An open email to Eamon Gilmore

Many thanks for this guest post.

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Today, an email titled “Investment in Ireland and job creation are top of the Agenda of this government” arrived in my inbox from the Eamon Gilmore, Tanaiste and Leader of the Labour Party.

It is part of the process of engaging party members, sending out these email updates. The updates are written by the Labour Party press office, and sent out to any member who does not fall off the Labour Party list due to the incompetence of party bureaucrats or because a member makes it into the “Leabhar buachalli dana”. (Bad boys book)

Seeing as it bears the signature of the “Party Leader”, let us assume it his endorsement. The email certainly represents the Party’s view of itself.

I have reproduced parts of the email below in my open response to the Party Leader. A full copy of the original email can be found over at:

Dear Eamon,
Many thanks for the email today.
In your email today, you write “Investment in Ireland and job creation are top of the agenda for this Government.” That’s funny. If job creation is top of the agenda, why did the government approve a budget which will directly cost, according to detailed analysis, up to 20,000 jobs? For more, see here.

You write about your trip this week to the United States and the “’Invest in Ireland conference organised by the Global Irish Network an international business group, backed Department, with over 300 of the most influential Irish and Irish connected individuals from around the world.”

You clearly enjoy being in the presence of the most influential Irish and Irish-connected individuals from around the world. No doubt, your enjoyment is shared by your special advisor, Mark Garret, whose pay, at € 168,000 a year, makes him the best paid advisor to the government, and who accompanies you on your trips. Who says Fine Gael gets its own way? You managed to ensure that the government broke its own rules for this party stalwart. Well done!

Incidentally, do you ever ask Mark Garret about his period working as where he works as External Relations Manager for McKinsey and Co, the international firm of management consultants.
Does he know anything about the influential people Venezuela? Remember when the McKinsey office in Caracas, Venezuela, was used in the 2002 coup against President Chavez.

I’m sure as foreign Minister, you have great relations with the Venezuelan Ambassador to Ireland, Samuel Moncada, based in London and he is delighted your main advisor was the a senior PR man for a company who took an active part in trying to get rid of democratically elected President.

You remind us in the email “of the relief on the Universal Charge.” Ah yes, the USC relief. You didn’t mention in your email that the relief applies to workers who earn only under € 10,000 and will be worth about 188 cents a week. See here.

Well done for defending the Finance Bill in your email. The Irish Bank Officials Union (IBOA) reckons there will be thousands of jobs losses in the sector in coming years, on top of the all the thousands that already taken place. But in one fell swoop, your act of corporate welfare will create 10,000 jobs! Wow, you are really are a whizhid!

I see in your email you have changed the name of the government from “National Government” to “National Unity Government”.
Remember when Fianna Fail suggested a unity government? And Pat Rabbite, your close friend and colleague, was all over the media making a laughing stock of them, condemning them from a height? Funny how things change.

Wishing you well on a personal level,
Party member