Mutterings in the ranks of the Green Party… July 7, 2009
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Irish Politics, The Left.trackback
Worth reflecting on a number of reports in the papers yesterday about the Green Party…First up the news that one of the very very few Green candidates – three councillors to be precise (although they did rather better with Town Councillors) – elected, Brian Meaney of Clare County Council was opining for all and sundry on his leader…
John Gormley’s [whose] decision to abandon plans to impose a €200 holiday home tax on mobile home owners showed “a lack of bottle”, one of his party’s councillors said yesterday.
Clare County Council member Brian Meaney, one of the few Green county councillors to survive the June elections, said holiday homes “benefit from local services; roads, lights and everything else”.
And he continues…
“They should make a contribution. Some of them cost as much as proper houses. The Minister should not have backed down in this way to an agenda set by Joe Duffy and Liveline. It showed a lack of bottle. He should have stood his ground and made it clear that people should pay for services that they get.”
Such holidaymakers, he said, had “no problem and no difficulty” with paying up to €1,500 a year to landowners to site their mobiles, and yet they objected to making a contribution to the local authority.
But wait. He’s not arguing the tax is wrong, but that it should have been more clearly fought for. An interesting position to take, presumably outflanking Gormley to his… er… Green side.
And, in fairness, he’s at least being consistent with a GP approach towards such services. The bin charges got them into particular trouble amongst parts of the left and near the entirety of the further left. It has been interesting to see the angst amongst parts of the left over their seeming volte-face from former polices, but in truth the Green Party while similar to has never been entirely of the left, and despite an activist and campaigning bent much the same has been true of its approach to campaigns. To argue, as some do, that they’re insufficiently socialist, or from milder quarters insufficiently social democrat, is to miss the point. That’s not their gig and it’s unlikely ever to be. I’m coming to the conclusion that if they’re able to push social democratic outcomes in the current context we’ll be lucky, and I’m not certain that it wouldn’t be in spite of rather than because.
Another thought struck me that Patricia McKenna, amongst others – the names Maher and O’Leary spring to mind for some reason, may have made the error of leaving either slightly too late or slightly too late from the GP. The European run was always going to prove a difficult to impossible exercise for McKenna. It’s outcome, the hobbling of the official GP candidate (the number of de Burca’s second preferences that went to McKenna was just shy of 3,000… no love lost there, one can only wonder at what the dynamic was in terms of McKenna’s second preferences – and a further curiosity, it was one P. de Rossa who gained the lions share of de Burca’s transfers, a whopping 7,000 of them, with Joe Higgins getting 2,000 and MLM getting 1,467)), was hardly unexpected, but that candidate was never likely to take a seat although she was more popular on my reading of the percentages than her party, and particularly in a context where other Green party candidates fell at the first hurdle (although, although, look at the figures and there must be more than one or two GP former councillors who might reasonably consider that give a slightly fairer wind on the day they’d have been home. I can count at least three off the top of my head. I’m sure there are more). Who is to say that she wouldn’t have found her proscriptions, or perhaps more accurately her critiques, more favourably received in the aftermath of the melt-down of their councillor base, not least by the former candidates – and it will be telling what if any stance they take. And while sure, they didn’t have that many to start with, three isn’t exactly sterling numbers to take on the future.
Reading Meaney one could see how his analysis might well dovetail neatly with a sort of neo-McKenna like critique where the Green Party has been… well, insufficiently Green. It’s not as if McKenna didn’t hold a sort of kind of approach to environmental matters in the EU in the same way where she had little or no problem with following the edicts of Brussels in that sphere. So that sort of very clear but very limited attack on the current policy of the party in Government might have had some traction as we move towards the reworked Programme for Government and Lisbon II.
Indeed, and I’m not for a second ignoring McKenna’s lack of popularity within the GP, her analysis was in certain respects vindicated by the results of the local elections.
What’s also interesting abut Meaney’s contribution is the timing. He after all, is in the near unique position for a Green Party elected representative of having no fear about the future as regards a date with electoral destiny (Malcolm Noonan, the new Mayor of Kilkenny is another who basks in similar safety). The next locals won’t be for five years, and who knows, perhaps as in the 1990s we simply won’t be able to afford them for a while further yet…
So to hear him give an opinion on these matters, and in such a pointed way is startling. We simply haven’t heard the like for some time and many of those who did make such noises have subsequently left.
And what of another report
which neatly demonstrated the problems the GP faces in relation to governance.
EXTRA TIME should be given for Dáil debate of tough new powers to be given to the Garda Síochána and Director of Public Prosecutions, the Green Party has said. But it will not insist that Minister for Justice Dermot Ahern complies.
This is a remarkable situation as described by the Irish Times….
The new legislation gives extra powers to the DPP to send gangland cases to the non-jury Special Criminal Court, creates extra offences to curb gangs, while some hearings could also be heard in secret.
And that should cause no end of concern for progressives and leftists. And indeed liberals and anyone concerned about the nature of the rule of law.
But…
The Greens were briefed on Wednesday by their justice spokesman Ciaran Cuffe, who voiced his opposition to the legislation when he spoke in the House on Wednesday, although he added that the Greens would vote for it.
Questioned last evening, Mr Cuffe said: “I would like to see more time, but I am not going to hold a gun to Dermot Ahern’s head over this.
“It is an important issue, but I don’t want to stop the process of government.”
It’s this curious tactic that I would, hesitantly, suggest has bled them of the support of many who would otherwise wish them well. This appears to be the Gogarty approach writ large. Explain ones reservations, or indeed outright opposition, and then do nothing to ameliorate the problem at hand. Far better to keep silent, even if that isn’t very satisfactory either.
And therein lies the crux of the problem. The Green Party in government focuses on a very narrow area of what might generally be termed Green issues. Local Government, Environment, Energy, Agriculture. But… the problem with government is that in the larger sense its remit is self-evidently much broader than these and however well the GP pursues its agenda they will continue to have the broader issues overshadow their particular concerns.
Or to put it another way… ‘the process of government’ overwhelms their inclinations and their capacity to criticise. The perception develops that it is the be-all and end-all and that the argument that they have only a limited number of TDs in a coalition and therefore they can only be expected to deliver a limited amount becomes in a sense self-fulfilling.
And paradoxically while no great news for those who remain wedded to that approach that also points to the limitations of the Meaney approach too. Because at the end of the day it’s not just about the environment, indeed day by day it becomes increasingly, for the vast majority of people in this state, not at all about the environment. And whatever achievements are made on that front appear – for worse in many many respects – in the scale of things so minimal as to be near irrelevant. Which is a serious problem for them in the near future and after.
Same chap appears to be a supporter of the U.S. military’s use of Shannon airport –
http://www.indymedia.ie/article/79453
Is the renegotiation of the programme for government out the window now? Or are the Green TDs telling their membership that they will renegotiate while privately having no intention of ‘holding a gun’ to FF’s head on any issue? What’s the value then, for instance, of John Gormley’s promise that no further rises in pupil/teacher ratio will be countenanced by the Greens?
Another thought struck me that Patricia McKenna, amongst others – the names Maher and O’Leary spring to mind for some reason, may have made the error of leaving either slightly too late or slightly too late from the GP.
O’Leary is at least still a councillor, which is more than can be said for most of his former party colleagues.
The next locals won’t be for five years, and who knows, perhaps as in the 1990s we simply won’t be able to afford them for a while further yet…
That trick can’t be pulled off any longer:
http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/1999/en/act/cam/0020/sched.html
It would be easier to postpone Dáil elections for another two years (though perhaps I shouldn’t be giving them ideas).
It’s not an unusual event for a councillor to criticise the party in the government, so I’d disagree with the notion that “we simply haven’t heard the like for some time and many of those who did make such noises have subsequently left.” I think that’s more a reflection of what the media cover, as opposed to what has been happening.
Councillors have been saying things like this for ages, and it hasn’t received much traction in the national press. Ruairi Holohan, for example, was a councillor in Blackrock, and was (if I recall correctly) broadly critical of the Greens being in government at all. He was fairly open about it, and mentioned it when talking with local journalists and all that. The Greens don’t tend to be a very “on message” kind of party, which can appear awkward publicly, but is probably for the best in terms of how party dialogue plays out. I doubt that what Meaney said was intended or viewed by the party as some sort of attack as part of an overall critical analysis, but I could be wrong.
Well, there aren’t that many councillors and after the bloodbath the weight of those who survive is clearly greater than it was say five weeks ago when one voice would be swallowed up by 17 or so others. I’m not for a moment suggesting that this is the harbinger of a split or whatever, just that at this point in time it is of greater import than othewise. I agree, I don’t think it’s part of an overall critical analysis. But I am suggesting that there are problems with the approaches both of those who could have been broadly seen as being in the McKenna camp and those who would take quite the opposite view, and ironically the problems are quite similar.
Paddy, good point re O’Leary. And his jump didn’t hurt him there and had he stayed he too might have been swept aside.
Thanks for the link.
That too is an important point Crocodile. Is it that everything is being kept for the renegotiation or do actions like this indicate the renegotiation isn’t going to have too much weight. I guess we’ll see.
The Cuffe comment is transcendentally ludicrous. If he’s not actually going to do anything about it, he should just keep the gob shut, much though he might enjoy salving his conscience.
There hasn’t actually been that much coverage of how dodgy this new Ahern legislation is. The old 1972 bill brought in by O’Malley and the Lynch government which allowed people to be convicted of IRA membership on the word of a Chief Super was bad enough and drew plenty of flak at the time.
But this new bill allows people to be convicted of gang membership on the word of any guard at all. Which in the wake of the revelations of how members of the force in Donegal went about their business for many years seems like absolute lunacy and a guarantee of miscarriages of justice. The price we’ve paid as a society for never properly investigating something like the Sallins train robbery case is that it allows politicians to pretend that we’ve got a spotless police force who must be awarded emergency powers whenever they ask for them. This will not end well.
Insert customary disparaging comment about the Greens here.
Agreed, Eamonn.
We’ve been railroaded into an entirely disproportionate response by Paul Reynolds and the Sunday World. The lack of any serious discussion of drug related crime here that doesn’t bang on about ‘gangland’ and ‘criminal gangs’ and ‘masterminds’ and ‘tightly knit organisations’ and so on is sad: fact is, most of the people involved in this kind of shit are anything but masterminds: they’re kids, and not that bright, otherwise they’d have the sense to be doing something else.
Social prejudice, lack of positive discrimination in terms of educational provision for the disadvantaged, and the persistence -exacerbation even – of low wages at the bottom of the pile all contribute to what Paul Reynolds, barely concealing his excitement, likes to call ‘gang culture’. As does the middle class appetite for cheap cocaine (one of the very few things I’ve ever agreed with McDowell on).
Shoot a few hundred media types and lawyers and their children for using drugs and see how long it takes for a change in middle class habits to occur.
Sonofstan,
While I agree with O Snodaighs call this week for more time to debate I feel like suggesting maybe people should think about bringing it in just for Limerick. You will hear very little resistance here even from the left. We can test it for the rest of the country.
When you hear republicans, here, who previously fell foul of other similar draconian legislation in the past calling for new laws you might start to get a clearer picture.
You don’t have to take your cue from starlight loving crime reporters, just take a flick through papers of record. Relatives of State witnesses shot dead, grieving relatives threatened subsequently, mistaken innocents chased outside their home and then shot repeatedly to death. Death threats issued for public consumption through youtube. Whole streets turned into no-go areas. 14 year olds been given guns to shoot in the windows of people who they suspect might talk. Kids even younger been used to terrorise other residents (sociologist report last week). I could go on and on.
In the case of Limerick there is a problem blaming some of it on educational disadvantage as the major criminal family came here after their experience with the London schooling system.
There are many educational interventions in place and you are right, they can and do have a result with many participants but that does not take away from the fundamental problem. I believe previous progressive analysis are flawed in that they are stuck in a particular time and place. Unfortunately times have moved on.
Just to clarify. Rather than use Williams-esque hyperbole my use of the term no-go means that no one is allowed to live there anymore. You can still walk or drive through there. A very poignant example- a letter from the Limerick Leader reproduced on this website. (which I have never heard of before)
http://short.ie/gowi3z
With all due respect Shane, the security situation in the state during the early to mid seventies was infinitely worse than what’s going in Limerick now. There were plenty of horror stories to conjure with there too, payroll men shot dead in daylight in the street, guards blown up by booby traps and shot after bank raids, mass escapes of prisoners from jail after smuggling in explosives, the highest level of armed robberies in the history of the state, several high profile kidnappings. And they were all quoted when various repressive pieces of legislation were brought in. But they were wrong then and this legislation is wrong now. The concept of civil liberties doesn’t, or shouldn’t, date. And if there are republicans in Limerick who don’t care that the legislation is repressive that’s probably because it’s not aimed at them.
This love of draconian methods has been going on since the mid seventies when Sean McDermott Street and similar areas got a similar press to the one Limerick is getting now. This is the latest episode in a long and sad story. Back then it led to Loughan House and the Heavy Gang. The effect on crime was negligible. Crime is still with us, and it will still be with us after the current Minister for Justice makes his bid for the headlines.
Eamonn, they are all good points. I’m very aware of the 70s, the heavy gang and the fall out. I’m not saying I’m 100 % behind new laws, I said that in the first sentence of my comment but I do believe legislation is needed.
Sonofstan correctly outlines some of the underlying causes of what is happening now. None of those are appropriate to the 70s, it was politically motivated. Would you compare the leadership of the gangs putting it up to the state in Limerick, to the republican leadership? Maybe in Paul Williams world but not I hope in reality.
Furthermore I have read some things on Sean McDermott Street etc, Distant Babylon by Patrick Ryan was very good and while these areas did become unsavoury and difficult to live in, I don’t recall anything quite as systematic as the ‘cleansing’ outlined in the letter I linked to.
Two final points, 7,000 people marched in Limerick on a Sunday in May to stand in solidarity with those who have been affected. The media expected only 1,000 to march. We were promised that day legislation and when it was demanded from the podium, I didn’t hear any mutterings of discontent. Secondly, and I suppose a follow on to to this, over the last decade I have attended public meetings in Limerick organised by everyone from Socialist Party to WSM. I never recall anyone from the far left organising meetings on crime and our response to it. I’m open to correction on this last point.
Shane,
I haven’t been to Limerick in a good while for the rather boring reason that Limerick City/ 37/ FC haven’t been in the premier division of the LoI for quite some time. i do however, know Coolock quite well – Limerick’s twin as the ‘murder capitals of Ireland’ according to Reynolds – and, well, it ain’t the Baltimore I know from the Wire (which may not, of course, be anything much like Baltimore). I also spent much of my teenage years/ early 20s living just around the corner from Summerhill, an areas that was subject to the same sensational reporting as Coolock/ South Hill now, and survived – without any real sense of living on a frontline.
I also know – not through crime – a fair few people peripherally involved with ‘organised criminal gangs’ and, honestly, the word ‘organised’ is a wild overstatement, at least at that level. Guys who sell a bit here and there to supplement their dole, wild stories about who said what to who, and, among the less bright, a bit of starstruckness about the crim ‘celebrities’ – but really, it’s a hopeless, chaotic little world, but,perhaps unfortunately, it does way more damage to the communities it lives off than it ever does to anyone outside its immediate vicinity.
As I said, I haven’t been to Limerick in a bit, and I’m not disputing your characterisation – all I’m saying is that I know areas and communities that get the same kind of write ups and I don’t recognise it really: Reynolds and his ilk have an agenda, and it’s anti- working class to the bone.
In fairness to Cuffe he’s not the only one sending mixed signals on this legislation. SF called a vote on it today and Labour refused to stand with them in opposing it. So much for all Rabbitte’s bluster of the past week.
Incidentally Maureen O’Sullivan didn’t oppose it either. That’s three times she’s let me down now and she hasn’t even been in there a month!
Oh and one more thing: Dermot Ahern admitted in a PQ reply today that there is no recorded evidence of juror as opposed to witness intimidation. Of course there wasn’t when the SCC was brought in in the 1970s either.
but being social democrat was their gig, whats the point of green policies otherwise?
are you trying to out cuffe cuffe? by playing up the internal dissent
steve, that’s a very good question you raise in the first part. As for the second one, I’m not playing it up one way or another merely pointing out the contradictions in their stances, from whatever quarter one seeks to choose to view them.
Wednesday, re #14 second para, that’s dispiriting. And re #15 that’s very telling indeed. So, yet again a solution for whch there is no known problem. BTW, witness protection on the other hand is a serious issue that requires considerable thought.
Does anyone doubt that this the motive of the government is to change the subject away from their economic incompetence and corruption and to a ‘who can be tougher on crime’ pissing competition, which they think they just might win?
Also. . .in his book on the Irish experience in the 20th century, Tim Pat Coogan has some comments on the early days of the Guards which may be relevant here. He notes that the force didn’t build up its legitimacy overnight, and that one of the ways in which they did get accepted by the people in the end resulted from the practice of billetting guards in local houses, especially in areas where the old RIC barracks had been burnt during the late unpleasantness. Coogan’s book is journalistic at best and anecdotal at worse, but he may have something there; what if members of the guards were posted for both work and residence in the areas affected by (dis)organised crime? Witness intimidation works because people regard the police and legal systems as remote from them, and uninterested in protecting them – what if those systems were not physically remote, but became instead a local resource?
DR X
On the first point you are spot on, crime is always seen as good for a few votes.
On the Guards, my grandparents lived in Edgeworthstown or Mostrim in Longford. As late as the 70’s the station was still called the ‘Barracks’. One night after a pub crawl with an uncle and a cousin who was a PSF member, the 2 of them started singing republican songs outside the barracks, which i think had 2 Guards living there. One song contained a line about ‘Free State Bastards’. They ended up by throwing up over the door. The Guards did’nt venture out. The next morning we were all woken up by the local telegram boy who said we had better get out of town quickly as the patrol car would be along to my grans in an hour to get the ‘Madman’ from Dublin, thats the cousin and ‘The English Fellow’ that was me, not that i had done anything. We left quickly over the fields for the railway station for the Dublin Train and a hair of the Dog in the Royal Oak on arrival.
Did they actually send the patrol car, or just the telegram boy? And have you thought of offering the story to Pat McCabe?
About the political uses of crime; does anyone remember the referendum on tightening the bail laws about a decade ago? Apparently the legislation required to put that into effect has still not seen the light of day. . .
Dr X
According to my Grandmother, next time i saw her they sent a Guard on foot, Drunk and Disorderly and damage to the door, that was after I got a severe telling off, in fact i had spent the night trying to stop them getting into fights. If there is money involved anyone can use the story.
Wednesday, you’d be very naive to think there were no cases of juror intimidation in the early 1970s.
Shane, there were probably no public meetings on crime by left-wing groups because they really have no idea how to deal with it. I share your frustration re the Limerick gangs. They are not a media invention, or thought up by Paul Williams. What would I do about them? I have no idea.
Could the powers of the Criminal Assets Bureau be modified in some way? There were reports of Limerick criminals swanning around in hugely expensive bullet-proof cars recently; couldn’t these have been seized, crushed, and then displayed in Limerick city centre?
And the same would go for the cars that other dealers drive round in.
Ferenka Fred, you’re welcome to put forward the evidence if you have it. Nobody else ever did.
I’m not a Guard; I don’t have the files stored in my house. However I know a few people who were in the IRA in the 1970s and they certainly did their best to collapse trials, including by ‘visiting’ jurors. In the North a few were shot, including I think a bus driver who was due to testify in a case involving the IRA. I’d like to believe that the right-wing make all this stuff up but armed organisations and criminals will do all they can to get off going to jail- it’s only natural. So socialists should have a more realistic approach to crime.
Firstly, “a bus driver who was due to testify in a case involving the IRA” is not a juror, but this is a classic example of how witness intimidation was – and is – used to justify non-jury trials when it obviously has nothing to do with non-jury trials.
Secondly, “I know a few people in the IRA” and “that’s what criminals do” are wholly insufficient as evidence when what we’re talking about is the abolition of a fundamental right. If it was happening enough to justify such a drastic move then you would think the Minister, who does have access to the files, would be able to point to at least one concrete example, wouldn’t you?
And finally, a few judges have been bumped off, maybe we should eliminate trial by judge as well eh.
wise the fuck up.
Keep it courteous Fred. You may have a difference of opinion. This isn’t the place to get belligerent. Look at our moderation policy.
sonofstan
. I’m not trying to paint Limerick as a place that you shouldn’t visit. I’d love to visit Baltimore too though. In fact,in comparison to the wire- with the exception of police inventing phoney serial killers you will probably find all the other plot lines there have played out here in some form or other. The wire starts with the killing of a state prosecution witness one of the key triggers for the demand for new legislation in Ireland now.
Unfortunately the 7000 on that march far exceed the combined attendances at all Limerick37 home matches this year. All our hopes are with Gaelic football these days
your line
it’s a hopeless, chaotic little world, but,perhaps unfortunately, it does way more damage to the communities it lives off than it ever does to anyone outside its immediate vicinity.
I presume, those communities you are talking about are the very ones that I refer to above. That letter is a story I have heard tell many times regards people forced out of city council estates here.
I agree with you that a certain type of journalist is using it as a stick to beat working class communities and more importantly make them feel disempowered. I fumed as one of them, a couple of years ago did his live to news report less than 100 yards from my door and spoke about how he was standing in the most dangerous parish in the most dangerous city in Europe blah blah. All the while kids were playing football just up the road as they always do.
However, I do feel that actions like the ones I described above are a little bit different to the ODC (ordinary decent criminal) brigade. I’m not sure about west Dublin but the Limerick variety is definitely very family orientated and in the case of the most menacing ones (now posting their death threats brazenly on youtube) very interlinked with a culture that has suffered from social prejudice but also is fiercely insular. I would have believed five years ago that the laws are there just use them, now I’m not so sure.
Wednesday, I think that is a good point and it is good to hear people putting it up to Ahern. However, back in 2003 there was a high profile murder case in Limerick. The judge eventually had to relocate the court to Dublin as over 700 people from the area were called but they failed to get a jury. Apparently there has been a similar trend to this in recent times resulting in way more than is normal having to be called. While I know this is not juror intimidation per se, it would make you wonder about the integrity and long term outcome for jury trials will be if such a situation persists.
The judge eventually had to relocate the court to Dublin
And how exactly was this an unsatisfactory alternative to eliminating jury trials altogether?
The main problem I have with the legislation is the notion that if a guard says someone is a gang member then that’s considered sufficient proof. Maybe other people have more faith in the word of the guards than I do but I recall that the guards “knew” Nicky Kelly was guilty, “knew” the McBreartys killed Richie Barron and “knew” Frank Short was allowing drugs to be sold on his premises. The use they made of such knowledge is the best argument against giving them extra powers.
I’d also like to see the main criminals in Limerick being nailed but they would presumably be replaced by other people. I can remember when the heroin problem in Dublin was ascribed almost solely to the Dunne family, when The General was supposed to be the great criminal mastermind in Dublin and when putting John Gilligan in jail was supposed to solve crime problems. This is the Paul Williams worldview where crime can be personalised and nailing a few high profile individuals solves the problem. It doesn’t of course and never will.
From my own experience I spent years covering courts for newspapers and found that, almost exclusively, the defendants come from the ranks of the poor, in fact from the poorest of the poor and have long family histories of dysfunction. In fact what left wing ideals I have come largely from that experience and seeing how blatantly the game is rigged against people at the bottom of the heap.
Life would obviously improve for people in the poorer parts of Limerick if these criminals were locked up. However, you would have to wonder why the problem was allowed to escalate to these proportions. It would seem to me the guards displayed a certain sang-froid until a couple of high profile killings where a rugby player and a local businessman were murdered. There was even a quote after one of those killings, from a local resident, “we don’t mind them killing each other but now they’ve started murdering decent people.”
We’ve structured society along the American model where there is the potential for the majority of people to live very comfortably but there is little political will to address the plight of those who live in poverty. Witness the fiasco of the regeneration of Croke Villas and O’Devaney Gardens. There is a general attitude that the “underclass” will just have to put up with their plight. Unfortunately this attitude means that certain areas in the bigger cities have become a kind of wasteland. The urgency the government shows, from time to time, in dealing with crime in those areas is in stark contrast to their lassitude in improving education, health or employment opportunities there. And while that continues crime will continue.
Shane,
I don’t think we’re disagreeing on anything much. My main issue is with the way the media treats this subject, and, while I don’t expect much from the red tops, it annoys me intensely that Paul Reynolds is allowed get away with being the unofficial spokesperson for the Garda press office while ostensibly working for the national, publicly funded broadcaster. it’s a recurrent problem in RTE; because we’re a small country, and their a small station, individual journalists establish the way certain fields are treated across radio and TV to the exclusion of dissenting or even differing viewpoints – it happened with the sainted George, and it’s happened with Reynolds.
Thus, crime is all about ‘organised criminal gangs’, ‘cold blooded hits’ by ‘ruthless assassins’ all delivered in tones of breathless teenage excitement. What’s even worse is that this is clearly how the cops see it: a big dangerous exciting shoot ‘em up. Eamonn has pretty much set out the class discourse at the root of this so I won’t repeat it: what was dispiriting today was on one of my rare purchases of the IT in order have something to read over coffee i came across the same tone in the report of the Campion conviction.
it annoys me intensely that Paul Reynolds is allowed get away with being the unofficial spokesperson for the Garda press office while ostensibly working for the national, publicly funded broadcaster
And I was annoyed with RTÉ that when Frank Dunlop was convicted of and later sentenced for a criminal offence, they did not send Breathless-With-The-Excitement-Of-It-All Reynolds to cover that story.
One crime journalism for the rich …
Nice point – and why are the words ‘organised criminal gang’ never used with regard to Anglo? oh, wait……not that organised either, really.
‘they’re’ not ‘their’ ……
>>>what was dispiriting today was on one of my rare purchases of the IT in order have something to read over coffee i came across the same tone in the report of the Campion conviction.
One simply must have something sensational to read with one’s morning cocaine, darling.