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Seanad Reform - After 30 years can we have our votes now?

It has been 12 months since this announcement and we've seen no action taken to advance the reform of the Seanad. In particular the rather straightforward reform of the university panels to give effect to the Seventh Amendment to the Constitution.

I've recently written to the 6 university panel senators asking that they do rather than talk when it comes to this matter. I'm currently awaiting their responses, and will post the letter and responses if I receive them. In the continued absence of any movement I've decided to try and get some traction via other means. Hence this facebook group

Seanad Reform - After 30 years can we have our votes now? | Facebook

I also hope to be announcing in the new year some events as part of a rolling campaign to culminate in the period of the 5th of July when the referendum was held 3 decades ago and the 5th of August when it was signed into law.

Is wider reform of the Seanad needed? Yes, in fact it is long overdue but this is the necessary first step in that process.
Are there more important things? Indeed, but we have a parliamentary and cabinet system of government so that more than one problem can be tackled at any one time.

The cause of the finanical crisis revealed!

A good number of years ago I had a not very demanding job in a land very far from home. My employer wasn’t doing great things for me and the young lady I was interested in at the time wasn’t interested in me. She did think I was quite lovely though. So I created a fantasy job, a diversionary daydream if you will. It was of the road not taken variety. In contrast to the road I was on which was well and truly of the dead end variety.

It evolved from a series of aptitude tests I and others had done for a company in the final year of college. The results had been incredibly, perhaps some might say even freakishly positive for me. There again it was very reassuring at the end of my time to discover that yes engineering was for me! As for the daydream position I would have magically acquired it upon leaving college by means of similarly interesting aptitude tests and other probing physical examinations that would have revealed my undoubted brilliance and suitability for the role.

The job started out being somewhat vague as these things tend to do in daydreams. It did involve a very nice office based in the IFSC if I recall and such excitements as a PA and a well appointed apartment. I was on a promise that I was to be extensively trained in many interesting skills, foreign languages, how to handle the media, high finance, fighting skills and so forth. It was a daydream after all, and I wanted to leave it open enough that some spying/espionage might be involved. To assist me with achievement of all this I had access to many quite peculiar and very futuristic looking pieces of technology that seemed quite out of this world. As is my wont with any such fantasy I create, I came quickly to undermine it by introducing various unsettling and disturbing elements. The excessive secrecy about my eventual role in the organisation, the origins of the top people, the disappearance of colleagues or indeed what it was the company actually did.

Later on in the daydream, (which at this stage was evolving into proper movie serial mode) I was to find after a number of worrying signs and interesting scraps that in my superior’s office was a hidden cupboard which in fact contained a teleportation device. This chamber brought me to a very substantial but largely unmanned spaceship in orbit around the earth. Yep, we were firmly back in my usual comfort zone of sci-fi territory. I snooped about the ship as one does in these things and discovered that the organisation was seeking to become the overlords of the Earth. This they would do by taking control of our financial system and by extension our political system and petitioning for the Earth’s entry into a galactic trading system whereby they would be recognised as de jure and de facto Rulers of the Earth. I’m not 100% sure that the R and E were capitalised in the fantasy but they seem sort of appropriate now. This state of affairs once ratified by the galactic authorities could not be overturned and would be enforced by the other worlds.

It was in some sense all in the best traditions of Western European colonisation - a West Spiral Arm Trading Company if you will. I was to be one of the front men (my tests had revealed a certain detachment from my fellow man, well I did say at the outset that I didn’t much like my job and so I was of a mood to feel a tad disconnected) as they declared to the leaders of the world that they had, in the parlance of the times, the financial system by the balls and having brought it to the brink of collapse they could cast our world into the abyss.

They had over the last few centuries progressively invested in those new technologies that they knew from the experience of other similar worlds would ultimately succeed over the long run. They had gotten their initial seed capital from their superior mineral assaying abilities which had given them local mineral wealth and then they had simply waited for humanity to discover the obvious to them scientific advances, with the very occasional nudge, that they could invest in and turn into even more wealth and influence. After all, transporting millions of troops across space is a very expensive way to take control of a world. If your lifespan can be measured in centuries why not just find a world that is close to making the jump to space travel and simply entangle yourself in its affairs such that its ascent becomes the engine for your own wealth.

They had completely embedded themselves in the stock market and the global financial system. Just at the point that I had been hired they were finally in position to leverage their position in the financial system such that they could readily collapse the world’s economy if our leaders decided to choose incorrectly.

Now, let’s get back to the beginning here. This was just a wish fulfilment exercise on the part of someone with a not too demanding job and too much time on his hands. Right?

I mean I was just daydreaming; not exhibiting pre-cognitive abilities like my auntie Mary had...

Who has been telling porkies

I am half expecting an outbreak of cannibalism within a week if rumours spread that human flesh is the closest thing to the taste of pig meat. And was it really necessary to destroy all pork meat? Sure I can understand in general saying destroy it instead of eating it, but couldn't it wait in the freezer for a few more days until we're sure what the specific problem is and how extensive the impact is?

And God help us but it was bad enough that this was uncovered by another country's authorities but that it was Italy makes us like even more like eejits. A country run by Burlo backhander has better standards of food enforcement than we do. OK, they do have a proper culinary tradition and they like their food.

RTe were reporting in their coverage that in Belgium 3, count them 3 government ministers resigned on foot of their dioxin scandal there in 1999. Which little piggy in cabinet will go wee-wee-wee all the way home from this?

Update: I started the above post on Sunday but am only getting around to posting it now. In the light of the review from the EU. As I said above - what was wrong with just telling people that they shouldn't eat pork until the relevant authorities had decided on whether there was a real risk to public health. By all means tell shops to take it off the shelves and that restaurants should not serve it, but to advise people to throw it out was reckless and as it is now revealed completely wasteful.

New concepts in Laptop design

Hat tip to Cristiano, these look very sexy indeed. Not entirely sure quite how functional they all would be especially on the road but surely we can expect to see some of them popping up in the new series of 24!

Are we seeing further evidence of corrosion in the FF base?

With the outburst from Cllr and 2007 General election Noreen Ryan of FF in Limerick against the mighty local political totem that is Minister for Defence Willie O’Dea, are we seeing the strain of the negative national mood beginning to tell? Many of those commenting are missing the local context in the timing of all this as the FF local selection interviews were talking place in Limerick over the last week or so. It may simply be that the new interview based and HQ driven selection process may not be proceeding as painlessly as had been hoped for. It was noted in the Limerick Leader recently with suitable expressions of disinterest in the process from local FF heavy hitters (in their own minds at least) such as Eddie (I could still get into the Dail) Wade and Jack (only a council seat makes me feel complete) Bourke. I think Wade said something closely along the lines that they could shove their interview process up a certain place and get a proctologist to examine their prostate while retrieving it. (this post is also over on sluggerotoole)

I strongly suspect that Noreen Ryan* has had her interview and picked up a definite vibe that she is not likely to be reselected. I particularly think her GE performance where she got barely 200 more votes than in the locals and she canvassed wearing sunglasses (was it the British Army that did the ad about the importance of making eye contact? Perhaps that is why she didn’t see it). That she should shoot her mouth off isn’t surprising, that the minister would retort by referring to her “as a person, utterly without credibility.” and continuing to say that “This is a grab for cheap publicity to conceal her utter inactivity and lack of performance as a councillor,”. Hmm....I can’t quite see how FF could have her on a ticket come next summer.

Fianna Fail ran 6 candidates, including cllr Ryam, in the 7 seat Castleconnell ward and they picked up 3 of the seats which was not a bad performance at all against the backdrop of the national picture. In fact it represented no change on the 1999 results. This time Labour and the Greens are making a really big push to gain a seat and with the demise of the PDs the future direction for cllr Brigid Teefy remains unclear. Might she now be looking for a home in the government party? And then we have to add in the likes of bright young lad Brian Stokes (who works with/for Peter Power TD and junior minster) who is bucking to get on the ticket in Castleconnell.

It is hard to see FF holding 4 out of 7 seats with the mood as it is now. This is moreover the case if they run too many candidates who fail to transfer amongst each other. The plain fact is FF as a party aren’t going to hold their seats by nominating imperious lads and ladies who lunch. They want them hungry and eager, and they want to have a tightly controlled panel of candidates. People who have a proven record of going off message and spending their time engaged in solo runs might well save their own seat but cost the party its other seats. While the national mood could change between now and election day, it is more likely that the government will choose to concentrate on the larger national picture and ensuring that they get things right so they can be returned to power in a few years rather than the immediate needs of cllrs. Of course, extrapolating too much from one ward is not without its dangers.

That said it may well be that this sort of radical surgery is needed if FF are to stave off the prospect that FG might pass them on. The story of the 2004 local and European was regarded at the time as being primarily about the increase in the SF vote. Yet in the longer term the vote retention and piecemeal seat gains by FG on what they had won in 1999 was of more significance. The 1999 results for FG were thought of at the time as a high water mark and later as something of a false dawn for the party in that those local successes didn’t prevent the tide going out in 2002. So sometimes it is not about the numbers of seats won but the overall context of the result.

It now seems that the FF brand and logo may even be more toxic than it was five years ago. I could tell from my own canvassing in the lead up to Christmas ’03 that many people were annoyed, disillusioned with the then FF/PD government and that they would take a hit come the summer but it was very unclear where the votes would go. In the end the votes spread out amongst the opposition parties in such a pattern as to please all concerned. The same could happen again, or any one of the opposition parties could take the lion’s share of the spoils. Only the campaigns and time will tell.

As for Cllr Ryan herself it is perhaps better for her to leave the party in a dramatic huff because she was standing up for ‘de local peeple’, run as an independent and if elected to return to the fold triumphant. With the FF logo more toxic than a tax demand on a poster it could be the only winning strategy for her and many others. No one ever said FFers were thick when it came to looking after themselves; it’s only when it comes to looking out for the rest of us that the brain tends to fail to engage.

* her site has been suspended, it would seem.

Where Mary Lou McDonald gets it wrong on Lisbon.

In an article in the Irish Times, SF’s MEP for Dublin Mary Lou McDonald makes the case that the Lisbon referendum must not be rerun but that the Treaty must be renegotiated. The thing is she then goes on to make the same mistakes of overreach and presumption that the government did when campaigning for the treaty to be approved. What was rejected was the proposal to allow the Oireachtas sign up to Lisbon, not the content of the Treaty per se especially when so many citizens said they didn't understand it. Their response to vote No was in the circumstances quite sensible.

However, renegotiation requires that both parties are interested or able to do it. Mary Lou MacDonald argues that SF wanted the committee to look at “the future direction of the EU itself and how Ireland could shape that future”. I’m not sure how such an undertaking could possibly have reported back in any sort of realistic time frame and perhaps that was SF’s intent.

She states “There were also repeated attempts to scaremonger the public about the implications for the economy following the Irish people's rejection of the treaty. No evidence was presented to the committee to back up their claims.” The idea that the people’s rejection of the treaty has no implications for the economy is nonsense. If Brian Cowen had a bad flu, it would have implications for the economy for good or bad. That somehow our rejection of a EU treaty would have no consequences is complete overstatement of the position. Something she has rightly criticised elements of the Yes side for.

I do wonder at her suggestion about all the members of the public being given the chance to contribute in open session. It is unclear what ideas were not considered by the committee and what would have been the real value of every Tom, Dick and Harry having a chance to rant and rave at politicians on whatever their particular hobby horse, often only tangentially related to the EU is. “Sinn Féin also argued that the subcommittee should proactively engage as broad a section of the public as possible, that it should meet in open session, in and outside of Dublin, and listen to the opinions of ordinary citizens.” A halfway house idea that might have been worthwhile would have been to facilitate more engagement via the web, but the travelling road show idea as evidence by the Forum on Europe is past its best.

In talking about what needs to be addressed Mary Lou McDonald makes further missteps in saying about the report that it “sets out in detail the challenges facing Ireland and the EU and the mechanism for addressing the concerns of the Irish electorate on key issues such as maintaining our political strength, protecting neutrality, workers' rights, public services and taxation. It is clear that these issues can only be addressed in a new treaty which includes legally-binding protocols and not declarations of clarification which are not worth the paper they are written on.” There is nothing to suggest that all of the above must be addressed in order to win the support of the majority of the electorate. In a referendum all the government is required to do is gain the support of 50% plus 1 of the voters on the day. If they had adequately addressed the concerns of any one of the above issues they would probably have tipped the verdict from the vote last summer. The board scope of her argument that “...opinion polls,...demonstrate that people's concerns over neutrality, workers' rights, public services, democracy and Ireland's influence must be addressed in any future EU treaty” is also wholly incorrect.

She finishes by referring to our political goodwill with the EU while leaving aside the fact that much of this goodwill has dissipated in the aftermath of Lisbon. “It is time that the Government stood up for the interests of the Irish people and used the political goodwill which we have built up over many decades.” In essence the campaign strategy of SF and indeed Libertas was one giant blackjack hit, ignoring the possibility that we might be just as easily be bust as to hit 21.

As is her wont, she makes her point well, but doing it well does not in and of itself not make her point correct. Lastly, and of course, it is to be expected of me, given my own political leanings, to be saying this. It is quite poignant for a representative of SF to constantly refer to the democratic will of the people. It was the democratically expressed will of the people which they chose to ignore, election after election for 75 years, when it came to the republican movement’s campaign of violence which was supposedly in the name of the Irish people.

Commitment to extend Seanad voting rights should be acted on without further delay

NUI Seanad Candidate, Daniel Sullivan, has called on the Minister for the Environment, John Gormley to explain why he has still not taken a single step towards fulfilling his commitment to extend voting rights to all third level graduates. (I sent this - well a variation on it - out as a press release last week and it got the usual amount of attention that matters related to the Seanad tend to get)

‘Minister John Gormley made quite a splash for himself in a highly publicised speech about Seanad Reform on Nov 28th of last year. In particular he drew attention to the extension of the franchise to all 3rd level graduates.’ said Daniel Sullivan ‘He said that should the Seanad impede his efforts he would plough ahead anyway. Strong words, yet 12 months on we see no legislation in the pipeline. Almost one third of the way through the life of the 30th Dail and the legislative pen hasn’t even been dipped into the inkwell of lawmaking.

The minister addressing the Seanad on the issue of agreeing a consensus on the topic said “I will not be deterred from pressing ahead with the university changes if that co-operation did not materialise.” Minister Gormley specifically committed himself to reforming the university constituencies, as a first step in a complete revamp of Seanad Éireann that will allow all citizens to have a vote. For all the fanfare there has been no action to date.

Next summer will see the 30th anniversary of the referendum where the people expressed their opinion that the state should act to extend the franchise. Dan Sullivan says “Had I been elected in 2007 I would have looked to have had legislation before the house during the current autumn session. I have previously explored the option of taking a constitutional challenge regarding the failure to legislate as the people at the time were led to believe it was about taking imminent action on the matter. If the costs of such a challenge were more within the reach of someone with modest means I would already have taken the risk that the Supreme Court might view it as a matter of public interest and award me costs. I am still actively considering that option“

An amendment to the Constitution to widen the university franchise was passed as long ago as 1979 but successive governments have failed to implement the change. The 2004 report from the committee chaired by then Sen. Mary O'Rourke proposed the abolition of the Trinity College and National University of Ireland constituencies and its replacement with a single constituency of 6 seats. It’s really that simple. The same 6 Seanad seats as present but voted on by a single constituency of all Irish graduates of an Irish education institution with a level seven qualification. Close to 400,000 people or 20% of the adult population would be given a direct say in the Seanad if the registers were properly updated to include all graduates. Not the whole journey towards a fully reformed Seanad by any means but a simple first step that could be taken immediately.

Further reform of the Seanad beyond the electorate of the university panel would require another referendum. Among the proposals in the 2004 report were that the Seanad be increased to 65 senators, from 60. Some 26 of these seats would be filled from a single national constituency under a list-PR system, with a further six elected by a reformed higher-education constituency. Under these proposals another 20 senators would be indirectly elected by county and city councillors, deputies and senators under PR-STV system while 12 senators would be nominated by the Taoiseach.

Is this the most filmed fire in Irish history?

I got this in my mail yesterday and when you look at it, you will notice the many, many other views of the same incident listed beside it.



Don't be surprised if the overall viewing figures pass the 100K mark by the end of the week. And would this be some sort of record?

Prime Time turns its lens on Declan Ganley, burns self.

Well, that was one hell of a piece rubbish television especially compared to other investigative programs Prime Time have done in the past. The overall flavour was of the Rowdy Roddy Peeper segment in the Simpsons. Actors in shadows, dark moody music. I was half expecting a black and white clip with a damsel laid out on a train track with some high tempo piano tinkling going on in the background to surface but it didn't.

A couple of weird things did strike me during the course of it though. Katie Hannon told us the wife of the man murdered in Albania told her stuff but wouldn't do it on camera (don't they have the blurry face thing anymore) but we were lead to believe she was fine with Hannon standing outside her house quoting her, not even to voice record her? And we're to take Hannon's word for it that the wife actually said X Y or Z. That's very strange for an investigative program. Usually if you can't get something on the record then it simply isn't used. Whither Woodward and Bernstein.

Ganley also made reference in the program to a phone conversation that Katie had had with the former junior Latvian minister and which the minister (now forester! how exciting) also said that he wouldn't be adding to when she went to visit him but we didn't get to hear any of that phone conversation. Why was that? What was the content of it? Was it any cop? And yet she played a recording of a conversation in the guys office. I take it she recorded that legally, I mean some countries do allow you to record your own conversations, others require the permission of both parties. In some places you can only do it in a public place in others it is ok to enter someone's home or place of work and record without their knowledge. I presume RTe confirmed what the situation is in Latvia and I can only presume that is why couldn't she try to do the same in Albania? Or did they simply make an editorial choice.

Over the course of the show a lot was made of claims by people that claims by Ganley had been overplayed or that people's roles were more than they actually were. So while it was possible that Ganley had overstated his role in Latvia but it wasn't apparently possible that the person in Albania had overstated their role in Anglo-Adriatic or that others were overstating it now. The Albania voucher scheme sounded like all kinds of interesting weirdness but despite this tease we magically didn't get any concrete detail on what happened. We seem to have been told that the state gave out vouchers which were to be linked to priviatised state assets and Anglo Adriatic collected these vouchers but then the state didn't honour them and along the way people started trading in the vouchers. But was Anglo Adriatic involve in that trading? RTe never said, nor were we given to understand why Anglo-Adriatic were even collecting them or were they buying them? The picture presented was as clear as soft-focus image taken by someone with a shakey hand of a murky lake waters, at dusk, in winter, in Lapland.

So the view from the show is that Declan Ganley embellished his role in advising the Latvia government at some point in the early 90s and that some people lost money on some strange voucher scheme in Albania used to privatise, and that his company may have engaged in overreach in contract negotiations with the US CPA in Iraq.

Now I wouldn't personally be inclined to become too involved in business dealings with Mr. Ganley simply because he strikes me as too much of a shrewd operator and Kerryman that I am, we know a hoor that's too cute for us.

Overall, the program gave us nothing you could call concrete or a smoking gun, only rumours and impressions. If this is something that RTe is doing to assist in securing a Yes vote next time (something I would on balance like to see) then God help us all.

As for the talk of the Standards in Public Office. The current SIPO set up doesn't give you any real idea where the money for the major parties comes from as they simply work around it with small donations. People should read some of Elaine Byrne's articles in the IT to see what I'm talking about. There may well be questions from SIPO for Libertas to answer about funding but the question is why would Libertas be expected to provide this information ahead of all other organisations that campaigned for/against the Treaty. One can only presume that Coir and the Alliance for Europe have gotten similar letters at the same time that Libertas did or has Libertas been singled out?

Update: it now appears that Libertas are saying they have not yet received the letter that RTe showed as coming SIPO. Where did RTe get it from?

Take my wife, please!

What is it about Irish business people and high ranking public servants that they can't spend a few days away from their spouses? In the reporting of the trip in 2004 of Minister Mary Harney we're told that she travelled "in a party that included the former director general of Fás, Rody Molloy, and his wife, and the then secretary general of Ms Harney's department, Paul Haran, and his wife."

Why, why were their wives brought along? Are these top-executives unable to make their way in the world without their wives? Or are these menfolk mere proxies for their more capable other halves? Evidently it has been going on for years. Sen. Mary White sought to regale us with her foreign policy credentials in her quest to be president by telling us about all her trips with her husband then head of the IDA.

So cats are smarter than dogs eh!

I saw this over on Andrew Sullivan (no relation).



In my view both cats and dogs are capable of stupidity, it's merely that some owners can't see it in their furry house guests. I've been thinking about getting a cat but it would have to be one of these bombay black types as they don't shed so much.

Is Ewan McGregor A Basque Terrorist?

Is Breaking News.ie seriously trying to tell us that Ewan McGregor is a Basque Terrorist? Or do they think we need to be told what a terrorist looks like? Or is this just another one of those unfortunate image/story screw ups that happens from time to time. I think the still is from Incendiary but I'm not 100% sure.

What to do about crime in Ireland

I find myself wondering about how often are we going to do this rehashing of the term watershed. Purely coincidentally I was opposite Donna Cleary's house the morning after her murder as I was doing a NEAR fm radio panel show in the Northside Civic centre. As a few readers would know I was a candidate in that area for the 2004 locals. There is an awful feeling of despair and helplessness that comes in the aftermath of such a senseless act. And senseless it was, shooting up a house because you weren't let into a party.

Part of the problem is that the guys involved have no fear that they will face real life altering consequences in response to their crimes. In fact, most of them have seen the same response from the system each step along the way as the seriousness of their crimes has escalated. 2nd chance after 2nd chance. I'm a believer in 2nd chances but not in 10th or 20th chances.

As for what I think we should do I would suggest the following

• that we need to end the lax mentality of granting free legal aid without properly ascertaining someone's financial situation.

• We should have a microCAB unit to investigate the circumstances of people who appear to be living very well yet are only on welfare and who obviously appear to have other sources of income.

• an end to concurrent sentencing for violent and crimes related to the supply of drugs, as it creates a loophole for those on bail that when convicted they can plead guilty to other offenses while in prison and serve no further time. Each crime is different and should be deal with separately.

• an end to automatic unearned remission.

• a recall capacity vote for judges by the public every 5 years perhaps run to coincide with the local elections whereby the public can remove those judges from the bench that they feel are not reflecting societal norms in their sentencing policy.

• There are judges in Limerick who appear to fall for every sob story going. And yet no one chases up these tales of woe or references to million euro contracts to verify whether they're true or not. If people were neglected as children then charges should be brought against their parents and those involved should be prepared to act as witnesses.

• This is a small country and Judges should be rotated around areas more frequently. It is very odd that with only 4 million people and given the size of the country that so many bench warrants are outstanding.

• A new prison or the building of an existing one specifically designed to provide hard time for those prisoners who are no interested in rehabilitation.

• Put an end to the practice an automatic right to rehousing in the private rental sector by the HSE. If you abuse a local authority house then that should be it for you.

I'm sure that there will be those that read the above and judge it harsh but harsh is part of what is needed and even deserved.

FF's poll implosion

I've been banging on for quite a while now that FF have been suffering the same decline in core support as FG as the generations shifted but that in their case it was covered up by the fact that they were considerably more adept at hoovering the significantly larger floating vote. In the aftermath of the 2009 budget that is what has changed and is now being reflected in the polls.

The ice shelf of floating voters has calved from the frozen continent of FF and is now in open water. Currently it is located solidly in the territorial waters of FG and the Independents. Whether it stays there is an open question but it is very definitely drifting away from FF who seem not to understand that it is even loose.

Just a quick bit of context but both George Bush and Nixon had at their lowest ebbs higher satisfaction ratings that this government currently has. And at 18% satisfaction barely half of the government parties own supporters are satisfied with their performance to date. That is pretty damning stuff.

Unpopular decisions aren't necessarily right.

I find it odd that government representatives appear to believe that the mere fact that a decision is unpopular is somehow proof of how right and appropriate it is. A wrong decision can be unpopular just as easily as a right one,. A popular decision is equally likely to be wrong or right. There is no intrinsic link between the two concepts. Either a decision is right or it is wrong. Revelling in the unpopularity as some marker that you're on the right course is all kinds of dense.

And let's face it the recent government decisions on medical cards, on class sizes, on cervical cancer vaccines are just plain wrong. Oddly enough a subsequent decision on the medical cards for the over 70s that the same amount of money would be paid by the state to doctors for treating people over 70s irrespective of their reasons for qualifying for the card is a correct decision. And while it is likely to be unpopular with doctors the government are due some credit for making it. Even if they've been damn slow to get around to it.

Vincent Browne's double standards

Watching TV3's VB show the other night I was struck by the insistence on the part of VB that the reaction to the murder of Shane Geoghegan somehow meant that the populous valued different lives differently. It doesn't. People simply react differently to the murder of someone in a gang to the murder of someone not involved in any such criminality at all.

For the same reason that people react differently to the death on the road of someone who was young and made a habit of driving fast and reckless to that a pedestrian teenager killed by a car mounting the footpath. It's not that one life is worth more but that one is more unexpected. People reacted in horror at the murder of the young plumbing apprentice Anthony Campbell just as they are doing now to the murder of Shane Geoghegan. These were lads who had done nothing but go about their business as we all do. It has nothing to do with social background.

I really wish Vincent would stop stretching different events as he attempts to shoe horn them into his world view. One other related crib with Vincent Browne is he often seeks to bring in the state and society's rather woeful treatment of travellers not matter how tangentially related. Yet in his coverage of the murder of Shane Geoghegan he makes no reference to the likely individuals involved membership of the traveller community. To Vincent the killing of John Ward by Padraig Nally was all about him being a traveller and not about him engaging in criminal activity yet we see extended families engaged in turf wars who operate omerta in a manner that would do the Scilians proud and not a mention of they being travellers.

Think tank: Let’s all have a vote

I had an opinion type piece in the Sunday Times a few weeks back. It's a step up from my usual letter writing. I was mainly trying to talk about something that might be feasible rather than using the chance to have a crack at something that already exists. This is the slightly longer and somewhat less well edited version.

Think tank: Let’s all have a vote.

Are we seeing the emergence of a real democracy?

In the aftermath of the Lisbon Treaty campaign considerable attention has been devoted to the apparent disconnect between the electorate and the body politic. During the course of the campaign it appeared that the public were engaged in one type of conversation while the professional political class seemed to, many members of the public at least, to talk amongst themselves. The travelling road shows of the Forum on Europe and the Oireachtas Joint Committee on European Affairs, despite considerable expense to the public purse, failed utterly to engage the people drawing small crowds of political anoraks. And if I’m being completely honest I would have to include the likes of myself in that last grouping.

Yet the wider public were quite eager to talk about Lisbon or at least what they thought Lisbon was about. When they sought to do so, all too frequently, they were not so politely told to ‘Hauld your whisht’. Rather than be silent some decided to take their views elsewhere. They went on-line.

As European Commissioner Margot Wallström noted in a recent report the on-line discussion in Ireland had a tendency to be negative towards the treaty. Yet the EU and the state’s efforts in this area, again at cost to the taxpayer, did not provide for discussion not to mind dissension. Sites such as lisbontreaty.ie singularly failed to engage the voting public. They existed purely to carry a line to the public, much as posters and even television and radio ads to. No questions could be asked, in some cases not even the dead letterbox of the email us to contact.

In contrast there existed outside the state sponsored sector a veritable free for all. There the discourse was perhaps all too reflective of that taking place across the country. It mirrored in all its gaudy chaos the woolly thinking, messiness, unpredictability, bald inaccuracy, prejudices and tendency towards hyperbole, all the while exposing a broad spectrum of viewpoints both for and against the treaty. The general confusion in the public mind was manifest on-line long before it came to the notice of the mainstream media. That this was the case and that the mainstream media missed it is something they appear to be unable to forget not to mind forgive.

Though much of the discussion on-line has many, many flaws, it does demonstrate that we have at our fingertips the means to extend democratic involvement beyond what Americans term ‘the beltway’. We could if we so chose seek to move away from the stale binary mentality that sees people as either passive voters or active politicians. It’s a world of gray.

Pres. Jed Bartlet, “You know we forget sometimes, in all the talk about democracy, it's a Republic. People don't make the decisions; they choose the people who make the decisions.”

In a democracy, it’s not alone the citizen’s role to ensure that they are as informed as possible when casting their vote but it is their responsibility to continue to hold to account and to actively challenge those we elect to positions of power. This is meant to be an ongoing process not just saved for election time.

The ideals of democracy are rooted in the principle that all the people or 'demos' should be involved in both the discourse and decision making process. The parliamentary forms of representative democracy that we are used to were created in large part because of limitations in travel and communication that along with the lack of educational attainment meant that only a minority of citizens could gather in one place and understand the issues being debated. That is no longer the case.

Public participation in the political process as evidenced by voting, party membership and attendance at public meetings has entered a steady decline in recent decades. The focus in addressing this disengagement has primarily on making voting more accessible, simpler and easier. This is to address the wrong problem.

By and large voting is popular with the public. Participation by the Hoi Polloi in even in the most trivial reality shows such as Big Brother, X-factor, and Fáilte Towers demonstrates people have no problem with voting. Voting is not the problem; public participation in all that comes before a vote is cast is the crux of the issue.

What we need to do is extend the arena of the political discourse to embrace the general public. Our system of parliamentary procedure has changed little from the time of Gladstone and Parnell. A day in the chamber typically consists of ritualistic jousting with press releases. Most Deputies aren’t even present to listen to what others have to say. Genuine debate, a real contest of ideas or even limited constructive argument is substantially absent from the Dail.

The majority of the population have neither the time nor even the inclination to get involved but they could be afforded a significantly greater opportunity to be involved than at present. For example, why not allow citizens to submit parliamentary questions or to have ministers address their questions in committee? Or participate in the scrutiny of legislation? A broader spectrum of involvement would be possible especially to those who do not feel the party political format fits to their range of views. This is not to eliminate the final voting power of representatives but to instead embed it more directly as the penultimate steps in the decision making process. Those who vote must lead by convincing those who would support them that the course they will vote for is the correct one. The public similarly should vote for those whose ideas and votes reflect the course they believe to be the correct one.

In the mean time, online forums and group blogs such as politics.ie, irishelection.com and sluggerotoole.com appear to be hot housing embryonic communities that may evolve into more participative forms of democracy. If a potential transition is in prospect, it must be one that serves to underpin democracy rather than merely leading to a form of e-mob rule. It is all too easy to see technology means being used like the radio was by many in the 1930s as a means to whip up a crowd and for the leader of the mob to surf to power on this wave. Let a hundred thousand flowers bloom through experimentation. In due course the public will select what works best for them once the limitations in our broadband infrastructure are overcome.

This idea/exercise in thinking out loud is intended not a magic bullet to solve the problems democracy is faced with; rather it is a diet and exercise regime that can help it revive if there still exists the will that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

‘We have the technology, should we seek to rebuild democracy?’

Update: I mentioned e-mobs and a mate of mine asked if I was coining it. Little did I know that we were about to see the media overwhelmed by some e-mobs.

I think these chaps said it quite well.

RED C poll numbers for Oct 26th 2008

FF 26% down ten percent, FG up 5 to 33%, Labour up 5% to 15, SF on 10%, Greens on 6% PDs on 2% and others on 8%. Those numbers if true, and given the source I'm strongly inclined to believe them, mean the government.

With independents like Jackie Healy Rae moving on to education the terrain isn't going to get any easier for the government and this moment probably represents the Green's best moment to hold FF to the pin of their collar and force concessions in the budget. Failure to do so will leave the Greens tied to this budget as closely as are FF right now.

And if FF don't revise the budget massively on foot of Green party pressure they should cut and run. It's the punch that FG should have thrown in '94. An election while FF are completely on the back foot could be the only chance to get the mandate an Irish government needs to take the actions that are necessary. Will they take the chance or like Gordon Brown fluff it?

Update: poll numbers confirmed on RTe News

What if McCreevy had continued to extend medical card threshold?

I mentioned yesterday that I'd take a look at a counter factual where instead of abolishing income as a factor for the allocation of medical cards to those over 70 that the minister of finance had simply continued to aggressively extend the income threshold.

In 1999 the income thresholds for medical cards even for the over 70s were much lower than they are now. Of course, governments had considerably less revenue in those days before the Celtic Tiger and also had more outgoings in respect of unemployment etc. The thresholds were subsequently increased as per a budgetary commitment by roughly 33% each year until March of 2001. In Budget 2000 McCreevy announced that the next and final step would be to remove the income threshold completely for those over 70. Yet what if he had persisted with his original measure?

Taking the lower of those over 70 figures for 1999 of £133.00 which equates to €168.87 as our base point we see the intended increase of 33% or €55.72 per year in the threshold would have been up to €337.74 in March 2001. Note this is more than the initial revised threshold from last week! And it’s the figure from 7 years ago. So had Charlie McCreevy continued with the same level of increase annually (not % wise but in flat cash terms) the threshold would have been

March 2001 €337.74 (this is double the initial 1999 figure)

March 2002 €393.46

March 2003 €449.18

March 2004 €504.90

March 2005 €560.62

March 2006 €616.34

March 2007 €672.06

March 2008 €727.78

So think about that for a moment, the income threshold would now be higher than that most recent ‘final proposal’ of €700 per week gross to come from the government on Tuesday of this week. Plus, it wouldn’t have involved any re-negotiation with the IMO and consequent explosion in the cuts of the scheme which apparently cost us €254 million last year. Just imagine for a moment what else we could have done with the billion plus Euros over the last 6/7 years? How many more children in lower income families we could have offered medical cards to in that time or funding for nursing home care?

What am I saying sure they didn’t know what to do with the billions for Euros they did have so given them more would have only have lead to throwing good money after bad.

*Figures as from a Cork/Irish Examiner (it's TCM anyway) article in 1999

Medical card means test thresholds:
Up to 66, 66 to 69, 70 to 79*, Over 80*.
Single - living alone: £92.00, £100.00, £133.00, £140.00
Single - living with family: £81.50, £86.50, £115.00, £120.00.
Married couple: £133.00, £149.00, £198.50, £208.50.
Allowance for child under 16: £16.00.
Allowance for other dependants: £17.50.
Allowances for outgoings on house:
Excess over £16.00 a week
Reasonable expenses necessarily incurred in travelling to work
Excess over £14.50 a week
* These are the thresholds likely to apply from March 1, 1999.