Author: George

Main Parties caught out by Sinn Féin

It was supposed to be ‘business as usual’ when it came to the Presidential election. Michael D. would keep us guessing for as long as possible and then declare his intention to go for a second term, just in time to make it difficult for anyone else to get the qualifying TDs or Counsel votes. The centre parties of Labour, FG and FF have no appetite for a troubling election and so have reverted back to the old system of political jobbery that existed before the two Marys. It doesn’t really matter does it? We have had two referendums in the near past and two more coming up (women and blasphemy in case you had forgotten) local and Europeans next year with the ever threatened General Election if Leo and Michael can’t agree. As noted by Eamon Delaney in his article(The Times, 20/07/18), surely that’s enough democracy for anyone.  It probably would have gone to plan with Michael D. enjoying general support or at the very least a level of indifference but for Mary Lou’s intervention.

The new leader of Sinn Féin saw an opportunity and has cleverly won a tactical victory against the old centrist parties by declaring that her party will field a candidate for the Presidential election. By doing this she has wrong footed her opponents and shown them up to be a comfortable cabal content with the old anti democratic system of promoting an agreed candidate without bothering the electorate. Mary Lou has demonstrated that there is clear water between the old discredited parties and the new invigorated SF and I would be astonished if the SF candidate wasn’t a young woman. This would give her gender and youth attraction and establish SF as a modern party of the future. I disagree slightly with Eamon Delaney’s conclusion that their candidate would not break too free, “… from the moorings of that particular party.” (The Times, 20/07/18)  A second option to promoting the usual party line is to offer the electorate someone who a broad church can support. This takes the wind out of the sails of the opposing parties and reassures the general public that SF has left the guns behind and is a respectable party that can be trusted to enter a future coalition. Have the parties of the centre been caught knapping on this one?

reference: The Times, 20/07/18, Eamon Delaney, Comment

Update 28/07/18

According to The Times Sinn Féin has set out its stall for the forthcoming Presidential election by describing its ideal candidate as a woman who will challenge the ‘patriarchy’ that still governs Irish society. The selection committee chairman goes on to mention women. young people, gender pay and the two recent referendums.  You read it here Leo and Michael better start looking over your shoulder, you are about to be overtaken.

The Times, 28/07/18, Ellen Coyne,

“Airhead”

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar was branded an “airhead” and an “EU Toady” on the front page of the UK tabloid the Sun on Friday morning.
The insults are a response to Mr Varadkar’s comments about the impact of a potential “no-deal” Brexit on air travel next year.
“The situation at the moment is that the United Kingdom is part of the single European sky, and if they leave the EU they are not, and that does mean that if there was a no-deal, hard Brexit next March the planes would not fly and Britain would be an island in many ways and that is something that they need to think about,” the Taoiseach said in Kerry two days ago. (Irish Times, 20/07/18)

I have copied the full paragraph from the IT so that quotes are kept in context and I would say that I wouldn’t normally comment on the editorial of the Sun but for the reaction it seems to have provoked in Dublin. Perhaps the Sun has gained some gravitas since it’s interview with Trump although he claims it was all or, part, “fake news”. I think that the content of the front page article is admirably set off  by a picture of Gwyneth Paltrow with the byline, ‘Gwns and Needles’ which the IT has thoughtfully included in it’s own article.

Why is it worth comment? Only because, despite all protestations, all explanations concerning context, to an outsider it does sound like a threat. Secondly, the tone of the briefing is reminiscent of similar threats emanating from Brussels. I will give the Taoiseach the benefit of the doubt because he must know that airspace, like borders, work in a number of ways and I would suggest that Ireland would suffer more in a playground ‘tit for tat’ argument than Britain. The basic premise is somewhat false. Non EU airlines operate in European airspace and European airlines, such as Aer Lingus, operate within British airspace. The issue eventually will be decided by a trade off between global airline groups based on market principles not ideology and it is the  Taoiseach’s job to ground the current discussions in common sense and to ensure that pragmatism succeeds over polemics to the benefit of everyone.

 

Reference – Irish Times, 20/07/18, Conor Gallagher,https://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/varadkar-called-airhead-by-sun-newspaper-over-flights-remark-1.

At the Stroke of a Pen – The New Road Traffic Act

What is there to say about the passage of the new Road Traffic (Amendment) Act? Surely there can be no question that imposing alcohol limits of 50mg/100ml of blood can save lives and this supported by a ban for those above 80mg/100ml, must be applauded.
It seems so obvious that supporters of the Bill accused the opponents of being responsible for alcohol related road deaths whilst, mainly rural T.D.’s, tried to filibuster the Bill out of time in the Dáil. Shane Ross castigated them and accused them of, “political vandalism” and further stated ‘that with drink driving rampant in Ireland that the Bill showed that the authorities were taking the problem seriously.’ (The Times Irish Ed.10/07/18)  And here is the rub.
Let’s consider some data before we go any further:

  • • Between the years June 2009 and April 2017 the Garda Pulse system recorded 1,458,221 breathalyser tests that did not take place. (The Irish Times, 06/09/17)
    • 14,700 motorists were incorrectly convicted due to IT failures. (The Irish Times, 06/09/17)
    • Minister of Justice, Charlie Flanagan was reported to be ‘greatly disturbed’ by extent of the falsification. .(The Irish Times, 06/09/17)
    • Only 73% of summonses for all crimes were served in 2016. (RTE 24/03/18)
    • In 2016, of the approx. 5000 drink driving offences, only 58% were successfully prosecuted. (RTE 24/03/18)
    • The RTAs are consistently amended so that they have become very complex and open to challenge. A working group was set up some two years ago to consolidate the Road Traffic Laws but have not produced the basis for a Consolidation Bill, to date. This allows appeals on technicalities as noted in the RTE program.
    • Informal sanctions, such as contributions to the poor box, to avoid a criminal record and penalty points were still being used  with 223 instances in the first nine months of 2017. This is despite a High Court ruling in 2014 that the District Court had no power to offer an informal sanction of this sort. (RTE 24/03/18)
  • The outcomes of trials can depend on geography and luck. For example, 15% of dangerous driving convictions in Cork resulted in imprisonment whereas, none of the 115 convictions in Kerry had to same outcome. (RTE 24/03/18)

It is difficult to see where you begin when faced with so much disorder and inefficiency in the Justice system. Even the data that is used to formulate policy is suspect with anything from murder to housing statistics under query. An honest approach may have been to put additional legislation on hold and try to sort out the mess that is the real reason why we have so much disorder on the roads. Does that mean that the filibustering TDs were right in their opposition to the latest amendment? I think that they were really fighting another battle with which I have some sympathy and that is the continuous leeching of power and population away from rural Ireland and the imposition of metro rule from the city.

In some ways political success is measure by the amount of legislation passed and money spent. The solution to road deaths is to create more law to add to the rickety structure that makes up the RTAs. This will see the current Minister through his current post and the government to the end of it’s term. A more honest and far more difficult task would be to increase the traffic corps: enforce existing law: ensure offenders are brought to court: simplify the law to block loopholes: standardise penalties and ensure enforcement of convictions. This would be a far better legacy to leave behind than yet another sop to public opinion. How about it Minister? Do you think that yet another Amendment will cut road deaths or,  would joined up enforcement make a bigger difference? Perhaps we should follow fashion and hold a referendum on the subject.

 

Update 30/07/18

It seems that the Minister of Justice, Charlie Flanagan, has asked Shane Ross for a second time to sort out the legislative mess that are the Road Traffic Acts (Sunday Times 29/07/18). As he says, “Too many people are being brought to court and acquitted on a technicality. Much of that law, which has evolved over the last 50 years, is cumbersome and there are overlaps and there is a difficulty  in interpretation which has given rise to fewer convictions than should be the case.”

References
The Times (Irish Edition), 10/07/18, Katie O’Neill
The Irish Times, 06/09/17, Sara Bardon-Mark Hilliard-Hajar Aki, www.irishtimes.com
RTE Investigates Law and Disorder, Updated 24/03/18, https://www.rte.ie/news/investigations-unit                                                                 The Sunday Times, 29/07/18, Stephen O’Brien, Ross Pushed to Close Loopholes…

THE World Cup

Isn’t it odd how you half listen to something on the radio and  suddenly realise that something was said that tweaked your sub conscious . The conversation has passed it by but there was something. So it was that I was listening to the Economist Podcast that had an item on the World Cup. I say,’The World Cup’ but the commentator had introduced it as the ‘MENs World Cup’. I am pretty sure that there wasn’t another World Cup that had slipped through the media net and that nearly everyone would have associated the term The World Cup with the tournament that the French team won only a few days previously. If the addition of the word men to the title did not add anything to the listeners understanding of the piece, then why add it. At a time when a President has demonstrated how a small change in a sentence can change the meaning, what are we to make of the Economists addition?

Hello world!

There is a lot to be divined from the title of this website. You know that behind the keyboard is the sort of person who sits alone in the bar behind a newspaper complaining about the music/service/cost of a pint etc. Yet a better acquaintance might reveal something worthwhile, perhaps a slightly different  view on the world or, even some guarded optimism well hidden amongst the mutterings. The main purpose of this Blog is to reduce the writers  blood pressure, driven sky high by, for example,  interviewers who do not ask the key question or challenge conventional ideology.  There is a sort of catharsis in recording ones thoughts on some of the challenges to freedom of speech and personal responsibility that are not resolved by shouting at the television. Hence the ‘disgruntled’ bit in the title.