He's Not the Messiah, He's a Very Naughty Boy...

For lo, a wise man did stand up before a collection of Southside Dublin worthies, and he did say, "Biffo, let my people go!" And the people saw this, and they said that this was good, except for the Unions, cause they hate Michael McDowell.

Yes, former justice minister Michael "Mad Dog" McDowell seems to be coming back, but he is being remarkably coy about in what manner exactly his reemergence will occur. He seems to rule out his running for office in the linked article, and yet his phrasing

“I love my country and I am deeply ambitious for it, but at this point I have to say with this outcome at this stage of my career it makes it very clear that, as far as I am concerned, my period of public life as a public representative is over.”

would seem to leave open the possibility of acting as Chairman of a new party, or of being "encouraged" to run for Fine Gael (at this stage of my career ... as far as I am concerned).

I would dearly love to see a new liberal party start up, but would McDowell merely sink such a movement given the divisive nature of his legacy? Or would he be the cornerstone around which a mighty structure might be constructed?

EDIT: Boy, I said "seems" a lot in this entry. Seems I'm fond of that term...or so it seems.

Half-assed Magnificence: Irish Defence Procurement

Delightfully Waltish thread over at Politics.ie, detailing myths and legends surrounding the Irish Defence Forces. All the usual are there: the Rangers are banned from bars near the Curragh due to their homicidal tendencies, troops have to shout "BANG!" during exercises because we have no actual rounds (live or otherwise) for them to use, and that Naval Officers liked to tell visiting Soviet crews about Ireland's secret submarine. But also discussed has been Ireland's incredibly bizarre ability to hold helicopter procurement competitions which are usually won by the least impressive aircraft on offer.

First, at the beginning of the decade we had the competition for a medium-life helo contract between the Sikorsky S-92 and the Eurocopter Cougar. Bizarrely, the S-92 won, despite the fact that it had not seen operational service, while the Cougar was already in use, and was based on the tried and trusted Puma. This development had absolutely nothing to do with promise by Sikorsky to invest €148 million in a production facility in north Dublin, where many constituents of the then Taoiseach, Bertie "El Berto" Ahern, worked. However, this sweet deal fell through when Eurocopter, rather unsportingly, took the state to the European Court over the decision.

So the Air Corps soldiered on, sans medium lift helicopters, and its fleet of Dauphins eventually faded from service, leaving only the Alouette IIIs on the front line. Yes Alouette's, the helicopter in service before my Dad reached the production stage.

And then, Baldonnel was blessed with the promise of new helicopters. "Brilliant", said the airborne brass in blue, "we'll have some of those Blackhawks the Yanks are always raving about." Alas, the government felt otherwise. After all, if we were to buy Blackhawks, which have a scary name, and are used by such evil imperialist regimes as the US, Israel and Austria (Austrian bastards, going around like they own the place!), then we would upset Ireland's lunatic fringe of sandal-wearing, bike-loving hippies.

Instead, the boys and girls in Baldonnel got the Agusta AW139, a well-known military vehicle of mythical might, used by such powerhouses as the Ambulance Service of New South Wales and the Estonian Border Guard. Still they have nice leather seats, which will mean the Army Ranger Wing can transit to hostage rescue missions in comfort. As can any Ministers who need to use the helicopters for, I don't know, flying to their constituency to open a pub.

I'm just dying to see how our procurement process works in the purchase of new ships for the Navy. Smart money says that the Navy ends up with superyacht equipped with tennis courts and swimming pools ... you know, so the government can use it for a bit of a relaxing break when the Navy isn't deploying the "SUPERYACHT!" (for that will be its official name, "SUPERYACHT!" ) on drug-busting patrols.

The British Are Coming! The British Are Coming...

...with a lower corporation tax rate for Northern Ireland. That loud banging you can hear is the last nail being hammered into the coffin of the Republic's economy. Currently, the North has the same rate as the rest of the UK, i.e. 28%, versus the Republic's 12.5%. I think it's safe to assume that the Stormont administration will push for a rate as close to the Republic's as possible, and London will give it to them, as hopefully it will get private sector business in Northern Ireland moving and reduce the almighty strain the 6 counties place on the national purse.

So then, let's see, we will have two economies competing with one another, with comparable corporation tax rates, one with a minimum wage of £5.80 per hour , the other with a minimum wage of €8.65 per hour (£7.20). Plus, energy is cheaper in the North.

Hm, I wonder who will win?

Struggling Towards a New Party

Recent coverage in the Irish Times, and elsewhere in the media, show that the impetus towards establishing new parties in Ireland is growing. The four parties mentioned in the article are:

1) Fis Nua - I suppose these could be characterised as the "Continuity Greens", effectively members of the environmentalist movement who have become disillusioned with the direction the mainstream Green Party has taken since going into government. Originally, it appeared that former Green Patricia McKenna was rowing in behind this group, but it would appear she has since distanced herself from them.

2) Direct Democracy Ireland, a party advocating greater use of referenda and other direct democracy legislative tools. It would appear to be fronted by Vincent Salafia, who is best known for his involvement in the M3 Tara protests and the protests against roadworks around Carrickmines Castle. Patricia McKenna would also seem to be supporting this venture. Personally, direct democracy seems nice in theory, but I'm not sure how it would operate in practice.

3) "The Irish Independents’ Party" - a movement spearheaded by Leo Armstrong, who is apparently a former member of the Greens and of Fine Gael. Held an initial meeting in Kilkenny, at which only 50 prospective members attended (which says much about how prepared Irish people actually are to fight for a new approach to politics in this country). Interestingly, Mr. Armstrong has been criticised on the letters pages of a number of national newspapers for not having any policies, but I think that his efforts say a lot about the perceived problems of the Irish political system - policies are not the issue, the very nature of politics in this country is.

4) The Reform Party - established by Cork businessman Michael Murphy, this would appear to be an attempt to fill the liberal, free-market friendly, low tax party-shaped hole left in the Irish political landscape by the departure of the PDs. I will be watching with interest.

Finally, and more recently, former justice minister Michael McDowell raised the possibility of his return to politics, leading to much speculation regarding the emergence of another new PD-style party. Rumours abound that such a venture would include Pat Cox, or even Declan Ganley, but it is hard to know how much truth there is behind all the talk. Indeed, it is hard to reconcile three such, shall we say, forceful personalities surviving together in a single party. Still, hope springs eternal that something new will arrive on the scene and wash away the stagnant status quo.

It is old but it is beautiful, and its colours they are fine

Settled down on Monday night to watch the edited highlights on the BBC; highlights not of the World Cup, but of the annual "Glorious 12th" demonstrations (i.e. parades) held North of the border by the Orange Order. As a southern Catholic, I have to say the whole thing seems, well, a little bizarre...

I can totally see the appeal, though. On the BBC, the coverage seemed to show a great family day out, children sitting on their fathers' shoulders to get a better view of the proceedings, mothers pushing prams, ice-cream, chip vans, the usual sights and sounds of any summer festival. It seems that the Order's efforts to turn the day into a tourst spectacle are making progress, creating a little slice of Nordicana (NI Tourist Board, that's copyrighted!), something you can get nowhere else in the world. But oddly (and I'm sure this thought will make the Order and many Northern Protestants feel they cannot win) it's when the parades are in their happy-clappy inclusive mode that underlying ethnic and religious messages are most stark.

You see, what struck me about the television coverage is just how normal your average Orangeman is, how the families watching the parade could have been down South watching a St. Patrick's Day Parade, how basically they were all just like me, and my family. Except that everyone taking part in the parades was Protestant, and that while Catholics might be allowed (indeed, encouraged) to watch the parades go by, they would never be allowed to join a lodge. Even if I convert, most lodges will not allow former Catholics into their ranks. The common bond of shared humanity, of living on the same island, is only allowed to extend so far.

I can think of few organisations in the British Isles where religious segregation is so strictly enforced (the only one that leaps to mind is the Catholic mirror-image of the Orange Order, the Ancient Order of Hibernians). And what is truly surprising is how this desire to identify with fellow Protestants extends far beyond Northern Ireland; one of the points made in the broadcast was that lodges from the Republic, in Leitrim, Cavan, Monaghan and Dublin/Wicklow had grown in size over the last number of years. Do Protestants in the South feel that their identity is under threat? Is there, in modern multi-cultural Ireland, a growing desire among Protestants to have their culture recognised as a key component of society as a whole?

And what of the Orangemen who had travelled to the North from Canada, Liverpool and the US - what role does their Orangeism play in their nations. Are they merely seeking to express another facet of their identity, or do they truly feel that all Anglo-Saxon nations are bound in a common bond, one of whose key strands is Protestant faith?

N.B. The title is taking from "The Sash", one of the best known marching tunes from the Orange Order marches. Apologies if I have been too general in addressing the issues at hand, corrections and complaints welcome! On a related note, I am eagerly awaiting the arrival from Amazon of Blood and Thunder: Inside an Ulster Protestant Band by Darrach MacDonald.

Good Quality Terrorists

Bored and aimless as I often am, I spend an inordinate amount of time browsing the interweb, often ending up on a site called Politics.ie, which specialises in what an American "friend" of mine would term "leprechauny politics" (thankfully, he has received his just punishment, and is now languishing in a position in SE Asia which he does not enjoy, and which does not test his immense skills and intelligence. Ha ha, leprechaun that, Hantmonius!).

Anyway, bitterness aside, yesterday I was flicking through said website and I came across the following thread:

"The quality of young people joining the IRA was very impressive.." MI6 agent.

This got me a-thinking: what of the modern threats faced by the US and UK forces in Afghanistan and Iraq; do the coalition allies view the Taleban or Al-Qaeda in Iraq with the same grudging respect shown by some of the British military and intelligence figures noted in the above thread. I seem to remember the brilliant Wings Over Iraq blog had a video of a Taleban ambush in Afghanistan that didn't exactly go to plan, and showed up the boys of the old martyr's brigade to be less than professional. But at the same time, stories such as Taliban sniper hunted over seven UK deaths would seem to suggest that at least some of the Taleban are clearly capable.

And what of the character of the young men flocking to join the enemies of America and the UK - what sort of social profiles do they fill? It is well-known that many of the 9/11 hijackers were highly educated, and represented the "elite" of the societies from which they are drawn. What of the Taleban and its allies in Afghanistan: are their recruits the elite of their societies? Could they be passing up better opportunities in life in order to fight in a holy war? Or are they simply thugs (as some people in both Ireland and Britain would both view the IRA) who lust for violence, and if there were no war handy, would still be harming their fellow man, albeit without the cover of a political or religious goal?

My Daily Commute - A Journey Through History!

Image taken from Strange Maps

Those of us condemned to the drudgery of commuting to and from work every day usually have very little to contemplate as we zone out for the journey to the office. Until recently my commute was like any other, unremarkable and dull. That was until I moved to Monaghan...

Now, to most eyes, my commute may still seem humdrum. True, it's a pleasant 30 minute drive through rolling drumlins and pastoral countryside, via the towns of Monaghan, Smithborough, Clones and finaly Belturbet. But what I find interesting about this drive (in a remarkably nerdy kind of way), is that I cross the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic 4 times, and for a short half-kilometre section of the road I am in a virtual enclave of the Republic within Northern Ireland, which has no direct contact with the rest of the state, but rather can only be accessed by road via the North. Effectively, this means that this semi-enclave cannot easily be reached by An Garda Siochana (the Irish police force), nor can it be patrolled by the Police Service of Northern Ireland. While it is not exactly lawless, this pocket of territory has been used for a number of nefarious activities over the years, and it is still apparently the place to go locally if you like cockfights or other bloodsports (who doesn't?. I mean, c'mon, nothing says a classy evening to me like bloodsports!)

Similarly, each morning you can see the "donuts" burned in rubber onto the road by young men with too much horsepower and not enough brains, who zip along this border route in the dead of night, safe in the knowledge that for police in the South, without road access to the enclave, speed traps here would be a logistical nightmare, while on the Northern side of the border, police checkpoints run the risk of attracting violence from dissident Republicans.

What strikes me most, though, are the signs scattered along this route as to how artificial the border is, not just from a Republican viewpoint, but also how the division of our island has resulted in communities that once contained both Protestants and Catholics, Unionists and Nationalist, being divided, with one section of the community artificially removed, or withering away over time. In truth, this phenomena has seemed to be far more common among the Protestant community on both sides of the border; in the South, communities which had been in the locality for nearly 400 years have slowly disappeared since 1922, marrying into Catholic families or choosing to emigrate; while on the Northern side of the border the change has been more rapid, as the inter-religious violence that coloured the Troubles has led some Unionists to pull back from areas bordering the Republic, retreating further North to where greater numbers of their co-religionists live.

One of the most poignant signs of this change is a Church of Ireland (Anglican) church located in the enclave in of the Republic, but which I would guess would have been built over the course of the late 19th Century to serve the community in the area. It stands alone, a long way from the nearest village (which is now in Northern Ireland), and only once have I seen any activity at the church, a funeral. Judging by the mourners, the deceased that day was obviously of an older generation, and I noticed that every car parked outside this church, which was remember South of the border, had Northern plates. I couldn't but wonder had the deceased grown up in the area, either before or shortly after partition, when there still would have been a sizable Protestant community. Now, were they being returned to the church where they worshipped as a child, mourned by friends and family who had also felt that it was necessary to leave this place all those years ago? Was this area a place where they could not live, but could only return to in death?

In Belturbet, too, the town where I work, there is signs of a once thriving community now gone; an Orange Hall that is now only empty and unused, restored by the Irish state with a view to being turned into a museum. The local pub has a picture of the main street taken in 1910, in which one can clearly see, hanging from a house, the sign "UVF Meets Here" (the UVF being a Protestant paramilitary organisation opposed to Irish independence.) And while, as an Irish Catholic, I obviously find the basic premise of Protestant supremacy, on which the Orange Order and the UVF are based, difficult to stomach, these little hints of people now gone still make me wonder could partition and its aftermath not have been better handled. What position would the island be in now, if the Southern state at least had done more to calm the concerns of its Protestant population? Would we closer to unity or still divided? And, as a Southerner, am I just naive in my thinking?

If you would like to learn more about the enclave and are, like me, a bit of a nerd, see the great discussion at Strange Maps.

Are you a spy? Do you need a passport?

Are you a spy? Do you need a passport? Are you planning on killing somebody and denying responsibility? Or are you planning on snooping on a country with whom your Government is on allegedly friendly terms?

Well why not come down to Ireland for all your counterfeit travel document needs? That's right, Ireland Inc., located on the corner of Atlantic and Britain, has got a limited, once-in-a-lifetime deal on aliases, cover stories and pseudonyms. Ireland Inc., one of the world's leading sources of deniable passports since the 1980's when we (allegedly) allowed rich Arabs to buy our passports. Ireland Inc., the go-to guys for all of Colonel Oliver North's passport needs (allegedly). Whether you're planning on knocking off an arms-dealer in Dubai, or spying on your old enemies in the West, you can never go wrong with an Irish passport.

Best of all, Irish passport users never need worry about nasty side-effects from the Irish Government: no threats of war, no serious investigations, no counter-espionage, nothing.*

So next time you need to infiltrate a hostile nation, use an Irish passport. When I'm languishing in a Pakistani prison, accused of being a Mossad agent, I'll thank you for it.

*Warning: Over-use of Irish passports may lead to the expulsion of your diplomats. This webpost is meant to be tongue-in-cheek, and not be viewed in a serious light, least of all by any lawyers, Colonels, rich Arabs or former Irish Government Ministers, nor by members of Mossad.

The Air Corps and Prickgate

I know that some of you must be shocked that, given my Walter Mitty-esque obsession with all things military, I have failed to comment on so-called "prickgate" - the Court Martialling of an Irish Air Corps officer for referring to his superior as a "prick".

The always-excellent Michael Clifford has a good column on the issue in the Sunday Tribune, and I think he covers a lot of the pertinent topics arising from the fiasco. Whatever way you look at it, this is a disaster for the Air Corps and the Defence Forces in general. For an officer to be essentially made redundant, in civilian terms, over an incident where he called his boss a rude name seems a little excessive, especially given that there were no witnesses to the event.

The severity of the sentence is particularly stark when one considers how essentially civilianised the Air Corps has become, at least in the eyes of fat civvies such as me. In contrast to the generation of men who took part in the "Vampire reunion" this weekend, the modern Air Corps does not even have a notional Air Defence mission (leading some less charitable members of the army and Naval Service to refer to their airborne colleagues as the "Bluffwaffe"). This lack of a combat capability is no bad thing when one considers Ireland's prime geo-strategic position (i.e. safely sanwiched between the US and UK), and it allows the Air Corps to focus on missions that actually matter, like maritime patrol. But it does raise the question as to why we are drumming an officer out of a service which will probably never see combat; surely discipline is not a matter of life and death?

That the officer in question, Commandant Donohoe, could be dismissed for such a small infraction even after saving the Air Corps over €1.5m in fuel-savings, and saving the life of a colleague while on UN duty, raises serious questions about the Air Corps morale, and (in civvy-speak) the management culture of the service. Is it simply that, at a time when budget's are being slashed across the public service in Ireland, the military is not overly-fond of someone who can spot that the Defence Forces might be carrying around a bit of extra fat?

Shades of Grey

A real problem in Irish (and indeed European) commentary on the Israel-Palestine conflict is that we exist in a world where things are black and white. There is only good and evil, nice things and bad things. We are cocooned from anything nasty and brutish, and so snuggled are we by the welfare state that we do not understand that much of mankind faces the distinct possibility that life will be cut short.

In some ways, this gulf between us and the truly harsh realities of life allow us, the Irish, to be remarkably generous and sympathetic to those in need, or those who are in a weaker position than we are. The most obvious, and clichéd, examples would be the growth of the charity sector in Ireland, particularly with those charities who work in the Developing World; or how Ireland was one of only 3 EU states to open its doors wide to immigrants from the states of Eastern Europe on their accession in 2005. These issues were relatively black and white: starving Darfurians clearly deserve help, and poor immigrants looking for jobs in wealthier nations obviously struck a chord with the Irish.

But our ability to engage with issues on the international stage is degraded when rights and wrongs are less than clear. Witness the vitriol aimed at Israel over this last week; justified, in so far as storming the ship in question was clearly wrong. Yet while many Irish commentators have much to say on the wrongs of Israel's blockade, and the wrongs of Operation Cast Lead last December, they seem to feel that Hamas firing rockets into Israel, or the threats continuously emanting from Tehran, are not worthy of comment.

Clearly, much of what Israel has done recently is wrong, whether judged from a moral, political or security standpoint, but it can only be prevented from committing these wrongs by improving that state's security situation, something that can only be achieved once the rockets stop falling.

Irish desires to castigate the Israelis do nothing for the greater good of the Middle East; it is purely an exercise in judging the region by the standards we expect of Western Europe, where terrorism is rare, and air raids or rocket attacks rarer still.

It is reminiscent of the disgust and distance with which southerners viewed the Troubles in the North; yes, the violence was appalling, but could our moralising, safe in the 26 counties, really do anything to bring peace between Nationalists and Unionists? Did we not recognise that, if circumstances were a little different, we as individuals could be capable of the hatred and violence we witnessed north of the border?

Until all parties were brought to the table, free from recriminations and arguments about, literally, who started it, nothing was achieved in the North. And if we expect that peace in the Middle East can be achieved by putting pressure on Israel alone, it would appear we have already forgotten the lessons of our own recent history.

That's Right Israel - Both Tanks!

One of the tabloids summed it up best in its headline "You Mossad Be Joking, Biffo." Our Dear Leader, Brian Cowen, known to the faithful and not-so-faithful as "Biffo" (Big Intereseting Fine Fellow from Offally... or maybe the IFF stands for something different?) has decided that enough is enough: if Israel harms Irish citizens on the MV Rachel Corrie, an Irish-owned vessel that is about to breach the Gaza blockade, there will be "serious consequences."

I love my country, and greatly respect our Defence Forces, but "serious consequences" are not really something we specialise in; military might has never been a major priority of the Irish. Even if we compare our naval forces (those of an island nation in the Atlantic) with Israel (not exactly famed for its naval prowess, whatever about its army and air force) we don't exactly meet the mark. Just as an example - number of Israeli submarines: 3, number of Irish submarines: 0.

The question remains, then, as to whether Biffo... I mean the Taoiseach, meant economic sanctions when he spoke darkly of Israel's fate should it dare to oppose our Celtic might. Again, I would expect that the Israelis would probably be more concerned about threats from the EU generally, rather than Ireland in particular, despite the multiple, incredibly valuable, well-known and much vaunted Irelandio - Israelianio trade agreements.

Unless, given the fact that the Irish economy is still tanking, Fianna Fail and our Taoiseach are casting around, desperately, for someone to focus the public's attention on, in case Seoisamh Public notices again that our country is falling apart. You have to hand it to the Israelis - whenever you need a scapegoat, they're right on hand!

The End is Night Part III: The Island of No Jobs

The Live Register jumped a staggering 6,600 in May, making a mockery of the government's claim that we have "turned a corner". Such optimism is at best dangerous, at worst treasonous, in the current economic climate. How can an Irish government be so irresponsible as to actually claim that our economy has bottomed out and will soon start the long haul back to some semblance of real growth when multi-nationals lik HP seem set to cut jobs here? How has our economy turned the corner when we still have more than 300,000 houses unoccupied in this country, 32,300 people in arrears on their mortgage (not including the 15 odd thousand who are paying only with government support), and the prospects of ECB rate rises in at least the next five to ten years? How can our economy be on the rebound when we are borrowing €500 million a week, and as the maestro David McWilliams notes, the global markets may soon cut off our supply of credit?

It is becoming increasingly clear that this government is simply kicking to touch, playing for time and hoping that they can avoid as many cuts as possible before the next General Election in 2012. They can then hand the entire mess over to Fine Gael and Labour, who will be blamed by an amnesiac electorate for having to take truly tough decisions, before Fianna Fail can swan into power again, surfing on a wave of pork-barrell promises.

I do not hate Fianna Fail, the Republican Party, the party of Sean Lemass, the party of the urban worker and the rural labourer. But I hate this government, deeply, totally, instinctively, as they have put the selfish interests of the newly-monied and propertied ahead of the common good. There is nothing more vile or harmful to a society, and especially to a Republic, then "socialism for the rich, and capitalism for the poor". Sadly, this has now become Ireland's official state ideology.

Operation Over-Reaction

Psst...Israel. Let me tell you a little secret. You're not going anywhere. Yes, it's true the 250 million Arabs want to drive you into the sea. It's true that latte-sipping Europeans in their ivory towers can comment on how "fascist" and "genocidal" your nation is, with no hint of irony or guilt for what their grandparents may have done to your grandparents. Yes its true that Iran will probably host another of its remarkably disgusting academic conferences to argue that the holocaust never took place. But guess what? None of that matters; you've won. You've won every battle and in every test that mattered, and if you are ever really threatened once more, well, you'll win again.

That's why heavy-handed actions like shooting 10(or 16, or 19, the number is unconfirmed as of yet) passengers on board a ship in a blockade-running flotilla destined for Gaza is such a bad idea (reported here in the London Times). Even if the ships were carrying arms, even if they were going to re-supply Hamas, using such brute force simply undermines the strongest argument for a strong Israel: that Israel is a decent democracy that respects human rights, but has the bad luck of having a remarkably precarious geo-strategic position. That you have a right to be powerful as a nation, but you will use that power wisely and sparingly.

Israel, when you shoot people, even activists who are trying to beat or stab your soldiers, you inevitably use disproportionate force; not because you mean to, but simply due to the fact that you are better armed than the opposition. And the sad fact is (and I recognise how easy it is for me to say this, as I safely sit, unfit and overfed at a keyboard) that democracies have to respond to violence and threats with calm and a desire to limit the use of force to an absolute minimum. That is the burden of being a democracy; we have higher standards than our opponents. We truly are the good guys.

When you fail to do this, Israel, you merely undermine your own security position; you give those self-righteous Europeans a feeling of contentment inside, you make the Islamic fundamentalist feel they have some justification for their irrational hatred of you, you give those aimless youths across the Western world a new target for their protests against life in general.

Ultimately, you could have let these ships pass, and I suspect the negative consequences would have been far less than storming them. And, secretly, you know full well that extremists and anti-Semites can threaten all they want. Those who hate you and live in Gaza or the West Bank cannot destroy you; and those who live further afield and who may have the capacity to destroy you, cannot face the heavy retribution you will rain down on their heads (as the Times also reported today).

Israel, I and many others in this world see ourselves as your friends; and we consequently expect high standards from you. For your own sake, please live up to them

Micheal Martin Wan Sui!

Driving to work this morning, I was treated to the syrupy tones of Micheal Martin (the Irish Foreign Minister for anyone living abroad) on the radio, live from Shanghai, where he is, eh, "leading" a trade mission .

Apart from pulling the usual government stunt of contradicting the Financial Regulator, Matthew Elderfield, by saying that (yes of course!) the state would bail-out struggling mortgage holders, despite the moral hazard this would cause; the man from Cork also noted that we in Ireland will have to introduce Chinese (Mandarin, I presume) into our schools, if we hope to compete in the 21st century.

As one of the growing number of Irishmen and women who have made a somewhat half-assed attempt at learning Mandarin, I can (and this is rare for me) agree whole-heartedly with the Fianna Fail Minister. No, of course China will not take the place of the US as the main focus of our efforts to attract investment, but given the amount of ready foreign currency China has floating around in its coffers, we would be foolish not to at least try to give some of this money a home in Ireland.

A poster on Politics.ie (Seenitallb4, I believe) has hit the nail on the head, by noting that introducing Chinese in Irish schools would immediately put us on the radar of the Chinese government, who would, no doubt, view this as evidence of their growing soft-power.

Apart from the language benefits, learning a language which is so different to English should also broaden the horizons of our future students, who will realise that there is more to "abroad" than the usual choice of Boston or Berlin (or indeed, Birmingham).

Of course, the joke will be on the Chinese when, in 20 years time, their industrial facilities here in Ireland are hiring Irish school leavers whose Mandarin is just as poor as the French and German that their parents and grandparents allegedly spent 6 years learning in school during the eighties and nineties. Because after all, it is one thing to offer a language on the school syllabus, it is another for the students to actually study it effectively.

Politics.ie discussion here.

The Rise of the Thinking Man's Shinner ... Purely Anecdotal

At a relatively recent party (of the shin-dig rather than political variety) I spent quite a long period debating Ireland's economic position with two members of Sinn Fein. The two individuals could not have been more different. Shinner Type A was what I would refer to as a "stereotypical Sinn Fein supporter" when it came to economics. His solutions to our current crisis were:

1) Tax bankers and financial workers heavily, and put a salary cap of €100,000 on all financial workers

2) Develop Ireland's universities as a means to economic progress (he couldn't elucidate what, precisely, he meant by this. I would assume he meant as centres of research excellence).

3) Follow something called the "Swedish model", which means encouraging the growth of jobs in "Human Resources" and "the Green Sector" while simultaneously discouraging Multi-Nationals from establishing in Ireland. Who we would be providing "Human Resources" services to without the Multi-Nationals was not made clear. But apparently, this helped Sweden develop from "a bunch of pirates in the 19th Century into the best economy in the world". Seriously...pirates.

Shinner Type B was...very impressive. Socialist, yet not brusquely so, with all the taxes and terminology couched in terms of social justice. When I asked him about how high taxes would dampen entrepreunerial ambition, and discourage new jobs he... agreed with me! He then went on to say how Sinn Fein should focus on taxing fixed wealth, such as property, and concentrate more on the conspicouous signs of wealth rather than discouraging workers and employers to chase greater earnings/profits.

Now, did I agree with Shinner type B all the way...no, of course not. I am, after all, very right-wing (thank God!). But what impressed me was how tailored and measured the message became as he spoke to me. This was not "red revolution" simply for the sake of adolescent rebellion; this was a targetted, considered and thoughtful approach. Does this represent a new line by Sinn Fein, where they might actually consider wooing the middle-class vote, prying voters away from Labour? Or was this guy just a one-off amid the hordes of angry young men (and women), clad in Che Guevara t-shirts and spouting canned phrases extolling a "socialist republic"? Only time will tell, but if Sinn Fein could offer a real socialist alternative, simultaneously offering something to the hard-pressed working class while promising left-leaning middle class voters better returns on taxes (i.e. a breaking of the grip of the allegedly socialist Unions), they might be on to a winner.

The End is Nigh Part II

... this time it really is nigh.

The airwaves, newspapers and general office chit-chat have been filled over the last few days with Professor Morgan Kelly's (known to his critics as "Dr. Doom") article in the Irish Times on how Ireland is, well, basically screwed.

This will not be news to most people in Ireland, as it has been a regular fact of life for the last wee while that we are, as a nation, simply broke. What is interesting (and indeed worrying) in Prof. Morgan's article is his point that Ireland is about to to be relegated out of the Premier League of independent states, and straight into the Vauxhall Conference of vaguely self-governing entities that are under the thumb of a larger neighbour:

"The issue of national sovereignty has for so long been the monopoly of republican headbangers that it is hard to know whether ordinary, sane Irish people still care about it. Either way, we will not be having it around much longer."

For a pleasant change, it will not be perfidious Albion who will be depriving us of our independence; this time, we're going to be succumbing to the economic might of Germany.

Of course, this all hinges on the idea that Germany will bail out the Eurozone, and will take up the reins of real (read economic) power in Ireland and the other EU nations that can't foot their own bills. But what happens if the creation of an economic empire is simply too unpalatable to the German voter (as is quite possible)? What happens if Germany pulls out of the Euro, leaving the currency as the bottle-cap of the international markets, suitable only for bankrupts like Ireland (watch this space) and Greece?

The Irish Naval Service - Asking the Impossible

At a time when Ireland's coffers are bare, it's perhaps understandable that defence is one of the first budgetary items to get cut - after all, who is going to attack us? And even if we were attacked, sure couldn't we always rely on the Brits anyway!

Apart from the moral and political questions that Ireland's policy of "bare-bones defence on the cheap" raises, with the growing threat posed by drug wars in our cities, our irresponsible approach to defence spending may soon have an immediate impact on the security of the state.

As reported in the London Times, the Irish Naval Service is having its budgets for new Offshore Patrol Vessels (OPVs) frozen, which is only the latest in a long line of financial sacrifices required of our navy. And while some critics might question the necessity of the Air Corps or even the Army for the everyday protection of the state, something tells me that as an island nation where many rural communities on the west coast rely on fishing, a navy might be kind of important. This necessity is further underscored by the large quantities of drugs now being landed on our shores, for dispersion both in the domestic and wider European markets.

Even now, before the Service suffers from ship retirements and budgetary constraints, the navy's eight ships have to patrol a massive maritime zone, the equivalent of trying to patrol the island of Ireland with only two police cars. Their task will only get more difficult in the years to come. Might we even see a return to the dark days of the early 1970's when Ireland, for a brief period, had a Navy without any ships?

All I can say is, whatever about new OPVs, thank God the government had the foresight to buy that Learjet and those new Agusta 109s during the times of plenty. Heaven forbid our politicians travel around Ireland by car...

DPRK at the World Cup; not exactly the Samba boys.

Brilliant article in the Wall Street Journal about the DPRK team destined for the World Cup.

The attitudes it reveals among North Korea's footballers speaks volumes about lie in the world's most obsessively secret and totalitarian state:

'(Choe Myong Ho) offered a window into his countrymen's training ethic when he told Russian reporters that he didn't have a TV or refrigerator.

"What is a refrigerator for? It allows you to get cold drinks in the summer," he told Sport-Express, a Russian national sports newspaper. "And if you do that, you could catch a cold and not be able to train."'

One has to wonder about the motivations of the ethnic Koreans from Japan, mentioned in the article, and who play for the DPRK . Growing up in Japan they surely have access to media that can tell them what the Kim Jong Il regime is capable of; and yet they still choose to play for the DPRK? Is it just that any footballer would jump at the chance to go to the World Cup, or is there an actual ideological attachment?

Weirdly prescient? Or just a really corny short story?

Last October I entered a short story competition ran by the Sunday Tribune, in conjunction with Dublin City Council, which was in honour of Bram Stoker. The aim was to begin a short story with a line from Dracula "His eyes blazed with a sort of demoniac fury, and he suddenly made a grab at my throat." Below is my effort (shockingly, I didn't win. I'm sure you must be finding it difficult to contain your outrage at this injustice).

To be fair, while the writing is hammy and cliche-ridden, it was prescient, considering the events outside the Dail last week during the Right to Work protest . This week's protest passed peacefully, but will we see a repeat outpouring of the people's righteous anger next week? Or was the disturbance only a one-off minor kerfuffle caused by some bearded lefties with too much time on their hands? And will the Gardai remain loyal to the government, or will they begin to have their doubts too?

One Step Away

His eyes blazed with a sort of demoniac fury, and he suddenly made a grab at my throat. I flicked up my shield, and through its clear plastic I saw his fingers jar painfully on the hard surface, while my other hand brought down the baton with a solid crack on his skull. The thud of metal on bone shocked me, even on this extraordinary day, and my gloved hand began to slide from the baton’s handle, as his blood slipped between my fingers.
The slightly balding, middle-aged man, dressed sensibly against the cold in a warm overcoat and wool jumper, collapsed heavily back into the mob, hands raised to his fatherly face. He mouthed a soft whimper, inaudible through the roar of the crowd, and then he was gone, his place filled now by another enraged bourgeois rioter; all their respectability washed away in this overwhelming tide of anger.
“Christ” I gasped, less a curse than a prayer for deliverance from my own brutality and the catastrophe I was watching unfold before me; the complete collapse of a nation, the dissolution of a society. To my left I sensed Pauli tense as yet another bottle swung through the air, arcing towards his shield, while Macker to my right heaved against the press of incensed bodies, trying to clear some small space for himself in this sea of rage.
Just a week ago, I would have addressed these people as “Sir” or “Madam” if I had stopped them on the street, now I was drumming them back with almost medieval violence. We were besieged by the most unlikely army; battalions of nurses, architects and IT engineers were hurling themselves against our line, trying to break through and scale the railings behind us. It would have been absurd, were it not for the underlying desperation that drove them; they knew that all was lost, they sought no compensation, no handouts; they merely wanted to hold someone to account, to savor one final, defiantly human act of justice.
Bobbing along the surface of the mob came a lamppost, long, thin metal driftwood in the sea of despair, and we steeled ourselves for its impact.

“Fall back lads!” I heard the Sergeant order from the rear, and our line folded in on itself, each guard slipping in turn through the gate behind us, backwards, always facing the mob, until we could slam the narrow metal door against the howling of the horde, and breathe deeply in this brief moment of relief, as the lamppost clattered impotently against the railings surrounding the gate.
Staring through the bars at the twisted faces and raised fists, I pondered the events of this past week, the week that had ruined my homeland. For months, we had survived with a half-million unemployed, their long lines of wasted ability and still-born opportunity streaming into the welfare offices. We had struggled on after the U.S. firms had pulled out, searching for profit in Poland ’s Limerick or China ’s Kildare. Somehow, we had even continued after the collapse of our banks, as one by one the Irish financial houses were crushed by the weight of their own lies.
Yet last week, the Europeans told us there was simply not enough to go round, someone in this ever-closer union would have to lose out. The final decision came down to a choice between saving Greece or saving us. Greece won.
We had dropped so far in the world’s eyes, first through our hubris and self-congratulation, and then through our chicanery and book-cooking, that we were considered more risky than a country that once had a junta, less commercially viable than a country where anarchists are part of the political mainstream.
And so Brussels pulled the plug; no more pay for our nurses and teachers, who were asked to be patriotic and work for free. We could not feed our prisoners, so the jails were emptied and the convicts let loose onto the streets. The hospitals went dark; the buses sat, decaying, in their stations; the desperate lines outside the embassies of the rich grew longer, as thousands hoped for escape in Australia , Canada or the U.S. And still, the government did nothing; they did not plan, they did not promise, and worst of all, they did not lead.
So it was inaction, rather than action, which had set flame to fuse, which had roused this righteous anger among the ordinarily meek, an anger which must be vented, must be sated by some small act of vengeance.
I stood behind those railings, watching my lovely city burn, seeing the crowd boil with rage, and wondered at what point would duty be overtaken by justice? When would I throw down my shield and join the ranks of the betrayed?

Pfizer - the end is not nigh!

Now, I am as grumpy a doom-monger as you are likely to meet. I mean, I really will not buy a house in Ireland till someone offers to pay me to take it off their hands; that's how pessimistic I am about the property market, chances of recovery etc.

But even I can't help but feel that the gloom merchants have spun into overdrive on the back of Pfizer's recent announcement of redundancies (275 confirmed and up to 800 potential) in Cork Dun Laoghaire and Kildare

From what I can see, these redundancies are purely on the back of:

1) The merger between Pfizer and Wyeth, and the consequent rationalisation of their workforces, assets etc.

2) Pfizer ensuring that it is lean enough to compete as it's branded drugs (most especially Lipitor) are soon to come off patent and face competition from generic brands capable of offering consumers the exact same health benefits.

Of course, 800 jobs fleeing the Irish economy at this point in time is bad news, and the personal impact is immeasuarable for those who have just been made redundant or are under threat, but the jobs that remain are more secure, and I suspect will be higher up the value chain. What's more, Pfizer's Ireland operations are now well placed to compete for higher-end jobs, especially in the area of R&D.

The real tragedy is not that Pfizer is leaving, but that successive Irish governments did not seize the chance to grow domestic pharma companies on the back of Pfizer's business here. Such an indigenous company would, if successful, not only offer more Life Sciences jobs in Ireland, but would also contribute significantly to our export earnings.

After all, as we know, pharm is "recession proof". OK, not strictly true, but even on the back of the Wyeth acquisition, Pfizer still posted profits of $4.88 billion.

The 10 best jokes to emerge from the (British) General Election

Daniel Finkelstein's blog at the London Times has some fantastic jokes which emerged over the course of the British General Election

My favourite:

Charlie Skelton:

"This year it's a three-horse race. Or two horses and one Gruffalo."

Our Only Hope?

I wonder is it even beggining to dawn on our main opposition party, Fine Gael, that winning the next election will simply not be enough? It's no good if FG simply replace Fianna Fail government hacks, cronies and gombeens with their own insiders, clogging up the apparatus of power with more incompetent, irrelevant bods who are just marking time till they can claim their massive pensions.

No, it's clear that FG need to do much more than simply win the next election; they need to lead a revolution. True, a very boring, grey middle-class kind of revolution, but a very necessary one at that. One based on the appropriate spending of taxes and the slicing down to size of unnecessary pork. Most importantly of all, I would argue that it is vital that FG introduce a major overhaul of the electoral system, introducing a national list system or some other mechanism with which to break the link between national government in Ireland, eh sorry, "Lyonnesse", and the parish pump politics that has hamstrung government on our island with the most asinine of parochial concerns.

But how will Labour, FG's obvious partner in any coalition government, view the above steps, necessary though they are. I would suspect that Labour and the Labourites, prone as they are to bouts of intelligence unbecoming of Irish politicians, will see in the long term the necessity of a national list system. But could they stomach trimming down the fat in our national budget? I'm afraid I think not. Will revolutionary red Labour be the main roadblock to change in our country?

Jeremy Paxman Nailed By Plaid Cymru Economist

Jeremy Paxman nailed by Plaid Cymru economist. Beautiful! Nearly a week old now, but worth watching.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Gy7f8vP2QY

Depressing!

Jeez, what an absolutely awful first post! A little depressing it has to be said, but I'm afraid that's just where I think we're at. Anyway, in case you haven't guessed it yet, this blog is really just an opportunity for me to generally rant and rave about the world, put up short stories and articles that I write (that are of questionable literary merit), and link to some great blogs and items that I read on-line, mainly around the areas of Irish politics, the state of the Irish economy, and where next if we are to find some way to dig ourselves out of this hole. If you happen to read something you like, and especially if you read something you don't like, be sure to tell me what you think.

And why talk about Lyonnesse? It just make's things easier if I pretend this is all fantastical fiction, rather than less-than-fantastic reality.

Welcome to the last days of Lyonnesse.

What do you do when your nation seems destined to fail? Lyonnesse is a failing, perhaps already failed, state. True, it is not an Afghanistan, a tribal society which shrugs off the template of a modern state; nor is it a Somalia, tearing itself apart in an anarchic flurry of violence.

No, Lyonnesse is failing quietly, dully, dismally, sinking into economic stagnation under the weight of poor government, an apathetic population, and pointless, petty politics.

Lyonnesse, until recently Britain's oldest colony, has of late achieved independence, freedom, that sweet and wonderful condition sought by so many worldwide. And what did we do, on throwing off the shackles of imperialism? Did we build a just society, ensuring that all citizens of of our Republic are equal? Did we become an example to all small nations as to how a former colony can better its erstwhile master? Did we even display competence, ability, passion, patriotism or imagination in using this most precious of resources, self-determination?

No, we wasted it, frittering it away as we scrabbled among ourselves, each of us demanding "what I deserve". And now, the wolves are at the door, ready to snap away our freedom. This time, it is not foreign perfidy, nor Britannia's sons with their long range guns that will take away our right to govern ourselves. It is our own failure to see this land not simply as somewhere we happen to live, as the place where we carry out our humdrum existence; but rather as a golden chance to build a just society for all, to truly give example to small nations everywhere as to how to be truly independent.

This blog is ultimately pointless, but it is the only way that I can ask aloud "Could we not have done better?"