Interview with Tomás Mac Giolla in Hot Press… July 16, 2009
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Irish Politics, The Left, Uncategorized.107 comments
As ever I’m very grateful to the person who forwarded me this… It’s an interview in the latest edition of Hot Press with WP luminary Tomás Mac Giolla. And it’s quite a read covering the Aldershot bombing by the OIRA, the murder of Seamus Costello, the relationship with North Korea and the history of the WP from SF onwards.
The Aldershot bomb attack, carried out by
the Official IRA, killed five women and an army
priest at the 16th Parachute Brigade headquarters
back in 1972. As you were on the Army Council,
you must have had prior knowledge of what was
planned.
No. I didn’t. As soon as it was announced, Goulding
came to me to tell me what happened. It was a
total shock to me. He told me that they felt (it was
necessary) with all the pressure because of Bloody
Sunday and the fact that paratroopers were involved.
He felt that he should do something and he already
had a lot of information about Aldershot and a
number of other barracks in Britain. He had a lot of
people in England working for him on intelligence
and knew exactly what to do. He had somebody,
whom he praised greatly, do the job. He actually
went there in a car – with the bomb in the car – and
parked the car in the correct place up near the
officers’ mess. And got away.
Even in terms of the aims of the Official IRA at
the time, that bomb was a disaster, killing more
civilians than military personal.
Unfortunately we didn’t have the expertise of the
Provos in bomb-making. The timing was something
like 10 or 15 minutes out and the bomb went off too
soon. It got all the people who were serving up the
grub. In another 10 minutes the officers would have
been in there sitting down. Anyway, he told me that
story and said that he was sorry. He always opposed
bombs. He said he was totally against bombs because
they’re always indiscriminate.
Were further bombs planned?
He was assuring me that there was no question of
more bombs or anything. It was a one-off. He had the
intelligence and he had the guy who could do it. And
he did it, but he made a fucking mess of his timing.
It was the old 1940s system – the old alarm clock type
of bomb. The Provos were the bombers; we weren’t
bombers. But, in any case, it was a dreadful result
altogether because we did exactly the same as the
Provos were doing – killing innocent civilians.
Do you know who planted the bomb?
I never heard the name of the person… But I was
furious. We were the Workers’ Party and we blow up
the workers – the girls serving. I think there were five
or six. It was a shock to Cathal as well. He explained
to me why he did it and what he did. I said, ‘OK, I’ll
forget about it’. So, I just forgot about it – or did the
best I could to forget about it.
…
Can you shed any light on the assassination of
Costello?
Until a good while after, I was quite certain that
it was his own crowd. There was great bitterness
developing in the INLA at the time, which eventually
erupted into a battle between the Army Council
and the Headquarters. There was big differences of
opinion there. But then I discovered, after that, a
certain gentleman boasting of it up in the North!
…
After leaving Sinn Fein, you then went on to
establish The Workers’ Party, which is no longer
a political force. You must be very saddened by
that?
I’m a bit pissed off. The people that voted for us
are still not voting for anybody else. In fact, we had
a new class to describe (our voters): the underclass.
The underclass were never heard of until we came
into force. Suddenly there was an underclass. Not the
working class – but the underclass. The funny thing
about Obama is, his campaign was the first time in
America that class was brought into it. They don’t
recognise the working class over there, but they don’t
recognise the underclass here.
The party was always accused of having a
Stalinist ideology.
Stalinist was the big thing against us. Stalin died
in 1953. We hadn’t a clue about Stalin. That media
thing – a bias against the Workers’ Party – didn’t
work in election time because the working class
people knew that we stood with them. And we were
doing the things they wanted us to do – whether it
was housing issues or reform and so on. That’s what
they voted for. The same thing happened in every
town. It happened in Cork. It happened in Galway.
It happened in Dublin. It happened in Waterford
and up in Dundalk. We had Donegal and Mayo as
well. We got a couple of councillors in the North. The
working class areas understood exactly what we were
talking about. It was expanding at a great rate.
…
How annoyed were you with De Rossa when he
formed Democratic Left?
Absolutely furious. I knew him for 30 years. I knew
him since he was a young fella. He never had one
question about any part of our policies. Never! He
was at Ard Chomhairle meetings and everything
– and he never questioned anything we did. He
never gave even the slightest indication that he was
opposed to what we were doing. I was over 65 and the
funny thing was that my father died at 65 and my
mother died at the age of 63. I always felt that I’d be
lucky if I got through my 60s. I was 69 – coming up
to my 70th birthday. That’s basically why I decided
to get out, but anyway when I resigned he was
automatically elected (leader). He was in the Dáil
with me at the time. He was very prominent and
he did everything correctly in the Dáil. So, when it
happened it really shocked me because it transpired
that they’d been having meetings in the Dail that I
didn’t even know about!
Who was having meetings and why?
There were six of us (Workers’ Party) TDs there
– five of them were meeting secretly. I didn’t know
a thing about it. To me, the whole thing was total
treachery. Absolute, total treachery. And very
deviously done. I began to see the coming together of
the press and the other political parties, in particular
Ruairí Quinn, and also Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. All
delighted to get rid of this ‘dreadful’ party. The whole
thing was organised for a couple of years, at least,
before it happened. That’s one thing that gets me
down. That was why Ruairí Quinn acted so fast. We
(The Workers’ Party) had seven TDs – we were about
to have 10 in the following election. We had three
seats coming up for us. And this would have seen
the end of the Labour Party. Ruairí Quinn could see
it coming.
The former Labour leader Pat Rabbitte and
his successor Eamon Gilmore were among the
Workers’ Party TDs at the time.
I’d written Rabbitte off a long time ago. Rabbitte,
I can’t stand. Rabbitte nearly destroyed the Labour
Party. And now they put in Eamon Gilmore! Are you
listening to Gilmore? All they’re saying is how bad
this government is. He’s afraid to mention the word
tax. Absolutely afraid to mention it. He had a full
quarter of an hour on the radio yesterday and he
never mentioned one idea about how the government
would get more money. And all the things he asks
them to do require more money. And more money
and fucking more money. And he hasn’t one idea
where to get the bloody thing. But, anyway, I had no
time for Rabbitte at any stage. I don’t think he has
anything genuine about him. He’s good with the
media and the smart aleck remarks and that. But I
trusted De Rossa to the limit. I was sure that I knew
him – that I knew him well. We went back a long
time. 30 years. I knew him since the time he was 17.
He was one of us. Himself and Rabbitte had done the
dirty in any case.
….
Why did the party have links with North Korea?
We were in touch with them when the partition
took place. We compared each other with being
partitioned north and south. This was an example of
when Britain split a country in two: the Americans
thought they could do the same – and they did.
There’s more… well worth a read…
The Green Party blink… why? July 16, 2009
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Irish Politics.add a comment
The party last night voted against the Government for the first time since the administration was formed in 2007, when its two Senators rejected a guillotining of the final stage of the controversial Criminal Justice Amendment Bill.
Senators Dan Boyle and Deirdre de Burca also abstained in the final vote when the Bill was passed by 35 votes to 7, with the support of Fine Gael. The Greens voted against the Government motion to take the report or final stage last night rather than allowing extra time today but it was accepted by 24 to 20 votes.
Okay, so small party of government votes against the Government on the issue of seeking more time to review the legislation and abstains on the actual legislation. Not entirely cost free, but largely painless as a way of demonstrating at least some divergence from the larger party. How interesting that this should happen now. It’s easy to ascribe the upcoming meeting, to be held in private no less, on LIsbon and the renewed Programme for Government for putting a bit of steel in the spine of the Green Party yesterday.
But it wasn’t much steel. Because as ever their hesitancy in striking, unwillingness to draw back is causing them problems. I’ve heard an explanation for their stance on numerous issues while in government as being due to their lack of numbers at Cabinet and therefore a need to concentrate on their direct areas.
So, why have they changed here.
It’s been clear for some time that there were genuine concerns over this legislation. I mentioned how Ciaran Cuffe referenced it a short while ago, and noted at the time that their doing one thing while saying another approach continued to dog them.
Still, I hear that the party is seething over this. Well, that’s predictable. Apparently they expected Ahern to say something as regards the Bill. What that something was doesn’t take a genius to work out… Dan Boyle’s statements implied…
Mr Boyle, the party chairman, said afterwards that the Greens were unhappy with assurances given by Minister for Justice Dermot Ahern about how the review of the legislation would be conducted in 12 months time.
Okay. So they sought such assurances to be made publicly by Ahern. And he didn’t deliver them.
What’s ensued has been an object lesson in how tricky such matters can be. Because the media, for some weeks now, or at least since the local and by-elections, have been quite starved of interesting material on the political front.
Does this seem pre-meditated? Hard to say. GP people seemed to be completely taken unawares by it. That, of course, means nothing. The rhetoric, though, is something else. And here is where the ‘not entirely cost free’ aspect comes into play. Dan Boyle indicated that this was in part about Fianna Fáil recognising that the Green Party shouldn’t be ‘taken for granted’. But I think the personalisation of the dispute is something again. It is one thing to have a policy disagreement. The weight of numbers that FF has invariably points to two possible conclusions to such disputes. Either the Green Party acquiesces, or it walks. I’ve had little doubt that their preference has been – obviously – to avoid the latter course. But that’s policy which can be seen as being above personality. The Green Party may dislike cuts, it may find certain programmes or policies distasteful or difficult to accept, although accept it does. But there is a neutrality about such matters. Whereas if the Green Party finds Dermot Ahern a problem… well, that’s a different situation entirely. Because Fianna Fáil won’t find Dermot Ahern a problem, perhaps quite the opposite. And then to attack Ahern is to attack… well, we can all see how this plays out.
“We’re not going to be taken for granted, we’re not going to be assumed to be lobby fodder, and our participation in Government is to be there as active participants to make the difficult decisions that have to be made.”
Mr Boyle said was not seeking “heads to roll,” but yesterday he acknowledged that the Greens had an “ongoing difficulty” with Mr Ahern and justice legislation.
And…
“This is building for a long time. It has to do with a particular relationship. It has to do with how policy in a particular area is progressing and our ongoing discomfort with that.”
He said he did not know if Mr Ahern was being deliberately provocative but “the effect of his actions is not to properly recognise our concerns on this and other legislation and we feel we had to send a clear signal as to how we feel the quality of that relationship has to improve”.
He denied their vote was anything to do with the party’s conference on Saturday to deal with their approach to the Lisbon Treaty referendum and a review of the programme for government. A lot of the damage had “already been done” to the party through legislation such as the Defamation Bill, and on student loans. He said on the relationship with Fianna Fáil that “we can’t honestly say that that exists to a level that we’d like”.
He said they were looking for a “robust, quite stringent procedure of review”. He said they wanted a clear statement about how the review would take place because “it’s obviously a Bill that has serious connotations on whether rights are affected or not. How the justice committee would be involved and how there was confidence that it would be subject to constant questioning as to whether it compromised the rights of all citizens or not.”
Mr Boyle said they were looking for a stronger set of safeguards. He said the party leadership was aware of their move.
And Minister Eamon Ryan certainly came out supporting that statement..
The Minister for Energy, Eamon Ryan, has expressed his full support for the stance his Green Party colleagues in the Seanad took, in abstaining on a vote on the Criminal Justice Bill.
Mr Ryan rejected suggestions of a rift within the Greens and insisted there was no “major divide” between party members.
Let’s wait until the weekend before testing the absolute veracity of that statement – although I suspect he’s correct.
And yet what Ryan said was curiously phrased…
Speaking outside an event in Dublin today, Minister Ryan said: ” I’ve listened to my colleague Dan Boyle from the Seanad this morning on the radio and what he said was right.
“It’s unfortunate that we came to it [THE BILL] with what we thought were very good suggestions and proposals that could help this legislation and there wasn’t an ability to agree on that, and Dan felt and Deirdre that they wanted to make a statement in that regard.”
“So I fully support them. You know we work collectively in Government for the good of this country and we’re determined to continue doing that.”
They ‘wanted to make a statement’? Isn’t that a curiously off-hand way of putting it. Not least because the Cabinet presumably signed off on the legislation before Boyle or de Burca got a sniff of it. Meanwhile a grateful nation will be delighted to hear that:
…there was no divide at the cabinet table.
Well, as was put to me, perhaps that means that instead they’re united in their dislike for our beloved Minister for Justice. But really, does that statement stand up to serious scrutiny? What was the vote about? What is the process about?
And beyond such puzzles, what of Dermot Ahern himself?
Fascinating it it not how he has become a lightning rod for all that is contentious about this administration beyond the economic front in the space of a short number of weeks. What with blasphemy and now non-jury trials he has been quietly – up to now – been burnishing his credentials as a populist of the right. Being seen to provoke a dispute with the Green Party is no harm either in the longer term. And he surely has to be looking at the longer term as a possible replacement to Cowen.
Two other thoughts, I was intrigued to see the following referenced in an earlier report…
Mr Boyle, the party chairman, said afterwards that the Greens were unhappy with assurances given by Minister for Justice Dermot Ahern about how the review of the legislation would be conducted in 12 months time.
“We wanted the balance to be measured appropriately and wanted to avoid a situation that existed with previous legislation like the Prevention of Terrorism Act where these things went through automatically on the nod every 12 months.” The Bill provides for non-jury Special Criminal Court trials for criminal gangs and for the evidence of serving gardaí or former gardaí of any rank to give expert evidence as to the existence of such gangs.
Which of course would explain why the Green Party moved from voting while in opposition against the Offences Against the State Act each time it was brought forward for renewal to voting for it in government.
And… what of…
Fine Gael Seanad leader Frances Fitzgerald [who] described the Green move as “a pathetic gesture from a discredited and directionless Green party”.
“If they are not going to support the Government why don’t they just pull out of government,” she added.
True, true. Worth noting that Fine Gael voted for the legislation.
What a laugh we had when I was made redundant… me and the missus… July 15, 2009
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Uncategorized.26 comments
Reading Sarah Carey today at lunch my jaw sort of dropped because here was an article discussing unemployment and redundancy as if they somehow crept in under the banner of ‘lifestyle’. Surprising that? Well, perhaps not for the Irish Times in the contemporary period, but nonetheless…
I know a few high-powered female executives but the definite trend was that as women aged, they opted out of high-risk, high-pressure jobs.
Sometimes the corporate flight was the natural consequence of allowing a career to take second place to child rearing. Mostly, having gotten a taste of freedom from job pressures during maternity leave, the arguments for resuming full-time corporate slavery seemed weaker the longer one stayed outside the mainstream system. Children were a reason, but sometimes an excuse to get off the treadmill.
Non-mothers too, tired of the macho world of pointless testosterone-fuelled boardroom squabbles, left to pursue other paths that earned less money and less stress. Of course, the option of marrying a man with a good job helped broaden the options for women. But that’s not the kind of thing you’re supposed to say out loud.
Anyway, here’s our dirty little secret – whether down-shifting or opting out – life is great. We are masters of our universe. Whether working from home or in the home, women have discovered the joys of autonomy. Not completely of course – bills still have to be paid, deadlines obeyed and the insatiable needs of children to be met. But there are no tortuous Monday morning management meetings, no hellish commutes, no power point presentations and no angry clients.
And the problem being?
Now it’s all been ruined with these husbands hanging around at home.
And, with but a bare nod towards what I tentatively call reality… she goes…
Leaving aside the financial strain, an alien creature has invaded the house. It reminds one of the soaring divorce rate among older couples in Japan where a retired husband shows up and a 30-year marriage ends. Ireland’s unemployed husbands may not be facing abandonment but are finding their wives aren’t exactly thrilled about unlimited quality time.
Leaving aside the financial strain..? How and for who is that possible? Who can seriously ‘leave aside the financial strain’, and even strain seems too petty a word. I still have work but I’m seriously worried about the future and at a time in life when outgoings have suddenly shot up for one reason and another. I know from talking to friends and acquaintances that I’m far from alone in that worry. And for those who don’t have work, who have lost it… well, the situation is much much worse.
Anyhow, cue x number of words on the thigh slapping subject of a man and a woman, for it is in this article a world exclusively made up of couples who are men and women, pushed together by economic circumstance.
The last thing an efficient housewife needs is the presence of a man who is irritated by cleaning or worse, offers helpful suggestions as to the better improvement of household management. You can see how otherwise stable relationships based on spouses spending most of their time apart are going to have trouble adjusting to daily companionship.
So what are wives supposed to do? Tread carefully. Producing lists of DIY projects and gardening jobs is tempting but we are dealing with sensitive souls. Of the men and women I know who have been made redundant, men take it much harder. Women see it as an escape; an opportunity to start something new whether it is minding their own children or retraining for a long abandoned dream.
Three women I know have been made redundant in the last month and each is delighted. They got good packages and see themselves as being set free rather than rejected. The men are not so sure.
Now, I’m perhaps not quite in the exalted bracket that she is in terms of knowing people, particularly women, who can blithely slip from work to home with little more concern than the fact that there happens to be an extra body around the house. But I do happen to know women who have been made redundant in the past year. And from talking with them it is very clear that far from this being an happy event it was a profoundly difficult time which for those unable to find new work has continued. Perhaps the women I know who work are different to those she does. And that’s fair enough. It takes all sorts.
Then there is the implicit message, which strikes me as pretty reactionary, that women working in or from the home are engaged in a humour-ish conspiracy to hide their indolence. And that’s an annoying trope in its own way.
But… this article drips complacency, a complacency very different to what I’m hearing from couples who find the hours each day ‘rattling around the house’, as its been put to me, and wondering how they will manage to pay the mortgage and bills and look after families as the recession lengthens.
And while I don’t doubt there’s a kernel of truth in the observation that different social roles generate different responses I can’t help but feel, again from knowing people going through this process that when she argues that…
Women resigned themselves a long time ago to being judged on non-revenue generation issues like the shine on their hair or granite worktop, so unemployment doesn’t affect their self-esteem as badly as it does men’s. Accustomed to being judged, by society and themselves, on their ability to provide, men have a harder time adjusting to a day without formal socialisation, structure or status. For those who defined themselves by their jobs, life with nothing to do seems bleak. The men who will cope best are those who realise that a valuable life can be lived without a monetary value being placed on it.
…she is ignoring the basic fact that it’s not the ‘monetary value’ of life that is central, although for some that’s hugely important, but the fear that one will be unable to financially make it into the future.
I don’t know. This all seems to me to be missing the point. Just getting by is such a trial. Redundancy is a terribly scarring process for everyone involved. You don’t have to come close to ‘defining yourself by your job’ to recognise that losing the central focus of a working life is something a bit beyond ‘monetary’ value. Friendships, social networks, the very structure of life is irrevocably fractured. Perhaps I’m overly sensitive to this issue having been though the experience five years ago. But, surely events of such seriousness deserve something a bit more than this?
Mature recollection and the Governor of the Central Bank. July 15, 2009
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Economy, Irish Politics.2 comments
Entertaining piece in yesterday’s Irish Times where John Hurley, the Governor of the Central Bank at the publication of the 2008 Report of that august institution promoted, as ever, the new orthodoxy that public expenditure cuts good, tax cuts not so good.
“Experience, both here and overseas, suggests that the best way to restore fiscal balance is to place more emphasis on reducing expenditure rather than increasing taxation. Therefore, while some broadening of the tax base is necessary, it is desirable that the primary focus of fiscal-consolidation measures should be on reductions in public spending,” he said.
Anyhow, we keep tramping over that ground, and no doubt we’ll do so again. A more specifically interesting issue is in relation to his thoughts…
Mr Hurley, who will step down from his role at the end of September, said his warnings about the risks to the country’s banking system and the State’s reliance on property-related taxes were unheeded.
“The warnings were set out by me pretty clearly,” Mr Hurley told journalists in Dublin today, adding that “behavior didn’t change.”
That’s interesting because in a piece in the Irish Times in March John McManus begged to differ noting that:
ONE WOULD have hoped for better, but unless he has been seriously misrepresented or misquoted, John Hurley’s comments to the Joint Committee on Economic Regulatory Affairs amounts to hand-washing of breathtaking proportions.
And that:
On several occasions in the course of the committee hearing last week, the governor of the Central Bank said he and his officials gave clear and unambiguous warnings about the dangers inherent in the bank’s property-lending practices but they fell on deaf ears.
Here is one such example: “Time and again I pointed out that the interaction between an international and a domestic shock could have serious consequences for the economy.
“Time and again we indicated that debt levels were growing too fast and too strongly and that we could not continue building 70,000 to 90,000 houses.
“Our financial stability reports received a great deal of publicity. They were prepared jointly with the regulator and published. There was no hiding the message in the financial stability reports: they were public documents.
“I regularly gave press conferences, speeches and interviews in regard to these risks but behaviour did not change.”
McManus, though, points to a rather different dynamic…
There are several aspects to all this that raise a few eyebrows. The first is the disconnect between the governor’s recollection and reality.
Rather than shout its warning from the rooftops as Hurley suggests, the Central Bank embedded warnings in various texts and speeches over the year, but they were by and large characterised as worst-case scenarios set against a relatively benign outlook.
The 2007 stability report – the bank’s last big set-piece published just as the credit storm was breaking – is a case in point. It contained plenty of warnings but also the following: “Regarding
the main domestic development, the significant easing in residential house price growth has reduced some of the key concerns noted in last year’s report. . .“Regarding future house price developments, factors such as investors’ participation in the property market, the sustainability of current rates of immigration, the future direction of monetary policy and the performance of the labour market are all important. The underlying fundamentals of the residential market continue to appear strong. The central scenario is, therefore, for a soft, rather than a hard, landing.”
Nothing there to make you think the bank was anticipating Armageddon.
And even in my own recollection of the period it is remarkable how marginalised the voices that argued there were problems ahead due to structural problems in our economy were. That some of us, including the left (for the most part), didn’t buy into the low taxation model is small comfort.
McManus is even more scathing when he notes that…
The second point Hurley made was that the structure of the Irish Central Bank and Financial Services Regulatory Authority – to give the Central Bank its full name – was such that even though he sat on top of the pile as the governor of the organisation, he was not in a position to influence its regulatory wing, the Financial Regulator, which had the power to rein in the banks’ lending.
The clear inference here being that this part of his organisation – led by its former chief executive Patrick Neary – ignored his warnings and dropped the ball.
And he argues that…
Hurley’s assertion that he could do nothing but sit back and watch while Neary blew up the Irish banking system is equally preposterous.
No fewer than seven of the 12 members of the board of the Irish Central Bank and Financial Services Regulatory Authority sit on the board of the Financial Regulator.
They include the director general of the Central Bank, Tony Grimes, and Mary O’Dea, the acting chief executive of the Financial Regulator who has taken Neary’s place.
The others are Jim Farrell, who is the chairman of the Financial Regulator, John Dunne, Gerard Danaher, Alan Gray and Deirdre Purcell.
In fact, Central Bank directors hold seven of the nine seats on the board of the Financial Regulator, known as the authority.
It’s little short of nonsense to suggest that these individuals would quietly and impotently fulminate against reckless lending while wearing their Central Bank hats and blithely sit back while the banks run riot when wearing their Financial Regulator hats.
Well. Fancy that.
The “productive sector of the economy” speaks… again. July 15, 2009
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Economy, Irish Politics.9 comments
The Sunday Business Post editorial is at it again, doing a bit of cheerleading on behalf of private enterprise. And in a way why should one criticise that – the clue, after all, is in the name… except… the terms on which they conduct said cheerleading…
It’s a sort of spiders crawl of a piece that goes hither and yon… like so…
Government fiat will not bring Ireland out of this recession.
Erm… okay.
Irresponsible strikes by spoiled trade unions will not save jobs. Resolutions at conventions will not create a single job. Only a reinvigorated private sector will generate growth and jobs sustainably and efficiently.
Well, to a point. It’s not just the private sector which can generate jobs. And even growth isn’t limited to it. One of the most striking lessons from considering our economic history prior to the the 1970s is how it was precisely at the points where the state in the Republic took the initiative to engage actively in the economy that some, albeit limited, growth occurred. Even before Lemass the support by the first Inter-Party Coalition for the establishment of a range of semi-state bodies and Bords and a rather parsimonious, but nonetheless real, expenditure by the state saw mild growth and jobs. Why this stands out is because of the poor record of Irish private enterprise to step up of its own accord for much of the period of Independence (and it’s also interesting to note the deflationary policies pursued by Fianna Fáil when they returned to office in 1951 and what impact they had on the economy for the remainder of that decade).
Anyhow the SBP has a solution, or two…
The government needs to do two things: it needs to fix the undeserving banks using future and current taxpayers’ money that could be usefully employed elsewhere, but now must be invested to re-establish a functioning banking system.
It also needs to reduce public spending so that the state can live within its means.
All eminently predictable, one could argue reasonable from the perspective of the SBP, albeit note that it admits that the ‘fix’ will drain ‘taxpayers’ money’. I thought the socialisation of risk/privatisation of profit jibe about the banking sector was overheated the first couple of times I heard it. No more. It’s as precise an encapsulation of the facts as one could wish for.
Then, it needs to get out of the way and let the productive sector of the economy generate growth and jobs. While the government is getting out of the way, it can stop to ask what it can do to help, but not for very long.
At which point I stop and wonder. The ‘productive sector’ of the economy. The SBP has used this formulation before, but repetition doesn’t allow it to evade crassness.
It is the network of state and semi-state bodies which functions as the support across almost all areas that one can think of to generate the conditions within which private enterprise can function. You want a functioning infrastructure, an educated workforce, no need to pay out large sums (as is the case for significant sectors of the US private sector) on health care for employees, security, a regulatory framework within which business can be conducted and so forth. You’re going to get none of those things on a societal scale from the private sector. You can’t. Unless we completely remould our society in ways which would be both unappealing to the majority of our citizens and arguably untenable to the private sector as well.
Of course it’s not just the private sector which generates growth. Entities such as the ESBI operate within the public sector but create profits and growth. Remarkable. So an alternative formulation is necessary.
Although oddly, talking of alternatives…
It is high time that we were honest with ourselves in the current debate. Ireland has been a massive beneficiary of late 20th century and early 21st century capitalism.
We have been huge winners from globalisation, and increasing free trade allows us to specialise and export freely. IT has made us one of the wealthiest countries in the world. If we adopt the correct policies now to extricate ourselves from a classic property bust, we can make the system work for us again.
The alternative, as proposed by many on the left, to reinvent our society as a statist, permanently highly taxed Hibernian Sweden would be a monumental folly.
Does anyone really think huge levels of taxation and a massively active state would improve life in Ireland? The state’s record of delivering services through huge statist monoliths such as the Health Service Executive (HSE) is patchy, to say the least.
Well, two obvious responses can be made to that. Firstly we may well have been winners, although that has been overstated. One of the fundamental problems has been that while incomes went up they went up in no small measure due to decreased taxes and a narrowing tax base and in doing so paved the way for economic unsustainability when the economy went south. Secondly we are most definitely losers now with our futures in hock to refinancing the financial sector, our public services to be reduced markedly and so forth. The ‘gains’ of the boom appear, at this point, to be rather thinner than was advertised. The losses much greater than was ever feared. And while the SBP editorial writer may demur at the idea of Ireland becoming a sort of Sweden on the half-shell, which is probably as good as it would get, there’s more than a few of us who would find that in such circumstances life would improve considerably for many people given universal health, education and other services. Of course, it could be that the editorial writer, rather like GW Bush quipping about seeing his base before him at a conservative fundraiser during his Presidency, is writing to a small and select crew.
As regards the state’s record on such matters, the idea that the HSE is a ‘statist monolith’ when one surveys the chaos of our part public part private health system seems little more than a joke, on us. But one could also profitably enquire as to whether a Health Minister whose affiliation was not with the economic right might serve us better than the present incumbent.
Much of the play-acting at the Ictu conference – such as celebrating ‘50 years of the Cuban revolution’ – can be dismissed as harmless playing to the gallery. But when its president declares that it is ‘‘time for the trade union movement to go on the offensive’’, then we need to take notice.
There are certainly things that we can learn from the past 18months.We deluded ourselves with a mania for property of all types.
We allowed our banks to do and lend as they pleased, without regard for the consequences either for themselves or the wider economy. And we allowed the public sector to become unsustainably expensive.
But to use the economic crisis to reject a system based on markets which, though regulated, are as free as possible would be to compound the errors a hundredfold.
Apocalyptic stuff.
What’s entertaining is that the editorial continues:
It doesn’t matter what government is in power – any administration would have to take these two steps [refinance banks, cut expenditure]. The opposition knows this as much as the present government; neither group has demonstrated that they have the courage or the ability to do so.
But the editorial writer, unless unbelievably naive also knows what I’ve noted above. And hasn’t demonstrated that s/he has the courage to attest to basic facts in this editorial.
Keep ‘em busy… those Fine Gael policy committees. July 14, 2009
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Irish Politics.2 comments
Entertaining to read how Fine Gael is dealing with the pressures of an overly restless soldiery, now champing at the bit to take power albeit in an electoral context where the next election is at least half a year away and perhaps, should the Coalition weather the Budget storm (and Lisbon) some multiples of that figure. This disconnect between what the largest opposition party says it wants and what is politically achievable has become more and more stark in the past two weeks. Some of you may have missed the fact that the Dáil shut down for business last week. The Seanad follows suit next week. And… that’s it. For the Summer.
Nor is anything very drastic likely to happen when it returns in the late Summer/early Autumn. Again, not until Lisbon and the Budget. Surely, the Green party may face troubles with their revised and revisited Programme for Government. Or they may not, and I’d bet the latter.
So what’s ‘the largest party’ (copyright…various political pieces in June) in the country not actually in Government to do? Particularly with their new star?
THREE INTERNAL policy committees have been set up by Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny in preparation for the next general election.
Dún Laoghaire TD Seán Barrett will head a candidate selection committee, Cork South-Central TD Simon Coveney chairs a policy committee and a communications committee will be led by Senator Frances Fitzgerald.
Newly-elected Dublin South TD and former RTÉ journalist George Lee has been given responsibility for a business and economic forum. It will report to the policy committee on ideas submitted by business groups and the public concerning ideas for job-creation and the economy.
The party’s chief economist, Andrew McDowell, has been promoted to head of research and will work with the new committees.
One could argue that at least they have the virtue of doing something – albeit there is a certain irony in the creation of new roles and responsibilities, granted entirely unpaid, by those who appear to argue that everywhere else there should be either freezes or cutbacks. But… the detail, what’s the detail?
The various groups will be overseen by a steering committee chaired by Mr Kenny. Ultimate responsibility for policymaking will remain with the party’s front bench.
So what again is the point? Now perhaps this is actually quite clever. One forum in particular might have a further virtue of keeping the newest star high in the media heaven. While retaining the front bench status quo ante.
All this is on foot of a meeting in the Burlington Hotel at the end of June. Apparently…
Senior Fine Gael sources said there was “a feeling within the parliamentary party that they were being left outside the consultation process” and that there was “a lack of connectivity” between the party administration and TDs and Senators.
This revolved around the issue of comments made by senior party official Frank Flannery shortly before the European elections which indicated a softening of Fine Gael’s traditional atttitude to coalition with Sinn Féin.
There was said to be “a lot of annoyance” and “a lot of disquiet” at Mr Flannery’s intervention which was seen as having damaged the party in electoral terms at a delicate stage.
Well, Flannery fell upon, or was gently pushed towards, his sword. And I’m not sure his words had a massive impact. Did that genuinely stay the hand of any Fine Gael member, supporter or voter? Or did it dissuade any Fianna Fáil voter thinking of giving FG a go? Does that seem likely?
And what of this intriguing comment, which reeks of ‘on the one hand… but… on the other’…
The communications committee, with Senator Fitzgerald and TDs David Stanton and Damien English, is being established because of a feeling that the party’s policies in certain areas, such as health, need to be publicised more widely and on a more sustained basis, although this is not a reflection on health spokesman Dr James Reilly.
Okay, I guess being pedantic one might argue that Reilly (who some think is actually quite good as a Dáil performer) is constrained by the Dáil. But…
Note the IT is filled with optimism about an earlier election…
Senior party sources said a general election could take place as early as November, in the event that Fianna Fáil and the Greens fail to agree on the next budget. Otherwise, an election within the next 18 months is seen as a strong possibility.
Why 18 months? If the Government survives the Budget then there will be no pressing reason to go the country, and indeed many others not to do so. They can wait out the remaining three years from now that their term encompasses and hope that during that period economic activity stabilises and we experience growth, and then… then they’ll be able to point to how they remained calm when all around… etc.
Indeed Backroom in the Sunday Business Post makes explicitly this point…
ronically, it is the opposition that faces more strategic questions than the government. Rumour has it that the Taoiseach has been enjoying himself since the poll drubbing.
After all, [Cowen] isn’t obliged to face the electorate again until 2012 which, in political terms, is a lifetime away. To add to that, his government seems more stable too. So bad was the government’s drubbing last month that it is unlikely that any of his coalition partners or backbenchers will want to precipitate an early encounter with the electorate.
So look forward three years from now. Let’s say that the economy is beginning to show some signs of life. Cowen will boom that his government took the tough decisions to chisel this recovery from the worst depression ever seen. He will claim that Fine Gael and Labour opposed everything the government had done right. The public might just well tell him to get stuffed, but it might not. If things are getting better for the first time in years, will the public want to change the hand on the tiller?
The opposition therefore faces two challenges. It will be risky to move away from the positioning that served them well in the local elections – why alienate anybody by being clearer about where their cuts will come? But it will also be risky to remain on the current path for fear that Cowen gets the credit for turning things around.
But I think the most revealing comment is back in the Irish Times…
There is said to be a strong feeling in the parliamentary party that, “just being an Opposition party isn’t enough, people want to know what Fine Gael has to offer”.
Byelections and local elections are great. In a sense they are the perfect simplification of political messages down to their bare bones. To a large extent it becomes ‘I’m for FG, or agin FF’ (and consider again the likelihood that Flannery’s words seriously impacted on that dynamic). But… politics in the long periods between contests is a completely different matter.
A conversation with Roma Marquez Santo… veteran of the Spanish Civil War July 13, 2009
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Uncategorized.61 comments
Many thanks to the person who forwarded the above along and also to them for the brief accompanying description…
Roma Marquez is a 93-year old Catalan who joined the POUM militia on the outbreak of the generals’ revolt in July ’36 and who later joined the anarchist militia after the POUM were suppressed.
He spent several years in prison after the war and returned to live in BCN where he has remained politically active.
RDE Strikes Again…She’s Bad! July 13, 2009
Posted by Garibaldy in Irish History, Music.75 comments
Saw this via a thread on P.ie. A Ruth Dudley Edwards classic. You simply must admire the sheer perversity of thought that can come up with such a column.
The Irish Left Archive: Anarchist Worker from the Anarchist Workers Alliance, October/November 1979 July 13, 2009
Posted by irishonlineleftarchive in Irish Left Online Document Archive, Uncategorized, Workers Solidarity Movement.16 comments
Here is a very welcome addition to the Archive, our first sample of anarchist material. It is a fascinating piece dating from October/November 1979. This is I believe also available on the Workers Solidarity Movement website.
It expresses a broad range of concerns, from the necessity for a public housing programme given the front page story which details how the Mansion House was squatted (successfully) by families from East Wall unable to get Corporation housing, a strongly secular approach to education, an emphatic pro-union stance (albeit for an independent union run directly by workers free of the official apparatus) – and note the mention of the CNT. There is also a double page spread on Anarchism and Religion which uses as its starting point the then recent visit of the Pope. All this builds into a coherent ideological approach which is simultaneously rooted in workers struggles on the ground. And with that in mind note the piece on the last page which criticises INLA punishment shootings.
I’m indebted to Alan MacSimon for the following observations…
Anarchist Worker published in the late 1970s/early 1980s and can be regarded as one of the forerunners of the Workers Solidarity Movement. It existed in Belfast and Dublin but was always more of an idea than a reality, with membership never going into double figures! If I remember correctly the print run was about 750.
You can find out more about the WSM here.
