INSIDE POLITICS - CRIME

The crime debate yesterday in the Dail was everything that David Cameron's speech to the Troy Party conference in Blackpool wasn't. The three principals all cleaved to their script. It was Brian Lenihan's first major speech as Justice Minister. A day later I'm looking at him on the TV monitor now speaking live (well maybe dead!) on the Land and Conveyancing Reform Bill 2006 (don't ask because I haven't!).
Lenihan is polished, smart and establishmentarian to his fingertips (head boy at Belvedere; Oxford University).

There will be no McDowellite rushes of blood to the head. Which is a pity. McDowell was a radical thinker but never a politician. Everything he ever promised in terms of legislation was subsequently watered down. Lenihan will have no such problem. He will always have fantastic command of his brief, and will be able to defend himself, his Government and his guards to the hilt. His major problem will be that he's unlikely to come up with an idea worth talking about.

Ditto for Charlie Flanagan. After his bloomer during the election campaign, Jim O'Keeffe was never going to survive. Flanagan is a heavy hitter, another smart man and a lawyer to boot. But he's going to have to get the finger out. His speech yesterday was terrible. It lacked a unifying theme and contained phrases and scare-mongering passages that were cliched and hackneyed 20 years ago, 30 years ago, in similar debates in Leinster House.

His worst sentence: "The unacceptable face of Celtic Tiger Ireland reveals a society where our elderly citizens are terrified in their homes, men and women alike are afraid to walk the streets at night, our children can obtain drugs freely in any school yard in the country, we have seen the emergence of drive-by shootings, tiger kidnappings and callous contract killings."

Stoking up fear. The only line that was missing was the one about people no longer being able to keep the keys in their front door.

Fine Gael is not going to get anywhere if it keeps banging on the same drum, ratcheting up fears on crime. Sure, it can come up with tough policies. But it needs different policies; not just more of the same.

Pat Rabbitte's first outing for Labour was low-key. Rabbitte is an ideas and concepts politician but this speech was not the one where they were to be found.

INSIDE POLITICS - The Hurricane of Hype

WHO is the star of this week’s column? Take a wild guess. If you happened to die and are now pushing up daisies, you might not have noticed him this week.


Of if you happen to be an anchorite monk living on a remote island sometime in the 6th century, there’s a slim chance that he may not have crossed your path.

For everybody else, there was no escape. From the moment he choked on his Corn Flakes last Sunday morning, Michael McDowell has reacted to Labour’s tax coup by invading our every waking moment, policing our thoughts, and trying to wash, like rain, the trashy Labour promises off the pavement.




On Monday, he introduced the techniques of Sumo wrestling to Irish political discourse. In a matter of mere seconds, his ferocious and fierce onslaught removed Pat Rabbitte from the ring. The winning technique? Haiku. “I want to say this about the speech that Pat Rabbitte made the other night. That speech proves that he is now admitting that he has been talking rubbish for 20 years. He has attacked every aspect of our tax policies. He’s voted against them in every Finance Bill.

“He has denied our argument that tax rates matter. And here he is now saying, after 20 years of empty, unsuccessful, hypocritical rhetoric, that he accepts he is wrong. What a sadmoment for him.”

This outburst came during a so-called doorstep interview, where the politician takes questions (usually on the street) from reporters. There were no questions here. McDowell walked up the reporters, delivered his broadside, said “I’m finished” and walked away again. A few reporters sniggered. But for McDowell there was nothing funny about this.

For this was a Labour leader having the cheek to encroach on his territory. Though what came across washumorous, what bubbled inside was toil and trouble. This column has said it before: McDowell is a one-man walking Atlantic weather system. This week, it was storm force 10 stuff coming in furiously with no respite.

The really scary bit is that all this is just the lead-up to the Progressive Democrats national conference this weekend. You might have noticed the sly reference above to Travis Bickle, the anti-hero of Martin Scorsese’s classic film, Taxi Driver. On Tuesday, McDowell did his own bit of scary “you looking at me” stuff when he announced a package of anti-crime measures. The Tánaiste has a tendency to announce his measures in the manner that Twink introduced John Bruton at a Fine Gael Árd Fheis a long time. You initially think, great stuff, and then you think, this is over-the-top, and then you think, oh, God, this is going to finish up badly.

His crime package sounded very impressive on first hearing. Suspects could be detained for seven days. There were tighter measures for bail; further curtailments of the right to silence, as well as provisions to introduce the long-awaited DNA database.

But then we found out it was all based on an interim (and rushed)report of the expert group charged with re-balancing the law.

Not only that, but the package of measures didn’t include legislation — only an intention to legislate.

So what was that all about then? Optics? In reality, by the time that package becomes law, the general election will be but a dim memory.

McDowell wanted to give the impression he was being tough on crime (as usual the “crisis” has been hyped up by politicians and the media). Now he has come up with illusory measures to remedy an illusory crisis.

For one thing hit me between the eyes in the recent Frank Luntz focus group exercise for RTÉ. Crime was identified as a huge issue. Yet, not one of the group had been a victim of crime in the past five years, save for one guy who got his chainsaw nicked. And why were they all scared to walk the streets, leave the key in the door etc? They said it was because the media told them so. That’s a self-fulfilling prophecy if there ever was one.

Of course, the Tánaiste didn’t leave it there. He was just warming himself up. On Wednesday, he took on the Mahon Tribunal, claiming its legal bill could top €1 billion. By Thursday, that row deepened into a full-blown crisis. Characteristically, he robustly stood by his word that night, setting up the second grave stand-off with the judiciary in as many months. And that was the same day, he promised he would big it up at the PDs’ conference in Wexford, with his own proposals on tax cuts and stamp duty.

Batten down the hatches folks. A hurricane of hype and histrionics is fast approaching from the South East.

(This is my column from today's Irish Examiner)

Wednesday December 13 20.19

The eve of the Dail going into hibernation for Chrismas. The Dail is still sitting. The debate is like one of the minor races at evening's end, a bumper or novice race. Or the undercard at a boxing night. They are debating a Labour party motion on Dublin transport - more buses, less traffic jams, gridlock etc. Not that the main attractions today set the pulse running.

Crime (particulary the terrible double hit job in Dublin yesterday) has dominated this week's agenda in the Dail.

For those not attuned to the niceties and protocol of this august institution, Leaders Questions s is the twice-weekly slot where party leaders have a chance to ask the Taoiseach a question on any subject, without giving him notice. They happen on Tuesdays afternoon and Wednesday mornings. They tend to produce (but not always) the most newsworthy exchanges and (occasionally) some fire-in-the-belly rows. These are the debates that are most likely to be covered on radio and TV and by the newspapers the following morning. And this week, every question has been about gang wars.

(It's now 8.31 and the division bells are ringing, summoning TDs to the chamber to vote on the Labour Party motion. The Government whips ensure there are always sufficient TDs around to ensure a comfortable majority. No vote has been lost since 2002. In Britain though, Government chief whip Hillary Armstrong got the boot earlier this year, as an indirect result of getting the maths wrong and losing a vital Commons vote (on Iraq as far as I recall).

The point I'm slowly getting around to is topic count. While I have not had a chance to tot up the total, I'd guess that crime and health have dominated the discourse during Leaders question almost wholly.

Crime is the handiest weapon of choice in political showdowns. Comparing crime levels in Ireland with that of other countries is very difficult. But as far as I can ascertain, Ireland remains a compartively safe country, albeit with the levels of drug, gang crime, and homicides that one might expect in a developed and largely urbanised society.

But the problem is that is always presented as a crisis, both by politicians and by the media. The best part of Michael Moore's 'Bowling for Columbine' was his section on communal fear, and the cultivation of fear by the American media. And what that gives rise to in an Irish context is politicians outvying each other in the 'tough on crime' stakes. How many clampdowns, crackdowns, draconian measures etc. can be tolerated before it becomes ridiculous? An infinity unfortunately.

Even Bertie Ahern gets in on the act. Miriam Lord has acutely described Ahern in his Bertie the Bystander mode - the man in the anorak who shakes his head in annoyance at the terrible state of chassis.

Being a man of the people, he obviously shares their sense of powerlessness when terrible things happen.

20.58. It's a late sitting tonight. They have moved on to the adjournment debate. Time for this particular debate to be adjourned.

PS. Ciaran Cuffe's blog has a brilliant pic of a Garda traffic corp 4x4 parked on a bicycle lane, while one of the guards pops into a delicatessen. In the debate tonight, the rights of cyclists hardly features. Dublin's cycle lanes doubljob as parking spaces for cars and vans (yes, the hazard lights excuse everything).

Besides the Greens, the only TD I know who regularly uses a bicycle is Dr Dermot Fitzpatrick, the unassuming Fianna Fail representative for Dublin Central.

One of the reasons that cycling is so low on the priority list is that Ministers don't use them. The only time that Martin Cullen has used one recently was for a publicity shot. At least Bertie had the good grace to decline a photo op recently, leaving the honour of wobbling for Ireland to the irrepressible Environment Minister Dick Roche.

I have been cycling in Dublin for 14 years, even though it is beginning to scare the bejasus out of me as I get older. I got 'doored' on the South Quays earlier this year and ended up splayed in the middle of what is a highway with a truck bearing down on me. The lack of roadspace (and respect) for cyclists in Dublin is an abomination.