What is Santa Bringing You This Year? And What Are You Getting Other People? December 19, 2011
Posted by Garibaldy in Capitalism.22 comments
As per usual, I’ve done no Christmas shopping as yet, nor have I given any thought as to what I would like to receive from the beardy red himself.
Giving it some thought now, apart from the new edition of LookLeft, Fearghal McGarry’s Rebels: Voices from the Easter Rising seems like it would be a fascinating and enjoyable read, while Richard Gott’s Britain’s Empire: Resistance, Repression and Revolt looks interesting, although possibly bad for the blood pressure for various reasons. I’ve already read Sins of the Father, as I presume pretty much all of us have, otherwise that would be at the top of the list. I don’t have a BluRay player, otherwise I’d be spending Xmas morning, afternoon and evening watching Star Wars on BluRay, and there’s no films I missed in the cinema or on TV I feel I ought to own on DVD. I saw both Game of Thrones and the Killing during the year as well, so no must-have TV series. On the plus side, Christmas is a Sunday this year, so there’s a present all in itself 
Anybody got any suggestions on either end?
A poll, a new poll, an interesting new poll… December 19, 2011
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Economy, Irish Politics, The Left.12 comments
And so we are treated to a poll, a Sunday Times poll no less, and fascinating reading it makes. According to RTÉ:
Fine Gael support is down seven points since the last Sunday Times poll eight weeks ago, to 30%, while Labour loses four points to 11%.
Fianna Fáil support is up five to 20%, although the party is still behind Sinn Féin, up two points to 21%; independents and others are the other big winners, up four points, to 18%.
A few obvious thoughts. Is the palpable failure of ‘austerity’ feeding into these figures? Probably not given that the most recent reports of economic slowdown arrived in a cluster at the end of the week, but troubling for the Government, and indeed the champions of the orthodoxy when they do begin to impact.
Why are the Green Party, a party without national representation still recorded separately in the opinion poll? One wonders what the results would be if it were ULA, or Socialist Party, or People Before Profit, all of which have members actually in the Dáil, and significantly greater local represenation than the Green Party. Indeed the skewing effects of asking about the GP are potentially so great – after all 3 per cent is margin of error that it’s hard not to see this as profoundly negative.
Thirdly, Fianna Fáil sits a bare 2.5 points above its General Election tally of 17.4 per cent. Some might see that as a remarkable recovery but I’d think Martin et al might be wondering where their vote has gone.
Because look at the real winners here, a Sinn Féin which currently has 21 per cent. That’s a doubling and slightly more of their election vote, and we’re still less than a year out from that election. It’s dangerous to extrapolate too much from a single poll, and my own feeling is that SF is probably in the mid to late teens rather than up in the 20s, but clearly the Presidential Election bid and the accompanying flak from various quarters in the media have been less harmful than some might have expected to them.
There’s another point. SF is articulating a clear left of centre message and it’s notable how their TDs were willing to sign up to the no payment of charges campaign. It’s polling data like this that – with a bit of luck – should keep SF positioned – indeed pushed – on the left of centre because there’s clearly room in that territory for them to grow their vote, something that may be a new development in Irish politics (one could ask is this the softish leftish vote that FF held for so long unti its ability to maintain a cross class coalition deserted it in the last few years?). Certainly looking at the figures and the rapid decline in the LP vote there’s space on the left and further left. That said it’s intriguing to try to work out where the FG vote has gone. Part perhaps back to the GP? Part to the Independents? Part to FF. And cumulatively one finds that adds up to 8 or so per cent.
Again, this underlines the volatility in the electorate, with significant percentages still shifting around in search of a home, but… that home appears to be one which is positioned in no small part on the left of centre/centre left, at least to judge from where that vote has gone previously.
Which brings us to Labour. Dear oh dear. They’re having a bad economic war, a bad time in government and… well – so much for a honeymoon period following the Presidential election. Look, consider how Brendan Howlin went out the week before last to give the bad news on cuts whereas the next day Michael Noonan was able to present his ‘no new taxes’ – sort of – face. The tactical lunacy of this is bad enough, but the actuality of what it represents is something else again. I know that there’s a mood abroad in the LP that they’re holding the tide on the most rapacious right wing instincts of FG, but the problem is that when one is implementing global cuts in public expenditure that’s a thin defense to hide behind. The GP tried, on a lower level, something similar in relation to cuts in the equality area and look what good that did them.
More over there’s a cynicism there [and depressing it is to see the faux-FF lines trotted out in the Dáil and Seanad by those who one would have hoped would have eschewed them]. I remember having lunch with a very pleasant LP person, who might count I guess as an apparatchik, some years back and being stunned to hear them argue quite openly that were they in government they’d do much as FF was doing at that time in terms of cuts etc. it wasn’t just that this seemed to be antithetical to social democratic politics as I understand it. The further problem I had was that to then argue publicly in the Dáil and elsewhere that what FF was doing was intrinsically wrong while being ready to do much the same was at its kindest contradictory. And it didn’t give me confidence for the future.
And now I think that the LP and FG are both paying for playing fast and loose with the electorate. Or rather come any electoral contest they will pay, for this remains just a poll. Indeed I tend to think that the complaints, or is it whinging, from LP members about the apostasy of Patrick Nulty draws most of its vehemence from the fact that Nulty shows up most pointedly the dislocation between rhetoric and actions, and in their cases inactions. They can complain about his actions but at least he stood with his record and his beliefs [and there's interesting rumours about that some who might not have entirely dissimilar beliefs were surprised and put out that he jumped before them. Them's the breaks of politics].
There’s more though, the trope that a grateful electorate will ‘reward’ political parties for making ‘tough’ decisions is beloved on the Stephen Collins of the world. But on the ground where people have to get by on diminishing incomes or social welfare the reality is quite quite different. There those tough decisions, as with the lack of increased income taxes, look – as they are – like weighing on those who have less and allowing those with more off the hook. The sheer unfairness of the new charges, about as regressive as it is possible to make any tax, merely points this up.
So where next? No doubt FF will gain a little more in the future. No doubt SF will stabilise. Those Independent figures are fascinating because if they remain at those levels then we seem set to continue a period of historically high numbers of Independents and smaller parties returned to the Dáil. And why not? When the larger parties, other than SF – though they’re far from beyond reasonable critique, continue to present Janus like faces to the electorate the sheer sincerity of the voices from those smaller formations has a power all its own. What it does do is suggest, again with the caveat that this would have to be sustained well into the future, that government formation may be remarkably difficult in the future.
And where’s the optimism for the future? Not surprisingly there’s none at all.
The poll found that financial issues remain the biggest issue for voters. Sixty per cent of respondents said they were worried about not being able to pay household bills, with 43 per cent expressing fears over their mortgage payments.
Meanwhile almost four in ten people said they were worried about losing their jobs, and more than half – 55 per cent – said they feared somebody else in their household would be made redundant.
Think about it. The largest single employer in the state, the state itself, is under considerable media pressure to relook at the Croke Park Agreement. The impacts of that if wages are cut further or jobs are cut more on consumer spending would be quite something to see, and what’s struck me in the last week is how weak consumer spending is, particularly given that this is the run up to Christmas. I’m a talkative person and make it my business to ask how others businesses are going. Sure, it’s entirely subjective, but let’s just say that a week of using taxis, being in various shops and so on suggests that the situation on the ground is as grim as the consumer data suggests.
But in a context where the concept that “austerity will lead to growth” is the orthodoxy when every economic indicator – as well as previous economic history – suggests otherwise the coverage for those propounding this line is getting very thin on the ground. Problem is that all of us continue to live within this experiment and will until the bitter end or someone somewhere [and reading between the lines the IMF has been making interesting noises about this] shouts stop. But given how embedded the orthodoxy is in our own commentariat don’t expect much change from within this polity.
By the way, illness prevented me, if I recall correctly, from dealing with the last SBP poll where the figures though somewhat adrift from this poll suggest not entirely dissimilar dynamics… as Adrian Kavanagh noted on the always interesting Politicalreform.ie they were as follows:
Fine Gael 32%, Labour 15%, Fianna Fail 18%, Sinn Fein 15%, Independents and Others (including Green Party) 20%. Based on assigning seats on the basis of constituency support estimates (simply using a d’Hondt method to determine which party wins the seats), while also taking account of the factors of vote transfers and vote splitting/management (based on vote transfer/management patterns oberved in the February 2011 election), party seat levels would be estimated as follows: Fine Gael 67, Labour 28, Fianna Fail 25, Sinn Fein 22, Others 24.
Interesting to see the number crunching after this one.
Left Archive: “Liam McMillen, Separatist, Socialist, Republican” – Official Sinn Féin, 1975 December 19, 2011
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Irish Left Online Document Archive, Official Sinn Féin.2 comments
To download the above please click on the following link: OSF BILLMC
This document [donated by PW for which many thanks], published as Repsol Pamphlet No. 21 in 1975, offers an overview of the life of Liam (Billy) McMillen.
McMillen was a pivotal figure in the Belfast IRA from the 1940s onwards with a career that spanned the Border Campaign, the politicisation of SF following the end of the campaign, and through to Civil Rights (he was a member of the first executive of NICRA) and the outbreak of armed conflict in 1969. He was also instrumental in the history of the IRA both pre and post split. As Officer Commanding in Belfast his centrality to this history is self-evident.
McMillen was murdered in 1975 by the INLA during the feud between them and the OIRA subsequent to the split in the latter.
This document contains an Appreciation by Des O Hagan, a lecture by McMillen on the ‘Role of the I.R.A. 1962 − 1967’, a speech of his at Bodenstown in 1973, an oration by Cathal Goulding at his graveside and a short poem by Dominic Behan.
What is most strongly notable is the emphasis on Republicanism throughout from Des O’Hagan’s appreciation to Goulding’s oration. It’s also notable for the explicit recognition of the Irish Republican Army, as again exemplified in Goulding’s oration. That the language and tone are particularly harsh is perhaps explicable on the events surrounding his death.
What’s of particular interest are McMillen’s own words. His speech from Bodenstown in 1973 points to a number of perhaps contradictory strands.
For while there have been changes in the elements that go to make up the historic republican movement, so too have there been changes in the face and operation of capitalism and imperialism. If once the imperialist sought control of trading post and territory, today his trading post is at every street corner and his territory is measured in square feet in the gutted centres of our cities and towns.
And he continues:
The Six Counties at peace, if that could be achieved by a combination of war-weariness, subjugation, repression and political trickery, would be more valuable to the imperialist than the Six COunties risen in resistance against him. We may even ask if the 32 counties, united as one market place but free of resistance by any group, would not serve his purpose even better? For the lesson which has been underlined by fifty years of the Free State’s existence has been that a mockery of independence without the reality of control by and for the people is a petty and useless thing. And a government of Irishmen who would betray its working people, to the British Army, the RUC or the sectarian UDR finds it no great contradiction to betray its people to the international capitalists whom it pays to come and control its industry, its mines and its people.
Sunday Independent Stupid Statement of the Week December 18, 2011
Posted by Garibaldy in Sunday Independent Stupid Statement of the Week.12 comments
No need to worry about what to get friends and relatives for Christmas, Roisin Burke has that covered for us. We’ll start not with the stupid statements, but with one (from an entirely predictable source) that is plain and simple an attack on the Irish democracy of which the Sindo purports to be the chief defender.
In some countries, plebiscites are the very elixir of constitutional health. But in Ireland, too many of our referendums have been sordid and confused affairs where weak governments have asked the ignorant to decide the unknowable using the incomprehensible.
Weak governments; an ignorant population; politics being too complicated for ordinary people who should leave it to the people who can actually understand it. I wonder where that sort of logic can lead.
Meanwhile, John Drennan has picked what for him is the emblematic feature of Celtic Tiger madness. Not corrupt politicians, not uninhibited speculation, not even the evil trade unions. The worst aspect has, apparently, been the tribunals.
Should we ever get around to deciding to choose a folly to best epitomise the excess of the Celtic Tiger era (indeed Enda might even have a referendum on it) we need not look to the deserted shell of Anglo’s proposed HQ, or the Docklands glass-bottle site or the wild and free piebald horses grazing in undisturbed bliss on the derelict site of the Bertie Bowl.
Nothing, you see, captures the essence of how our poor State was run over the last few years more than this self-important, ineffectual, gargantuan, gestating, fiscal hydra which may, even when it finally delivers do more harm than good.
So the emblem is the tribunals and not the problems created by the economic-political elite that caused them in the first place. Note too the sideswipe at the possibility of a referendum.
When it comes to a referendum, John Crown is spectacularly off-message, defying his stupid colleagues with a call for a referendum. And making me laugh while he was at it (although his proposals for political reform are less funny).
We do have a historical precedent for the parliamentary transfer of sovereignty. It was rather hard to get it back. Let us decide this time.
Meanwhile, back at the stupidity, Brendan O’Connor reveals the real reason that the EU wants the Republic to be part of it.
You see, the Europeans want us in. Whatever about us being slightly troublesome financially at the moment, symbolically, they like us in there because they feel we represent the great English-speaking liberal democracy kind of tradition.
Sure.
I enjoy a bit of overheated rhetoric as much as the next person. But really, the little Englander mentality that has been displayed by the Sindo since Germany became still more the mistress of us all is beginning to get beyond a joke. Step forward James Fitzsimons
Bowing to the superiority of its EU paymasters, Ireland has been relegated to the status of little more than a concentration camp.
As long as the people in the concentration camp don’t get a referendum, we might speculate that some of his colleagues wouldn’t mind all that much if that were true.
To the point December 17, 2011
Posted by Tomboktu in Economy, Ireland.4 comments
[I know it's not the done thing to re-post all of a post without permission, but Tom McDonnell was so succinct over on progressive-economy.ie, that an extract would be pointless.]
Growth?
Tom McDonnell: We’ve turned the corner…and gone over the cliff. See here.
The expansionary fiscal contraction crowd seem to have gone a bit quiet of late.
This weekend I’ll mostly be listening to The Undertones and The Outcasts (but more specifically Teenage Kicks and Self Conscious Over You) December 17, 2011
Posted by WorldbyStorm in This Weekend I'll Mostly Be Listening to....19 comments
A very welcome guest post This Weekend from Anarchaeologist.
The Undertones and The Outcasts, the ying and the yang of NI punk. But which is the ying and which indeed is the yang? Both songs were released on Good Vibrations, the Belfast label established by Terri Hooley to support a local scene as much as to showcase punk bands to a wider UK audience. Both singles (Teenage Kicks from ’78 and Self Conscious Over You released a year later) share a certain visual aesthetic, folded within photocopied sleeves, effectively providing the owner with a double-sided poster (in a variety of colours, though not I’d imagine with collectors in mind). Both have similar lyrical concerns, unconsciously knowing though seemingly innocent of what exactly they were actually trying to get at.
I acquired my copy of Teenage Kicks from a friend over twenty years ago. He was offloading his massive collection of vinyl as a result of being permanently on the road as a jobbing archaeologist, anticipating I suppose the new era of the CD when you would carry your music around with you from dig to dig. I bought Self Conscious… one Saturday afternoon just before Christmas in 1979 from one of the newly skinheaded Cowan brothers who made up three quarters of the band. They’d just come off stage at the Dandelion and despite their fearsome looks were quite happy to shoot the breeze with a spotty 14 year old in town for the day, one who’d just stumbled into the market to check out the hippies and what passed for the punks (or if the truth be told, the girl who worked in No Romance). I caught them there again a few months later but hadn’t the money to buy the album. That wasn’t a problem for the band, who gave me Terri’s number on the basis that I could pick up a freebie if I ever found myself in Belfast!
Teenage Kicks had by that stage entered the pantheon of Irish rock. Doubtless helped along by John Peel’s imperator, it had broken out of the nascent indie ghetto, the Derry lads appearing on TOTP in parkas and those funny, slightly flared trousers (parallels?) rolled up over their Docs that thankfully weren’t worn much south of the border. They were getting substantial airtime on RTÉ and I dutifully noted that schoolmates had started inscribing their name with biro on their canvas schoolbags, alongside such worthies as Boston and Lindisfarne. The ‘Tones at this stage had long departed Good Vibrations and were presumably ‘fairly in the money now’ having signed a deal with Sire. Indeed, if they’d never recorded another note, their’s would have been Teenage Kicks forever. An instant classic, as they say.
I’ve the first (pink-sleeved) Good Vibrations release of Teenage Kicks in front of me now. The photograph covering the full extent of the inner sleeve was taken in a laneway to the rear of a row of terraced houses, presumably in Derry. The lane falls away behind them, the brick parapet of the wall dropping off to the rear, disappearing out of focus with the backs of the houses to a streetfront just perceptible in the distance. The band displays a less gritty image in the foreground: Billy Doherty to the left in a denim jacket, two badges on the right lapel, looking slightly down and away from the camera; one of the O’Neills (Damien?) beside him, a biker jacket offset with a childish grimace; the brother John in the middle, right sleeve rolled up, hands in pockets, more badges on the jacket bending into the camera against the cold; Sharkey (before the polo necks) has his hands on his hips in a leather jacket too small for his frame, his right leg bent in what appear to be leather trousers. He’s laughing at the lens behind a large pair of shades which must have looked as stupid then as they’re hip now. Mickey Bradley is to his left, perhaps the most composed of the five. If nothing else, the ‘Tones took the anti-image thing seriously, delivering a gawky pre-emptive strike for post-modernity in a way that’s impossible to appreciate today.
You would imagine looking at this photograph they all know they’ve just recorded a record that’ll be played for ever. However the ep was, according to band mythology, a last ditch effort to finally make it out of Derry. They weren’t even going to put Teenage Kicks on the record. According to Billy Doherty the band thought it was too commercial and went against the whole idea why they’d started the group in the first place. It would be a Nuggets-type classic, hidden away on obscure vinyl to be rediscovered and celebrated years later.
Another shot on the poster sleeve depicts graffiti on a metal door — ‘The Undertones are shit. Pish [sic]. Counts [sic again]. Wankers’. Putting this on your debut single said something about punk rock that was as honest and unadorned as the music itself, although there was always the suspicion that the band had written it themselves.
Teenage Kicks is nonetheless one of those few songs you’ll never tire of hearing. From the first two whacks on the drum and straight into the twin guitar assault, this is power pop in extremis. The guitar break and the handclaps, the lingering chord at the end, they’re all there and there’s little more I could add to the story apart from the fact that Emergency Cases on the flip side is the band’s lost Nuggets classic (covered breathlessly, if memory serves, by Dublin’s Lawnmores 10 years later).
The Outcasts though were a different deal. I’m looking now at the sleeve photographs on Self Conscious… Greg Cowan in a double-breasted jacket, scowling, hands in pocket to the left, Getty (Colin Getgood) on the right, skinhead and sideburns, both leaning against a wall with Martin and Colin in biker jackets sitting between them, all of them looking well hard. The facial mugshots and slightly grown out skinheads on the photos within the sleeve reinforce the message. And the message was the Outcasts were from Belfast. You really wouldn’t want to fuck with the Outcasts (although according to Hooley, the Cowans were from the posh Malone Road).
John T. Davis caught both bands when shooting Shell Shock Rock, a movie which from the very beginning attempts to establish the non-sectarian nature of NI punk. Notwithstanding Rudi’s performance of their sadly prophetic Big Time in a rural Orange Hall, the first song featured at length was SLF’s Alternative Ulster, the song that’s gone down as the anthem of the period. In this regard punk was posited as a cross-confessional subversive activity — however short-lived — and the Outcasts represented a side of the coin certainly less familiar to southern ears.
Where the Undertones had been together since ’75 and Teenage Kicks was their first single, the Outcasts were formed in ’77 and had recorded several singles prior to Self Conscious… You’re A Disease their first single was followed by Justa Nother Teenage Rebel / Love Is For Sops, followed again by a split ep with Rudi and the Idiots. The Outcasts’ contribution was The Cops are Comin’ addressing issues surrounding killing your girlfriend and having sex with the corpse. This was the type of puerile schlock-horror they’d come back to in the ‘80s at the arse end of the psychobilly scene.
Self Conscious Over You catches the band at their most interesting and perhaps at their most lyrical. The title itself posits a cognitive self-reflection, an articulation of a state of being at a level beyond that achieved by their Derry label mates. Fishing the same waters of teenage lust as Teenage Kicks, the song’s principal attraction to these ears is the rhyming scheme, or lack of it. Where punk always attended to this more traditional aspect of the song structure, Self Conscious… revels in nasal couplets rhyming ‘street’ and ‘right away’, ‘bus’ and ‘out’, although they do manage ‘school’, ‘doin’’ and ‘you’. The vowels, when assembled together, resonate a uniquely Belfast assonance. Kicking off with Getty’s guitar and joined by a loping bass that’s slightly out of tune, the song roars into an iconic chorus, replete with repetition and handclaps. Even the sax solo — never a successful staple of punk — somehow fits.
Self Conscious… was followed by a parting of ways with Hooley and their next tune Magnum Force, a rebel-reggae stomp which got a lot of airplay on Fanning and the pirates, was put out on their own label. The band recorded a few Peel sessions at this stage and things seemed to be about to take off. The next step was a cover of the Glitter Band’s Angel Face, which got them into the British indie charts, however drummer Colin Cowan’s death in a car crash took away the momentum.
The Undertones continued on to produce several classic singles, moving towards something akin to a soul-psychedelia which though interesting in its own right, wasn’t quite shifting the product. It’s Gonna Happen was supposedly about the Hunger Strikes, though I never saw it myself. Julie Ocean remains sublime. The O’Neills went on to form That Petrol Emotion, a band before its time where the politics were thrown to the forefront, perhaps catering for a more agitated mid-80s audience. A midlife crisis with dance might’ve taken them off the true path of rock’n’roll but they made up for it on the final two recordings. The Outcasts on the other hand waned somewhat, returning during the same period as TPE with a product more attuned to the psychobilly/thrash scene. Seven Deadly Sins perhaps marks the high tide of this activity but they never had the legs or the edge of the Petrols. Although they remained popular on the European punk scene, sadly they became a somewhat camp parody of themselves. Both groups reformed for a few gigs over the last year or so but where I have great memories of early TPE gigs, it’s the Outcasts I regret missing the more. Hopefully if they’re gigging in 2012 they’ll leave the S&M gear in the van. The Undertones of course tour regularly these days, with Paul McLoone replacing Fergal Sharkey.
Getting back to the songs that open this piece of seasonal nostalgia, the Outcasts of course never achieved consummation. The song fades out, their very self-consciousness rendering them impotent, defeated. There’s no answer provided to the eternal question ‘so what’ll I do?’ The Undertones, as suggested by the graffiti referred to above, perhaps took a more hands on approach; live performances of the song suggested that Sharkey wanted to hold it, hold it tight, the teenage kicks of the title becoming a much more achievable (and perhaps less expensive) outcome of the night in question. So the Undertones then, if not the yang, well surely the yank?
anarchaeologist
The Outcasts, Self Conscious Over You
The Undertones, Teenage Kicks
The Undertones, Emergency Cases
The Outcasts, You’re a Disease
The Outcasts, Self Conscious Over You (live at the Ulster Hall)
The Outcasts, Justa Nother Teenage Rebel
Rudi, Big Time
Stiff Little Fingers, Alternative Ulster
The Undertones, It’s Gonna Happen
The Undertones, Julie Ocean
That Petrol Emotion, V2
That Petrol Emotion, Can’t Stop
The Outcasts, Seven Deadly Sins
The Undertones, Thrill Me
Five scenes from the Seanad – the disability allowance, an LP senator speaks, a realistic appraisal of our situation, let’s be positive and human wrongs… December 17, 2011
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Culture, Economy, Irish Politics.3 comments
I[a]: That was then…
Senator Ivana Bacik: In regard to Senator O’Brien’s point on the disability allowance, that a budget which is brought forward in such a difficult economic climate does not include a reduction in either the basic rate of social welfare payment or of child benefit must be seen as a significant achievement.
(Interruptions).
Senator Ivana Bacik: Let us not forget that the cuts in social protection are €190 million less than what was projected in the plan for last year. There has been a significant safeguarding of the social protection budget in the face of extreme constraints.
(Interruptions).
An Cathaoirleach: Senator Bacik without interruption, please.
Senator Ivana Bacik: We will have a full debate on the changes to the disability allowance. They are being made in the context of structural changes the Minister is making——
Senator Darragh O’Brien: Disgraceful.
Senator Ivana Bacik: ——in order to ensure that everybody has an entitlement to one weekly income support payment only. She is trying to align different social welfare payments. Her objective is to ensure that the rate of payment for claimants of disability allowance is aligned with the jobseeker’s allowance in order to discourage people from entering training or employment at a very young age.
Senator Darragh O’Brien: We are talking about the disabled, not the unemployed.
Senator Ivana Bacik: Furthermore, and some Members seem to have missed the small print on this, the Minister is introducing a compensatory measure whereby the entitlement to domiciliary care allowance will be extended to 16 and 17 year olds.
Senator Darragh O’Brien: Not to 18 to 24 year olds.
An Cathaoirleach: Senator Bacik must be allowed to speak without interruption.
Senator Ivana Bacik: Under the new arrangement, 16 and 17 year olds will qualify for the domiciliary care allowance.
Senator Darragh O’Brien: The Senator cannot possibly stand over this.
I[b]: This is now…
Senator Ivana Bacik: I call on the Leader for a debate in the new year on the way in which we conduct debate in the House. In recent weeks, especially on the Order of Business, there has been a great deal of barracking and heckling especially from the other side of the House.
Senator Darragh O’Brien: Really.
Senator Ivana Bacik: It is unfortunate because this undermines one of the strongest assets the Seanad has always had, that is, our tradition of courteous, respectful and dignified debate. Numerous Ministers from various parties, not only serving Ministers, have commented on that fact that in the past the Seanad has been a place where, especially in the case of legislation, there has been an opportunity for thoughtful and considered debate and the taking of amendments. It would be unfortunate to change that tradition through an overuse of heckling and barracking.
Senator Ned O’Sullivan: We should bring back Deputy Buttimer.
Senator Mark Daly: Where is Jerry when you need him?
Senator Ivana Bacik: There is an example now, a Chathaoirleach.
Senator Mark Daly: Senator Bacik is no angel.
An Cathaoirleach: Senator Bacik without interruption.
Senator Ivana Bacik: There have been mornings on the Order of Business when I have been unable to finish a sentence and I am not the only person who has been hassled, barracked and heckled by the other side. It is something of which we should be aware.
Senator Darragh O’Brien: Senator Bacik is going well this morning.
Senator Ivana Bacik: The Fianna Fáil Members opposite could learn a great deal from their colleague, Deputy Michael McGrath. I do not agree with what he says but I appreciate that he has a restrained style and that it is a more effective way of making his points in debate—–
Senator Darragh O’Brien: With all due respect, there is no point in Deputy Bacik standing here lecturing us.
An Cathaoirleach: Senator Bacik without interruption.
Senator Ivana Bacik: —–than the sort of loud-mouthing we often have here and that we are hearing now from the Opposition.
Senator Mark Daly: We hear it from Senator Bacik more often than not.
Senator Maurice Cummins: Senator Daly is welcome back.
An Cathaoirleach: Senator Bacik without interruption.
Senator Ivana Bacik: Could I say—–
Senator Mark Daly: Let she who is without sin cast the first stone.
An Cathaoirleach: The Senator without interruption.
Senator Ivana Bacik: If I could finish my sentence, all of us welcome the genuine engagement, especially on “Prime Time” last night, between the Minister, Deputy Noonan, and Deputy Michael McGrath. In the course of a genuinely respectful exchange, the Minister, Deputy Noonan, made the point about the disability allowance.
Senator Darragh O’Brien: Senator Bacik dismissed it yesterday.
Senator Ivana Bacik: All of us are keen to see a constructive debate through genuine engagement and changes made to ensure that young persons with disabilities are not disadvantaged unduly by the change to align different rates of disability and social welfare payments. This is an important point about respectful engagement in the House.
II. A Labour Senator speaks…
Senator John Kelly: Like everybody else I support calls for a review of any proposed cuts in disability payments. I supported Senator O’Brien yesterday on that issue. However, I reiterate my point that situations have arisen over the past years in which 16 year-olds in second level going on to third level were receiving a disability allowance and were graduating with a degree and obtaining employment. This indicates that perhaps these people should not have been receiving disability allowance in the first place. In my view there is a need for a two-tier system whereby severely disabled people are given the full rate of disability allowance while those with mild and moderate disability could be given an allowance along the lines of the jobseeker’s allowance. On a related issue, a person aged 18 years and in receipt of a disability allowance gets €100 a week. I would insist that such persons qualify for a medical card. I call on the Leader to take note of this point because down through the years anyone with any income was assessed in their own right for a medical card. Since the transfer of the administration of the medical card scheme to the PCRS in Finglas, anyone in receipt of €100 a week in unemployment assistance is no longer eligible for a medical card and no longer assessed in his or her own right. They are now being lumped in with the family income. This is a new regulation and I want the Leader to bring this to the attention of the Minister. We need answers to why this has happened because if this is the case for those in receipt of €100 unemployment assistance, the same will apply if a person is getting €100 disability allowance.
III: Some interesting thoughts on our situation…
Senator Jillian van Turnhout: All of the talk of Ireland having experienced four years of hardship conjures up a notion that, before that, we had a shared prosperity. That simply is not true. Long before the economic downturn and subsequent slide into full-blown recession, tens of thousands of people lived in hardship, in poverty or at risk of poverty, struggled to raise families and care for elderly and disabled relatives, and hundreds slept rough on our city streets. Whatever way one looks at the measures put forward yesterday by the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Deputy Brendan Howlin, they will impact overwhelmingly and disproportionately on those who have always been vulnerable. Following the Minister’s delivery of the proposals in the Dáil yesterday, we were obliged to seek information from different Departments. That is not reform. Reform would involve all of the relevant information being made available at once.
I join Senator O’Brien in condemning the proposed change to the disability allowance. It is the provision which stood out most for me from yesterday’s announcement. What is the rationale behind this measure? We are talking about young people with profound and multiple disabilities. They are not going into training schemes or work placements. In regard to the lone parent allowance, I have gone through every line of every document that was provided yesterday, but I cannot find the figures to justify this decision. What arrangements will be put in place for the transitional phase in respect of those who are currently in receipt of the allowance? A huge number of concerned lone parents are wondering what will happen on 1 January. There are no figures in any document produced yesterday from any Department which provide the rationale for this decision. Surely any decision which has such a significant impact on such large numbers of people should at least be an informed decision.
I am equally concerned about what is happening at EU level in advance of Friday’s summit. Serious decisions lie ahead of us, decisions which may ultimately make today’s discussion irrelevant. We must have a debate on what is happening in Europe. We are part of the EU and we must inform that debate.
IV: But let’s be positive… yeah!
Senator Mary Moran: Every day in this Chamber it amazes me to hear Fianna Fáil blame everybody else for the cuts when we are in this position because of that party’s work during the past 14 years.
Senator Ivana Bacik: Hear, hear.
Senator Mary Moran: It is dreadful. That is the reason we are in this position and why we have had to make the cuts we did. Nobody likes to do that.
I agree wholeheartedly with Senator Mullins it would be a fantastic idea to arrange a debate on job creation in the new year. I also agree with and welcome the news from the Taoiseach that the proposed cuts for disability will be reversed. I am delighted at this. It goes to show how in touch our Government is, that Ministers from both Fine Gael and the Labour Party can listen to each other and be willing to meet with us, as they did last night, listen to our concerns and be prepared now to act upon them. That is what real politics is about.
Senators: Hear, hear.
Senator Mary Moran: I welcome that and the fact we are working together, leading, and that we will do what we can for the poor and vulnerable in this country.
I ask for a debate and review on the whole issue of disability and disability allowances. The problem is that people tend to place all disabilities into the one basket. That cannot be done because there are multiple layers of disability. The people who would have been affected by these cuts were those who are most vulnerable, who have a disability, will never be able to go to work and will always need long-term care. Supervision for those in this group who are aged over 18 years must be reviewed.
V: Human Wrongs
Senator Jillian van Turnhout: It was reported in today’s The Irish Times that the former Secretary General of the Department of Justice and Equality, Seán Aylward, was appointed to the Council of Europe’s Committee for the Prevention of Torture. I am flabbergasted by this decision. The committee carries out periodic visits, at any time and without notice, to any place where persons may be deprived of their liberty. Its purpose is to prevent ill-treatment of individuals who are deprived of their liberty in Europe. According to its website, members of the committee are independent and impartial experts from a variety of backgrounds, including lawyers, medical doctors and specialists in prison and police matters. When the Government came into power it made a wise decision to publicly advertise for membership of this committee through the Department of Justice and Equality. The advertisement stated that members of the committee would be chosen from candidates of high moral character who are known for their competence in the field of human rights or professional experience in the areas covered by the convention.
Senator Terry Leyden: That is not fair.
Senator Jillian van Turnhout: After examination of the applications by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, three candidates were put forward by the Department, namely, Seán Aylward, Dr. Mary Rogan and Donncha O’Connell.
An Cathaoirleach: We do not mention names on the Order of Business.
Senator Jillian van Turnhout: They are on the public record. The names have been reported in the news.
Senator Rónán Mullen: On a point of order, there is nothing inappropriate about mentioning names in that context.
An Cathaoirleach: It does not matter. They are not here to defend themselves.
Senator Jillian van Turnhout: Everything I have said —–
An Cathaoirleach: The Senator must refrain from mentioning names in the House.
Senator Jillian van Turnhout: I will mention no more names. The nominations were considered by the Parliamentary Assembly but the Committee of Ministers, which comprises ambassadors from members states, did not choose the Assembly’s preferred candidate. This obsession with finding positions for former Secretaries General has to stop.
Senator David Norris: Hear, hear.
Senator Jillian van Turnhout: It went to four rounds of voting. Ireland’s reputation was deeply damaged.
I ask the Leader of the House to invite the Minister for Justice and Equality to the House to inform us of the instructions he gave to the Irish ambassador. Did Ireland disregard the decision of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe? This is very unusual. I spoke to many people in the Council of Europe yesterday afternoon about this and was told that normally the first choice goes through on the nod, unless a member state in some way indicates that it wants to contradict that choice. A member state had to intervene. This is deeply distressing for Ireland.
“..there is no argument about the need for a property tax” December 16, 2011
Posted by irishelectionliterature in Capitalism.Tags: Irish Politics
30 comments
It really is time we started posting a ‘Stephen Collins Stupid Statement of the week’….
The news that 11 TD’s would boycott the household charge was accompanied underneath by a piece of ‘analysis’ by Stephen Collins with the headline
“Use of boycott a classic Left Wing Tactic“..
His closing line …
The €100 charge is an interim measure on the way to a graduated property tax but the sooner the Government gets on with the necessary work to devise that comprehensive scheme the better as there is no argument about the need for a property tax.
That’s right no argument whatsoever from anybody….. Not even the 11 TD’s he mentioned in his ‘analysis’!
and then in related news, a nice little fill-up to the Campaign Against Household and Water Taxes in the form of the headline story of today’s Independent…
Revealed: Plans for higher property tax of up to €600
Where we learn that
Mr Hogan told the Irish Independent that the key elements for the tax would be:
The value of the property
Household income
Regional differences between property values
Payment of stamp duty by first-time buyers during the property boom
And finally if you’re looking for arguements against the Property Tax , here’s a Fine Gael Anti Property Tax leaflet from 1994
New Union Post Out Now December 16, 2011
Posted by Garibaldy in Trade Unions.1 comment so far
The December 2011 edition of the Union Post is out now. As usual, there’s a great deal worth reading and seeing in it, including responses to the Republic’s budget, reports and photos from the November 26th march against austerity in Dublin, material on the campaign to support political prisoners in Colombia and other international activity, and a report and photo montage of the 15,000 people on strike in Belfast on November 30th. Great stuff.
Liberty Newspaper from SIPTU December 16, 2011
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Uncategorized.2 comments
Can be read here, including an interview with Independent TD, Maureen O’Sullivan.
