Lots of metaphors about Bertie have done the rounds over the past two years. Death by a thousand cuts. Another nail in the coffin. But until now - despite all the talk of running out of track and ends being night - there has been nothing to suggest that he will go much earlier than he had planned.
I think what happened with Grainne Carruth yesterday and today has changed all that. She has moved from a position where she simply cashed Bertie Ahern's salary cheques and lodged occasional amounts into the accounts set up for his two daughters to a position where she fully accepts that she exchanged and lodged £15,500 in sterling for Bertie Ahern. It was, by all accounts, a fraught day for Carruth today - she was being paid only £66 a week when she started working for Bertie but it's clear that she - and everybody else associated with St Luke's for that matter - was fiercely loyal.
But the real focus here is the implications all of this will have for the Taoiseach? in the kindest possible scenario, he has some explaining to do how an account which he said was used for lodging his salary cheques has been shown - and proved beyond reasonable doubt on any fair reading of the transcript - to have also been used to lodge large amounts of sterling. It will be stretching it a bit (to put it mildly) to say that this account gave yet another outing for the famous recyclable sterling that was associated with his house in the Beresford Estate and Michael Wall. But you never know. Truth in the form of Bertie Ahern's evidence has often been much much stranger than fiction.
And back to the metaphors. Another nail in the coffin. Not the final one, said a colleague today. But certainly a six-inch nail that was hammered in so deeply that it'll be nigh impossible to prise out.
Thursday, March 20, 2008
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
THE IRISH GOVERNMENT'S WORLD VIEW - LITERALLY!
Limousine hire for Noel Dempsey and his party during a trip to the US : €19,500. Two nights' accommodation at the Hassler Hotel in Rome for Seamus Brennan: €3,300. The schadenfreude of knowing the media is going into paroxysms of rage at the extravagance of it all: Priceless.
As you read this piece, you can rest assured that Irish ministers are busy all over the world at this moment doing their bit for something called 'Ireland inc', the global tourist industry (especially the five star hotel sector); and for hard-pressed limousine drivers everywhere.
In recent years, the annual exodus abroad by Irish ministers to far-flung corners of the world (some 33 are outside Ireland this year) has become, a bit like the economy, a bubble that is in grave danger of bursting;
It is inarguable that Ireland's national holiday has a status throughout the world that compares to Independence Day in the US or Bastille Day in France. And this is particularly true for Ireland's large diaspora (including millions who claim Irish heritage) who mark St Patrick's Day with more fervour and enthusiasm than the Irish who live in Ireland.
The practice that has grown up of practically every Irish minister travelling abroad to attend St Patrick's Day festivities is an offshoot of the Washington experience. Since the peace process began in earnest in the mid-1990s, Ireland has enjoyed a status in the US capital that is massively disproportionate to its size. The most powerful illustration of this is the annualisation of the 'shamrock ceremony', championed by Bill Clinton and continued by George W Bush. It has meant that for one day each year, Ireland gets unfettered access to the heart of the most powerful democracy in the world and unrivalled coverage on that day.
Only the most blinkered jeremiah would have any difficulty with the value of the White House vist. But the difficulties start with some of the other 30-odd trips. Here, too, the concept itself is sound. There are Irish communities everywhere and the presence of an Irish minister on a reviewing stand in Buenos Aires or Houston or Cape Town gives them validation.
But as always the problem isn't with the idea but how it is being executed. For one, a practice has grown up where ministers are accompanied by their husband or wife or partners, as well as the most senior officials in their office. Furthermore, many of the trips have an elastic quality about them – extended in some cases to a week or ten days. When you read the accompanying press release they are described as trade missions or tourism initiatives or opportunities to attract inward investment. But for many ordinary people, that translates into English as 'jollies' or 'junkets' or another of the perks that Irish politicians lavish on themselves.
President Bush's chief strategist Karl Rove was wont to say that if you are explaining you are losing. And the press release that accompanied the list of which minister was jetting where (only released late on Wednesday night) was certainly one of the longest in recent history, running to several thousand words.
"St Patrick's Day provides a truly unique framework to showcase modern Ireland on the world stage," it begins promisingly enough. "It offers an excellent opportunity to highlight to a global audience the advantages of doing business in Ireland and to promote Ireland as a world class tourist destination."
But as the figures obtained by Morning Ireland last week show, it is an extraordinarily expensive marketing exercise, costing taxpayers well in excess of €500,000 (out of a total marketing budget of €27 million to promote Ireland). And for each country that is listed, the Government Information Service has po-facedly listed the total value of trade with Ireland. There is sleight of hand here as it implies that, for example, a relatively unknown junior minister like Jimmy Devins is single-handedly responsible for the €175 million of trade between Ireland and New Zealand merely by standing on a review stand in Auckland for its St Patrick's Day parade.
The Government knows that the media have a field day each year, as they identify the lucky ministers going to the most exotic climes (the annual media thrasing perhaps explains the lateness of the announcement this year).
It's a reworking of Juvenal's famous question 'Quis custodiat ipsos custodes'? (who watches the watchman?). In spite of a growing public perception that these trips are as much junket as work, the Cabinet has refused to modify or concede or limit the number of trips. Or to accept that there are any or dubious excesses involved, despite the incontrovertible evidence. For sure, the figures obtained by RTE made for eyebrow-arching reading –grotesquely expensive hotels, limousine hire for a few days that cost more than the price of a family car; flights taken by ministerial parties on a single trip that cost more than the average industrial wage.
Fine Gael's Fergus O'Dowd says he's not against the idea in principle but argues that ministers have lost the plot and all contact with reality. "They have taken on the extravagant spending habits of Saudi princes," said O'Dowd last week.
And the self-serving statements about promoting trade and tourism is all very well. But where's the proof? There are no audits, no value-for-money reports that prove that all those limos and first class flights were justified. Sadly, the logic of ministers seems to be captured by the catchphrase of another popular television advert: "Because I'm worth it."
As you read this piece, you can rest assured that Irish ministers are busy all over the world at this moment doing their bit for something called 'Ireland inc', the global tourist industry (especially the five star hotel sector); and for hard-pressed limousine drivers everywhere.
In recent years, the annual exodus abroad by Irish ministers to far-flung corners of the world (some 33 are outside Ireland this year) has become, a bit like the economy, a bubble that is in grave danger of bursting;
It is inarguable that Ireland's national holiday has a status throughout the world that compares to Independence Day in the US or Bastille Day in France. And this is particularly true for Ireland's large diaspora (including millions who claim Irish heritage) who mark St Patrick's Day with more fervour and enthusiasm than the Irish who live in Ireland.
The practice that has grown up of practically every Irish minister travelling abroad to attend St Patrick's Day festivities is an offshoot of the Washington experience. Since the peace process began in earnest in the mid-1990s, Ireland has enjoyed a status in the US capital that is massively disproportionate to its size. The most powerful illustration of this is the annualisation of the 'shamrock ceremony', championed by Bill Clinton and continued by George W Bush. It has meant that for one day each year, Ireland gets unfettered access to the heart of the most powerful democracy in the world and unrivalled coverage on that day.
Only the most blinkered jeremiah would have any difficulty with the value of the White House vist. But the difficulties start with some of the other 30-odd trips. Here, too, the concept itself is sound. There are Irish communities everywhere and the presence of an Irish minister on a reviewing stand in Buenos Aires or Houston or Cape Town gives them validation.
But as always the problem isn't with the idea but how it is being executed. For one, a practice has grown up where ministers are accompanied by their husband or wife or partners, as well as the most senior officials in their office. Furthermore, many of the trips have an elastic quality about them – extended in some cases to a week or ten days. When you read the accompanying press release they are described as trade missions or tourism initiatives or opportunities to attract inward investment. But for many ordinary people, that translates into English as 'jollies' or 'junkets' or another of the perks that Irish politicians lavish on themselves.
President Bush's chief strategist Karl Rove was wont to say that if you are explaining you are losing. And the press release that accompanied the list of which minister was jetting where (only released late on Wednesday night) was certainly one of the longest in recent history, running to several thousand words.
"St Patrick's Day provides a truly unique framework to showcase modern Ireland on the world stage," it begins promisingly enough. "It offers an excellent opportunity to highlight to a global audience the advantages of doing business in Ireland and to promote Ireland as a world class tourist destination."
But as the figures obtained by Morning Ireland last week show, it is an extraordinarily expensive marketing exercise, costing taxpayers well in excess of €500,000 (out of a total marketing budget of €27 million to promote Ireland). And for each country that is listed, the Government Information Service has po-facedly listed the total value of trade with Ireland. There is sleight of hand here as it implies that, for example, a relatively unknown junior minister like Jimmy Devins is single-handedly responsible for the €175 million of trade between Ireland and New Zealand merely by standing on a review stand in Auckland for its St Patrick's Day parade.
The Government knows that the media have a field day each year, as they identify the lucky ministers going to the most exotic climes (the annual media thrasing perhaps explains the lateness of the announcement this year).
It's a reworking of Juvenal's famous question 'Quis custodiat ipsos custodes'? (who watches the watchman?). In spite of a growing public perception that these trips are as much junket as work, the Cabinet has refused to modify or concede or limit the number of trips. Or to accept that there are any or dubious excesses involved, despite the incontrovertible evidence. For sure, the figures obtained by RTE made for eyebrow-arching reading –grotesquely expensive hotels, limousine hire for a few days that cost more than the price of a family car; flights taken by ministerial parties on a single trip that cost more than the average industrial wage.
Fine Gael's Fergus O'Dowd says he's not against the idea in principle but argues that ministers have lost the plot and all contact with reality. "They have taken on the extravagant spending habits of Saudi princes," said O'Dowd last week.
And the self-serving statements about promoting trade and tourism is all very well. But where's the proof? There are no audits, no value-for-money reports that prove that all those limos and first class flights were justified. Sadly, the logic of ministers seems to be captured by the catchphrase of another popular television advert: "Because I'm worth it."
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Nothing to Say
The things that are preoccupying US politics at this moment in time.
1. When will Eliot Spitzer resign as New York Governor after being linked with a prostitution ring?
2. Will Obama take Mississippi (the last deep south state) with a double digit margin?
3. Just how dirty is the war of words going to get between Hillary of the steely lips and Obama of the silken tongue?
The things that are preoccupying Irish politics at this moment in time?
1. The same things as last week
2. which is the three reports into breast cancer misdiagnosis
3. and, erm, where all the Ministers are jetting to for the annual St Patrick's Day exodus.
So how has politics been shaping up this week? The good news is Irish politics has been moving as quickly as a sports car on a motorway since coming back in January. The bad news is that the motorway in question is the M50.
This week has just seemed so slow and so pedestrian. Leaders' questions today was dominated by the reports on Portlaoise and the (yes, very serious) issues of governance and management of the HSE.
Incidentally, for really good analysis of how that came to be check out Sara Burke's excellent two-part series in the Irish Times. Part one is here and part two is at this address.
But following the debate today was like reliving last week, thought-by-thought, word-for-word, phrase-for-phrase replay of last week especially in the way Bertie Ahern batted back the questions. It was the exact same kickaround as last week, somebody had punctured the ball in between. The debate just seemed flat, dead, deflated. And it reminded you that for all his virtues in other areas Enda Kenny is only good at spontaneity when all of his lines have been carefully prepared beforehand.
There are mitigating factors. It's the last week of a short term (because of a very early Easter) in which the only two things of note to happen were the Taoiseach's tribunal evidence and the publication of the reports into the Portlaoise breast cancer scandal.
And probably lay too much store by Leaders Questions anyway. There is a notion that somehow this twice-weekly slot in the Dáil gets to the nub of politics in Ireland... that in each seven or eight minute segment, some great untold truth will be uncovered, that rigorous questioning and probing will expose cant or hypocrisy or empty promises.
But the reality is more prosaic. It can often be a formulaic and pro-forma exercise. More often than not, the Taoiseach (as Tony Blair has done in England) will read his answer from a script prepared by civil servants and special advisers who have anticipated every possible question from the opposition leaders. Only occasionally does it generate enough heat to allow us political hacks to bask in the warm glow.
The slot has lost a lot of its spark and its unpredictability by the big change in the Dail's power block since the election. The fragmented nature of the opposition between 2002 and 2007 meant that there were three opposition slots instead of the two (one of which was regularly occupied by the great Dáil performer Joe Higgins).
Now Sinn Fein (whittled down to four) and Tony Gregory are the only other opposition TDs besides Fine Gael and Labour. And it has meant that proceedings have become more uniform, less predictable. In fairness to Eamon Gilmore, his non-dramatic but sharp questioning has been arguably as effective as Pat Rabbitte's colourful contributions - in that they have tended to put Bertie on the back foot more.
There's a lot of talk about Dáil and Seanad reform. There's been a lot of talk about reform since the foundation of the State. There has been a corresponding lack of any meaningful reform. And I can safely predict that a commendable report will be drawn up by some committee or other during this term which will be carefully placed on a shelf that's heaving under the weight of all the other reports that have been compiled over the years.
I was reading a report from one of the American dailies today about the ratcheting-up of the row between Hillary and Barack. Wow. The sledging was impressive. And it was all about policy. Detailed scrutiny of voting records, claims and counter-claims about their records on Iraq; whether Obama had backed laws supportive of big oil companies; and if Hillary had over exaggerated her influence on foreign policy when First Lady between 1993 and 2001 (she claims to have played an instrumental role in the Northern Ireland peace process - well, if she did, she certainly hid her light under a bushel!)
Ok, it's an election campaign and it's full-blooded and it's America. And I know that we're in the difficult doldrumish first year after the election of a third-term government. But without the parallel soap opera that is the life of Bertie Ahern we would be so depleted of subject matter that we'd find screwing on the tops of the tubes in a toothpaste factory a far more intriguing and interesting occupation than political reporting.
1. When will Eliot Spitzer resign as New York Governor after being linked with a prostitution ring?
2. Will Obama take Mississippi (the last deep south state) with a double digit margin?
3. Just how dirty is the war of words going to get between Hillary of the steely lips and Obama of the silken tongue?
The things that are preoccupying Irish politics at this moment in time?
1. The same things as last week
2. which is the three reports into breast cancer misdiagnosis
3. and, erm, where all the Ministers are jetting to for the annual St Patrick's Day exodus.
So how has politics been shaping up this week? The good news is Irish politics has been moving as quickly as a sports car on a motorway since coming back in January. The bad news is that the motorway in question is the M50.
This week has just seemed so slow and so pedestrian. Leaders' questions today was dominated by the reports on Portlaoise and the (yes, very serious) issues of governance and management of the HSE.
Incidentally, for really good analysis of how that came to be check out Sara Burke's excellent two-part series in the Irish Times. Part one is here and part two is at this address.
But following the debate today was like reliving last week, thought-by-thought, word-for-word, phrase-for-phrase replay of last week especially in the way Bertie Ahern batted back the questions. It was the exact same kickaround as last week, somebody had punctured the ball in between. The debate just seemed flat, dead, deflated. And it reminded you that for all his virtues in other areas Enda Kenny is only good at spontaneity when all of his lines have been carefully prepared beforehand.
There are mitigating factors. It's the last week of a short term (because of a very early Easter) in which the only two things of note to happen were the Taoiseach's tribunal evidence and the publication of the reports into the Portlaoise breast cancer scandal.
And probably lay too much store by Leaders Questions anyway. There is a notion that somehow this twice-weekly slot in the Dáil gets to the nub of politics in Ireland... that in each seven or eight minute segment, some great untold truth will be uncovered, that rigorous questioning and probing will expose cant or hypocrisy or empty promises.
But the reality is more prosaic. It can often be a formulaic and pro-forma exercise. More often than not, the Taoiseach (as Tony Blair has done in England) will read his answer from a script prepared by civil servants and special advisers who have anticipated every possible question from the opposition leaders. Only occasionally does it generate enough heat to allow us political hacks to bask in the warm glow.
The slot has lost a lot of its spark and its unpredictability by the big change in the Dail's power block since the election. The fragmented nature of the opposition between 2002 and 2007 meant that there were three opposition slots instead of the two (one of which was regularly occupied by the great Dáil performer Joe Higgins).
Now Sinn Fein (whittled down to four) and Tony Gregory are the only other opposition TDs besides Fine Gael and Labour. And it has meant that proceedings have become more uniform, less predictable. In fairness to Eamon Gilmore, his non-dramatic but sharp questioning has been arguably as effective as Pat Rabbitte's colourful contributions - in that they have tended to put Bertie on the back foot more.
There's a lot of talk about Dáil and Seanad reform. There's been a lot of talk about reform since the foundation of the State. There has been a corresponding lack of any meaningful reform. And I can safely predict that a commendable report will be drawn up by some committee or other during this term which will be carefully placed on a shelf that's heaving under the weight of all the other reports that have been compiled over the years.
I was reading a report from one of the American dailies today about the ratcheting-up of the row between Hillary and Barack. Wow. The sledging was impressive. And it was all about policy. Detailed scrutiny of voting records, claims and counter-claims about their records on Iraq; whether Obama had backed laws supportive of big oil companies; and if Hillary had over exaggerated her influence on foreign policy when First Lady between 1993 and 2001 (she claims to have played an instrumental role in the Northern Ireland peace process - well, if she did, she certainly hid her light under a bushel!)
Ok, it's an election campaign and it's full-blooded and it's America. And I know that we're in the difficult doldrumish first year after the election of a third-term government. But without the parallel soap opera that is the life of Bertie Ahern we would be so depleted of subject matter that we'd find screwing on the tops of the tubes in a toothpaste factory a far more intriguing and interesting occupation than political reporting.
Wednesday, March 05, 2008
Maureen Dowd
All the people I loved reading, I can't read any more. Martin Amis (gone to seed). Christopher Hitchens (for his views and his increased portentousness and carbuncular prose). And now Maureen Dowd. I can hardly believe I'm saying this, For the past couple of years, her column has been as necessary as a cup of strong coffee. She's been piercing, witty, spot-on, reducing complex arguments to a hilarious throwaway line or pun.
But now I've gone right off her. And it's mostly because I disagree with her, but also because the prose I once found sharp and funny, I now find to be trite and corny. And her flirtage with Barack Obama is more out there than Obama Girl on You Tube. And I know she wasn't a fan of Bubba's. But by God, you can almost see the scratch marks appear on the screen every time she refers to Kill Hill.
But now I've gone right off her. And it's mostly because I disagree with her, but also because the prose I once found sharp and funny, I now find to be trite and corny. And her flirtage with Barack Obama is more out there than Obama Girl on You Tube. And I know she wasn't a fan of Bubba's. But by God, you can almost see the scratch marks appear on the screen every time she refers to Kill Hill.
Promise versus Experience in the wake of Texas and Ohio
The Hillary Clinton campaign's dive bombing of Obama's campaign in the past week shows up some of the unavoidable pitfalls of politics.
And after months where people said that Clinton's negative campaigning would backfire on it, it's now clear that her furious shaking of the apple tree has finally forced some fruit to fall.
Candidates have three major commodities to offer to the electorate - personality; their record; and their potential. Obama's record (three years as a Senator)isn't exactly replete.
So he has traded on his charisma and his potential, encapsulated in his message for change. The problem is that a lot of this is aspirational and non-tangible - the 'vision thing'.
Tony Blair did a lot of it. So did Clinton. It was never Bertie's strongest suit (Once nested into government during a boom, FF could easily sit on its record - it won't be so easy next time out as economic fortunes go south). But if you parse any of the Ard Fheis/National Conference speeches from any parties here in the South, you still get oodles of this prose.
An example thrown out from the top of my head:
It's rhetoric. Pretty vacant and empty. And to a certain extent Obama has been getting away with spewing out this stuff - that sounds incredibly impressive but contains precious little. It's like candy floss - it looks substantial and enticing but turns out to be the next thing to having nothing at all.
Dan Sullivan, in his comment on the last post, was talking about Sinn Fein's constant references to 'equality', one of those catch-all words that sound great but ultimately mean little, unless you are prepared to do the slog-work and define exactly what you mean.
I think if you compare US politics with that of Britain and Ireland, the Americans tend to value the aspirational higher than we do, which is why Obama's rhetoric may eventually outflank Clinton's experience.
Here, experience and record have been the driving factors behind Fianna Fail's facile victories in 2002 and (in the circumstances) facile victory in 2007. Of course, it was easier, as times were good. The 'experience' over the next five years will be undoubtedly rockier. Which will mean that the alternatives will have a real shot at it, irrespective of who the new FF leader will be. But FG and Labour will not get away with vague rhetoric and half-promises - besides showing that they have the 'grist' for the challenge, they will have to spell out all their policies, to almost wonkish detail. And that kind of rigour can only be good. S
And after months where people said that Clinton's negative campaigning would backfire on it, it's now clear that her furious shaking of the apple tree has finally forced some fruit to fall.
Candidates have three major commodities to offer to the electorate - personality; their record; and their potential. Obama's record (three years as a Senator)isn't exactly replete.
So he has traded on his charisma and his potential, encapsulated in his message for change. The problem is that a lot of this is aspirational and non-tangible - the 'vision thing'.
Tony Blair did a lot of it. So did Clinton. It was never Bertie's strongest suit (Once nested into government during a boom, FF could easily sit on its record - it won't be so easy next time out as economic fortunes go south). But if you parse any of the Ard Fheis/National Conference speeches from any parties here in the South, you still get oodles of this prose.
An example thrown out from the top of my head:
"I believe in an Ireland of equality, an Ireland of prosperity, and Ireland where people can walk safely on the streets without worrying about being mugged or stabbed. I believe in a strong economy, where there is respect for the individual while we still cater for the needs of society as a while."
It's rhetoric. Pretty vacant and empty. And to a certain extent Obama has been getting away with spewing out this stuff - that sounds incredibly impressive but contains precious little. It's like candy floss - it looks substantial and enticing but turns out to be the next thing to having nothing at all.
Dan Sullivan, in his comment on the last post, was talking about Sinn Fein's constant references to 'equality', one of those catch-all words that sound great but ultimately mean little, unless you are prepared to do the slog-work and define exactly what you mean.
I think if you compare US politics with that of Britain and Ireland, the Americans tend to value the aspirational higher than we do, which is why Obama's rhetoric may eventually outflank Clinton's experience.
Here, experience and record have been the driving factors behind Fianna Fail's facile victories in 2002 and (in the circumstances) facile victory in 2007. Of course, it was easier, as times were good. The 'experience' over the next five years will be undoubtedly rockier. Which will mean that the alternatives will have a real shot at it, irrespective of who the new FF leader will be. But FG and Labour will not get away with vague rhetoric and half-promises - besides showing that they have the 'grist' for the challenge, they will have to spell out all their policies, to almost wonkish detail. And that kind of rigour can only be good. S
Tuesday, March 04, 2008
Say it Again Terence
The hapless Terence Flanagan has been exposed as a serial borrower of other people's speeches. This time round, when confronted with the 'evidence' by a Sunday newspaper journalist, he 'fessed up. As a rookie TD, it had been a 'steep learning curve'. From now on, he was going to talk 'on the hoof'.
I have seen Terence in action in the Dáil chamber and Edmund Burke, or Denis Skinner, or Joe Higgins... he is not. Even with a script his delivery is halting and his tone is as unchanging as a heart monitor attached to a rock. I also lived with him (vicariously of course) through the agonising listening experience of Terence Flanagan attempting to speak Irish (it was not pretty - though fair play to him for giving it a go).
The young Dublin North East TD should do what Fianna Fail backbenchers do - get the party's researchers to write the bulk of their stuff. Or maybe borrow some magic dust of Charlie O'Connor. No matter what subject or legislation or controversy is being debated in the Dáil Charlie sprinkles some magic dust on it and it turns into a speech about Tallaght. Maybe Terence could try a similar wheeze by getting Kilbarrack or Raheny to take their places among the nations o the earth.
And we journalists shouldn't scoff (yep, that's exactly what I was doing in the previous few pars). What do they say about journalist? Oh yes, it's the first page of tomorrow's fish and chip writing (you got a two-for-one bargain there in the metaphor department!) Journalists steal line, or borrow as we euphemise it, all the time. From other journalists. From other newspapers. Sometimes when two journalists are discussing the copy of a rival, they will dismiss the article as a 'clippings job' (the article is a mosaic that has culled the writing and wisdom of older articles on the internet).
But perhaps Terence is the symptom of the 30th Dail. Since the General Election a sense of listlessness and inertia has been evident. Sure there has been the odd conflagration (autism; the cancer misdiagnosis scandal) and of course the endless plot twists of the Bertie, Celia and the Drumcondra mafia soap opera has kept us all entertained. But beyond that, when it comes to the real business of the legislature and the executive you just feel that everything is in a kind of vast and endless holding pattern.
There has been a dearth of legislation. Even now, the new Bills are only trickling through. Talk of Dail and Seanad reform is as vague and vacant as it always has been - we will see herds of camels crossing the Polar tundra before meaningful reform of parliament takes place. And the Greens have come up with a couple of neat and worthy policies and promises. But we still await what we expect from the Greens - something vervy, something edgy, something radical, something that grabs you by the pin of your collar and shakes you out of any complacency or lethargy you might have. As for the rest of the Cabinet, none (especially Brian Cowen) seem inclined to step outside the comfort zone. They comport themselves like some kind of super executives or manager (some even use the excruciatingly ugly phrase 'Ireland plc) and just let everything tick along nicely.
There are exceptions. Noel Dempsey has lots of ideas - and most of them are surprisingly good. Then there was Micheál and the smoking ban. Will that become for him what 'Yesterday' became for Paul McCartney - John Lennon mocked his former writing partner for having composed only one memorable song. And Brian Cowen? He makes Ken Baldwin from Coronation Street look like a thrilling daredevil.
Well if Twink is packing them in up at the Tivoli with Menopause the Musical then the Anorak is equally capable of drawing a crowd at Dublin Castle with Man Opposing the Tribunal (sorry, sorry, sorry - it's brutal I know). The awful thought struck me yesterday. If Bertie goes as quickly as we all predict he will, we will have nothing to write about. They're all so bored with it (and boring as a result) that it's not only Terence who's repeating himself over and over again with borrowed words and ideas.
I have seen Terence in action in the Dáil chamber and Edmund Burke, or Denis Skinner, or Joe Higgins... he is not. Even with a script his delivery is halting and his tone is as unchanging as a heart monitor attached to a rock. I also lived with him (vicariously of course) through the agonising listening experience of Terence Flanagan attempting to speak Irish (it was not pretty - though fair play to him for giving it a go).
The young Dublin North East TD should do what Fianna Fail backbenchers do - get the party's researchers to write the bulk of their stuff. Or maybe borrow some magic dust of Charlie O'Connor. No matter what subject or legislation or controversy is being debated in the Dáil Charlie sprinkles some magic dust on it and it turns into a speech about Tallaght. Maybe Terence could try a similar wheeze by getting Kilbarrack or Raheny to take their places among the nations o the earth.
And we journalists shouldn't scoff (yep, that's exactly what I was doing in the previous few pars). What do they say about journalist? Oh yes, it's the first page of tomorrow's fish and chip writing (you got a two-for-one bargain there in the metaphor department!) Journalists steal line, or borrow as we euphemise it, all the time. From other journalists. From other newspapers. Sometimes when two journalists are discussing the copy of a rival, they will dismiss the article as a 'clippings job' (the article is a mosaic that has culled the writing and wisdom of older articles on the internet).
But perhaps Terence is the symptom of the 30th Dail. Since the General Election a sense of listlessness and inertia has been evident. Sure there has been the odd conflagration (autism; the cancer misdiagnosis scandal) and of course the endless plot twists of the Bertie, Celia and the Drumcondra mafia soap opera has kept us all entertained. But beyond that, when it comes to the real business of the legislature and the executive you just feel that everything is in a kind of vast and endless holding pattern.
There has been a dearth of legislation. Even now, the new Bills are only trickling through. Talk of Dail and Seanad reform is as vague and vacant as it always has been - we will see herds of camels crossing the Polar tundra before meaningful reform of parliament takes place. And the Greens have come up with a couple of neat and worthy policies and promises. But we still await what we expect from the Greens - something vervy, something edgy, something radical, something that grabs you by the pin of your collar and shakes you out of any complacency or lethargy you might have. As for the rest of the Cabinet, none (especially Brian Cowen) seem inclined to step outside the comfort zone. They comport themselves like some kind of super executives or manager (some even use the excruciatingly ugly phrase 'Ireland plc) and just let everything tick along nicely.
There are exceptions. Noel Dempsey has lots of ideas - and most of them are surprisingly good. Then there was Micheál and the smoking ban. Will that become for him what 'Yesterday' became for Paul McCartney - John Lennon mocked his former writing partner for having composed only one memorable song. And Brian Cowen? He makes Ken Baldwin from Coronation Street look like a thrilling daredevil.
Well if Twink is packing them in up at the Tivoli with Menopause the Musical then the Anorak is equally capable of drawing a crowd at Dublin Castle with Man Opposing the Tribunal (sorry, sorry, sorry - it's brutal I know). The awful thought struck me yesterday. If Bertie goes as quickly as we all predict he will, we will have nothing to write about. They're all so bored with it (and boring as a result) that it's not only Terence who's repeating himself over and over again with borrowed words and ideas.
Monday, March 03, 2008
INSIDE POLITICS - THE LATEST POLL
I haven't posted anything since December 21. That's a fair gap, or a hiatus as we call it in my new place of employ.
Since then a a lot of water has passed under the bridge
Or as Terry Flanagan might put it, a lot of water has passed under the bridge.
Well it hasn't really.
I signed off with Bertie back then and am - surprise, surprise - locking back in with Bertie.
The Sunday Business Post poll findings on his Tribunal evidence was enough to completely wilt that surge (well the slight increase of one percent)in Fianna Fail's support levels.
Fifty three per cent don't believe Ahern's evidence. Half of those surveyed no longer trust him to run the country. And if he is found to have lied to the Tribunal, seven out of ten think that will merit the walking of the political plank.
Earlier this week, I did a piece on Fianna Fail's grassroots. Unsurprisingly, they are all four square (110 percent as they all say) behind him, irrespective of how deep or how suppurating the slurry he has to wade through.
They reminded me of the final scene in 'Some Like it Hot' with Jack Lemmon (still in drag) and the the little fellow who has fallen for his female persona. Jack Lemmon , tries to break it him gently, giving a list of reasons why they can't marry.
Finally, he says: "I can never have children", to which the suitor cheerily responds: "I don't care."
Damn it all, says Lemmon in exasperation as he rips of the wig, I'm a man.
To which the suitor replies cheerily: "I don't care."
And that's how loyal the FF grassroots are!
We have written endlessly here about the longevity of the anorak.
But the 30 grand to Celia; the melding of political donations with personal cash... all that is potentially more damaging than the dig-out loans and the eight grand from Manchester.
For the first time we sense that this remarkable political journey will reach an end sooner than marked out on the itinerary. The land that Charlie McCreevy got after the locals in 2004, will be given this time to the giver of the land. There will be no Inchdoney strategy this time round. It's an exit strategy and it will be timed for sometime around the local elections next year.
Since then a a lot of water has passed under the bridge
Or as Terry Flanagan might put it, a lot of water has passed under the bridge.
Well it hasn't really.
I signed off with Bertie back then and am - surprise, surprise - locking back in with Bertie.
The Sunday Business Post poll findings on his Tribunal evidence was enough to completely wilt that surge (well the slight increase of one percent)in Fianna Fail's support levels.
Fifty three per cent don't believe Ahern's evidence. Half of those surveyed no longer trust him to run the country. And if he is found to have lied to the Tribunal, seven out of ten think that will merit the walking of the political plank.
Earlier this week, I did a piece on Fianna Fail's grassroots. Unsurprisingly, they are all four square (110 percent as they all say) behind him, irrespective of how deep or how suppurating the slurry he has to wade through.
They reminded me of the final scene in 'Some Like it Hot' with Jack Lemmon (still in drag) and the the little fellow who has fallen for his female persona. Jack Lemmon , tries to break it him gently, giving a list of reasons why they can't marry.
Finally, he says: "I can never have children", to which the suitor cheerily responds: "I don't care."
Damn it all, says Lemmon in exasperation as he rips of the wig, I'm a man.
To which the suitor replies cheerily: "I don't care."
And that's how loyal the FF grassroots are!
We have written endlessly here about the longevity of the anorak.
But the 30 grand to Celia; the melding of political donations with personal cash... all that is potentially more damaging than the dig-out loans and the eight grand from Manchester.
For the first time we sense that this remarkable political journey will reach an end sooner than marked out on the itinerary. The land that Charlie McCreevy got after the locals in 2004, will be given this time to the giver of the land. There will be no Inchdoney strategy this time round. It's an exit strategy and it will be timed for sometime around the local elections next year.
Friday, December 21, 2007
INSIDE POLITICS - OUTSIDE POLITICS
Today is my last day with the Irish Examiner before I move over to the Irish Times in the New Year. It's an incredibly sad day, far more so than I imagined. I have been with 'de paper' for four and a half years and, professionally, it has been a very happy period in my life.
I was hoping that the last week would be relatively quiet but it's been busy. It hasn't been helped by the fact that I've come down with a cold that's not bad enough to make me miss work but is bad enough to make me feel sorry for myself.
And of course, I finish today, as I started in August 2003, writing about Bertie. The controversy he was involved in then sounds so trivial, so insignificant now. His daughter was getting married in France and the media were going bananas about the deal they had forged with one of the gossip-celeb mags and Bertie's attitude to the media.
And on my last day, it's all about Bertie again - this time, his ongoing appearances at the Mahon Tribunal.
I'm sorry for dredging up a horrible metaphor. But yesterday he was like - to use a description used of him before - a rat in an anorak. The aggression he displayed yesterday was jaw-dropping. And when Dermot Ahern, Mícheál Martin, and Dick Roche (who alleged 'bias') started getting in on the act, it was hard not to think that there was a concerted effort going on to undermine the Tribunal.
Ok the last day isn't going to descend into a long liquid Christmas lunch... but hey, we have the best Christmas panto of them all... Bertie and his Magic Anorak...
And if you can bear it, here is my analysis from yesterday's evidence... it's 1,600 long, so strictly only for Anorak anoraks!
There were moments during yesterday afternoon when the dialogue seemed closer to New Jersey and James Gandolfino’s portrayal of Tony Soprano than to Drumcondra and to Bertie Ahern’s portrayal of a Ward boss.
There is no way of exaggerating the accusation he made against the Tribunal and its lawyers, directly alleging that it was “trying to set me up and stitch me up”.
Mr Ahern repeated again and again this was unbelievable. And if you were to find a word to describe the entire day it would be the closely related unreal, maybe even surreal. This was as dramatic as the Tribunal gets, with the Taoiseach playing it tough and hard and, looked at from his perspective, saying no more nice guy, I’m going to give as good as I get here. Was this a new strategy or direction by the Taoiseach and his legal team. You would have to say yes, on balance, especially with the strategically-timed intervention late in the afternoon of the Cabinet’s self-styled bruiser Dermot Ahern who didn’t let the fact that he wasn’t there prevent him from having a go at the Tribunal and its legal team, for its “astonishing” line of questioning.
In truth there wasn’t anything all that astonishing about the Tribunal’s line of questioning. All morning and all afternoon, the senior member of its legal team, Des O’Neill, continued his same patient, snail-like, implacable, even-voiced and occasionally monotonous line of questioning.
With two days scheduled we all thought he’d jump into the second dig-out and ask questions about the size of the envelope Dermot Carew gave him or what kind of a friend Padraic O’Connor of NCB really was. But besides brief references in passing to that second payment from Carew, Paddy the Plasterer, Barry English and Joe Burke, Mr O’Neill honed in how Mr Ahern managed his finances between 1987 and 1994.
And in the end, it boiled down to two lines of questioning. The first was a detailed examination of how he managed his financial affairs without a bank account and how he managed to save £54,000. Nothing astonishing about that. A lot of unexplained cracks there, that Mr Ahern didn’t really fully Pollyfilla to a smooth finish yesterday.
And the second line of questioning centred around a loan that Mr Ahern took out in December 1993 of just under £20,000 to pay legal fees from his separation and pay off his ex-wife’s car loan.
Mr O’Neill probed him on why he needed to take out a loan when he has said he had £54,000 saved over seven years at that stage.
It gets a bit complicated from here, granted, but the sequence is very important. The loan of £20,000 was drawn down on the 23 December 1993, the same day as Mr Ahern opened a Special Savings Account (SSA). Three days later, on St Stephen’s Day, December 26, Mr Ahern received his first dig-out loan from eight friends amounting to £22,500. Mr Ahern said that when he opened the SSA he hoped to put £30,000 of his own savings in. But in fact, on December 30th he put the £22,500 from the dig-out in and waited another four months before putting the £30,000 in.
There were a couple of other unusual aspects to this. He did not start paying the £20,000 loan back until 18 months later. And on the application for the SSA, the date of 23 December seemed to have been written over another date, 14 December.
Mr Ahern’s explanation was this. He had money saved. But £20,000 of it was earmarked for a trust fund for his daughters. If he paid out another £20,000 for legal fees and Miriam’s car loan, he would have only £10,000 left. So he took out a loan to leave him with £30,000, which he then earmarked for the SSA. Then just after he applied for the SSA, the first dig-out came in and he put that in instead.
But Mr O’Neill advanced another possible scenario in the later afternoon, that Mr Ahern went into the bank earlier, on December 14th with the intention of borrowing money. But he did it in a back-to-back arrangement, whereby he promised to put in a deposit that would be equivalent to the loan plus interest paid (£19,000 plus interest would come to around £22,500). The SSA document, if it was dated December 14th and not December 23rd, would support this thesis. Then the scenario went that Bertie Ahern started going around raising the funds which were collected together by the 30th December.
The implications of this were clear. That the spontaneous dig-out didn’t happen, but the Bertie Ahern had been planning from at least 14th December to make a back-to-back arrangement.
The real purpose of why he must do this remained unsaid. But the unspoken allegation that threaded the entire day (and this is my interpretation) was that Bertie Ahern was somehow trying to conceal funds he had, and funds he was raising from friends, from his ex-wife.
That scenario challenged his version of events and led to a rare display of raw and apoplectic anger from him. Twice he used the term “stitch up”. Well, the stakes were very high. Because if that scenario were to be true, it would make Bertie Ahern into a liar. And that’s the beginning and the end of it.
Here’s a taste of his response: “That is just unbelievable. Unbelievable… To think that AIB would get into a conspiracy to set up such a convoluted set of circumstances,” he railed.
In his strongest moment of the entire day, he pointed out to the fact that if he was plotting to do that on the 14th, how could he have done it when Padraic O’Connor’s draft and the cheque from Des Richardson were not signed until the 22nd of December. “Be Jesus, I’m some fella,” he said.
In a way, some people (including the media) have slightly distorted expectations of what to expect. The name of the game is establishing the facts and the facts in Bertie Ahern’s universe don’t assemble themselves as neatly as a denouement in an Agatha Christie novel
Given the very slow pace (it is Christmas and I’m being very kind) of Des O’Neill’s examination, it is a possibility that he has laid down some traps that might be sprung today or in the New Year, (because Bertie is going to have to come back).
But it seemed yesterday that some cul-de-sacs were ventured into and we came back out as wise as we were when we went in. At one stage, Des O’Neill pointed out that the design of some of the notes had changed during the seven years Ahern was stashing money in the safe at St Luke’s and in his Minister’s office. Where was this leading to? Nowhere really (unless Des O’Neill comes back to it). There was no penalty for depositing old notes rather than the new one.
O’Neill set about his business with the same calm unflappability as December. From early on, it was clear that Bertie Ahern’s attitude had changed. There was an assertion there, verging on aggressiveness at time. Again and again, he got in cuts of thinly-veiled sarcasm. His whole body language was hostile, hunched in the witness box – sometimes glowering and glaring at Mr O’Neill using the eyeball-to-eyeball technique used by professional boxers at weighs-in. When Mr O’Neill sailed too close to the wind when questioning him about £20,000 he had earmarked for his daughters’ education at the time of the separation, Mr Ahern pointed at him aggressively while saying:
“I had saved it since 1987 through the whole period of my separation which I don’t think is any of your damn business.”
There was another novel aspect; a bit of new detail that somebody hadn’t leaked. Mr O’Neill revealed that a handwriting expert in the UK had been commissioned and had concluded that the date on Mr Ahern’s SSA application might have been December 14 not December 23.
It prompted another barb from him: “You went to the trouble of sending this to a forensic expert in the UK… I was quite amused when I saw the document because I wondered how why you had Mr Gilmartin in for weeks on end, changing diaries, changing years… making it up on the hoof. You never bothered to send any of his diaries.”
The one thing that has sore-thumb stickoutablility is the fact that there are no documents whatsoever to show beyond the balance of probability that he saved £54,000 in dry cash when he had no bank accounts. On the other hand there is no documents, or other evidence, to show that he didn’t.
Somebody said yesterday that the Tribunal’s scenario was as plausible as Ahern’s story. Perhaps. But it’s not more plausible. And unless there is hard evidence to show otherwise, Bertie Ahern has the benefit of the doubt.
But stitch-ups, set ups, none of your damn business. One thing has changed since September – the gloves have come off.
I was hoping that the last week would be relatively quiet but it's been busy. It hasn't been helped by the fact that I've come down with a cold that's not bad enough to make me miss work but is bad enough to make me feel sorry for myself.
And of course, I finish today, as I started in August 2003, writing about Bertie. The controversy he was involved in then sounds so trivial, so insignificant now. His daughter was getting married in France and the media were going bananas about the deal they had forged with one of the gossip-celeb mags and Bertie's attitude to the media.
And on my last day, it's all about Bertie again - this time, his ongoing appearances at the Mahon Tribunal.
I'm sorry for dredging up a horrible metaphor. But yesterday he was like - to use a description used of him before - a rat in an anorak. The aggression he displayed yesterday was jaw-dropping. And when Dermot Ahern, Mícheál Martin, and Dick Roche (who alleged 'bias') started getting in on the act, it was hard not to think that there was a concerted effort going on to undermine the Tribunal.
Ok the last day isn't going to descend into a long liquid Christmas lunch... but hey, we have the best Christmas panto of them all... Bertie and his Magic Anorak...
And if you can bear it, here is my analysis from yesterday's evidence... it's 1,600 long, so strictly only for Anorak anoraks!
There were moments during yesterday afternoon when the dialogue seemed closer to New Jersey and James Gandolfino’s portrayal of Tony Soprano than to Drumcondra and to Bertie Ahern’s portrayal of a Ward boss.
There is no way of exaggerating the accusation he made against the Tribunal and its lawyers, directly alleging that it was “trying to set me up and stitch me up”.
Mr Ahern repeated again and again this was unbelievable. And if you were to find a word to describe the entire day it would be the closely related unreal, maybe even surreal. This was as dramatic as the Tribunal gets, with the Taoiseach playing it tough and hard and, looked at from his perspective, saying no more nice guy, I’m going to give as good as I get here. Was this a new strategy or direction by the Taoiseach and his legal team. You would have to say yes, on balance, especially with the strategically-timed intervention late in the afternoon of the Cabinet’s self-styled bruiser Dermot Ahern who didn’t let the fact that he wasn’t there prevent him from having a go at the Tribunal and its legal team, for its “astonishing” line of questioning.
In truth there wasn’t anything all that astonishing about the Tribunal’s line of questioning. All morning and all afternoon, the senior member of its legal team, Des O’Neill, continued his same patient, snail-like, implacable, even-voiced and occasionally monotonous line of questioning.
With two days scheduled we all thought he’d jump into the second dig-out and ask questions about the size of the envelope Dermot Carew gave him or what kind of a friend Padraic O’Connor of NCB really was. But besides brief references in passing to that second payment from Carew, Paddy the Plasterer, Barry English and Joe Burke, Mr O’Neill honed in how Mr Ahern managed his finances between 1987 and 1994.
And in the end, it boiled down to two lines of questioning. The first was a detailed examination of how he managed his financial affairs without a bank account and how he managed to save £54,000. Nothing astonishing about that. A lot of unexplained cracks there, that Mr Ahern didn’t really fully Pollyfilla to a smooth finish yesterday.
And the second line of questioning centred around a loan that Mr Ahern took out in December 1993 of just under £20,000 to pay legal fees from his separation and pay off his ex-wife’s car loan.
Mr O’Neill probed him on why he needed to take out a loan when he has said he had £54,000 saved over seven years at that stage.
It gets a bit complicated from here, granted, but the sequence is very important. The loan of £20,000 was drawn down on the 23 December 1993, the same day as Mr Ahern opened a Special Savings Account (SSA). Three days later, on St Stephen’s Day, December 26, Mr Ahern received his first dig-out loan from eight friends amounting to £22,500. Mr Ahern said that when he opened the SSA he hoped to put £30,000 of his own savings in. But in fact, on December 30th he put the £22,500 from the dig-out in and waited another four months before putting the £30,000 in.
There were a couple of other unusual aspects to this. He did not start paying the £20,000 loan back until 18 months later. And on the application for the SSA, the date of 23 December seemed to have been written over another date, 14 December.
Mr Ahern’s explanation was this. He had money saved. But £20,000 of it was earmarked for a trust fund for his daughters. If he paid out another £20,000 for legal fees and Miriam’s car loan, he would have only £10,000 left. So he took out a loan to leave him with £30,000, which he then earmarked for the SSA. Then just after he applied for the SSA, the first dig-out came in and he put that in instead.
But Mr O’Neill advanced another possible scenario in the later afternoon, that Mr Ahern went into the bank earlier, on December 14th with the intention of borrowing money. But he did it in a back-to-back arrangement, whereby he promised to put in a deposit that would be equivalent to the loan plus interest paid (£19,000 plus interest would come to around £22,500). The SSA document, if it was dated December 14th and not December 23rd, would support this thesis. Then the scenario went that Bertie Ahern started going around raising the funds which were collected together by the 30th December.
The implications of this were clear. That the spontaneous dig-out didn’t happen, but the Bertie Ahern had been planning from at least 14th December to make a back-to-back arrangement.
The real purpose of why he must do this remained unsaid. But the unspoken allegation that threaded the entire day (and this is my interpretation) was that Bertie Ahern was somehow trying to conceal funds he had, and funds he was raising from friends, from his ex-wife.
That scenario challenged his version of events and led to a rare display of raw and apoplectic anger from him. Twice he used the term “stitch up”. Well, the stakes were very high. Because if that scenario were to be true, it would make Bertie Ahern into a liar. And that’s the beginning and the end of it.
Here’s a taste of his response: “That is just unbelievable. Unbelievable… To think that AIB would get into a conspiracy to set up such a convoluted set of circumstances,” he railed.
In his strongest moment of the entire day, he pointed out to the fact that if he was plotting to do that on the 14th, how could he have done it when Padraic O’Connor’s draft and the cheque from Des Richardson were not signed until the 22nd of December. “Be Jesus, I’m some fella,” he said.
In a way, some people (including the media) have slightly distorted expectations of what to expect. The name of the game is establishing the facts and the facts in Bertie Ahern’s universe don’t assemble themselves as neatly as a denouement in an Agatha Christie novel
Given the very slow pace (it is Christmas and I’m being very kind) of Des O’Neill’s examination, it is a possibility that he has laid down some traps that might be sprung today or in the New Year, (because Bertie is going to have to come back).
But it seemed yesterday that some cul-de-sacs were ventured into and we came back out as wise as we were when we went in. At one stage, Des O’Neill pointed out that the design of some of the notes had changed during the seven years Ahern was stashing money in the safe at St Luke’s and in his Minister’s office. Where was this leading to? Nowhere really (unless Des O’Neill comes back to it). There was no penalty for depositing old notes rather than the new one.
O’Neill set about his business with the same calm unflappability as December. From early on, it was clear that Bertie Ahern’s attitude had changed. There was an assertion there, verging on aggressiveness at time. Again and again, he got in cuts of thinly-veiled sarcasm. His whole body language was hostile, hunched in the witness box – sometimes glowering and glaring at Mr O’Neill using the eyeball-to-eyeball technique used by professional boxers at weighs-in. When Mr O’Neill sailed too close to the wind when questioning him about £20,000 he had earmarked for his daughters’ education at the time of the separation, Mr Ahern pointed at him aggressively while saying:
“I had saved it since 1987 through the whole period of my separation which I don’t think is any of your damn business.”
There was another novel aspect; a bit of new detail that somebody hadn’t leaked. Mr O’Neill revealed that a handwriting expert in the UK had been commissioned and had concluded that the date on Mr Ahern’s SSA application might have been December 14 not December 23.
It prompted another barb from him: “You went to the trouble of sending this to a forensic expert in the UK… I was quite amused when I saw the document because I wondered how why you had Mr Gilmartin in for weeks on end, changing diaries, changing years… making it up on the hoof. You never bothered to send any of his diaries.”
The one thing that has sore-thumb stickoutablility is the fact that there are no documents whatsoever to show beyond the balance of probability that he saved £54,000 in dry cash when he had no bank accounts. On the other hand there is no documents, or other evidence, to show that he didn’t.
Somebody said yesterday that the Tribunal’s scenario was as plausible as Ahern’s story. Perhaps. But it’s not more plausible. And unless there is hard evidence to show otherwise, Bertie Ahern has the benefit of the doubt.
But stitch-ups, set ups, none of your damn business. One thing has changed since September – the gloves have come off.
Saturday, December 15, 2007
INSIDE POLITICS - BALI CONFERENCE
“Cad a dhéanfaimid feasta gan adhmad? Tá deireadh na gcoillte ar lár.”
The famous lines from an unknown 19th century poet lamenting the loss of Ireland’s great oak forests came to mind yesterday when reading through various reports of the World climate change talks in Bali.
The sentiments of the poem were that Britain had denuded Ireland of its forests and its greatest resources thus bringing the country to its knees.
It is a familiar and perennial feature of the divisions of power throughout the centuries – the manner in which the powerful exploit the weak by robbing them of their resources – both natural and human.
As you read this column this morning, the likelihood is that an agreement has been reached between the 190 countries participating in the crucial talks in the Indonesian resort. But don’t let the fact that there are so many countries participating or that fact that it’s under the auspices of the United Nations fool you into thinking that it’s a family of nations kind of thing. The debate is about the relationship of the powerful to the weak – and particularly about their respective responsibilities to the others with which they share this globe. And has often happened under the blinkered administration that has held power there since 2000, the focus has fallen unremittingly on the United States.
The purpose of the talks in Bali have been to reach agreement on new measures to combat global warming that will take effect once the Kyoto Agreement comes to an end in 2012. Until the middle of this decade, there were a handful of powerful countries in the awkward squad, who were unprepared to meet Kyoto commitments and targets; who also refused to set targets and timetables for reductions (on the basis that if others weren’t doing it; it would hurt their economies). But little by little, that number has been whittled down so that the refuseniks can be counted on the fingers of one hand. They are primarily the US; and then Canada and Japan. Of course, China (developing at a frightening rate) is also a huge problem but at least it is now beginning to talk the talk. Between them the US and China are responsible for about 50% of all CO2 emissions. Both need to act – if they don’t they could make the planet uninhabitable within a century.
The fault-lines at Bali for the past fortnight has been the refusal of the US to accept targets and timetables and instead opt for countries setting voluntary targets (ie a complete copu-out). The EU has demanded that the final text include a specific commitment that developed nations must their emissions by 25-40% by 2020, a massive task. And so incensed was the EU by the refusal of the US to engage that it threatened to boycott the US-organised conference involving the world’s biggest polluters next month.
"The United States in particular is behaving like passengers in first class in a jumbo jet, thinking a catastrophe in economy class won't affect them," environmentalist Tony Juniper was quoted as saying in the New York Times. "If we go down, we go down together, and the United States needs to realize that very quickly."
Some people have been lulled into the fiction that Kyoto is the panacea. In fact, Kyoto (agreed in 1997 but which only began in February 2005) set very modest targets indeed for reduction of carbon dioxide – only 5% below 1990 levels for developed countries. Even here in Ireland, we got a massive derogation – we were allowed to increase our carbon emissions by 13% (and in 2005, our emissions were already 25% above our 1990 levels). Even the ‘greening’ of Government will mean we won’t meet our Kyoto commitments.
The Government has argued that Ireland was a ‘developing’ country in that time, and needed to catch up with our European neighbours who were decades of us.
That’s the argument that has been used by poorer countries in Bali where ‘climate justice’ has become a buzz word. Countries in what we used call the ‘third world’ and developing economies like India and China argue that it’s all very well for the industrialised west to call for reducing emissions but by doing that millions of people will be trapped in poverty because they can’t access electricity; they can’t build factories; they can’t increasingly benefit from machinery and vehicles that run on petrol.
It’s true that the sacrifice in advanced countries like Europe need to be massive – a 60%-80% drop in carbon emissions by 2050, on the other hand, it would be tempting disaster to allow developing countries to have a free hand in repeating the mistakes and the waste when playing catch-up.
That’s where two vital mechanisms play their part. One is joint implementation where countries which have developed advanced and efficient power plants (like Germany) invest in other countries (like Russia, Bulgaria etc) who have noxious power plants and get carbon credits in exchange. The other is the clean development mechanism. Here a developing country is encouraged to use alternatives like solar, windpower and hydropower. If a rich country comes in and supplies the technology, it will get carbon credits for doing so.
And back to “cad a dhéanfaimid feasta gan admad?” I was reminded of it because one of the innovations is that countries with rain forests (vital lungs that help cool the planet) like Brazil, Costa Rica and Papua New Guinea are given incentives to retain them. And in developed countries too, the idea of afforestation is an important one.
If you look at our own carbon budget, creating new forests (to absorb carbon) is the biggest component of Ireland’s blueprint. If it does go to plan, one of the beneficial outcomes will be that the great forests that Ireland once had will be restored.
This is my column from this morning's Irish Examiner
The famous lines from an unknown 19th century poet lamenting the loss of Ireland’s great oak forests came to mind yesterday when reading through various reports of the World climate change talks in Bali.
The sentiments of the poem were that Britain had denuded Ireland of its forests and its greatest resources thus bringing the country to its knees.
It is a familiar and perennial feature of the divisions of power throughout the centuries – the manner in which the powerful exploit the weak by robbing them of their resources – both natural and human.
As you read this column this morning, the likelihood is that an agreement has been reached between the 190 countries participating in the crucial talks in the Indonesian resort. But don’t let the fact that there are so many countries participating or that fact that it’s under the auspices of the United Nations fool you into thinking that it’s a family of nations kind of thing. The debate is about the relationship of the powerful to the weak – and particularly about their respective responsibilities to the others with which they share this globe. And has often happened under the blinkered administration that has held power there since 2000, the focus has fallen unremittingly on the United States.
The purpose of the talks in Bali have been to reach agreement on new measures to combat global warming that will take effect once the Kyoto Agreement comes to an end in 2012. Until the middle of this decade, there were a handful of powerful countries in the awkward squad, who were unprepared to meet Kyoto commitments and targets; who also refused to set targets and timetables for reductions (on the basis that if others weren’t doing it; it would hurt their economies). But little by little, that number has been whittled down so that the refuseniks can be counted on the fingers of one hand. They are primarily the US; and then Canada and Japan. Of course, China (developing at a frightening rate) is also a huge problem but at least it is now beginning to talk the talk. Between them the US and China are responsible for about 50% of all CO2 emissions. Both need to act – if they don’t they could make the planet uninhabitable within a century.
The fault-lines at Bali for the past fortnight has been the refusal of the US to accept targets and timetables and instead opt for countries setting voluntary targets (ie a complete copu-out). The EU has demanded that the final text include a specific commitment that developed nations must their emissions by 25-40% by 2020, a massive task. And so incensed was the EU by the refusal of the US to engage that it threatened to boycott the US-organised conference involving the world’s biggest polluters next month.
"The United States in particular is behaving like passengers in first class in a jumbo jet, thinking a catastrophe in economy class won't affect them," environmentalist Tony Juniper was quoted as saying in the New York Times. "If we go down, we go down together, and the United States needs to realize that very quickly."
Some people have been lulled into the fiction that Kyoto is the panacea. In fact, Kyoto (agreed in 1997 but which only began in February 2005) set very modest targets indeed for reduction of carbon dioxide – only 5% below 1990 levels for developed countries. Even here in Ireland, we got a massive derogation – we were allowed to increase our carbon emissions by 13% (and in 2005, our emissions were already 25% above our 1990 levels). Even the ‘greening’ of Government will mean we won’t meet our Kyoto commitments.
The Government has argued that Ireland was a ‘developing’ country in that time, and needed to catch up with our European neighbours who were decades of us.
That’s the argument that has been used by poorer countries in Bali where ‘climate justice’ has become a buzz word. Countries in what we used call the ‘third world’ and developing economies like India and China argue that it’s all very well for the industrialised west to call for reducing emissions but by doing that millions of people will be trapped in poverty because they can’t access electricity; they can’t build factories; they can’t increasingly benefit from machinery and vehicles that run on petrol.
It’s true that the sacrifice in advanced countries like Europe need to be massive – a 60%-80% drop in carbon emissions by 2050, on the other hand, it would be tempting disaster to allow developing countries to have a free hand in repeating the mistakes and the waste when playing catch-up.
That’s where two vital mechanisms play their part. One is joint implementation where countries which have developed advanced and efficient power plants (like Germany) invest in other countries (like Russia, Bulgaria etc) who have noxious power plants and get carbon credits in exchange. The other is the clean development mechanism. Here a developing country is encouraged to use alternatives like solar, windpower and hydropower. If a rich country comes in and supplies the technology, it will get carbon credits for doing so.
And back to “cad a dhéanfaimid feasta gan admad?” I was reminded of it because one of the innovations is that countries with rain forests (vital lungs that help cool the planet) like Brazil, Costa Rica and Papua New Guinea are given incentives to retain them. And in developed countries too, the idea of afforestation is an important one.
If you look at our own carbon budget, creating new forests (to absorb carbon) is the biggest component of Ireland’s blueprint. If it does go to plan, one of the beneficial outcomes will be that the great forests that Ireland once had will be restored.
This is my column from this morning's Irish Examiner
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
INSIDE POLITICS - WHAT'S ANOTHER YEAR ON 273 GRAND?
Politicians' pay has continued to dominate the agenda, especially since yesterday's volte face by the Cabinet. I was in the supermarket last night and people in the queue were talking about it; when I went for coffee early this morning, it was also been discussed by people at the next table. Most of the focus was on the fact that it had been deferred for a year - most people thought that it was a stunt, as simple as that.
I was surprised that none of the opposition leaders raised it during Leaders Questions this morning. Having said that the two topics raised (water charges for schools and extraordinary rendition) have merit.
Here is a piece of analysis I wrote for this morning's Irish Examiner
Last month the Taoiseach came out with a legendary Bertie-ism when he said that deferring THAT pay rise would be ‘smokes and daggers’.
So, two really bad opinion polls later in addition to getting it in the lug from Joe Public on the airways and newspapers, what does the Taoiseach do?
Um, he announces that the Government is deferring the pay rise.
Before we all go jumping to conclusions that what we have here is a classic case of smokes and daggers, the government wants to point out that, no it’s not, its something else entirely. Yep, it’s actually cloaks and mirrors.
The official reason is hilarious. The Government – wait for it! – want others to exercise restraint ahead of the new round of talks on pay and benchmarking and they want to lead by example. So the Taoiseach and his ministers has selflessly sacrificed the implementation of his E38,000 pay rise and their exorbitant hikes in salary until September 2008. So they’ll all have to slum it on salaries ranging from E214,000 to E270,000 per annum.
What was offered yesterday by the Chief Anorak and the shower that surrounds him was a sop, a wet drizzle of a sop – a pathetic attempt to retrieve some of the public support that it lost over this issue. It is a gesture and it’s meaningless.
And the Taoiseach and his chief loyalists yesterday trotted out the same old excuses (none of which stand up) as to why like the models in the L’Oreal ads they were SO worth it.
Backroom people in Fianna Fail must have been getting nervous when they saw the Ministers who were being put up to explain this to the public – Dermot Ahern and Mary Hanafin. They were two of the three ministers (along with Seamus Brennan) who presided over the shambles of a press conference during the election campaign, during which FF’s main economics adviser Colin Hunt had to ride to the rescue and publicly dig them out of a spot of bother.
And neither Dermot Ahern nor Mary Hanafin were well briefed yesterday
Before we get to that let’s stick to the facts.
This award was given by a group which compares the pay of the golden circle of the public service (ministers, judges, semi state CEO, university heads, top civil servants etc) with comparators in the private sector.
Two years ago it gave them an interim award of 7.5%. Sic weeks ago it gave them a further 15%, making a grand total of 22.5% since 2000.
First of all Ministers have tried to spin it that this was the only pay rise they got in seven years. Ms Hanafin was busying herself with the line last night; claiming on RTE’s Six One News that they have got just 2% every year.
But in fact, the salaries of all ministers have increased by between 130% and 145% in the last seven years. Bertie Ahern was paid E145,000 in 2000. After the latest pay rise he will be getting E310,000. Ditto with Brian Cowen. The Tánaiste’s salary was E125,000 in 2000. Now it’s E270,000.
When it was pointed out to her that the rise was in fact closer to 145% than the miserly 2% per annum she was claiming, she claimed that, yes, it was a substantial salary but it was a substantial job. And then she argued that we had to pay our politicians well so they are not susceptible to any outside interference (like dig-outs, for example, or spontaneous whip-rounds at functions in the North West of England?).
And the cloaks and mirrors continued with the extraordinary performance given by Dermot Ahern at a door-step interview.
It wasn’t so much the very tenuous argument he made that the Government was now exercising restraint (yeah, until next September) so that the unions might do likewise.
He also maintained the line that it was an increase of 22.5% over a period of 11 years (ergo, it was modest). This argument neglects the fact that politicians and ministers have benefited from every single national pay award (and benchmarking award) that have been going. And the cumulative effect of it all is that their pay has more than doubled in the course of only seven years.
It was the fact that he was completely and utterly aware that he had been awarded an interim pay rise of 7.5% of his Ministerial salary two years ago. For what it is worth, this is how much it was worth – around E7.500.
When the existence of this increase was pointed out to him, he said:
“That is not as a result of the examination by the independent review group (for higher remuneration).”
Well, yes it was in fact. A little later he said he did not recall that particular pay award. Well, he should have.
The net effect of this has been to prolong the kicking the Government has taken over this for another day. It also gave opposition leaders another field day.
Enda Kenny reminded us again of the following little factoid: “We have a situation where Taoiseach of this country is better paid than President Bush; better paid than Chancellor Merkel; better paid than President Sarkozy and better paid than Prime Minister Brown.”
He continued: “This is a hypocritical decision by a hypocritical government.”
Eamon Gilmore said they were still going to accept the lavish increase (if 12 months later) and that the Government’s handling of the situation showed how much out of touch with reality it was.
Dermot Ahern did say that there has always been a difficulty with politicians and their pay. That is quite true. And the difficulty has been this. Somewhere along the line greed has become the new currency for defining public service.
For how long more do we have to put up with people on a quarter of a million euro a year (plus gold-plated pensions and expense arrangements) telling us that they are not in it for the money?
I was surprised that none of the opposition leaders raised it during Leaders Questions this morning. Having said that the two topics raised (water charges for schools and extraordinary rendition) have merit.
Here is a piece of analysis I wrote for this morning's Irish Examiner
Last month the Taoiseach came out with a legendary Bertie-ism when he said that deferring THAT pay rise would be ‘smokes and daggers’.
So, two really bad opinion polls later in addition to getting it in the lug from Joe Public on the airways and newspapers, what does the Taoiseach do?
Um, he announces that the Government is deferring the pay rise.
Before we all go jumping to conclusions that what we have here is a classic case of smokes and daggers, the government wants to point out that, no it’s not, its something else entirely. Yep, it’s actually cloaks and mirrors.
The official reason is hilarious. The Government – wait for it! – want others to exercise restraint ahead of the new round of talks on pay and benchmarking and they want to lead by example. So the Taoiseach and his ministers has selflessly sacrificed the implementation of his E38,000 pay rise and their exorbitant hikes in salary until September 2008. So they’ll all have to slum it on salaries ranging from E214,000 to E270,000 per annum.
What was offered yesterday by the Chief Anorak and the shower that surrounds him was a sop, a wet drizzle of a sop – a pathetic attempt to retrieve some of the public support that it lost over this issue. It is a gesture and it’s meaningless.
And the Taoiseach and his chief loyalists yesterday trotted out the same old excuses (none of which stand up) as to why like the models in the L’Oreal ads they were SO worth it.
Backroom people in Fianna Fail must have been getting nervous when they saw the Ministers who were being put up to explain this to the public – Dermot Ahern and Mary Hanafin. They were two of the three ministers (along with Seamus Brennan) who presided over the shambles of a press conference during the election campaign, during which FF’s main economics adviser Colin Hunt had to ride to the rescue and publicly dig them out of a spot of bother.
And neither Dermot Ahern nor Mary Hanafin were well briefed yesterday
Before we get to that let’s stick to the facts.
This award was given by a group which compares the pay of the golden circle of the public service (ministers, judges, semi state CEO, university heads, top civil servants etc) with comparators in the private sector.
Two years ago it gave them an interim award of 7.5%. Sic weeks ago it gave them a further 15%, making a grand total of 22.5% since 2000.
First of all Ministers have tried to spin it that this was the only pay rise they got in seven years. Ms Hanafin was busying herself with the line last night; claiming on RTE’s Six One News that they have got just 2% every year.
But in fact, the salaries of all ministers have increased by between 130% and 145% in the last seven years. Bertie Ahern was paid E145,000 in 2000. After the latest pay rise he will be getting E310,000. Ditto with Brian Cowen. The Tánaiste’s salary was E125,000 in 2000. Now it’s E270,000.
When it was pointed out to her that the rise was in fact closer to 145% than the miserly 2% per annum she was claiming, she claimed that, yes, it was a substantial salary but it was a substantial job. And then she argued that we had to pay our politicians well so they are not susceptible to any outside interference (like dig-outs, for example, or spontaneous whip-rounds at functions in the North West of England?).
And the cloaks and mirrors continued with the extraordinary performance given by Dermot Ahern at a door-step interview.
It wasn’t so much the very tenuous argument he made that the Government was now exercising restraint (yeah, until next September) so that the unions might do likewise.
He also maintained the line that it was an increase of 22.5% over a period of 11 years (ergo, it was modest). This argument neglects the fact that politicians and ministers have benefited from every single national pay award (and benchmarking award) that have been going. And the cumulative effect of it all is that their pay has more than doubled in the course of only seven years.
It was the fact that he was completely and utterly aware that he had been awarded an interim pay rise of 7.5% of his Ministerial salary two years ago. For what it is worth, this is how much it was worth – around E7.500.
When the existence of this increase was pointed out to him, he said:
“That is not as a result of the examination by the independent review group (for higher remuneration).”
Well, yes it was in fact. A little later he said he did not recall that particular pay award. Well, he should have.
The net effect of this has been to prolong the kicking the Government has taken over this for another day. It also gave opposition leaders another field day.
Enda Kenny reminded us again of the following little factoid: “We have a situation where Taoiseach of this country is better paid than President Bush; better paid than Chancellor Merkel; better paid than President Sarkozy and better paid than Prime Minister Brown.”
He continued: “This is a hypocritical decision by a hypocritical government.”
Eamon Gilmore said they were still going to accept the lavish increase (if 12 months later) and that the Government’s handling of the situation showed how much out of touch with reality it was.
Dermot Ahern did say that there has always been a difficulty with politicians and their pay. That is quite true. And the difficulty has been this. Somewhere along the line greed has become the new currency for defining public service.
For how long more do we have to put up with people on a quarter of a million euro a year (plus gold-plated pensions and expense arrangements) telling us that they are not in it for the money?
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
INSIDE POLITICS - PAY AGAIN!
When is an amazingly generous pay rise not a pay rise? Well, when the Taoiseach decides to defer it for a year. No, not reject it. No, not saying: lads, we are getting paid enough already, let's do this as an example. No, what they are doing is deferring the phase-in for one year. Not even a year. They'll get the whole lot but it will start being phased in in September 2008 rather than in January.
How generous of them.
True, it would have been a humiliating climbdown for The Anorak and his shower (actually that's not a bad way of describing the Cabinet) if they had simply turned it down.
But this fudge is meaningless. And I bet that when it is phased in it will be back-dated meaning that they'll get it all as if they got it now (all that will be deferred is actual payment).
Foreign Affairs Minister Dermot Ahern came out on the Plinth in front of Leinster House and used all the standard excuses for defending it (independent body; seven years etc.). He was totally unaware that the same body for higher remuneration had awarded Ministers an interim pay award of 7.5% two years ago and seemed to be rather hazy on the details of what pay rises Ministers have got in the past seven years.
It's amazing how quickly our political aristocracy has become divorced from the harsh reality faced by their serfs.
How generous of them.
True, it would have been a humiliating climbdown for The Anorak and his shower (actually that's not a bad way of describing the Cabinet) if they had simply turned it down.
But this fudge is meaningless. And I bet that when it is phased in it will be back-dated meaning that they'll get it all as if they got it now (all that will be deferred is actual payment).
Foreign Affairs Minister Dermot Ahern came out on the Plinth in front of Leinster House and used all the standard excuses for defending it (independent body; seven years etc.). He was totally unaware that the same body for higher remuneration had awarded Ministers an interim pay award of 7.5% two years ago and seemed to be rather hazy on the details of what pay rises Ministers have got in the past seven years.
It's amazing how quickly our political aristocracy has become divorced from the harsh reality faced by their serfs.
Saturday, December 08, 2007
INSIDE POLITICS - DOOM AND GLOOM?
I DON’T know about you, but early on Wednesday morning I assumed the worst.
The moment I got into work I sat down at my desk, crouched forward, put my head between my knees and assumed crash position.
That guy Cowen, I reasoned. He didn’t know what the hell he was talking about. Do you remember when he was going on about a soft landing in the property market last year?
A soft landing? Viewing the ruins of the property market this winter was like looking at London after the German bombing campaign of 1941.
Cowen had taken a chomp out of a reality sandwich since then. In the run-up to the budget he painted a picture of the economic landscape that reminded me of another time and place. Let’s go for a nostalgic trip down memory lane. Let me bring you back to the early 1980s when teenagers sported mullets and flecked trousers and they all bought one-way tickets on the Supabus to London or on Ryanair to Germany.
The buzz phrase that has defined the past decade has been the ridiculous Celtic Tiger. Well the one that defined the early 1980s was less ridiculous but boy was it grim. And if I’m not mistaken the words first formed on the lips of Charles J Haughey. It was: “doom and gloom”.
For weeks and weeks before the budget, Cowen was incapable of uttering anything that didn’t smack of doom and gloom. Granted, he wasn’t quite phrasing it in such desperate language. But the message was clear. After years of quaffing champagne with Charlie we’d have to slum it by drinking Dutch Gold with Cowen.
But then an amazing thing happened. As we absorbed the hour-long speech on Wednesday, we searched in vain for pain. There was little to be found. Sure if you were a chain-smoking Porsche driver who happened to purchase an expensive house a month ago, you were on a loser. But the rest of us walked away from what we thought was a crash without even a scratch. Tactically, Cowen was clever in the run-up to his fourth budget. He dampened expectations, accentuated the negative, reminded all and sundry that the property market was contracting; that growth had slowed; that the public service was in bad need of reform; and that the days of double-digit increases in current spending had come to an end.
Fianna Fáil had also learned from the dog’s dinner it made of the 2002 election promises. This time around, Fianna Fáil had promised dozens of goodies. But at the end of each press conference during the election campaign, Cowen would remind people that terms and conditions applied. Everything was predicated on growth rates of 4.5% or more. When that didn’t happen, Cowen was able to go to fallback position without sounding like a hypocrite. He could deny tax cuts, PRSI cuts, extra teachers and extra guards because they would only be granted if the boom had continued. His default commitments were to the National Development Plan and to health and education. Still, if money was too tight to mention, why did we get no pain in the budget? Well there were a few stealth taxes here and there (motor tax and medical charges).
It was all made possible by two cavalier decisions by Cowen that reminded you of the swagger of the Charlie McCreevy era. One was his U-turn on stamp duty. He came up with one of the ugliest phrases I have ever heard to explain why he did this. It was, he said, a “countercyclical measure”. In ordinary parlance, that’s a 180-degree turn. But he will get away with it because people’s cynicism over FF completely changing its mind on stamp duty in six months will be trumped by the positive vibes it will have for home owners.
The other bold gamble Cowen took was to borrow heavily for the first time in a decade. Fine Gael rightly pointed out the €5 billion of borrowing next year represents a whopping €7.2bn turnaround in fortunes between 2006 and 2008. The Tánaiste described it as “modest” but it is more than that. The national debt will increase 50% over the next three years. It may just pay off, though the creep in the unemployment figures and the fall-off in job creation are both worrying. But if both gambles fail, we will all too soon find ourselves crash landing back into the 1980s landscape of “doom and gloom” quicker than we can say “countercyclical measure”.
This is my column from today's Irish Examiner
The moment I got into work I sat down at my desk, crouched forward, put my head between my knees and assumed crash position.
That guy Cowen, I reasoned. He didn’t know what the hell he was talking about. Do you remember when he was going on about a soft landing in the property market last year?
A soft landing? Viewing the ruins of the property market this winter was like looking at London after the German bombing campaign of 1941.
Cowen had taken a chomp out of a reality sandwich since then. In the run-up to the budget he painted a picture of the economic landscape that reminded me of another time and place. Let’s go for a nostalgic trip down memory lane. Let me bring you back to the early 1980s when teenagers sported mullets and flecked trousers and they all bought one-way tickets on the Supabus to London or on Ryanair to Germany.
The buzz phrase that has defined the past decade has been the ridiculous Celtic Tiger. Well the one that defined the early 1980s was less ridiculous but boy was it grim. And if I’m not mistaken the words first formed on the lips of Charles J Haughey. It was: “doom and gloom”.
For weeks and weeks before the budget, Cowen was incapable of uttering anything that didn’t smack of doom and gloom. Granted, he wasn’t quite phrasing it in such desperate language. But the message was clear. After years of quaffing champagne with Charlie we’d have to slum it by drinking Dutch Gold with Cowen.
But then an amazing thing happened. As we absorbed the hour-long speech on Wednesday, we searched in vain for pain. There was little to be found. Sure if you were a chain-smoking Porsche driver who happened to purchase an expensive house a month ago, you were on a loser. But the rest of us walked away from what we thought was a crash without even a scratch. Tactically, Cowen was clever in the run-up to his fourth budget. He dampened expectations, accentuated the negative, reminded all and sundry that the property market was contracting; that growth had slowed; that the public service was in bad need of reform; and that the days of double-digit increases in current spending had come to an end.
Fianna Fáil had also learned from the dog’s dinner it made of the 2002 election promises. This time around, Fianna Fáil had promised dozens of goodies. But at the end of each press conference during the election campaign, Cowen would remind people that terms and conditions applied. Everything was predicated on growth rates of 4.5% or more. When that didn’t happen, Cowen was able to go to fallback position without sounding like a hypocrite. He could deny tax cuts, PRSI cuts, extra teachers and extra guards because they would only be granted if the boom had continued. His default commitments were to the National Development Plan and to health and education. Still, if money was too tight to mention, why did we get no pain in the budget? Well there were a few stealth taxes here and there (motor tax and medical charges).
It was all made possible by two cavalier decisions by Cowen that reminded you of the swagger of the Charlie McCreevy era. One was his U-turn on stamp duty. He came up with one of the ugliest phrases I have ever heard to explain why he did this. It was, he said, a “countercyclical measure”. In ordinary parlance, that’s a 180-degree turn. But he will get away with it because people’s cynicism over FF completely changing its mind on stamp duty in six months will be trumped by the positive vibes it will have for home owners.
The other bold gamble Cowen took was to borrow heavily for the first time in a decade. Fine Gael rightly pointed out the €5 billion of borrowing next year represents a whopping €7.2bn turnaround in fortunes between 2006 and 2008. The Tánaiste described it as “modest” but it is more than that. The national debt will increase 50% over the next three years. It may just pay off, though the creep in the unemployment figures and the fall-off in job creation are both worrying. But if both gambles fail, we will all too soon find ourselves crash landing back into the 1980s landscape of “doom and gloom” quicker than we can say “countercyclical measure”.
This is my column from today's Irish Examiner
Friday, December 07, 2007
INSIDE POLITICS - CARBON BUDGET
It wasn’t very dramatic in the end - after all carbon emissions is just above a double physics class on a Monday morning when it comes to excitement – but yesterday was the day during which the Green Party proved that it has what it takes to play its part in Government.
If its carbon budget was a revolution it was very much one with a small r. It’s the first budget of its kind every attempted in Western Europe and yesterday John Gormley admitted that in a sense, he was taking a shot in the dark.
What Gormley secured in the budget was the go-ahead for the much-touted 3% reduction in carbon emissions. And in his carbon budget yesterday Gormley essentially painted a picture of where we are now and where we need to be in 2012. And most importantly, he announced the first of the measures that need to be taken to get there.
n a complicated table that is strictly for anoraks, there were enough statistics and figures to tell us how it can be done. The broadbrush picture is as follows: The 2006 figures will show that Ireland emitted 70 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent that year. To meet the 3% annual reduction and to meet our Kyoto targets, we need to reduce that by an average of 6 million tonnes each year. And the first of the new measures to help us reach that target include initiatives in energy; industry; and residential. As each year goes on, more measures will be added.
It’s a huge ask and will mean some pain. Gormley accepted that we might not achieve it but he said it would not be for the want of trying.
And to that end, when you look at the chart produced, it looks very like the Government will have to rely on what is euphemised as ‘flexible methods’. In simple terms, that means a carbon fund. At the moment we have E290 invested in it. In opposition, the Greens railed against it saying that Ireland was essentially buying its way out of its Kyoto commitments. But even with the new political dispensation, we may still need to rely on it. Note the subtle use of language in Gormley’s Dáil speech:
The message is: we may have to resort (reluctantly, sure) to the fund.
There were positives yesterday. The new measures that will phase out traditional incandescent lightbulbs in favour of energy-efficient ones; the new motor tax system that will be based on emissions not engine size; and the mandatory environment label system for cars (very similar to the labelling system used for white goods).
But it’s partly Lord Make Me Green but not yet. The new system for light bulbs will not be introduced until 2009. And despite the changes in vehicle registration tax being flagged in last year’s budget, they won’t be introduced until July. John Gormley didn’t really have a decent explanation for this yesterday; nor did he for the fact that the new motor taxes won’t be introduced until July.
And it’s generally been recognised that to achieve a 3% reduction in Co2, the Government will have to introduce a carbon tax. This was in the 2002 Government’s programme but was ditched in 2004. Now it’s back on the agenda. But Brian Cowen announced on Wednesday that it that the issue has been kicked to touch, with a Commission for Taxation being established to explore etc etc etc. When will it decide? How long is a piece of string?
Still, yesterday was a good start for the Greens and for Gormley. It will mean that a person buying a gas-guzzling car will be paying the top rate of 36% in VRT and the maximum E2,000 in motor tax. That means that the VRT for a high-powered car selling for E75,000 will be in the region of E24,000 with a E2,000 per annum tax bill.
As the AA’s Conor Faughnan pointed out yesterday:
Faughnan made a fair point that the motor tax was also a revenue raising operation (raising E83 million for the local government fund), which he considered unfair:
It was an undramatic yet promising start. There is still a long way to go on the road to reach the targets but at least the Government has at last got its hands on a road map.
If its carbon budget was a revolution it was very much one with a small r. It’s the first budget of its kind every attempted in Western Europe and yesterday John Gormley admitted that in a sense, he was taking a shot in the dark.
"The concept of the carbon budget is new, and this year’s format can be seen as a pilot. I will consider how its content and format will be developed and improved in future years," he said.
What Gormley secured in the budget was the go-ahead for the much-touted 3% reduction in carbon emissions. And in his carbon budget yesterday Gormley essentially painted a picture of where we are now and where we need to be in 2012. And most importantly, he announced the first of the measures that need to be taken to get there.
n a complicated table that is strictly for anoraks, there were enough statistics and figures to tell us how it can be done. The broadbrush picture is as follows: The 2006 figures will show that Ireland emitted 70 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent that year. To meet the 3% annual reduction and to meet our Kyoto targets, we need to reduce that by an average of 6 million tonnes each year. And the first of the new measures to help us reach that target include initiatives in energy; industry; and residential. As each year goes on, more measures will be added.
It’s a huge ask and will mean some pain. Gormley accepted that we might not achieve it but he said it would not be for the want of trying.
"We are not making it easy on ourselves. There is always a danger we may fail. We have set the bar high in striving for a 3% annual reduction in the Programme for Government," he said yesterday.
And to that end, when you look at the chart produced, it looks very like the Government will have to rely on what is euphemised as ‘flexible methods’. In simple terms, that means a carbon fund. At the moment we have E290 invested in it. In opposition, the Greens railed against it saying that Ireland was essentially buying its way out of its Kyoto commitments. But even with the new political dispensation, we may still need to rely on it. Note the subtle use of language in Gormley’s Dáil speech:
“I recognise – as Al gore did when he was in Dublin last weekend –that the flexible mechanisms are an integral part of the Kyoto Protocol agreement and an important instrument in promoting low emissions investment in developing countries. Notwithstanding this, the Government is committed to ensuring Ireland is able to fulfil its commitments by emission reductions.”
The message is: we may have to resort (reluctantly, sure) to the fund.
There were positives yesterday. The new measures that will phase out traditional incandescent lightbulbs in favour of energy-efficient ones; the new motor tax system that will be based on emissions not engine size; and the mandatory environment label system for cars (very similar to the labelling system used for white goods).
But it’s partly Lord Make Me Green but not yet. The new system for light bulbs will not be introduced until 2009. And despite the changes in vehicle registration tax being flagged in last year’s budget, they won’t be introduced until July. John Gormley didn’t really have a decent explanation for this yesterday; nor did he for the fact that the new motor taxes won’t be introduced until July.
And it’s generally been recognised that to achieve a 3% reduction in Co2, the Government will have to introduce a carbon tax. This was in the 2002 Government’s programme but was ditched in 2004. Now it’s back on the agenda. But Brian Cowen announced on Wednesday that it that the issue has been kicked to touch, with a Commission for Taxation being established to explore etc etc etc. When will it decide? How long is a piece of string?
Still, yesterday was a good start for the Greens and for Gormley. It will mean that a person buying a gas-guzzling car will be paying the top rate of 36% in VRT and the maximum E2,000 in motor tax. That means that the VRT for a high-powered car selling for E75,000 will be in the region of E24,000 with a E2,000 per annum tax bill.
As the AA’s Conor Faughnan pointed out yesterday:
“A mid range car emits 173 grams per carbon dioxide per km (an example would be a Ford Mondeo 1.6 litre petrol which emits 177g). I suggest within a short space of time the general public will be as familiar with these figures as they are with miles per gallon.”
Faughnan made a fair point that the motor tax was also a revenue raising operation (raising E83 million for the local government fund), which he considered unfair:
“Because it was called a Green Budget the Government was able to get away with increases in car tax of between 9 and 11%. There was no environmental dividend but there was a revenue dividend,” he said.
It was an undramatic yet promising start. There is still a long way to go on the road to reach the targets but at least the Government has at last got its hands on a road map.
Thursday, December 06, 2007
INSIDE POLITICS - PAY AGAIN
Charlie Bird believes we are all going to wake up one morning over Christmas and:
a. see mummy kissing daddy under the Mistletoe
b. see Santa as he disappears back up the chimney
c. discover that Bertie has gallantly turned down his pay rise.
If 'c' happens, then I can happily declare that I still believe in 'b'
a. see mummy kissing daddy under the Mistletoe
b. see Santa as he disappears back up the chimney
c. discover that Bertie has gallantly turned down his pay rise.
If 'c' happens, then I can happily declare that I still believe in 'b'
INSIDE POLITICS - BUDGET 3
Translate the following comment of Tánaiste Brian Cowen into English:
“Over recent months the dynamics of the housing market have fundamentally changed… The conditions then (before the election) would have destabilised the market. (The Mullingar Alliance’s) so-called solution would have harmed the market. I have always said that stamp duty could only be looked at within the budgetary cycle. We need to support the market and not destablilise it.”
It looks tricky doesn’t it at first glance? But the translation is very simple.
It can be boiled down to one phrase: “A perfectly executed 180 degree u-turn”.
If Brian Cowen had turned up yesterday looking tanned and well five years after his smashed-up canoe was found on a shore on the North-East of England he would have caused less of a stir than his announcement on stamp duty.
Six months after he accused Fine Gael and Labour of proposing stamp duty changes that would destabilise the market, Cowen himself yesterday announced stamp duty changes that were broadly similar. The reason? Oddly enough what would have destabilised the market six months ago was not being introduced to stabilise the market you follow his logic? Erm, not quite.
Twelve months ago Cowen was portraying stamp duty as a non-issue and talking about a ‘soft landing’ in the housing market. A year later the landing experienced by the construction industry could be described more as ‘crash’ than ‘soft’. And forced by a collapse in revenue from property taxes, especially stamp duty, the Tánaiste has essentially being forced into a 180 degree turn – or as he describes it, a ‘step change’ or overhaul of the system.
His reason for this is inarguable. During his 50 minute Budget speech to the Dáil, he said: “Activity is slowing somewhat and there is some uncertainty as to where prices will settle. The housing market is an important aspect of our overall economy and the sustainability of economic activity can be assisted or impeded by the efficiency of that market.”
And it does make for fundamental change. No duty until E125,000. And the 7% on the balance up to E1million. And over E1 million, it rises to 9% for the portion of the purchase price that is over E1 million. The scheme, as announced, is not all that different from that announced by the opposition parties and by the PDs (though a little simpler). The net is that the two stamp duty initiatives announced by the Government this year will cost E270 million (E81 million for first-time buyers; and E190 million for this year.
It will be welcomed by everybody from home owners (those purchasing a E650,000 will spend a whopping E21,750 less in stamp duty) to the construction industry but also leaves the Government very vulnerable to charges of gross political misjudgement, doing too little too late to prevent the housing slump.
“He waited for the housing market to collapse before he address the need for reform in stamp duty,” said Fine Gael deputy leader Richard Bruton.
Labour deputy leader Joan Burton said that he had allowed the housing market to slump and also argued that the reforms would favour the very rich more than the very poor.
The debate between Government and opposition on this is a simple if polar one. One says the measures should have been introduced while the price curve was going upwards; the other says that it could only be introduced when it was going down, or “countercyclical” to borrow Cowen’s ugly word for it.
Cowen’s Fourth Budget was unusual in that it veered away from his usual low-key approach and had a bit of the ghost of Charlie McCreevy about it. For one, there was the stamp duty stunt, a very Charlie gesture. And secondly, it was a much more expansive budget than anybody expected from the usually conservative Cowen.
The overall economic climate has deteriorated dramatically in recent months and the Finance Minister was forced to pick up the pieces after any Government’s most torrid six months, certainly since 2002, and maybe since 1995.
“It is right and appropriate that we should run budget surpluses when the economy is performing very well. It is equally right and appropriate that we borrow when the growth outlook is less favourable,” he said in the opening passages of his Speech.
But in the run-up to yesterday, he talked about modest borrowing and ambitious growth. But the borrowing was certainly not all that modest. The Exchequer will require to borrow E4.9 billion next year. As a point of fact, Bruton pointed out yesterday that the turnaround since 2006 has been “the biggest in the history of the State.”
Then Ireland had a Exchequer balance of E2.3 billion in the black. Next year, it will be almost E5 billion in the red, a turnaround of a stunning E7 billion in fortunes in recent years.
Cowen’s thinking yesterday was clear. By borrowing to invest in the National Development Plan, he was spending wisely to reap plenty in the long term. The GDP increase will be much more modest next year at 3% but it is still better than many other EU countries. If the decline corrects itself, perhaps that will be prudent. But it does mean that the National debt will increase by a significant 50% by 2010.
The net effect of such a dip into the red is that nobody really loses and there aren’t any cutbacks. Capital spending will increase by 12% next year while current spending will rise by a more modest 8.2%. It means overall spending will be E53 billion, a relatively modest increase of E1.7b.
But there are what the opposition will portray as stealth taxes. The drug refund threshold increases to E90 per month; there are rises in bed and A&E charges, and widening the eligibility of medical cards has essentially been kicked into touch for another year to allow some review to take place.
Oh yes, and motor tax will be increased by between 9 and 11% from February (raising E83 million per annum).
Ah motor tax! The stamp duty furore almost completely eclipsed the fact that yesterday witnessed the world’s first ‘Carbon Budget’. A lot of the thunder was stolen from the Green Party’s biggest gain by the fact that the details of the Vehicle Registration Tax were leaked a fortnight ago. Still, the announcement that this year’s C02 equivalent emission of 70 million tonnes will be 63 million tonnes while hardly headline-grabbing is very significant.
Because Estimates were included there were dozens of minor sub-plots, all of them worth of mention, all of them affecting citizens of one hue or another. The E35 million increase in cancer care was a huge disappointment.
There were a couple of eye-catching initiatives like the tripling of income thresholds for family with a child under 18 with intellectual disabilities. Cowen has looked after the lowest earners and those on social welfare, though many of the increases were at a rate just above inflation. Cigarettes went up more than expected by 30c a packet; while there was some vague prose about measures that would favour low-alcohol drinks over high-alcohol ones.
And Section 481 for the film industry was extended another four years until 2012 without any of the resistance McCreevy showed four years ago.
And of course, the Government also had to take a couple of (fully deserved) swipes on the grandiose pay rises they awarded themselves, top civil servants, judges and the rest of the top brass in our society. Oh sorry, there is an efficiency review of the public service promised for next year but it has all the woolly imprecise language we have come to expect since benchmarking.
Fine Gael’s Bruton found the best put-down of it: “(Cowen) joins the solemn chorus, calling for wage restraint and for reform. But like the armchair general ordering his troops over the to into the teeth of enemy machine guns, Mr. Cowen and his pampered colleagues will be a safe distance away. When it comes to their own interests there is no demand for reform or frugality.”
No danger of a U-turn there, was there?
“Over recent months the dynamics of the housing market have fundamentally changed… The conditions then (before the election) would have destabilised the market. (The Mullingar Alliance’s) so-called solution would have harmed the market. I have always said that stamp duty could only be looked at within the budgetary cycle. We need to support the market and not destablilise it.”
It looks tricky doesn’t it at first glance? But the translation is very simple.
It can be boiled down to one phrase: “A perfectly executed 180 degree u-turn”.
If Brian Cowen had turned up yesterday looking tanned and well five years after his smashed-up canoe was found on a shore on the North-East of England he would have caused less of a stir than his announcement on stamp duty.
Six months after he accused Fine Gael and Labour of proposing stamp duty changes that would destabilise the market, Cowen himself yesterday announced stamp duty changes that were broadly similar. The reason? Oddly enough what would have destabilised the market six months ago was not being introduced to stabilise the market you follow his logic? Erm, not quite.
Twelve months ago Cowen was portraying stamp duty as a non-issue and talking about a ‘soft landing’ in the housing market. A year later the landing experienced by the construction industry could be described more as ‘crash’ than ‘soft’. And forced by a collapse in revenue from property taxes, especially stamp duty, the Tánaiste has essentially being forced into a 180 degree turn – or as he describes it, a ‘step change’ or overhaul of the system.
His reason for this is inarguable. During his 50 minute Budget speech to the Dáil, he said: “Activity is slowing somewhat and there is some uncertainty as to where prices will settle. The housing market is an important aspect of our overall economy and the sustainability of economic activity can be assisted or impeded by the efficiency of that market.”
And it does make for fundamental change. No duty until E125,000. And the 7% on the balance up to E1million. And over E1 million, it rises to 9% for the portion of the purchase price that is over E1 million. The scheme, as announced, is not all that different from that announced by the opposition parties and by the PDs (though a little simpler). The net is that the two stamp duty initiatives announced by the Government this year will cost E270 million (E81 million for first-time buyers; and E190 million for this year.
It will be welcomed by everybody from home owners (those purchasing a E650,000 will spend a whopping E21,750 less in stamp duty) to the construction industry but also leaves the Government very vulnerable to charges of gross political misjudgement, doing too little too late to prevent the housing slump.
“He waited for the housing market to collapse before he address the need for reform in stamp duty,” said Fine Gael deputy leader Richard Bruton.
Labour deputy leader Joan Burton said that he had allowed the housing market to slump and also argued that the reforms would favour the very rich more than the very poor.
The debate between Government and opposition on this is a simple if polar one. One says the measures should have been introduced while the price curve was going upwards; the other says that it could only be introduced when it was going down, or “countercyclical” to borrow Cowen’s ugly word for it.
Cowen’s Fourth Budget was unusual in that it veered away from his usual low-key approach and had a bit of the ghost of Charlie McCreevy about it. For one, there was the stamp duty stunt, a very Charlie gesture. And secondly, it was a much more expansive budget than anybody expected from the usually conservative Cowen.
The overall economic climate has deteriorated dramatically in recent months and the Finance Minister was forced to pick up the pieces after any Government’s most torrid six months, certainly since 2002, and maybe since 1995.
“It is right and appropriate that we should run budget surpluses when the economy is performing very well. It is equally right and appropriate that we borrow when the growth outlook is less favourable,” he said in the opening passages of his Speech.
But in the run-up to yesterday, he talked about modest borrowing and ambitious growth. But the borrowing was certainly not all that modest. The Exchequer will require to borrow E4.9 billion next year. As a point of fact, Bruton pointed out yesterday that the turnaround since 2006 has been “the biggest in the history of the State.”
Then Ireland had a Exchequer balance of E2.3 billion in the black. Next year, it will be almost E5 billion in the red, a turnaround of a stunning E7 billion in fortunes in recent years.
Cowen’s thinking yesterday was clear. By borrowing to invest in the National Development Plan, he was spending wisely to reap plenty in the long term. The GDP increase will be much more modest next year at 3% but it is still better than many other EU countries. If the decline corrects itself, perhaps that will be prudent. But it does mean that the National debt will increase by a significant 50% by 2010.
The net effect of such a dip into the red is that nobody really loses and there aren’t any cutbacks. Capital spending will increase by 12% next year while current spending will rise by a more modest 8.2%. It means overall spending will be E53 billion, a relatively modest increase of E1.7b.
But there are what the opposition will portray as stealth taxes. The drug refund threshold increases to E90 per month; there are rises in bed and A&E charges, and widening the eligibility of medical cards has essentially been kicked into touch for another year to allow some review to take place.
Oh yes, and motor tax will be increased by between 9 and 11% from February (raising E83 million per annum).
Ah motor tax! The stamp duty furore almost completely eclipsed the fact that yesterday witnessed the world’s first ‘Carbon Budget’. A lot of the thunder was stolen from the Green Party’s biggest gain by the fact that the details of the Vehicle Registration Tax were leaked a fortnight ago. Still, the announcement that this year’s C02 equivalent emission of 70 million tonnes will be 63 million tonnes while hardly headline-grabbing is very significant.
Because Estimates were included there were dozens of minor sub-plots, all of them worth of mention, all of them affecting citizens of one hue or another. The E35 million increase in cancer care was a huge disappointment.
There were a couple of eye-catching initiatives like the tripling of income thresholds for family with a child under 18 with intellectual disabilities. Cowen has looked after the lowest earners and those on social welfare, though many of the increases were at a rate just above inflation. Cigarettes went up more than expected by 30c a packet; while there was some vague prose about measures that would favour low-alcohol drinks over high-alcohol ones.
And Section 481 for the film industry was extended another four years until 2012 without any of the resistance McCreevy showed four years ago.
And of course, the Government also had to take a couple of (fully deserved) swipes on the grandiose pay rises they awarded themselves, top civil servants, judges and the rest of the top brass in our society. Oh sorry, there is an efficiency review of the public service promised for next year but it has all the woolly imprecise language we have come to expect since benchmarking.
Fine Gael’s Bruton found the best put-down of it: “(Cowen) joins the solemn chorus, calling for wage restraint and for reform. But like the armchair general ordering his troops over the to into the teeth of enemy machine guns, Mr. Cowen and his pampered colleagues will be a safe distance away. When it comes to their own interests there is no demand for reform or frugality.”
No danger of a U-turn there, was there?
Wednesday, December 05, 2007
INSIDE POLITICS - BUDGET 2
Well, he moved big on stamp duty. A huge overhaul to tackle a market in which he said the "dynamics had changed" (the opposition translated that as a 'slump'.
Senator Eoghan Harris sitting in the senators' section at the top of the chamber looked like the cat that got the cream - expect a big dose of triumphalism in the Sunday Indo next weekend.
Elsewhere there were few surprises. Anything that could have been a surprise (motor tax and VRT) were already flagged. Most of the stuff that was eye-catching (reduction on duties on credit and debit cards at the expense of the banks; 30c increase on cigarettes; tripling of the income threshold for medical cards where there is a child under 18 with intellectual disabilities) will not cost a huge amount either way; and were gestural rather than substantial.
The macro picture was as he predicted. Overall there will be an increase of 8.6% in spending (8.2% in current spending; 12% in capital spending)mistake in l. He has prioritised the NDP, the health services, education (especially to cater for the 13,000 new schoolchildren coming on stream this year) and R and D.
Cowen's priorities have always been tilted more to the lower paid (more than his predecessor that is). And so the increases in tax credits; widening of bands, and above-inflation increases in social welfare.
As for the Green Budget, it just didn't have the impact it should have had. A couple of colleagues felt that the Greens didn't get as much as they should have and that stamp duty eclipsed. My own belief is that a huge mistake was made when somebody in Government leaked the Vehicle Registration Tax (VRT) details to two Sunday newspapers a fortnight ago. That completely removed the element of surprise from the Carbon Budget, rendering it a bit of an anti-climax.
Senator Eoghan Harris sitting in the senators' section at the top of the chamber looked like the cat that got the cream - expect a big dose of triumphalism in the Sunday Indo next weekend.
Elsewhere there were few surprises. Anything that could have been a surprise (motor tax and VRT) were already flagged. Most of the stuff that was eye-catching (reduction on duties on credit and debit cards at the expense of the banks; 30c increase on cigarettes; tripling of the income threshold for medical cards where there is a child under 18 with intellectual disabilities) will not cost a huge amount either way; and were gestural rather than substantial.
The macro picture was as he predicted. Overall there will be an increase of 8.6% in spending (8.2% in current spending; 12% in capital spending)mistake in l. He has prioritised the NDP, the health services, education (especially to cater for the 13,000 new schoolchildren coming on stream this year) and R and D.
Cowen's priorities have always been tilted more to the lower paid (more than his predecessor that is). And so the increases in tax credits; widening of bands, and above-inflation increases in social welfare.
As for the Green Budget, it just didn't have the impact it should have had. A couple of colleagues felt that the Greens didn't get as much as they should have and that stamp duty eclipsed. My own belief is that a huge mistake was made when somebody in Government leaked the Vehicle Registration Tax (VRT) details to two Sunday newspapers a fortnight ago. That completely removed the element of surprise from the Carbon Budget, rendering it a bit of an anti-climax.
INSIDE POLITICS - BUDGET ONE
It's now just 3pm - 45 minutes away from the most difficult budget Brian Cowen will give.
The speculation that's flying along the correspondents' corridor at the moment. 1. A big move on stamp duty. 2. A bigger carbon budget that the conservative-minded Cowen will be prepared to openly admit. 3. More money for cancer services. And 4. Ministers may make a decision to waive their pay increase (even though Bertie Ahern said this would be a futile gesture).
I'm just not sure about no. 4. Journalists are as prone to being gullible to unfounded rumours (maybe even more so!) than anybody else.
Whatever, all will be revealed over the next two hours!
The speculation that's flying along the correspondents' corridor at the moment. 1. A big move on stamp duty. 2. A bigger carbon budget that the conservative-minded Cowen will be prepared to openly admit. 3. More money for cancer services. And 4. Ministers may make a decision to waive their pay increase (even though Bertie Ahern said this would be a futile gesture).
I'm just not sure about no. 4. Journalists are as prone to being gullible to unfounded rumours (maybe even more so!) than anybody else.
Whatever, all will be revealed over the next two hours!
INSIDE POLITICS - THE JOHN REID OF THE IRISH CABINET
After the uber-loyal deputy for Tippeary South Martin Mansergh, there is no greater or more loyal defender of Taoiseach Bertie Ahern than the Minister for Foreign Affairs Dermot Ahern. As he has risen through the Fianna Fail ranks to become one of the Taoiseach’s closest allies, Dermot Ahern has assumed the kind of role that former Northern Ireland Secretary and Home Secretary John Reid played on behalf of Tony Blair – Cabinet enforcer and bruiser-in-chief.
Whenever Bertie Ahern is in trouble, it is the man whom Pat Rabbitte once dubbed as the “boot boy from Dundalk” who comes out to bat and bludgeon on his behalf.
On yesterday’s Morning Ireland on RTE, his quarry was principally the errant Cork backbencher Noel O’Flynn who was in his sights.
He was first asked about O’Flynn’s call on the Taoiseach to issue a statement.
What Dermot Ahern said:
Does this stand up?
He did give 18 hours of evidence but not in relation to the issue brought up by O’Flynn- namely stockbroker Pádraic O’Connor’s claim that he was not a friend of the Taoiseach (as the Taoiseach claimed) and that the money he gave was not a loan, but a political donation. No allegation of corruption has been made. But even after giving 18 hours of evidence, many questions remain about the Taoiseach’s personal finances. The principal one that hangs is the identity of the mystery person whom he got to purchase £30,000 sterling on his behalf in 1994.
Was Pádraic O’Connor a friend of Bertie Ahern’s?
What Dermot Ahern said:
Does this stack up?
No. This is a very tendentious reading of the evidence. Throughout, Pádraic O’Connor insisted that he did not consider himself to be a friend of Bertie Ahern’s. It was only when he was cross-examined by Des Richardson’s counsel Jim O’Callaghan that he accepted that he had been ‘friendly’ with Ahern, but on a professional basis.
It is a leap of imagination to put this on the same platform as friendship – the basis on which Bertie Ahern said that his “close personal friends” including Mr O’Connor had made the dig-out loans to him. And O’Connor’s evidence was not peppered with reference to him being friendly with Taoiseach Ahern.
The Foreign affairs was then asked about the inconsistency of the Taoiseach referring to O’Connor in the same breath as other supporters.
What Dermot Ahern said:
Does this stack up?
Well he makes no political points there, and there are no allegations of corruption. But it does matter ultimately. Because there are major issues with a Minister for Finance taking large amounts of money above and beyond his salary. And there are major issues also surrounding a full and honest account.
The Phoenix Park casino allegations.
What Dermot Ahern said:
Does this stack up?
He gave that interview on June 2 1997. It’s always been known that he came out against the Phoenix Park casino in the run-up to the 1997 election. His spokesman also said this week that he came out against it in the 1996 by-election in Dublin West. However, there remains a doubt that he may have been ambiguous about it before that. And he did accept the hospitality of one of the main backers, Norman Turner, by flying to Manchester to see Manchester United games. He says nothing turned on that.
Whenever Bertie Ahern is in trouble, it is the man whom Pat Rabbitte once dubbed as the “boot boy from Dundalk” who comes out to bat and bludgeon on his behalf.
On yesterday’s Morning Ireland on RTE, his quarry was principally the errant Cork backbencher Noel O’Flynn who was in his sights.
He was first asked about O’Flynn’s call on the Taoiseach to issue a statement.
What Dermot Ahern said:
“I totally disagree with Noel O’Flynn. I do not know what he is talking about. The Taoiseach has given 18 hours of evidence when he was asked. Not one scintilla of an allegation of corruption, or of anything, has been made against him”.
Does this stand up?
He did give 18 hours of evidence but not in relation to the issue brought up by O’Flynn- namely stockbroker Pádraic O’Connor’s claim that he was not a friend of the Taoiseach (as the Taoiseach claimed) and that the money he gave was not a loan, but a political donation. No allegation of corruption has been made. But even after giving 18 hours of evidence, many questions remain about the Taoiseach’s personal finances. The principal one that hangs is the identity of the mystery person whom he got to purchase £30,000 sterling on his behalf in 1994.
Was Pádraic O’Connor a friend of Bertie Ahern’s?
What Dermot Ahern said:
“I suggest that Noel O’Flynn read the transcripts. I have seen quotes from Mr O’Connor’s evidence where he said he was actually very friendly with Bertie Ahern and was honoured that Bertie Ahern would ask him for his advice in relation to financial matters.
Bertie subsequently appointed him to a position of great trust but his evidence was peppered throughout by the quote that he was very friendly with the Taoiseach.
And he said ultimately that it was a question of semantics about what kind of friend (he was).
To be honest, I can’t really say other than it would appear as far as Taoiseach was concerned, he the Taoiseach understood it to be a personal donation.”
Does this stack up?
No. This is a very tendentious reading of the evidence. Throughout, Pádraic O’Connor insisted that he did not consider himself to be a friend of Bertie Ahern’s. It was only when he was cross-examined by Des Richardson’s counsel Jim O’Callaghan that he accepted that he had been ‘friendly’ with Ahern, but on a professional basis.
It is a leap of imagination to put this on the same platform as friendship – the basis on which Bertie Ahern said that his “close personal friends” including Mr O’Connor had made the dig-out loans to him. And O’Connor’s evidence was not peppered with reference to him being friendly with Taoiseach Ahern.
The Foreign affairs was then asked about the inconsistency of the Taoiseach referring to O’Connor in the same breath as other supporters.
What Dermot Ahern said:
“There may have been some misunderstanding about it but does it really matter ultimately. There are no allegations of any favours asked or given, no allegations of corruption. I mean people are trying to chip away at the Taoiseach. To my mind anybody who is attacking him is not worth or isn’t able to tie his shoelaces."
Does this stack up?
Well he makes no political points there, and there are no allegations of corruption. But it does matter ultimately. Because there are major issues with a Minister for Finance taking large amounts of money above and beyond his salary. And there are major issues also surrounding a full and honest account.
The Phoenix Park casino allegations.
What Dermot Ahern said:
“The Taoiseach is confirming what he said in an interview with the Pat Kenny Show many years ago. (He said) good bad or indifferent, it’s Fianna Fáil policy that this casino would not get permission, would not get a licence, that we would not change the legislation.
This is a terrible smear to be honest because the Taoiseach was vehemently against it, so what are they alleging?"
Does this stack up?
He gave that interview on June 2 1997. It’s always been known that he came out against the Phoenix Park casino in the run-up to the 1997 election. His spokesman also said this week that he came out against it in the 1996 by-election in Dublin West. However, there remains a doubt that he may have been ambiguous about it before that. And he did accept the hospitality of one of the main backers, Norman Turner, by flying to Manchester to see Manchester United games. He says nothing turned on that.
Tuesday, December 04, 2007
INSIDE POLITICS - AND WHILE I'M AT IT!
Frank Fahey, the former Fianna Fail Minister, was on the Late Debate last week whinging about the poor pay of politicians. Frank should take a walk through the Leinster House carpark and count the number of brand new or almost brand new Mercs, Audis and BMWs populating the members car park. He also made the incredible claim that if politicians weren't paid more, they wouldn't be able to attract people of the right calibre.
That's the oldest chestnut in the book. Everything is brought down to lowest common denominator and the presumption is made that if these guys weren't politicians they would be global entrepeneurs.
Erm wropng. Even if you doubled the average TD's salary from €100,000 to €200,000, you would get the same shower. No matter how much you paid, I'm afraid that with our culture of dynastic politics, we'd still get the same shower, as well as a chorus of county councillors who have struck it lucky by getting into the Dail.
And while I'm at it, Frank Fahey, what's wrong with €100,000 per annum. And besides what happened to the notion of public service?
That's the oldest chestnut in the book. Everything is brought down to lowest common denominator and the presumption is made that if these guys weren't politicians they would be global entrepeneurs.
Erm wropng. Even if you doubled the average TD's salary from €100,000 to €200,000, you would get the same shower. No matter how much you paid, I'm afraid that with our culture of dynastic politics, we'd still get the same shower, as well as a chorus of county councillors who have struck it lucky by getting into the Dail.
And while I'm at it, Frank Fahey, what's wrong with €100,000 per annum. And besides what happened to the notion of public service?
INSIDE POLITICS - WITH FRIENDS LIKE THESE
A colleague who shall remain Fionnan Sheahan yesterday put a hilarious context on Bertie Ahern's doorstep interview yesterday about the Phoenix Park and pick-me-ups and his dear dear friend Pádraic O'Connor. I'll paint the picture first.
First of all, Charlie Bird asked a really good question about the raising of a false invoice for the payment of the £5,000 from NCB.
What the Anorak did then was a bit of muddying the waters. He said that the form of pick-me-up donation (ie where a donor agreed to pay a particular bill for a political party) continued until 1999. And Charlie pointed out - 100% correctly - that this wasn't the occasion for one; this was a personal dig-out for Bertie Ahern and not a bill payment.
Secondly, Charlie tried to get him to admit that it was wrong. The Bert refused to do that, going no further than saying it wasn't the way he would have done business. But when Charlie pressed him on it, saying that what Des Richardson had done was wrong; Ahern, quick as a greyhound out of the traps, included Pádraic O'Connor in that blame game, saying there were two of them in it.
What a way to turn on one of your dearest and closest friends.
And back to Fionnan. He said it reminded him of the famous speech from the Godfather, where Michael Coreleone, after finding that his brother Fredo has betrayed him, turns around to him, kisses him on the cheeck, and says: "You are dead to me now."
And now to another good friend Dermot Ahern. Well Dermo has proved in the past he would go up every tree in North Dublin on behalf of his boss. Well this morning he proved that he is also willing to shout from every tree in North and South Dublin on behalf of his boss. Besides Martin Mansergh whose relationship to the current Fianna Fail leader is akin to that of Smithers to Mr Burns in the The Simpsons, Dermot Ahern is the archest of arch-loyalists.
When you parse what he had to say on Morning Ireland this morning (which I intend to do) the whirlwind of hot air and bluster he generated would be enough to to keep Iveagh House fully lit up for at least a year.
First of all, Charlie Bird asked a really good question about the raising of a false invoice for the payment of the £5,000 from NCB.
What the Anorak did then was a bit of muddying the waters. He said that the form of pick-me-up donation (ie where a donor agreed to pay a particular bill for a political party) continued until 1999. And Charlie pointed out - 100% correctly - that this wasn't the occasion for one; this was a personal dig-out for Bertie Ahern and not a bill payment.
Secondly, Charlie tried to get him to admit that it was wrong. The Bert refused to do that, going no further than saying it wasn't the way he would have done business. But when Charlie pressed him on it, saying that what Des Richardson had done was wrong; Ahern, quick as a greyhound out of the traps, included Pádraic O'Connor in that blame game, saying there were two of them in it.
What a way to turn on one of your dearest and closest friends.
And back to Fionnan. He said it reminded him of the famous speech from the Godfather, where Michael Coreleone, after finding that his brother Fredo has betrayed him, turns around to him, kisses him on the cheeck, and says: "You are dead to me now."
And now to another good friend Dermot Ahern. Well Dermo has proved in the past he would go up every tree in North Dublin on behalf of his boss. Well this morning he proved that he is also willing to shout from every tree in North and South Dublin on behalf of his boss. Besides Martin Mansergh whose relationship to the current Fianna Fail leader is akin to that of Smithers to Mr Burns in the The Simpsons, Dermot Ahern is the archest of arch-loyalists.
When you parse what he had to say on Morning Ireland this morning (which I intend to do) the whirlwind of hot air and bluster he generated would be enough to to keep Iveagh House fully lit up for at least a year.
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