Irish Independence - Gone Without a Whimper

There was a really brave article today from Jamie Smyth in the Irish Times. Brave, because it flies in the face of the entire PC ethos the Times has cornered in the Irish media market.

In his piece, snappily headlined: ‘How do we close information gap between Dublin and Brussels?’ Smyth totally put his finger on the dilemma facing the citizens of the EU and especially Irish voters on the Lisbon Treaty.

In outlining why it is becoming so difficult to keep up with the avalanche of new laws and regulations coming out of Brussels, Smyth referred to the decision last week of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) on the Metock immigration case. This concerns four couples – two non-Irish EU nationals married to two non-EU nationals who had claimed asylum in Ireland.

These plaintiffs had successfully challenged deportation orders issued by the Irish authorities when they appealed the case to the ECJ, which ruled in 2006 that the Irish Government had broken EU law by restricting the “right” of non-EU spouses to live in Ireland. Despite our government insisting that this was a fundamental blow to our immigration policies, especially in the area of sham marriages, the Department of Justice was forced to halt the deportation of 1,500 asylum seekers.

In the meantime, Ireland was joined by an alarmed Denmark in appealing to its European partners to amend the freedom of movement directive to stop this loophole being exploited. Last week the ECJ finally turned them down, forcing the Government to change a key element of its immigration policy.

Smyth’s most telling point in the article is that, despite the importance of the case, not a word was written in the Irish newspapers about the decision and no Irish radio or TV station mentioned the climbdown by Ireland and Denmark. Neither did Dermot Ahern, the Minister for Justice, issue a press release about it, nor did any opposition politician feel it worthy of any comment.

As Jamie Smyth so rightly says: ‘Clearly, the public cannot rely on Ministers to bring to their attention decisions in Brussels that have not met Irish concerns… Most of the sensitive discussions at the council, including the debate on Metock, are held in private session, making it very difficult for the public or even journalists to find out what has happened.’

Smyth and the Irish Times are to be congratulated for divining one of the most frightening aspects of the present EU and the role it is playing, in close collaboration with our political class, in imposing the will of a small group of judges upon this country, whether it is in our interest or not. No doubt Brian Cowen, Enda Kenny, and Eamon Gilmore are still convinced we rejected Lisbon 1 because we didn’t understand it. Do they?

FÁS and its billion dollar heist

There has been shock and anger at the news that Tanaiste Mary Coughlan handed out a massive 'golden goodbye' to disgraced FAS boss Rody Molloy as if it were sweets to a child.

It's no surprise to see old crony Brian Cowen voicing his "total confidence" in Coughlan. He is, after all, the person to whom she owes her elevation to her highest level of incompetence so far. It is, however, instructive to see the mock outrage of the panhandlers on the Public Accounts Committee, who are studiously avoiding the real FAS scandal - how the employment agency could have maintained a €1 billion budget over the years of full employment.

If you wanted an object lesson in how Bertie, Mary and Brian "blew the boom," you could do worse than study this massive fraud on the taxpayer. A fraud, by the way, that never disturbed the calm of the aforesaid Public Accounts Committee during all the years it was being perpetrated.

Forget the petty embezzlement of public money that this backhander to Molloy represents; the real crime is the diversion of truly vast sums of money to a public sector body that (on any objective basis) has been failing for years at what it was supposed to be doing - training the young and unemployed for lasting, productive careers - and that was, it claimed, spending this money on a problem that clearly didn't exist during the 'tiger' years; namely, mass unemployment.

So where did the money go? Under criminal law the answer is simple. It was embezzled. So forget the sacking of Coughlan (which should have happened years ago), or seeking the resignation of the board (Social Partnership freeloaders), instead ask yourself what the Germans, Swiss or Americans would have done under the same circumstances? And if you say, send in the fraud squad and have these crooks in shackles doing the 'perp' walk on TV, you are exactly right.

My Sunday Times Article

This article of mine was published in the Sunday Times' 'Think-Tank' column today, 20/9/09.

THINK TANK: NEW IDEAS FOR THE 21^ST CENTURY

Let The People Choose Candidates

Hugh Treacy

It’s a moot point how much of our present fiscal catastrophe is down to bankers, developers, or cocaine-addled New York investment brokers. However, one thing is clear, the present occupants of the Dáil have failed spectacularly in their primary role of holding the government to account for its actions, and are now generally seen to be inadequate in the performance of their duties as national legislators.

So why is it that our parliamentarians seem to be plumbing the depths of mediocrity? Why are our TDs no better than lobby fodder, when they should be leading national debates and keeping a close eye on the government? Perhaps it has something to do with our unusual form of democracy – proportional representation by the single transferable vote (PR-STV), which, by insisting on multi-seat constituencies, encourages auction politics and intra-party rivalry, at the same time discouraging TDs from concentrating on legislative duties in favour of ‘minding’ their constituencies.

No doubt PR-STV has its flaws. But if we want to encourage a better class of candidate for high office, we need to look at the present system of candidate selection.

In Irish elections, most candidates are chosen behind closed doors, by a tiny, self-interested elite of party officials and hardcore members. These are often parochial cliques, or worse, interview panels of staffers from party HQ (used by Fianna Fail in the last election). The criteria they use in the candidate selection process is opaque at best, but the high percentage of current TDs who are related to previous TDs, shows the nepotism principle is alive and well in the choice of candidates. Needless to say, talented, independent ‘outsiders’ need not apply.

A possible answer to this ‘graveyard of talent’ is the adoption of a system that has been operating successfully in the United States for decades. This is the ‘nominating primary’, which worked so well in overturning the ‘dead cert’ nomination of Hillary Clinton as the Democrat candidate for president and instead ensured the grassroots favourite, Barack Obama, was his party’s, and later the country’s, choice.

There are many variations of primary elections, but the most familiar are the ‘open’ and ‘closed’ versions. In a closed primary, voters designate themselves as the supporters of a particular party in order to vote on a list of candidates. This protects the party from attempts by political opponents to vote for the weakest candidate – a possible drawback to the ‘open’ primary, where all registered voters can participate in the choice of candidate. The main advantage of the open primary is the engagement of the largest possible number of voters in the process, prior to the actual election.

On August 4^th, Dr. Sarah Wollaston was chosen by open primary as the Conservative candidate for Totnes, Devon, for the next general election, the first time a nominating primary has been used in the UK. It was all the more interesting as the current MP, Anthony Steen, had decided to step down in the wake of the British MPs expenses scandal. The Conservatives had hoped the electoral innovation would re-engage the public in the political process in the face of widespread disgust with politicians, and in this they seem to have been successful.

The British ‘first-past-the-post’ system had seemed to be cast in stone. But the fundamental shock of the Westminster expenses scandal has left everything open to question. Now, even senior Government politicians like David Lammy and Foreign Secretary, David Miliband are openly supportive of primaries as the best way of re-building the trust between a sceptical public and political parties, with Miliband describing traditional party systems as ‘dying’. They also see the advantage of the transparency that primaries bring to the deeply discredited parliamentary establishment, which, after losing the Speaker of the House of Commons as part of its post-scandal clear-out, needs all the help it can get.

With public trust in Irish politicians, and even the parliamentary system, being at an all-time low, perhaps there has never been a better time to install pure democracy at every level of the political system, and in the process take the fate of many talented would-be politicians out of the hands of the old guard and into the care of the people, who, after all, they are meant to be representing. With the upcoming review of the Programme for Government, there is now an opportunity for nominating primaries to be part of an overall constitutional reform package, so that it will no longer be the case that the first the voters see of a candidate at an election is their face on a lamp-post.

Hugh Treacy has worked as a parliamentary reporter in Leinster House and a parliamentary assistant to a TD and MEP.

Only Fools And Horses

I had a very enlightening chat yesterday with an ex-pat Irish businessman who has been running a multi-million pound business in London for the last 20 years. He was over in Dublin to oversee a contract his company has on a major piece of public infrastructure which is currently under construction. (For his sake, it shall remain nameless).

He was telling me that he has a major headache at the moment finding casual labour in Dublin. I kid you not! This at a time when 440,000 people are signing-on and the construction sector is on its knees. According to him, the rate of unemployment assistance is too high for unemployed workers to risk losing by taking work that he is offering. This is a problem for him, as the number of workers he needs varies day-by-day (admittedly, not too attractive in terms of job security). Nevertheless, a job on such a high-profile site would surely enhance your chances of getting more regular work and you would think the Social Welfare authorities would be insisting these claimants took any work that was offered.

My friend contrasts the €204 rate here with the £70 + being offered in the UK, and says his company's contract is being put in serious jeopardy by something as ridiculous as not being able to get workers in Dublin during the greatest depression this country has suffered since 1929!

I accept that some of his complaints may have been self-serving, but surely something is terribly wrong with our benefits system when it is actively discouraging people from working for a living? Not to mention the damage it is doing to firms who are coming from abroad to invest and do business in this country.

Mary Hanafin, the talkative career politician offspring of a career politician and sister of a career politician, needs to stop concentrating on the family business of career politics and more on reforming the benefits system her department is running, to start getting people off the dole queues and back to work. We are already hopelessly uncompetitive in the costs the public sector impose on business. Lets not kill the work ethic as well.

Cowen's Codology

More flummery from Brian Cowen today, when he made noises about the public sector having to cut pay. Is anybody keeping count of how many times he has said this? It must be running into the hundreds.

If the phrase 'playing for time' is in the thesaurus, there must be a picture of Cowen underneath it. Just how chronic does the financial situation have to become before this man will take action? God knows the path to recovery has been so well flagged over the past year any schoolchild could recite it, chapter and verse. We all know it is a fundamental reversal of any State's economic organisation to have the wealth-producing sector subordinate to the public sector in earning power. Yet this has been the guiding policy of every Irish Government for the past 30 years.

Now that Colm McCarthy has once again stated the obvious: that this nation is "bust", surely even the public sector unions can see the sense in reducing our massive borrowing requirement by lowering the enormous cost of the public payroll and the most generous social welfare rates in the Western world. Although I'm not holding my breath.

The pernicious populism that characterises politics in this country, and that is seen in the profoundly undemocratic social partnership process (to which Cowen is wedded), has led us to this crisis, but worse, it prevents us finding our way out of it. So long as the Irish establishment holds to the idea that permanent civil servants with secure jobs and pensions are to be favoured at the expense of workers and entrepreneurs in the private sector, who live with risk every day of their lives, then this country will have to remain dependent on the European Central Bank or some other external paymaster. The public sector has many virtues, bringing home the bacon for Ireland is not one of them. Wake up Cowen, before it's too late.

The Councils' Taxpayer Cashpoint

The property tax mooted by the Commission on Taxation may well be the product of good intentions but is inherently unworkable. How on earth can you vary the thresholds with a sufficient degree of discretion to avoid blatant injustice? There are many people living in mansions right now who are literally unsure where their next meal is coming from. This is the reason previous property taxes (right back to ‘Red’ Richie Ryan in the 1970s) have been tried and failed. This one will too.

In the meantime, one of the stated reasons for the tax – supporting local government – is richly ironic, considering local authorities in Ireland aren’t making the slightest effort to support themselves. A report at the weekend highlighted the failure of councils to collect a total of €1 billion in outstanding rents, charges and bills. In some cases these have been allowed to lapse for months and even years. All this, while county managers lobby government for a return of household rates by any other name.

We shouldn’t be surprised. When you think about it, why should local authorities pursue their own debts when the taxpayer can be relied upon to cough up the cash? This has always been the case in the past and now the Commission on Taxation has duly obliged again. In the meantime, Cork County Council’s payroll costs are expected to increase by €7.2 million this year, i.e., the year of total fiscal collapse for the rest of us, who don’t live in la la land.

Outsider On The Inside

There was a tiny chink of light in the all-pervading gloom during the week, when Brian Lenihan appointed TCD Professor, Patrick Honohan, to the position of Central Bank Governor.

What would have been a normal event in any other European republic was rendered earth-shattering in Ireland, because Prof. Honohan is the first 'outsider' to be appointed to the post, meaning - not a civil servant.

This fact in itself is truly pathetic, and goes a long way to explaining the criminal mismanagement of the economy and its financial sector by the authorities. It doesn't take Sherlock Holmes to work out that a career civil servant in the Department of Finance is, by definition, a devotee of 'groupthink' in his department, and will bring not a glimpse of independent thinking or assertiveness to the post of Governor; qualities that are fundamental to the job if it is to be carried out successfully.

I suppose we have to be grateful for small mercies, even though this appointment is probably one more item on the Government's list of 'too little, too late.' Nevertheless, Prof. Honohan's posting may yet prove to be significant if it represents a turnaround in Lenihan's determination to carry out root and branch reform of the public service. This would require many thousands of appointments like Honohan's, to overcome the lethal inertia and sense of 'entitlement' that has literally cost us billions and shows no sign of changing by itself.

Democracy?

Interesting result from the Four Courts today. A farmer from Tipperary called John Burke had challenged the Government's right to stage a second referendum on the Lisbon Treaty, claiming the result had already been achieved during the referendum on Lisbon One. Reasonable claim, you would think. Not according to Mr Justice McKechnie.

The judge threw the case out of court and, for good measure, awarded costs against the unfortunate Mr Burke. It seems the powers-that-be take a dim view of mere mortals having the temerity to challenge their diktats in this matter.

The judge, in his ruling, seemed to suggest that none but eccentrics and misfits would presume that running a massive, costly and divisive referendum was anything but reasonable and natural. He went further, and described Lisbon Two as: "democracy working at its most fluid."

Strange that; considering that the governments of every other EU country were adamant that there would be no referendum on this issue, and the only reason we had one at all was due to a previous ruling of the Supreme Court, which ruled against an early attempt by the Irish Government to also deny us the right of voting on European treaties, back in the 1980s. If this is "democracy working at its most fluid" it is a fluid that the European Council has shunned en masse in relation to this treaty.

As I have said before, the Lisbon Treaty is probably harmless. Indeed, ratification of the treaty by Ireland would surely do us a power of good at a time when we stand desperately in need of support from the European Central Bank. Nevertheless, arguments of convenience must not be allowed to obscure the fact that a democratic decision of the Irish people was rejected by the EU because it did not accord with their settled plans.

Perhaps democracy has now become an anachronism? Maybe a federal Europe has to be formed by crushing every dissident viewpoint for the greater good? If this is the case, I wish someone in power would just come out and tell us that straight, instead of dancing around the central issue (whether we have the right to halt the plans of the European elite) and laying a massive guilt trip on us for spoiling the party. It would be the courageous thing to do.

Arizona Governor v Brian Cowen

Had a fascinating conversation today with an American from Phoenix, Arizona. He was telling me that Arizona is comparable with the Irish Republic in many ways. For a start, there are roughly four million people in the state; just like Ireland. Then, the economy is of a similar size - as in GDP if Arizona was a sovereign country - with a similar mix of revenue-producing sectors. But then the doozy - Arizona's Governor, according to him, is paid roughly $70,000 a year. As the whole world knows by now, Brian Cowen, the Taoiseach, is paid more than President Barack Obama, well over €200,000, with an unvouched expense account and personal driver and car. I think the people of Arizona can count themselves lucky they don't have to stump-up for our politicians!