Quick note on "pairing"

I'd imagine that few people, other than anoraks such as myself, had any idea what Enda Kenny was talking about when he announced that Fine Gael would refuse to "pair" with the Government over their refusal to allow a debate on the economy.

The Times helpfully explains that:

Under the vote-pairing deal, opposition TDs absent themselves from votes if a minister – with whom they have been “paired” cannot be present due to official business.

I'd just like to make it clear that it is not the case that pairing occurs only when a minister is away on official business. In fact, Fine Gael have quite willingly engaged in this practice when backbenchers have been away for personal reasons. They may be valid personal reasons, but so what? The point of pairing is to prevent important state business from grinding to a halt, which is something that all parties (at least theoretically) have an interest in. If the ruling parties can't get enough TDs elected to ensure their bills never fall due to too many non-official absences on their part, it's not the role of the opposition to give them a leg up.

And if you want to know how I know that FG (and others, incidentally, but never Sinn Féin) have engaged in this practice, it's because occasionally the list of "official pairs" inadvertently finds its way into my clutches.

Overheard at the RDS

As tallies from the first few boxes started to make it clear the treaty was headed for a defeat, from an apparatchik attached to a certain anonymous Dublin city Fianna Fáil TD: "Looks like we'll be back here in a few months."

From the same anonymous Fianna Fáil TD speaking on his mobile phone a few minutes later: "Oh, it's about two-to-one in favour."

From a certain Irish Times pol-corr (hint: thinks she's a lot funnier than she actually is) as the final tallies came through: "The Irish people are stupid."

More as I remember them...

What a difference a year makes … or maybe not

I’d kind of forgotten all about this post. It was brought back to me when I had a look at my visitor stats and noticed someone with an ISP from Fianna Fáil headquarters doing a trawl for blog posts on ‘Bertiegate’. A little worried up at Mount Street, are we?

In retrospect, of course, I think I was a little easy on de Taoiseach. I’m still of the view that there isn’t – so far – hard evidence of anything beyond general sliminess and misjudgement. The inconsistencies that have arisen since then obviously strengthen the case against him, and darken the cloud over his head, to a degree that would embarrass most western leaders into stepping down. But again, this is Ireland we’re talking about, and Fianna Fáil. Even if Bertie goes – and don’t get me wrong, he should – the state is still going to be run by people to whom the going rate of a terraced house is money to be casually handed out to ‘friends’. And it’s still going to be run for those people, which to my mind is the real scandal.

I’ve been struck by this over the past couple days, with the news about Tuesday's Garda shooting in Dublin. That’s obviously a serious and newsworthy story but for God’s sake does nobody see the link between the greed that leads to that kind of behaviour, and the kind that results in fatcats having enormous sums of cash to distribute in ‘whiparounds’ for politicians, and the kind that results in stories like this one? What, apart from the social class of the participants, is the real difference? Thousands of people die in this country every year as a result of poverty, inequitable access to essential health care or other forms of government malfeasance which occur as a direct result of the privileging of the business class at the expense of everyone else - are their lives worth less than the relative handful of people killed by working class gangsters? I don’t think so.

The plain fact of the matter is that this state is controlled by people who have no regard for the law, no concern for anyone else’s well-being and no interest more pressing than stuffing their own pockets. It should hardly come as a surprise to them that some of the proles want in on the action, and are equally indifferent to the consequences of the means they have at their disposal.

Aer Lingus: It's the electorate, stupid

Fintan O’Toole annoys me as much as the next person, but when he gets it right does he ever get it right. His column in today’s Times (subs required) says exactly what I have been wanting to say since this Aer Lingus story first broke. Actually, it says exactly what I’ve been thinking since the election. Undoubtedly, it says what I’ll be thinking after the next election too, because in all likelihood the Irish voters will grumble and whinge for the next five years about what a shower of bastards we have in office and then on polling day they’ll go right back and put that shower in again. And then complain when they do the things that Irish politicians do. And so on, ad nauseum.

But we all know this; the question is what do we do about it. Usually the problem is identified as the peculiarly clientelist nature of (southern) Irish politics, and electoral reform is put forward as the solution: get rid of the dual mandate, for example, and TDs won’t have to focus so much on issues properly in the purview of councillors.

That hasn’t worked.

Increasingly the multi-seat constituency is coming under fire: TDs are competing with their party colleagues, the argument goes, and so there’s a great incentive for them to try to build up support from the voters through parish pump type stuff. I’m not convinced by this. For one thing, it doesn’t happen in the US, although the primary system there also means that candidates compete with party colleagues. Of course the party whip system doesn’t exist in the US so party colleagues can compete with each other on ideological grounds, something they can’t do here. But Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael can’t really be said to be competing on ideological grounds, either, so a system under which their candidates are competing with each other (and other parties) rather than first and foremost amongst themselves is hardly likely to eliminate the incentive for them to boost their support through constituency work.

Some of my own party colleagues are in favour of introducing some sort of list system, in which, for example, half the Dáil is elected in the current manner, while the other half is selected by party officials according to the percentage of vote that each party receives. Presumably, the ‘appointed’ TDs would not be bound to do constituency work, not having any constituency to be bound to. There’s merit in that argument, but I can’t help thinking that there is something fundamentally undemocratic about allowing them to be chosen by appointment rather than directly by the people. We complain about this in the Seanad (not that that stopped us … well I won’t go there for now) so I don’t really see how we can support it in the Dáil. The wild optimists also think that this system would increase the extent to which the electorate votes on ideological grounds, because they know they are not just voting for their candidate but for his or her entire party. Again, unconvincing. At the last election voters knew they were voting not just for their TD but for their government, and what did they do? Voted in the same shower of bastards they keep complaining about … again.

I’m not sure what the answer is, or whether it can be found through electoral reform at all. Clearly a cultural change is needed - Irish voters do need to stop thinking of their TD as their councillor, social worker, all-purpose-fixer-upper – but there’s no guarantee that would stop them electing the same old crooks time after time, anyway. I’m sure I don’t need to point to examples in other countries to demonstrate this. Whether it’s PR-STV, FPTP, party list, whatever, the bottom line is that nothing is going to change until the voters take it upon themselves to decide that they aren’t going to put up with it anymore.

And if you think that’s going to happen any time soon, I have a landing slot in Shannon to sell you.

Joined-up thinking, Fianna Fáil style

Two actual Parliamentary Questions and their replies, published yesterday:

Q: To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment if a non-EU citizen whose work permit has expired and who has since married an Irish citizen needs a further work permit to resume employment here.
A (Minister Martin): A work permit is not required for an employee married to an Irish Citizen. The person can regularise their status by contacting the Department of Justice.

Q: To ask the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform how a non-EU citizen whose work permit has expired and who has since married an Irish citizen can obtain a residency permit.
A (Minister Lenihan): Marriage to an Irish national does not confer an automatic right of residence in the State. Applications of this kind take approximately twelve months to process. Should the person wish to continue employment while the application is being processed, they should renew their work permit.

A short note on the Greens' deal

It will probably go through, but it doesn't seem to me like they've got much out of it. No scrapping of co-location. No end to US troops at Shannon. No M3 re-routing. So what are they getting? Carbon tax - a fairly minor concession, in the grand scheme of things. More spending on education - won't begin to address the problems endemic in the Irish system. Local government reform - desperately needed, but the kind of changes that would make a real difference would do so at Fianna Fáil's expense and does anybody think for a moment they would let that happen?

I hope those within my own party who had hoped for us to be in the Greens' position now are learning a lesson from this. The kind of radical changes we propose are never going to be agreed by an FF or FG-led government - it would be turkeys voting for Christmas. The prospects for an alliance of the left may seem bleaker than ever after this last election, but ultimately I can't see any other road to real change in this country.

Election 07: What went wrong

The big spin, of course, is going to be that "all the small parties were squeezed". And there is something to that. But it's notable that in most of the constituencies where we expected to make gains, there was at least one left candidate whose votes could have seen us through - but we didn't get them. Why didn't we? You'd have to suspect that left voters were turned off by what seemed to be an already-made decision to prop up a Fianna Fáil government, and the fact that we'd already shown ourselves willing to discard certain left-wing policies (such as the increases in corporation tax and PAYE for high earners) in order to do so.

As for those voters who wouldn't necessarily be described as "left" but who we'd nonetheless hoped to get the support of, well, it seems pretty simple. The anti-FF ones didn't want to vote for us because we all but said we'd support the government. And the pro-FF ones just voted for FF. Some of them transfered to us, but nowhere near enough.

I'm gutted for people like Larry O'Toole and Dessie Ellis, who've done absolutely stellar work in their constituencies for years and deserved to be rewarded for it. And for Seán Crowe, a truly dedicated public rep. And I can't even bear the thought of Aengus Ó Snodaigh losing his seat.

If there's any silver lining, there were a few constituencies where we performed better than most of us were expecting, such as Cork East, Limerick East and Kerry South. A lot of those who missed out are young enough to have a good go at it again in five years. And of course, there's the PD/Michael McDowell wipeout. But it's really not much consolation. We had a terrible election, and we need to learn from it. I'm not at all confident that we will, though.

As for the other parties, it's interesting the way that the media are spinning some of their results. Have a look at the end of this article, where Labour is described as having "recovered well" - by holding even or losing a seat. The Greens' poor results are glossed over although they look like doing the same. We could end up losing no more seats than either of those parties - yet we get the "big losers" tag and they don't.

*****

I'm aware that this will seem like sour grapes, but it has to be said that the results don't show the electorate in a particularly good light. Look at some of the baffling decisions they have made:

• In Monaghan, a constituency where the biggest issue is the pending loss of the local hospital, the voters turfed out the hospital candidate (who was admittedly a bit useless) and voted in a member of the party whose government is responsible for the loss of the hospital.
• In Galway West, where the water's been undrinkable for months, a member of the Government tops the polls.
• With a similar situation unfolding in Wicklow, the Environment Minister gets nearly a quota on the first count.
• And I'm not even going to get into some of the things I heard on the doors during this campaign. Let's just say that this was a big victory for clientelism over any sort of ideology.

Finally, while I generally support PR-STV because of the unique ability it gives to small parties and independents to get elected, questions do have to be asked about the fairness of a system under which a candidate who gets 939 votes can get in ahead of candidates who poll over 3000 (see the Dublin Central results). But of course, since Fianna Fáil have benefitted from this system, it will never change.

It's a depressing five years we have ahead of us.

Interesting election item

Given Bertie's recent (and revealingly partitionist) comments about Sinn Féin "imports" from the Six Counties helping out with Mary Lou's campaign, I was amused to note, on my way down the Cabra Road this evening, that the car driving people around to put up Fianna Fáil posters had northern-registered plates.

The posters themselves are worthy of comment, too. A picture of Bertie, beneath which are the words:

Ahern

Brady

Fitzpatrick

So not only are FF not attempting any vote management, again, but even here in what should be Mary F's strong patch, she's relegated to their third choice candidate. Given that almost nobody puts Brady in with even the slightest hope it's looking like a fairly straight contest between us and the Greens for that fourth seat.

...and speaking of hypocrisy, I see Fianna Fáil are at it again with their accusations of SF involvement in voter fraud. In the North Inner City, Fianna Fáil have personation down to an art. Everyone here knows this - and I doubt our constituency is unique.

The Tribune article is ludicrous, anyway. It starts off by announcing "the first direct evidence that Sinn Fein may be involved in electoral fraud" and goes on to provide no such thing. A Fianna Fáil backbencher's allegations that there are names on the register that don't match the council's records, and that three of those people were on the register at the same address as a "Sinn Féin figure" (whatever that means), hardly constitute "direct evidence" of us being involved in fraud.

It is unbelievable sometimes what passes for journalism in this country.

Regarding Suzanne Breen's claims today about a "Stormont Spyring":

First of all it needs to be said that Breen has an agenda and a long history of peddling anti-SF propaganda. She has no credibility among republicans - and that's doubly significant in view of the fact that she's claiming one of us as her source for this article. Why would a Shinner speak to her? If I had a grievance with the party that I wanted to go public with, I wouldn't go to someone like her - not just because I can't stand her, but also because I would know most republicans don't believe anything she writes anyway.

But I'll play along. If these claims are true, they are so much further from the original allegations that they're almost laughable - and the fact that a democratically elected government could be brought down on the basis of them is appalling. There might be legitimate questions about the ethics of such activities, but for jaysus sake does anyone believe the likes of Fianna Fáil aren't up to the same thing?

Well, have a look at the following from Katie Hannon's book The Naked Politician (published in 2004):

There is one such person who is a familiar face around Leinster House. He eats in the self-service restaurant most days and can often be seen enjoying a sociable drink with his colleagues in the Visitors' Bar. And yet most people are vague about what it is he actually does. In fact he works in the Taoiseach's Department in Government Buildings where his post is officially described as that of 'researcher'. But that doesn't come close to describing the highly unusual role this young man plays in the Fianna Fáil political machine. His job involves keeping files on political rivals and media figures, for use when in election mode or in times of crisis. He reports directly to one of the Taoiseach's aides.

I am shocked. Shocked! Isn't it time that Fianna Fáil's Leinster House spyring was investigated, the government collapsed and the culprits brought to justice?

Guess who said the following last night?

"The Unionist community can be sure that this part of the island holds no constitutional threat to the position of Northern Ireland within the United Kingdom."

Kevin Myers? Ruth Dudley Edwards? Conor Cruise O'Brien?

No, it was Noel Treacy, Minister of State from Fianna Fáil, the self-styled Republican Party.

How they can still call themselves that with a straight face is absolutely beyond me.

LI didn't intend to start a blog just to analyse the Sunday Tribune every week. It just happens they've had more of the stories I feel like commenting on lately.

The cover story this week is speculation that Bertie plans to call the general election next year, rather than wait for the May 2007 deadline. This will no doubt be replied to with a denial from the Taoiseach's office, but it's actually what I have suspected for several months now. Open disagreements between the coalition partners have been increasing, most recently on the building of a new terminal at Dublin Airport and Michael McDowell's proposal for a new "café-bar" licence. In addition, there are a few FF backbenchers who are very strongly opposed to McDowell's planned introduction of Anti Social Behaviour Orders - listening to the Dáil debate last week one could have been forgiven for thinking Pat Carey and John McGuinness were actually members of the opposition. McGuinness, especially; I cannot recall ever seeing a member of a Government party speak out so strongly against a Government proposition. Frankly, this doesn't look like a coalition that has two years left in it.

So what does it mean? Hard to say at this point. Obviously, one of the most important things is getting the PDs out of Government. The damage they have done is immense. I would not be in favour of Sinn Féin going into coalition with FF this time around - we will have around 10 TDs at most and I doubt FF would be as generous to us with key Ministries as they have been to the PDs. And I'm not sure there would be the numbers for FF to coalesce with those independents who'd be willing to do so. I can't see FF and FG going in together, even though you couldn't slide an envelope between their political philosophies (including the one their grandparents went to war over), and Labour have ruled out going in with FF, but there don't appear to be the numbers for them to go in with FG, or even with FG and the Greens. So it's all to play for, really.

I do think it's hilarious that Labour are willing to coalesce with the (slightly) further right of the two main parties, though. A fortnight ago in the Dáil SF introduced a Private Members motion against the privatisation of Aer Lingus. FG, predictably, opposed it; Labour supported it. What would they have done if they were in Government together when we introduced it? Or when we introduced our bill to enshrine neutrality into the Constitution, which Labour also supported and FG opposed? Over the past few years Labour have already moved further right than many in their traditional base would like; their former chief strategist Fergus Finlay openly admitted that they were courting the middle class vote because they think the trade unions, etc., aren't relevant anymore. In Government with Fine Gael they're only going to move even further right. And Sinn Féin will be there, nipping at their heels, on their left.

Incidentally, I'm somewhat neutral on the café-bar thing. I think there are a lot of bogus arguments being thrown around by both sides. Nobody in Ireland limits their drinking (during normal hours) because they can't find a place to get a drink, after all. Nor are many people going to say "Well, I could stay in this pub the whole night, but now that there's a café-bar next door I'll just go there and have a meal with my pint instead". I'm all for the idea of café-bars, actually, because I really quite like them, but I think it would be more sensible to provide incentives for existing pubs to convert, rather than opening additional establishments. I haven't thought out how you'd do that though, so please don't ask me!

The Trib was surprisingly short this week of things-to-make-me-throw-the-paper-across-the-room. My greatest outrage was at a letter to the editor suggesting that the FAI should withdraw from the Champions League next year and nominate Liverpool instead. The day they do that is the day I stop giving any money to anything having to do with Irish soccer. Fortunately it's not going to happen, but it absolutely disgusts me that an Irish person would suggest it in any case. Sure, why don't we just let England have Roy Keane and Damien Duff as well? We're probably not going to need them next year.

Irish Minister in racist comment shock

In the Dáil chamber today, on live television, Minister for State Conor Lenihan told Socialist TD Joe Higgins that he should "stick with the kebabs" - an obvious reference to the mistreated Turkish construction workers whose plight Deputy Higgins has publicised.

Conor Lenihan is a Minister at the Department of Foreign Affairs. I'm sure this will go over swimmingly with the Diplomatic Corps.

It's not the first time he's made such a gaffe. Shortly after his appointment last year, he responded to criticisms about the Government's failure to honour its commitment to Overseas Development Aid by saying that the aid agencies were squandering the money anyway. His honeymoon period was over pretty quickly after that.

In truth, the Government only has itself to blame. Lenihan should never have been appointed anyway - he's way out of his depth at this level, and it shows every time he speaks in a Ministerial role. The reality of the situation is that he was chosen not on his own merits but for geographical reasons: his constituency, Dublin South West, will be very tightly fought in the next election and Fianna Fáil have real fears about retaining their two seats.

Lenihan's comments are unlikely in and of themselves to do him much electoral damage, but removing him from his post would, so I suspect the Government is unlikely to take action - this time. But surely they won't let him get away with it forever.

30 years

Today is the 30th anniversary of the Dublin and Monaghan bombings, the single worst atrocity of the Troubles, in which 33 people (one a pregnant woman) died. Despite the fact that police had identified the key suspects within 48 hours, to this day not a single suspect has been charged, arrested or even questioned over the attacks. Important files pertaining to the case have 'disappeared'.

Last year, Justice Barron's report into the bombings was published. I read the whole thing (you wouldn't want to drop it on your toes). A number of people were disappointed, and no doubt another number were relieved, that the report found no solid evidence of British collusion. But it did find that those witnesses who testified that collusion took place were credible and should be taken seriously, and moreover, that it wasn't possible to obtain all the evidence anyway because the Brits refused to hand over crucial files. Why wouldn't they? Well, I can only think of one reason.

Shortly after the report's publication an article appeared in Phoenix magazine (health warning, I know, but the article did cite its source, which I've forgotten) stating that in 1972 or 1973 the Irish Government had discovered a British spy in the Justice Department. The spy was sacked, of course, but given events at the time the Brits would almost certainly have tried to replace him. Remember those missing files I mentioned a couple paragraphs ago?

It's long past time for the Dublin Government to stop fannying around and insist on seeing the evidence. They've threatened on several occasions to take the British Government to court over this. What is stopping them? In the 70s it was said that they were reluctant to take action for fear of handing republicans a propaganda victory, but surely by now they should have copped on that that's precisely what they do by hesitating and that firm, decisive action is not only the right thing to do, it's also the politically sensible thing to do.

Anybody reading this who has a Fianna Fáil TD (or is willing to pretend to), please drop them an email and ask them to begin European Court proceedings. While you're at it, tell them you support - no, demand - a full public inquiry into the handling of the case by Gardaí and other Irish officials. If you really want to make an impression, tell them that Sinn Féin are the only party who seems to care about this issue - I guarantee that that will get their attention, and will probably be reported at the next Parliamentary Party meeting.

In the meantime, drop a note of support to Justice For The Forgotten (you can view their website here). The amount of work this group has done over the years is truly inspiring and when justice finally is done, they will be the ones to deserve most of the credit.