The Price of the Exodus

This government has been a long time dying. Now that we finally are getting the general election that the country needs, I find myself unable to participate in that process. I don't know if I would have stayed in Ireland even if things had stayed all rosey, but the economic implosion that has happened over the last over the last couple years really pushed me out. Nonetheless, I find myself part of with will be a large unrepresented minority; the youth that were pushed out by the mistakes out our elders. 

So this all begs the question; should us ex-pats be allowed to vote. Oddly, enough I'm coming down on the side of the status quo and not having the vote for myself. There are a few very clear reasons for this:

1. Ireland has 3 million citizens living abroad compared to 4.5 million living in the State. This poses obvious problems.
2. The case has been made that as ex-pats vote in very small amounts, it's not such a big deal. However, it is a big deal when due to our arcane electoral system the final seats in many five seaters are decided by a mere handful of votes. This means that those few people voting from abroad can have an effect.
3. This has knock-on effects on the rest of things. As postal votes will be slow to come in, this will deplay the formation of any governments and could leave us government-less for much longer than usual.
4. There's the tired old arguement of "no taxation without representation" or more succinctly the reverse i.e. not able to pay taxes = no votes. That doesn't stand up to any logical scrutiny. 16 year olds can work and pay taxes yet not be able to vote. That's of course without even getting into the political minefield that would be unemployed people currently not paying taxes. There is a valid point underneath this though. Those without a stake in the country shouldn't be able to vote. The extent of the stake of emigrants is variable, but there is a clear line in the sand here. Not only do emigrants not contribute but we don't personally benefit from the welfare systems or other state services more than any other tourists would. This line has to be drawn somewhere and I'm fine with it being drawn here.

There's plenty of reasons to try to get people involved who are abroad, but in the end this can only end in controversy. Ireland's extremely high rates of emigration over the past 200 years of our history practically eliminates the idea. 

There are plenty of alternatives though. Michael Martin's proposal for single seat constituencies would help reduce some of my concerns, but a better option might be to either have the votes of ex-pats count in any list part of a reformed electoral system. (I know that's not what Martin proposed but it's an idea!) Alternatively, there could be seat(s) for the emigrant community in a reformed Seanad (similar to the University seats currently employed). One thing that I do feel should be allowed is emigrant voting in the Presidential election due to the nature of the position as the symbolic head of the Irish people. 

That's my two cents anyway. There'll be more of my musing on the first vote I'll miss as I try to vent my displeasure over the internet. Stay tuned. 

Nick Who?

I have a confession. Not only have I not watched any of the UK leader's debates, I have been completely negligent in following the campaign. That being said, I wasn't at all surprised the reaction to Nick Clegg's performance in the debates so far. He had no expectations. People were expecting Brown and Cameron to be the main event, duking it out like heavyweight boxers. Well, Brown would be a heavyweight (in every sense); Cameron is a lightweight (in every sense). There was absolutely no expectation on Clegg. All he had to do was stand toe to toe with the big two and he'd be getting the Lib Dems unprecedented coverage in what the media rightly or wrongly have always boiled down to a two horse race. He didn't just do that, he managed to manipulate Cameron's "change" mantra against the Tories; positioning the Lib Dems as the real route for the protest vote.

However, I can't see this situation lasting. I think the polls will keep showing string Lib Dem performances, right up to election day, but when it comes to people actually having to tick that box, the fear of a hung parliament will push people either back into Labour's bosom or the Conservatives ice-cold death grip (I never claimed I'd be impartial). The reason for this is fundamentally that the Lib Dems cannot win the election. I've been playing with the BBC's Election Seat Calculator and it seems that the Lib Dems would need at least 44% of the vote to be able to achieve an overall majority. For comparison, Labour would need a mere 34% to be in with a chance of an overall majority. Not only that, but as the Tories' and Labour's focus now also include regular attacks on the Lib Dems and scaremongering over a hung parliament, I very much think when push comes to shove people will go back to the old guard.

What this does highlight is the scale of the gerrymandering that has gone on in the UK. It has become high impossible for a third party to be able to challenge effectively. It may not be as bad the US, but it's getting there. With a PR or List system, not only would the Lib Dems be in a much stronger position, but so would a range of smaller parties. It's times like this that I'm thankful we have a system that makes slightly more sense here.

How to Pass a Law

Ok, I'm an amateur when it comes to passing legislation, but here's my interpretation of how you go about things.

In the US:

1. Have an idea, preferably one that can be synopsized to a single sentence. This sentence will usually be vague and aspirational so as not to tie you down to any specific proposals. Something like "Make America safer for Americans" if you're Republican or "Make Poverty History" if you're Bob Geldof, or "Abortions for some, miniature American flags for others" if you're somewhere in between.
1a. Get some photos of the President and other high ranking politicians in compromising positions. This will be very useful later.
2. Win an election. Easy enough if you have the right friends.
3. Make up some draft proposals. Get flamed by the opposition. Get flamed by the public. Get your office, home, car, child's school, mother etc. blockaded by angry protesters. Expect farcical and fanatical opposition.

4. Negotiate with the opposition to try to find a solution more amenable to the masses. As long as the bill still conforms to your initial vague aspirational statement, then you can't be accused of running away from your ideals. Just remember that a large amount of the opposition are convinced that you are either an elitist, baby-killing communist or a knuckle-dragging, inbred racist, so you're not going to get everyone on your side no matter how much you give in.
5. Try to pass the bill in the House. Use of the materials obtained in step 1a can be useful here.
6. Repeat steps 3-5 until you get it passed.
7. Try to get it passed in the Senate. Again, use of the materials obtained in step 1a can be useful here.
8. Repeat steps 3-7 until you get it passed in the Senate.
(In general, these phases are the most annoying and you may have to cede authorship/sponsorship of the bill and sacrifice all chance of doing anything else in your political career.)
9. Get the President to sign it. This is easy of the election you won in step 2 was the presidential election. Otherwise, step 1a comes in handy again.

In Ireland

1. Get enough seats to be needed in a coalition.
2. Have an idea. Commission a consultant to write a report about it.
3. Wait for a scandal to happen.
4. Comment that action on this scandal is imminent. Commission a report on the report in view of the specific scandal.
5. Introduced the bill to the Dáil in the last two days before a break to limit debate. Force the bill through the Dáil and Senate in record time through your use of the whip.

Dermot Ahern version


1. Put together some version of your religious beliefs that look vaguely like legislation.
2. Use your influence to push it through.

George Lee: Vain or Victim?

A mere nine months ago, George Lee was elected to the Dáil. His election was indicative of the mood at the time; the public had become staunch Fine Gael supporters, mainly due to them being "not Fianna Fáil" as much as anything else. Lee, by his own admission, similarly picked FG as they essentially have no prima face stand-point on economic issues like the rest of the opposition parties do, and so would be maleable to his suggestions. This is not unusual; Garret FitzGerald joined FG for the same reason, and nearly managed to transform the party and move it away from it's traditional roots of being the large farmers party. I don't blame Lee for that choice; it makes sense if you want to have an immediate impact to choose a platform that will let you do that rather than joining some smaller party or runing as an independent.

However, FG seemed to give Lee the cold shoulder, and treat him as a sort of circus act. They'd wheel him out to get the crowd in, and then force him to hand things over to the big boys, Enda and Richard, when things got serious. Sure, he's only a journalist who doesn't know anything about politics right? They didn't treat him like a serious politician but expected him to have the loyalty of a serious politician. Big mistake.

Lee is a damn good economist by any measure, as his pre-RTE career shows. Yet FG, were slow to bring him into the fold and let him help craft policy. Why? There's the sense of seniority about politics in Ireland, that age somehow makes you more qualified, that years spent helping people with medical cards makes you an expert on the economy, that you have to do your time in the back benches before moving up. Kenny was presumably wary of the wrath of the other backbenchers if he promoted young Lee too quickly. That would seem to have cost him a great electoral and governing assest.

The worst thing coming from it though, is that now we have a very high profile example of how closed a shop politics is. We all knew about the nepotism, but to see a major political party essentially give up a very well educated, very well known. very intelligent, trusted voice on the economy tells me that these politicians are out first to look out for their own. This is a huge disincentive to experts from all fields to trying to get involved in politics. When people talk about the detachment of politicians from everyday life; this is what we mean! In any business, not only do you want to best people, you promote them when you find them and you do all you can to keep them.

That all being said, I do think Lee may have been a little premature in going. He should have known that politics here isn't going to change over night. He got a front bench offer when he made the threat, and he should have realised the power his high profile gave him to embarass FG. He could be doing something today to help the country but he was too proud and self-rightous to accept the offer when it was made. Who cares if it was made under duress? Practically every decision in politics is made under duress.

My Problem with Neo-Nazis

Or one of them anyway.

I just can't seem to understand why neo-nazis deny the Holocaust. Assuming that the hate Jew, fags, crips and all who where murdered in the death camps, surely it's more consistent with their mindset to be proud of having wiped six million "undesirables" off the face of the planet.

I could understand Germans wanting to deny the Holocaust. The massive guilt of having to deal with that can lead to a very natural human response of denial, which I'm sure we've all done at some point. As a nation however, the German people seem to be taking it very maturely and more than willing to openly talk about it.

Why would neo-Nazis deny the Holocaust? It doesn't make their cause any more palatable to normal people, it only shows them as being further on the edges of the mainstream discourse than one could have possible imagined. Is it a natural response to them seeing the jewish people get "sympathy" territory and treatment from the international community and they want to snuff out that? If so, then they grossly overestimate how much influence they have, which shows them to be complete buffoons when it comes to political awareness on top of everything else.

It just doesn't make any logical sense!

An Endless Circus?

Another year, another round of tense negotiations in Northern Ireland, another series of threats, missed deadlines and political posturing. The latest series is over the admittedly sensitive issue of policing, with some parades thrown in there for fun and games. Sure, everyone loves a good ol' parade yeah? Yeah? Hmm...

This system that has evolved of re-negotiating things that had apparently been agreed more than ten years ago in the Good Friday Agreement has proven to have become the downfall of the centrist parties; the SDLP and the UUP, as those on the extremes shout and cry fowl until they get some concession. We are now left in the absurd situation where the DUP, once thought to epitomise some of the worst bigotry of during the Troubles (who can forget Ian Paisley calling the Pope the antichrist in the European Parliment) are now being out-flanked on the right by the Traditional Unionist Voice party (who recently called the Irish language "a leprechaun language"). 


This had lead to some critics call for an end to the d'Hondt method and enforced coalition. Senator Fiona O'Malley raised this in the Seanad this week, saying "it rewards people from the extremes and does not reward people who bring together communities and serve all of the people within their communities. While we continue to prop up a dysfunctional system, frankly it will never work and there will be crisis after crisis." There is some truth in her words, but while we may not like it; it works at one very important thing. It has stop the armed conflict.


I don't think anyone is under any illusions that the current system is intended to be temporary until things calm down a wee bit (whenever that will be). It has brought Sinn Féin and the DUP to the table. In time it will bring the TUV to the table if they do become a force after the next elections. In the time since the Good Friday Agreement, the IRA, UVF and UDA have all decommissioned their arms. The current system gave the North the breathing room to do this, to be able to move past violence without the spectre of extremely confrontational politics going on in the assembly. Without a doubt, that would have made the task so much more difficult. 


The key question will is when do we change to a "proper democratic system"? Well for one thing, devolution has to be completed and will have to been so for quite a while. The people of the North need a sense of normality about their lives without the drama of these almost annual re-earthing of the old troubles. It's going to take a long, long time. When hatred is bred from birth, it does take a few generations at least to wean the community of it. 


When the deal was struck back in 1997, Tony Blair said that the real work was only beginning. Those are words worth remembering now.

Wait, You mean we have to PAY for it?

Last night, the Massechit, Massachusetss, American voters decided to give a big f*** you to Barrack Obama on the anniversary of his inauguration. For me, the worrying things is not that the Democrats have lost the supermajority in the Senate; it's that arguably the most Democratic state in the country returned a Republican a little over a year after the Democrats swept into power in a very convincing fashion.

To me, it seems like the US electorate liked to hear Obama talk about saving them and their families from massive healthcare bills, but when push came to shove the idea of someone having to pay for it through taxes seemed anathema to them.

From my basic reading of the plans before the House and the Senate, the proposals don't really look that redical at all. The vast majority of people will still pay their own health insurance or their employer will. Medicaid would only be available to those earning less than $30,000 (rough figure based on 4 person family). Yet still, Republicans get away with scaremongering; claiming that Obama is "socializing" healthcare.
I have two rebuttals:
(a) Compared to Public Health Insurance models, he really, really isn't.
(b) If there was one thing in the world to socialize; it's healthcare! You generally don't have an option about getting sick; and you can't say that this person or whatever "deserved" to get sick due to their lifestyle alone and therefore deserves to pay for it. Not only that but health is the most important thing to get right for people for without that they would be unable to access any of the freedoms they enjoy by living in the US.

I am confounded that the American people would vote again for the Republicans, who royally messed up their time in power in the last decade. This blow and the presumably heavy losses that the Democrats will endure in House elections in November will yet again freeze all hope of progress on this and the issue of social security. Huzzah for democracy, indeed.

Brian Lenhian - Political Badass

The world and its mother now know about Brian Lenihan’s health problems. The man himself has been very forthright about it, giving more details than most people would have politely asked for (cough...TV3...cough). I’m not going to go into well trodden ground about the revelations by TV3 of such sensitive personal information over Christmas (again, the world and its mother thinks they’re idiots), but rather his decision to stay on as Minister. I think people need to recognise the sacrifice the man is making for the good of the country and the effect that it will have on our psyche.

Brian Lenihan is in probably the most important job there is at the moment in this country.  As Minister for Finance, his ability to control and direct spending wisely and to negotiate on our behalf with the IMF, the ECB, the EU and the Irish banks will almost solely determine how quickly this country emerges from recession. Despite being new to the job when the shit hit the fan back in 2008, he has shown himself to be capable and someone who I think could fix this.

Now throw cancer into the mix. What has been his reaction? Essentially, it can be summed up as “Meh, I’ve work to do”. No time off, working from a hospital bed, continuing with his 14 hour days; this man has overnight become a colossus in my eyes. His attitude clearly singles him out as the most badass finance minister we’ve had since Michael Collins.

The effect this attitude has is huge. Not only is the stability in the department of finance good to keep the value of the stock market from plummeting further, but what we finally have now is a vision of a politician who is putting the public good ahead of his personal good. Let’s be honest, Fianna Fáil have endured scandal after scandal over the last 15 years. FF have been haunted with scandals of members both high up and low down accepting bribes from the construction industry in exchange for zoning changes. When faced with the biggest public spending cuts in the history of the State, what do the backbenchers threaten a coup over? Drink driving legislation. The TD who lead this revolt had previously been charged with assaulting a man in a pub. Even Brian Lenihan’s father’s Presidential campaign in 1990 was derailed when it came out that he had put pressure on the President to refuse the request of Taoiseach Garret Fitzgerald to dissolve the Dáil. What FF have lacked massively recently is integrity.

Finally, we have someone who is putting country over not just his own political future (he did that already in his budgets), but also his own personal health. This will do wonders for the political system as a whole as well as providing a solid base of support for the Minister with all the tough decisions that still lie ahead.

Mr. Lenihan, while I may not agree with you on much of your policies, you have restored my faith in the Irish political system.