuckers.’

 

The Lisbon Treaty

I’ve just had a quick run through the Lisbon Treaty. The full text of the proposed treaty can be downloaded here but, to be honest, unless you are a constitutional lawyer or an expert in contract law I wouldn’t bother. It only takes a brief perusal of the document to realise that it is utterly impenetrable to the ordinary layman.Try this for size… 

 

292) Article 310 shall become Article 188 M.

293) Article 311 shall be repealed. A new Article 311a shall be inserted, with the wording of

Article 299(2), first subparagraph, and Article 299(3) to (6); the text shall be amended as follows:

(a) the first subparagraph of paragraph 2 and paragraphs 3 to 6 shall be renumbered 1 to 5

and the following new introductory wording shall be inserted at the beginning of the

Article:

“In addition to the provisions of Article 49 C of the Treaty on European Union relating to the territorial scope of the Treaties, the following provisions shall apply:”

Or this…

8. Articles 3, 4, 6, 7, 9.2, 10.1, 10.3, 11.2, 12.1, 14, 16, 18 to 20, 22, 23, 26, 27, 30 to 34, 50 and 52 of the Protocol on the Statute of the European System of Central Banks and of the European Central Bank (’the Statute’) shall not apply to the United Kingdom. In those Articles, references to the Community or the Member States shall not include the United Kingdom and references to national central banks or shareholders shall not include the Bank of England. References in Articles 10.3 and 30.2 of the Statute to ’subscribed capital of the ECB’ shall not include capital subscribed by the Bank of England.

That doesn’t trip easily off the tongue either.

The second passage, however, is not from the Lisbon Treaty. It is taken from the treaty of Rome, originally enacted in 1957 and subsequently amended by Maastricht, Amsterdam and Nice among others. On the 10^th May 1972 the Irish electorate voted to join the EEC and I would doubt very much if many of the one million plus who voted yes read any part of the Treaty of Rome.

The argument that we should reject the Lisbon treaty because it cannot be easily read is a bit of a red herring. How many of those who say ‘I wouldn’t sign a legal document if I couldn’t understand it,’ ever read the terms and conditions when they take out a bank loan or buy a concert ticket on Ticketmaster or sign up for a Gmail account?

Joining the EEC in 1973 was undoubtedly the greatest thing that ever happened to this country. From that one act (eventually) flowed the economic success we have seen in recent years and the modernising of our nation. The establishment of many basic human rights, which we now take for granted, such as equal pay for women, have stemmed from our membership of the EU. In 1972 we did not need to know the intricate details of the Treaty of Rome to know that joining would be good for Ireland. Instead we listened to an informed debate on the pros and cons and made our choices accordingly.

Similarly, we do not need to read every word of the Lisbon treaty to make a decision on how we should vote this time. There is an overload of information in the public sphere about this treaty and what it will mean to Ireland and to Europe. Here’s just a small, random selection.

 

http://www.indymedia.ie/article/86857 http://www.joanburton.ie/?postid=823 http://www.lisbontreaty.ie/ http://www.voteno.ie/

(Incidentally, if you were paying any attention to Libertas and their campaign against the treaty I would strongly recommend that you should read this excellent article by Chekov Feeny over at

Indymedia.)

I am leaning towards a yes vote but I have three weeks to listen to the arguments from both sides before I finally make up my mind. I do feel, however, that if the government parties do not make a serious change to their campaign that he treaty will be rejected. The government’s tactics so far have been extremely negative and bear all the hallmarks of a scare-mongering campaign, which I believe will not go down well with the electorate. Day after day we hear ministers predicting dire consequences for Ireland if we reject the treaty. The utter lack of specifics as to the nature of these consequences will only lead the electorate to believe that they are being bullied into voting yes, which will result in a backlash no vote. If the treaty is as good as the yes campaign says it is then let them tell us exactly how it will benefit us. Let them outline in detail what effect the treaty will have on our lives. More importantly, tell us what the treaty will not do.  The referendum Commision’s website is particularly disappointing and very short on real information.

 

I do believe that Europe has been extremely good for Ireland and if this treaty does, as we are told, make the EU more effective and more efficient then I will be voting yes.

So my challenge to both sides is simply this…

…convince me.

 

God Debate

Quite a stirring God debate over at GUBU today.  Follow the comment thread down for the real sparks!

As always Sarah’s excellent site is well worth a visit.

http://www.sarahcarey.ie/2008/04/21/greetings-from-the-pope/

 

Unborn Twins’ Lives Threatened By Idiots

In the news this evening is a story about a couple, believed to be members of the Jehovah Witness Congregation, who wish to refuse what doctors say is a life-saving blood transfusion for their as yet unborn twin babies.  This, for me, is at the sharp end of the debate that humanity should be having about religion. 

The fact that the HSE has to go to the High Court this Thursday to seek the courts permission to administer vital medical attention to these children is an utter nonsense.

Let us suppose that these parents simply decided that, as an exercise in character building, the children should be left out of doors unattended on the first night of their lives.  No sane person would defend their right to do so.  However, take a similarly irresponsible act and shroud it in the respectability of religious belief and the entire mechanism of our justice system must leap into action to test the veracity of their lunatic ideas.

Surely, with the stroke of a legislative pen, the state can bring about a situation where parents who needlessly endanger their children in  this way can simply be pushed aside, while dedicated medical professionals get on with the job of saving lives.  Our creaking, understaffed health service has enough work to do every day without trotting off to the High Court to beg the courts leave to save the lives of these children.  I would think, too, that our overcrowded courts service could probably make better use of its time this Thursday.

Recently, in the context of the unfolding clerical abuse scandals, we saw evidence of religious officials who were conflicted by canon law versus civil law.  Thankfully we did not see a situation where there was any possibility of canon law taking precedence.  What we also did not see or hear, however, was a resounding declaration from our political leaders, who are charged with framing, enacting and overseeing the enforcement of our civil law, that the very idea of a conflict is a non-starter.  In the real world canon law should have all the significance and importance of the dress code at your local golf club bar.  The latter is often seen as hugely important inside the gates of the golf club, but drive out those gates and nobody does or should care.

The belief that they should not receive blood transfusion is hugely important to members of the Jehovah Witness Congregation.  However, outside of that community, when the lives of two children are at stake, we should treat this ideology with the contempt it deserves.

If I had my way these idiot parents would be charged with recklessly endangering the lives of their unborn children.

Update - Thursday 24th April 2008

The High Court today, as expected, granted the HSE an order allowing them to administer the life saving blood transfusion that these unborn twins will need.  There was never any doubt that this would be the case.  That the state had to bow to idiotic religious practice and waste valuable court time to assert the blatantly obvious is utter nonsense.  Isn’t democracy just fabulous?

 

Ireland’s Disappearing Rail Network

Here’s a interesting little map I came across at Wikipedia. 

The dismantling of a once extensive rail network in just 50 years is an absolute shame.  How much will we and future generations pay to put this vital national asset back in place?

 

Rogues Gallery

  

When buying and selling are controlled by legislation, the first things to be bought and sold are legislators.

PJ O’Rourke.                                                                                    

  

 

Please, Enough of this Madness - Update

Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, has announced that he is to step down as leader of Fianna Fáil and Taoiseach on Tuesday 6th May 2008 when he returns from Washington, where he will address the joint houses of congress.

Now the process of rehabilitating Ahern’s reputation will begin in earnest.  As I write Eamonn Ryan is saying on RTE 1 television that he does not believe that Bertie ever took a corrupt payment.  This can only conclude with roads all over north Dublin being closed for the dozens of people who will turn out for his state funeral in twenty or thirty years time a la Haughey.

Eoghan Harris is now on RTE comparing the hounding of Ahern to the treatment of Charles Stewart Parnell.  God help us.

Update - According to Michael Kennedy Bertie Ahern is responsible for the creation 4 million jobs in Ireland. When he came to office we had 2 million unemployed, now we have two million jobs, according to Mr. Kennedy.  Get your face on the telly and say something.  Say anything. Just be seen to be first out of the blocks to support the great leader.

 

Please, Enough of this Madness

What can you buy with eighty grand these days?  A decent 4×4, maybe.  Time was that you could buy a half decent house.  In 1993 eighty grand would buy two half decent houses on the North Circular Road!

I was thinking tonight about the Dunnes Stores t-shirt.  The one with the logo on the front - ‘I spent £2,000,000 and all I got was this lousy Taoiseach!’

Or, my own personal favourite, when one of the Baileys was boasting at the tribunal how he once paid £120,000 for a ram (male sheep variety, not hydraulic), and a wag in the audience was heard to comment, ‘Jaysus, he only paid thirty grand for Ray Burke!’

 So, eighty grand.

I have tried, unsuccessfully, to find out the exact remuneration for a glorious senator in our upper house.  (Okay, so I didn’t try that hard.)  It is I believe somewhere in the region of eighty grand a year.

Nice work if you can get it.

 It is remarkable, in a country which prides itself on its democracy, that it is in the gift of the country’s leader to bestow upon 11 individuals, positions in an essentially powerless legislative house along with all of the status and privilege that goes with it, plus a wage of eighty grand.  That’s over €1500 a week.

Nice work if you can get it.

So how do you decide who wins the coveted prize in An Taoiseach’s little Seanad lottery?  Well, it’s not exactly rocket science.  You need some help forming a government, so two each to the Greens and the PDs.  Then six Fianna Fáil lackeys makes ten.  There sits Bertie, one last eighty grand chip twirling between his grubby little fingers.  He allows himself a quiet smile, knowing that he has an ace up his sleeve that nobody suspects.  He tosses the eighty grand sop to his new best friend, Eoghan Harris.

I’ve just watched Harris, Eamonn Dunphy and John Waters debating Bertie on the Late Late Show.  I know that Harris is not a fool.  The man possesses a sharpe intellect and, having been at the heart of Irish political and historical debate for a couple of decades, he has an appreciation of where the land lies.

But how can we explain his blind, unflinching loyalty to Bertie Ahern?  Harris is a recent convert to the Fianna Fáil fold, so it’s not the blind loyalty to ‘the party’ that you see in other, more seasoned soldiers of destiny.  Many FF adherents are only in it for personal gain.  Fianna Fáil is the natural party of government and so is the most likely choice for those who believe in power for power’s sake.  The trappings of power are a powerful drug and a career of mouthing platitudes,which you no more believe in than you believe in the man in the moon, is a small price to pay for the power and the privilege and the wealth that goes with high political office.

Where does this leave Harris, then?

The day after his anointment he told me that he had considered turning it down.  I didn’t believe him then and I wouldn’t believe him now.  He said he asked for some time to think about it and was told that the Taoiseach wanted to announce it that day, (Friday, 3rd August, 2007), so he accepted.

Harris is no fool.  However, he and many others in Bertie’s camp seem to want to take the rest of us for fools.  Mary Coughlan, speaking on ‘The Week in Politics’, passed up five opportunities to say that she believed the evidence that Bertie has given to the Mahon Tribunal.  She then expects us to believe that she has full confidence in him.  One after the other they have lined up, senior and junior minister alike, to express full confidence in their leader without actually saying straight out that they believe him.

Harris told us on Friday night that Bertie was telling ‘the truth as he sees it.’ That one got a laugh from the audience.  It got a bellyful of laughs from me.  Pressed by an on form Dunphy on the meaning of ‘the truth as he sees it’, Harris goes on to explain that it simply means that Bertie does not believe that he has done anything wrong.

Perhaps the good senator could enlighten me further.  If Bertie does not believe that he has done anything wrong, if he genuinely believes that he has nothing to hide, why is he trotting off to the High Court tomorrow to launch a challenge to the Mahon Tribunal which could only be designed to frustrate and delay the work of the tribunal?  Why has the tribunal had to spend nearly three years dragging information out of him, like a dentist, kneeling on his patient’s chest, pulling at a reluctant eye tooth?

Dunphy tells us that the £138,000 that Ahern lodged to his bank account in 1994 was more than twice his salary.  I’m open to correction, but I believe that £138,000 was more than four times his salary.  Harris goes on to mention the hundreds of thousands he earned during the years in question, as if this easily explains it all.  Did he not eat for seven years or what?  Did he not support an estranged wife and two daughters?  Nothing that the Paymaster General could produce in terms of payslips and documentation could explain the vast sums of cash passing through Bertie’s hands during this time.

Gene Kerrigan’s recent article puts forward a strong case that Ahern has perjured himself at the tribunal.  Vincent Browne recently put forward strong argument that Ahern had perjured himself either at the tribunal or during the legal proceedings associated with his marriage seperation.

All of this, it seems, is of no consequence when it comes to judging the calibre of our elected leader.

While Senator Harris looks on adoringly my own head will hang in shame as this man represents my nation on Capitol Hill.

Bertie Ahern is not fit for the office of Taoiseach.  He is not fit even for the office of leader of Fianna Fáil, and recently the bar in that department has not been set too high.  How long more must this farce go on?  John Waters thinks he will be gone within weeks while Harris believes he will lead Fianna Fáil and the country for as long as he wants to.  Let us hope that it is the former.

 

Ahern up Shit Creek, expect resignation any year now.

Many commentators have this week spoken of how Bertie Ahern’s former secretary, Grainne Carruth, has been hung out to dry at the Mahon Tribunal. How a lowly, low paid minion has been abandoned before the howling, snarling hound that is Tribunal counsel.

However, if we look at the evidence she has given this week a different story becomes clear. A story of someone still mired in the Drumcondra Mafia, someone who, perhaps out of a misplaced sense of loyalty, is prepared to take the most extraordinary risks to remain loyal to her former boss. This is not Frank Dunlop cracking under Mr. Justice Flood’s steely glare and coming in next day singing like a canary.

On Wednesday Ms. Carruth told the tribunal that she had never handled Sterling when making lodgements to Ahern’s accounts at the Permanent TSB branch in Drumcondra. She also said that she only ever handled two passbooks when making these lodgements, those passbooks being for accounts in the names of Ahern’s two daughters.

On Thursday, having been presented with contradictory evidence by Tribunal counsel, Ms. Carruth then accepted that ‘on the balance of probability’ that she had indeed handled Sterling cash for Mr. Ahern and that she had indeed lodged money on his behalf to three PTSB accounts. Now, having been presented with this incontrovertible evidence, Ms. Carruth still refuses to admit to the obvious truth of how things actually happened. She simply says that because it is there in black and white that she must then accept it. This is far from being the same as giving straight, honest evidence under oath.

Grainne Carruth consulted with one of Bertie Ahern’s legal representatives in St. Luke’s before giving initial evidence to the tribunal in private. This smacks of a previous Team Ahern tactic of asking the AIB what they had told the tribunal before Bertie was to give evidence

Also this morning I hear one of Bertie’s champions whining that ‘…it’s only about money, nobody has died here, it’s not China we’re dealing with…’ Well if the whiter than white knights in Fianna Fáil don’t mind I’ll set my standards a little higher than those of China, thank you very much.

 

An Easter Message.

e·van·ge·lise

1. to preach the gospel to.

2. to convert to Christianity.

Gerry Thornley observed, after Ireland’s defeat by Wales recently, that Eddie O’Sullivan seemed offended that the Welsh had the cheek to score tries off Irish turnover ball, ‘as if this was somehow cheating’. This despite the fact that Ireland had scored a good couple of tries against Scotland a fortnight earlier from Scottish turnover ball.

John Gray, writing in the Irish Times yesterday, rails against what he terms ‘evangelical atheists’ and their campaigns against organised religion. Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens and Philip Pullman appear to be Gray’s least favourite of these campaigners with their hundreds of thousands selling books, The God Delusion, God is Not Great and Northern Lights, the latter made as a movie titled The Golden Compass.

Gray finds great offence in the fact that these and others are engaged in proletising for atheism as if this was somehow a bit of an underhand tactic. Organised churches would never resort to these black arts, surely.

We learned this week that the Archbishop of Dublin has decided that every home in the Archdiocese will receive a visit from representatives of the Catholic Church sometime next year as part of a programme of evangelisation.

(I’m thinking of those sneaky Welsh again.)

I suppose I should lay my own cards on the table.

I don’t believe in God. In fact, I am more certain that God does not exist than I am of anything else that I believe. God is a fiction, Santa Claus for grown-ups. God and Gods were invented in human ignorance to explain that which we did not and could not understand. The leaders of organised churches then usurped God as a source of fantastic power, a power which they have maintained to this day.

So, no misunderstandings there, then.

This week we also learned that weekly attendance at religious services in Ireland has dropped from a high of 91% in 1981 to less than 50% today. You might think that this would reflect a similar fall in levels of religious belief, however the same nine yearly survey shows that over 80% of Irish people do still believe in God and do still believe in heaven.

Why?

Why, when we live in such an enlightened age, an age in which we are now, slowly learning the secrets of the origins of the universe in which we live, do so many otherwise rational and intelligent people put such faith in something which so completely defies the known physical laws of the universe? Something for which they can see no proof of any kind. Something which they must surely know that they believe simply because it is what they have been told by people in authority since childhood. As I say in my bio page on this site, this is something that completely baffles me. I can fully understand how children can be inculcated into religious belief and how that belief will stay with them into and through their teenage years. If one pays even the slightest of attention to modern scientific thought then one can only conclude that the basis for most organised religions is completely preposterous.

People will say that Christianity is a wonderful way to live ones life, and they are quite correct. I have two small children, one of whom is making first holy communion next month, and they are being raised to know and respect what most of us would consider to be Christian values. Christian values are essentially very decent, human values. However, I will ensure that my children are also exposed to the truth that lies outside of religion, the truth which science has been revealing to us ever since Gallileo and Newton and Einstein and Hubble, the truth of Darwinian evolution, which reveals the unbelievable arrogance of mankind in believing ourselves to be special, the arrogance of believing in our status as the chosen ones. I said recently that socialism was a wonderful way to order human society but it didn’t and couldn’t work. I doubt that many readers of this page are clamouring for the establishment of a socialist republic along the lines of the USSR or the Peoples Republic of China. Similarly, while Christian values are a valuable tool in the ordering of society those of a zealous religious mind are I find often very intolerant of any opposing view and are therefore wholly unsuited to positions of authority and influence.

Yes there are many, many good and decent people within organised churches and they do many wonderful things, but the doing of good acts is not confined to those with faith, and without faith good people would still be good people and would still act for the betterment of human society. Human goodness does not stem from religious faith.

Islam, we are constantly told is a religion of peace, a religion where everyone is treated with decency and respect and yet wherever Islam is practised we find the most despicable intolerance and inequality and discrimination. The treatment of women within most Islamic societies is nothing short of barbaric. Being gay in most western societies is difficult enough but is a picnic compared to homosexuality in places like Iran or Saudi Arabia. When do the leaders of Islam ever deafen us with their condemnation and their disowning of those who commit unspeakable acts in the name of Islam? How deafening was the silence here in Ireland when Catholic priest were raping and buggering children in their care? The good and decent people in the church who knew of these acts were shamefully silent because of the power invested in the institution of the church by ordinary lay people. Even now the disgust at what was done by Michael Woods in protecting the assets of the church before considering the rights of victims is unseen and unheard.

So, my Easter message to you this weekend is this. If you live in Dublin, when the man from the church calls to your door in 2009, take him gently by the hand, offer him a cup of tea and do some evangelising of your own. Give him a copy of Professor Dawkins’ The Ancestor’s Tale or The Blind Watchmaker; read him a few passages from The Fabric Of The Cosmos, by Brian Greene; tell him about the reaction of the church authorities in medieval Italy when Copernicus presented his helio-centric view of the world, probably the most significant scientific discovery in human history, and then ask him to come back in 2010 so you can see if he is still a Christian. If he is then he is an idiot.

Happy Easter.

PS. None of the above precludes me from believing that a large bunny rabbit is going to leave a delicious chocolate egg at the end of my bed tonight. In our house he comes down the chimney, just like Santa Claus.

 

Bertie and Tim Collins

Just spotted this over at Dublin Opinion.  A must read.  Deja Vu doesn’t even begin to describe it. 

 

‘The accumulation of excessive wealth is a deadly sin’, said Pope Benedict XVI from his gilded palace.

 

Corruption Matters.

A Saturday evening in February.

Drimnagh, Dublin 12.

At about 6.30pm two men are returning home from a day’s work.  They stop at the local take-away, get some food and then pop into the off-licence to purchase a few beers to enjoy with their burgers and chips.  Just two ordinary working guys.  They could be Polish, Latvian, Lithuanian or even Irish.  These guys happened to be Polish.  Twenty nine year old, Pawel Kalite and his friend Marius Szwajkos, just 27, were two decent, hard working young men.  They were described on radio by their landlord this week as ‘dream tenants’.  For Pawel and Marius this was a pretty ordinary Saturday evening in their new life here in Ireland.  Pretty ordinary, that is, until they bumped into the vicious, savage thugs who killed them. 

Maybe they did physically bump into them.  Maybe they had words with their killers, having refused to give them the beers they had just bought with their hard earned Euros.  We don’t yet know exactly what happened last Saturday evening.  We may never know, but what we do know is that two innocent men were savagely beaten and killed in broad daylight outside a busy shopping parade in Dublin 12.

 Bertie Ahern, coincidentally, was in Poland this week.  Yesterday he told Polish Prime Minister, Donald Tusk, that Irish people were shocked and saddened by the killings.  He also said that, thankfully, this was an isolated incident.

Hmmm…..

I suppose if he means that it doesn’t often happen that two Polish friends are murdered on Benbulbin Road on an other wise unremarkable Saturday evening in February, well yes, it is an isolated incident.  We know, though, that he doesn’t mean that.  He is spinning.  Take a piece of spin (this particular piece of spin tells us that there is not a problem with violent crime among young men) and wrap it carefully in an expression of sympathy on the death of two innocent young men and it slides down like Ben & Jerry’s.

Bertie Ahern, evidently, doesn’t read the newspapers.  He doesn’t listen to the radio or watch the TV news.  There is no problem with violent crime against the person among young, alcohol and/or drug fuelled men.

 Get it?

We know different, however.

What we don’t  know is why.

The reasons why are many and complex.  Irish society has undergone a radical change in the last ten years.  Perenting has become much less hands on as couples work two jobs to pay for our new decadent lifestyle.  We have seen a certain Americanisation of youth culture, taking them closer to Boston than Berlin.  As the wealth of the nation has increased hugely those left behind feel a great sense of injustice and disconnection.

But let me add another possible cause - Bertie.

Not just Bertie on his own, mind you.  We can, and do, blame Bertie for many things, but fingering him alone for the breakdown in the fabric of society might be just a bit too much.  So let’s throw in Biffo Cowen with him, and Micháel Martin and Martin ‘Anti-Midas’ Cullen and Dermot Ahearne and the Green Party and Eoghan ‘What’s the fucking point of power if it’s not used’ Harris, and don’t forget the mighty midget himself, Willie O’Dea.  God almighty, the list is endless, so I’ll end it there. (Charlie, Ray, Liam, George, Baileys, Lowry etc, ad nauseum….)

When I was a kid the sight of authority when I was up to no good put the fear of God into me.  Gardai, teachers, football coaches and parents.  Basically all grown ups.  Even older brothers.  These were all authority figures in my young life.  For society as a whole politicians are authority figures.  They make the rules that the rest of us have to live by.  They occupy positions of extreme privilege. The higher they soar the more extraordinary the privilege.  When did you last glance to one side in the M50 chaos and see the Minister for Transport fuming in a murderous rage behind the wheel of the family Toyota.  Never.  These people don’t do traffic jams.  I can handle that.  Ministers and Taoisigh are very important people.  If they get whisked around in the rear of a Merc I’ll still sleep at night.  If they get paid ridiculous amounts of money I’m fine with that, too.

However, if they preach about probity and honesty, if they make pious, sanctimonious speeches condemning the wrongdoings of their predecessors and are then revealed to have their porcine snouts in the same filthy trough, then I have a problem.  Over the last ten years or so we have seen a litany of politicians, from lowly county councillors to Taoisigh revealed as being corrupt.  We saw the great and the good queueing up to defend Charles Haughey as the layers of veneer were being slowly stripped from his carefully constructed public servant persona.  Only when it became blindingly obvious, only when the allegations acquired the status of fact, did his fellow Fianna Fail travellers desert Haughey and  cluck their tongues and stroke their beards and determine that it must never happen again.  They watched Ray Burke draw his line in the sand and howled about a  good man being hounded out of office, only to scurry for cover when Burke was jailed for corruption.  Now they stand ‘four square’ behind Bertie, as we heard this week.  The Mahon tribunal is only a witch hunt.  The tribunal, its counsel, Fine Gael, Labour and the Irish Times are all involved in an orchestrated campaign to do down the greatest Taoiseagh this great little nation has ever seen. 

Bertie’s corruption will be proven, eventually.  Fianna Fail will distance themselves from him and then will rewrite history and re-proclaim him a great patriot.

Our young generations will look on as all of this happens, as they watched the revelations about Burke and Lawlor and Haughey and Bailey and Lowry.  As they watched the unveiling of the unpunished, massive dirt tax fraud at AIB. As they watched the extraordinary behaviour of senior Gardai in Donegal.  They will  not feel the acid drip of cynicism slowly wearing away their respect for authority.  If you are 16 years old and confused and vulnerable you look to authority to give you guidance.  If your parents don’t provide it you look further afield.

The cops are all bent.

The politicians are all on the make.

The church is full of pervs.

And amid all of this no one is being punished for any wrongdoing.  The only ones in prison are the poor and the addicted.

So when an innocent young Polish man bumps into your friend, you run home, get a screwdriver and drive it into his skull.

 

Show me your friends…..and I will tell you who you are.

Crewser, Patron of the Farce.

 

Fundamentals, what fun.

Noun

1.

fundamentals - principles from which other truths can be derived

 We have been hearing a lot about fundamentals recently from Brian Cowen.  It seems that our minister for finance is unable to pass comment on the Irish economy without telling us how important it is to get the fundamentals right, before going on to tell us that the fundamentals of the Irish economy are sound.

Financial markets throughout the world are in turmoil, none more so than our own stock exchange. The sub-prime lending crisis is shaking the very foundations of some of the worlds largest financial institutions.  Across the Atlantic the US economy teeters on the brink of recession, and yet, Cowen tells us that we have nothing to fear as our fundamentals are sound.  The old truism that when America sneezes the rest of the world catches cold is no longer true.

The housing market in Ireland has been in steady decline for 12 months, the numbers employed in house-building, one of the largest employment sectors in the state, are about to fall significantly, and yet, we need not worry, the fundamentals are sound.

 I am not an economist (like you hadn’t guessed!), therefore I take a rather simplistic view of the Irish economy.  I remember the 1980s.  Things were drastic.  Unemployment was huge.  Emigration drained over 300,000 of our finest  people, most of them in the prime of their lives, away to America, Australia, Britain and elsewhere.  That was about 8.5% of the total population.  In Britain that equates to over 5 million people! Drastic times indeed.  In the last 15 years or so things have turned around dramatically.  Things have never been better for most of the population.  Anyone who is working has more money in their pocket than they had 15 years ago.  This gives us choices we never had before and we have taken to it with absolute glee.

I grew up in Leixlip, Co. Kildare, and so it seems to me that the Celtic Tiger’s arrival coincided with the arrival of Intel as the IDA’s poster boy for overseas investment (a position it recently seems to have ceded to Google).  Suddenly we were all working in IT or electronics of computer chip manufacture.  Massive campuses sprung up hither and yon housing Microsoft, Dell, Symantec et al, churning out graduate level jobs by the thousand.  Unemployment tumbled.  Tax revenues rocketed.  Fianna Fail got into power three times by returning the stringent, belt tightening taxes of the 80s to the workers of the 90s.  These workers went out and spent this money in unprecedented fits of consumerism.  This caused inflation and the unions screamed for more and bigger pay rises to keep pace with that inflation.  The pay rises duly arrived (benchmarking anyone?), and were splurged in more fits of consumerism.  This self propelled cycle continued for  more than a decade with everyone believing that the good times would never, could never, end.

2008.  Here we are.  What about those fundamentals. 

We are a country with almost no indigenous industry.  We import almost every consumer good imaginable.  Ireland, ‘the food island,’ imports massive amounts of food every year.  Our full employment level sits at the mercy of huge multi-national corporations who, understandably, have no sense of place in relation to Ireland, no emotional, national ties to this island.  As soon as the Poles or the Hungarians or the Indians or Malaysians can offer an equally qualified workforce and a suitable tax environment these companies will be off ‘like a rat out of an aqueduct,’ as Brian of Nazareth’s mother once said. Who could blame them.  Intel very nearly went to Scotland all those years ago and they would go there tomorrow if the price was right.

Maybe I’m naive.  Maybe I’m just uneducated in economics, but I don’t see any sound fundamentals in subcontracting the future of the country to the Intels and Googles of this world.  I don’t feel comfortable about our economy being so vulnerable to something as simple as a reduction in corporation tax in Latvia or Romania or wherever.  those of you more erudite in these matters might explain it to me.

 

Maaamee, how I love ya!! My dear auld Mammy

Average life expectancy in Ireland is currently about 78 years. This is not as good as Japan where an infant born in 2005 can expect, all things being equal, to live to the ripe old age of 81. However, a child born in Ireland in 2005 can expect to live over twice as long as a child born in Zimbabwe, where life expectancy has now dropped to just 33. Swaziland ranks lowest of all at just over 31 years.

All of this information came to light when I was thinking about what to write today. I was going to do a tongue in cheek piece about all of the dead bodies around Dublin Castle this last 10 years or so. Isn’t it odd that every time the trbunal or a witness unearths the identity of someone who could clear up his whole sorry mess……you guessed it.

They turn up dead.

(Has Jessica Fletcher been hanging around the Castle recently?)

This was supposed to be a post about Bertie and the wonderful gift he recieved from his dear old mammy, But after reading about the decimation of Zimbabwe in life expectancy terms by that animal, Mugabe, I don’t really have the heart for it.

I’m sick of Bertie and his lies. I’m sick of his grubby money. I’m sick of the explanations which rank lower than ‘the dog ate my homework…’ I’m sick of the guy who can explain everything being, unfortunately, inconveniently dead. I’m sick of banks that don’t keep records or even count the wads of cash handed to them by finance ministers. I’m sick of the Green Party saying in May that Fianna Fáil are the devil incarnate before entering government with them in June. I’m sick of hearing that Bertie doesn’t care about money when all of the evidence says that there is no level to which he will not stoop if the price is right.

You might think that I’m sick of being taken for a fool, but you would be wrong.

I’m not all that sure that the Irish public has been taken for fools. We know that these leaches have been pilfering and lying and cheating for years. If we gave a shit about this then we would have been taken for a ride. However, if we gave a shit about any of this they would not still be there, most likely still pilfering and lying and cheating.

As I have said many times before, the beauty of democracy is that you actually do get the government you deserve.

 

America, you are not the world.

I originally posted this last year.  In light of the US candidate selection I thought it worth a re-run.  

Morrissey once wrote a song called ’America, you are not the world.’ I never heard him sing it, but I did hear Christy Moore perform it a few times and I didn’t think much of it. The song opens with - “America your head is so big/America your belly is so big/I LOVE you/ But I wish you’d stay where you live.”
This is a sentiment often expressed by people when they complain about America. America, they say, should just keep out of other peoples business. America should look after Americans in America and not be interfering in Israel/Palestine/Iraq/Iran/Vietnam/Korea. All of these places, and a few more besides, have seen American involvement - or interference, depending on which side of the fence you view it from.
Right now there are over 100,000 US soldiers in Iraq. This evening I listened to Boston radio show host Michael Graham say on the Right Hook radio show, that these troops are in Iraq because America cares. America cares about the people of Iraq. America also, presumably, cared about the peoples of Vietnam and Korea. America, Graham would tell us, cares about the people of Palestine and Israel. Americans, it would seem, are just about the most caring people on the planet. Maybe they are. I’ve never been to America but the Americans I have met here in Ireland seemed, for the most part, to be pleasant enough. Admittedly they were often a little overbearing, sometimes very excited to be here in Ayerlaaand! Sometimes they were indisputably naive or just plain stupid but they never quite struck me as uncaring.
The problem, however, is that these nice citizens are not running the United States of America. That would be the job of the American government, and a more uncaring bunch of people you could not hope to meet.
For political purposes the American government IS America, and I have to tell you that America does not care about anything except America.
Now, you’re probably thinking ‘this guy really doesn’t like America.’ You would be wrong. I hope very much to visit the US at some point when finances and work commitments allow. I very much admire many aspects of American culture - Jazz, Rock & Roll, Hollywood movies. Writers such as John Steinbeck, Tennessee Williams, Edgar Allen Poe and many many more have entertained the world. Steven Spielberg, John Ford, Martin Scorcese - say no more.
America is fine. The American government is fine - except for one thing. Honesty.
America (the government) cares about nothing but America and American interests. This is a stick often used to beat America, but why should America care about anything else. the US government is elected by the citizens of the the US to represent the interests of those very US citizens. They are not mandated to care about anyone else. They are not mandated to worry about the starving people of Africa. They are not mandated to be concerned for the downtrodden of Iraq.
So, why then are there currently over 100,000 US troops in Iraq?
These troops are protecting the interests of the American people.
American people have a great interest in oil. The US is addicted to the stuff. Without oil America grinds to a halt. The same is true of most western nations. My own country, Ireland, is over 90% dependant on oil for energy. We’re even more addicted to the stuff than the US. The difference, however, between them and us is that they have the power and the military might to do something about it. Ireland was never going to overthrow Saddam with 14,000 men and a few dozen lightly armoured personnel carriers! The US, however, has a standing army of over one million soldiers, and so it could and did invade Iraq, overthrow Saddam, and take over another sovereign nation.
Why did the US do this?
Was it because the American government cares so much about the people of Iraq?
No. It was because the American government cares so much about the people of America.
As I stated earlier, the American government is elected to protect the interests of the American people. When they invaded and conquered Iraq they were doing just that. I often wonder if those who berate and belittle America for doing this expect that the American government should act contrary to the best interest of America and Americans.
America needs oil.
Saudi Arabia doesn’t need any more oil, they’ve got lots of that. Saudi, it would seem doesn’t need democracy either. Not as long as they have all the oil. But they don’t have all the oil - just an awful lot of it. Now Iraq has lots of oil and until 2003 they had a dictatorship that was almost as repressive as Saudi’s monarchy. The house of Saud has not been looking as healthy lately as it did in times past and so the guys in Washington get to thinking about what would happen if someone else took over the US oil reserves - sorry, the Saudi Oil reserves. What if that someone wasn’t of Washington’s choosing? What if that someone didn’t want to do business with the American infidels?
The solution is so simple as to be laughable. Washington simply moves America’s oil reserve from Saudi to Iraq. That would be in the best interest of the American people. It wouldn’t cost much. Just three or four or five thousand American boys and girls, several trillion dollars and all of the worldwide goodwill America has built up over the last 100 years. Oh, and I nearly forgot, sixty or seventy or eighty thousand Iraqis, but hey, the US government is not mandated to worry about them.
Anyway the American oil reserves in Iraq are secure, and happy days, things in Saudi are not looking too bad either so America now has two sets of oil reserves in the middle east. Now, I ask you, how could that not be in the best interest of the American people?
One thing still bugs me, though. Remember I spoke about honesty?
What was all that bullshit about weapons of mass destruction? 45 minute warnings to attack the UK? Links to Al Qaida?
Just be honest about these things, America. I still won’t agree with you but it would be nice.
That way the people of the UK could know exactly what Mr. Blair has dragged them into.
That way the people of Madrid and London could know for what their friends and neighbours died.
That way the people of Ireland could know exactly why our government is allowing Shannon airport to be used to transport prisoners who are beyond the protection of any court or government to torture centres in the middle east.
That way the people of America could know the calibre of their political leaders and could make an informed choice in 2008.
That would be nice.
Unlikely.
Probably impossible, but nice all the same.
America, you are not the world - but you think you are.

 

I’ve moved in

Any posts  below this point were transfered from www.andrewlawlor.blogspot.com so the dates on the blogs may not correspond to the date of publication.

 

Ireland 2007. Fáilte.

Wednesday, November 7, 2007

This, you could say, has not been a great week for the HSE. It is not turning out to be much of a week for Bertie Ahearn and Mary Harney either. The scandal of the misdiagnosed breast cancers in Port Laoise is, I suspect, weighing heavily on everyone concerned but, worry not, there is still almost five years to the next election so I’m sure they can all recover in time.

All of us outraged citizens who this week and next will make irate phone calls to Joe Duffy or write strongly worded letters to the Irish Tmes should ask themselves one very important question.

Is this what we really deserve?

We should also cast our minds back to May of this year and remember who we voted for in the election. While we are at it we should think back five more years and remember who we voted for in 2002 and five years earlier in 1997.

We have now had ten years of this FF/PD alliance and another five more to come and this writer would not be staking the Lawlor homestead on them not making it 20 years of FF led government in 2012.

In 1997 the FG led rainbow coalition went to the country as one of the most popular governments of modern times, sailing on the crest of the emerging Celtic tiger wave with falling unemployment, rising tax revenue and economic predictions of good times ahead. Nobody was betting against the government in ‘97 and yet along came Bertie, all smiles and anoraks, and told us that, if elected, FF would cut taxes, putting more money into the pockets of Joe and Josephine public - election over.

Move forward five years and replay the tape. FG say FF are mismanaging the economy, FF say that they will cut taxes again - FG are routed at the polls.

I could outline ‘07, but why bother.

At each of these elections the electorate were told by politicians and media commentators that it was not possible to provide a high level of public service on a low tax base. Naturally the electorate worried about this. No doubt we who voted FF again and again spent many sleepless nights tossing and turning. I’m sure the plight of our public health service, our public transport service and our schools were fighting tooth and nail with the desire to have more money in our pockets as we agonised over which way to cast our vote. And then we realised that the extra FF money would pay for VHI and a nice comfortable BMW to cruise to work in and hell you’re nobody if your kids aren’t in private education.

So we voted with our collective pockets instead of our consience, not once, not twice but three times. We, as a nation, voted for 00 reg cars (remember that rush?), we voted for 27 inch wide screen TVs, we voted for skiing, we voted for paid for child care and then we voted for overseas property, (taxi drivers, electricians, civil servants with holiday villas and apartments in the sun!!), we voted for 42 inch plasma screens, newer, bigger cars, three holidays a year, endless weekend city breaks to Prague and Budapest and private schooling with grinds for the kids and ponies and piano lessons………….

……and then we got sick.

So what. Now we’ve got VHI or Bupa and the doors of private clinics swing open to us and if the private ward is full well then someone just moves over in the public system and we get world class health care.

We don’t care about the Laois cancer women. We don’t care about people like Susie Long or the lost generations of Moyross. Taxes are not going up and that is what we voted for.

Belgium has a pretty good public health service. In fact, many people travel from France and Germany and Holland to avail of Belgian public health, such is the over capacity in the system.

How can the Belgians do it?

They pay 12% employees social insurance while empoloyers pay 30%. Can you see FF running that one by the electorate in 2012?

If we want european levels of public service we cannot do it without european levels of taxation.

So, before you crank up the laptop to fire off a stern letter to Madam in Tara St. Before cracking the knuckles on that dialling finger, remember, this is the Ireland we voted for. This is Ireland 2007. We don’t give a shit if people without private health insurance die unnecessarily of cancer or whatever.

Do I care?

I’ve got Bupa. A nice house, nice car, two wide screen TVs.

I’m doin’ okay.

Are you?

Are we?